I’ve now
completed my 10 month trip around the Americas and it has been amazing. There have been various ups and downs along
the way, but what a memorable time I’ve had.
I’ve experienced so many different cultures, seen so much spectacular
scenery, encountered all sorts of different animals, eaten a huge variety of
food, good and bad, and tried lots of new activities. Coming home has been bittersweet as I was so
happy to see my family and friends again, but it means that I have had to say
goodbye to Le Roux who is continuing his travels with 3 months volunteering at
a fishing lodge in British Columbia, followed by a few months travelling around
South East Asia, before heading home to South Africa. He has been a fabulous travelling companion
and although we’ve had a few disagreements along the way, they’ve been
remarkably few given we’ve pretty much spent 24/7 with each other for the last
10 months – in fact I think we’ve only spent 2 nights apart when we were put in
separate male and female dorms in Mendoza!
It’s going to be tough adjusting to not having him around and I’m going
to miss him loads. He is a lot more
adventurous than I am and he’s pushed me to try all sorts of new things that I
might not have done so otherwise, although he failed to get me into the water
caves in Semuc Champey which encompassed pretty much all of my phobias –
potentially rising water in a confined space and having to jump off high ledges
into the pitch black - no chance!
I will look
back on the trip with very fond memories and will be able to recall all the fun
adventures we’ve had when I’m back in the less exciting, real world of work and
mortgage paying. I appreciate that I
have been very lucky to be able to take this time out and although it’s unlikely
I will get this much time in one chunk again, I do hope that I will be able to
fit in a few long trips in the future as there is so much more of the world
that I am itching to explore – the list of places has got longer rather than
shorter since I’ve been away having spoken to other travellers. Also there’s
places we’ve been that I’d love to go back to and explore further, such as
Argentina. My philosophy has always been
that you need something to look forward to so having your next trip planned
ahead of returning from your last one means the return home is not quite so
bad. I had the 4 week cookery course in
Ashburton, Devon booked for July/August and a family holiday to Centre Parcs in
October, all of which have helped a little to soften the blow of having to
return to the real world!
I’ve already
done summaries of the three parts of the trip so I thought I’d do something
slightly different this time. Given my love
of numbers, I’ve worked out a few stats from the trip as well as a few more
award categories.
Number of countries visited: 14 – Ecuador;
Peru; Bolivia; Argentina; Chile; Brazil; Costa Rica; Nicaragua; Honduras;
Guatemala; Belize; Mexico; USA; and Canada.
Mileage: 19,997 miles – we travelled this overland on the
Tucan trucks, public buses and by Jeep, but it excludes distances covered in boats and planes. I’m amazed at how many hours we must have
spent on the road!
Number of nights away: 302 – 2nd
September 2010 to 1st July 2011
Number of nights spent camping: 55 (18%) I
used to camp as a Girl Guide and as a Venture Scout but I haven’t really done
much since then. On this trip, now I’ve
got a more comfortable sleeping mat, I’ve rediscovered camping and am keen to
do more of it in the future as being outdoors is great, as long as you’re not
in Brazil during the rainy season!
Number of nights spent in hammocks: 5 (2%) – 3 in
the Pantanal in the hammock barn, 1 on a fishing boat in Alter de Chao and 1
back on dry land in Alter de Chao after we got rained out of our tent. Some hammocks are more comfortable than
others, but I’m not convinced they really work for tall people – all the locals
using them are pretty short!
Number of nights spent travelling: 17 (6%) – I
was surprised at how high this number was, but it is a combination of night
buses, ferry journeys and flights, none of which resulted in a good night’s
rest!
Number of nights spent couchsurfing: 6 (2%) – I
wish we’d discovered this website earlier and had the confidence to try it
more. The three times we’ve used it, it
worked out well and I’d highly recommend it to anyone. I’m also going to look into doing a bit of
hosting as and when it suits, when I get home as it’s been great meeting all
sorts of different people while we’ve been away.
Number of nights spent staying with
friends: 29 (10%) Thank you so much to all of you for
putting us up, we really appreciated your hospitality!
Most nights spent in one place: 9 - Florianopolis,
Brazil. We really appreciated
being in one place for an extended period of time as constantly moving on
becomes exhausting. If we had our time
again, we’d definitely put in a couple more weeks of downtime.
Number of flights taken: 12 + 1 helicopter
flight over the Grand Canyon. We pre-booked
flights to and from the Americas, along with the 2 internal flights between the
3 sections of our trip. However, due to the size of Argentina, Brazil and
Canada we had to fly some bits – 40+ hours on a bus would have been too much
for me!
Number of photos taken: 19,487 – we
took A LOT of photos! I have, however,
culled that crazy number down to a more modest 4,753, which I now need to
organise into a photobook or 10. I’m so pleased I invested in a digital SLR and
zoom lens before I left as I have had so much fun with it and have some great
photos as a result.
Amount of money spent by me: c.£21,000 including camping equipment and
specialised outdoor clothing which I get to keep for my next adventure!
Items stolen: 0 – luckily we
had no nasty incidents
Items lost: 14 - Le Roux
had a particularly bad run of losing things! 1 pair of
Oakley sunglasses; 1 set
of Berghaus waterproofs; 2 Icebreaker t-shirts; 1 water bottle; 1 debit card; 1
laptop power cable; 2 baseball caps; and
1 pair of swimming shorts. He nearly
lost his whole clothes bag as he left it at the bus stop in Florianopolis for
about 10 minutes before we realised!
I’ve faired somewhat better as I only managed to lose a memory stick (Le
Roux’s rather than mine), a glove (fell out of my pocket on a hike), 1 pair of
knickers (never came back from the laundry) and a bag of groceries (left behind
in the San Jose hostel).
Number of bike punctures: 3 - I’m the
one who loves cycling so I’ve dragged Le Roux on a few outings. However, on three occasions he’s managed to
get a puncture! In Chile on the wine
tasting tour so we had to stop and pump up the tyre every 10 minutes, on Ilha
de Marajo in Brazil in the pouring rain, and on PEI 4.5km from the nearest
town. He refused to come cycling again
after the 3rd puncture!
Number of wine regions tasted: 6 - Mendoza, Argentina;
Colchagua Valley, Chile; Santa Barbara and Sonoma Valley, California; Okanagan
Valley, British Columbia; and Prince Edward Island, Canada. We had fun cycling 3 of them – a great way to
spend the day! The worst was most
definitely PEI with very watery simple wines, but it’s a toss up for the best
between Chile and Canada, surprisingly.
I was very pleasantly surprised by BC wine and was disappointed to find
out that it is all drunk in Canada and none of it makes it out of the country
so unless I go back I won’t get to drink it again. We are lucky enough to get a lot of Chilean
wine in the UK at decent prices, so I’ll definitely be trying more than my
usual merlot.
Number of cans of insect repellent
used: 9 – I will not be sad to see the back of sand flies, black flies and
mosquitoes which all seem to love my English rose skin!
Number of peppercorn refills
purchased: 5 – Le Roux and I love freshly ground black pepper and
did not manage to cope without a grinder for very long at all. We have had to refill it at least five times
– I hadn’t quite realised how much we get through!
Number of lobster dinners eaten: 3 – Given I’ve
only eaten lobster 3 times in my life before this trip, I’m surprised we’ve had
it 3 times since we’ve been away, given it was a budget trip! The grilled lobster we ate in the Galapagos
was very disappointing unfortunately as it was very overcooked, but the large
boiled Atlantic ones Roy served up in Halifax were simply delicious and the
boiled ones we had in Bar Harbor, Maine were also very good.
Number of border crossings: 20 – The slowest
crossing was from Bolivia into Argentina where we had to wait for the official
to come back from lunch before we could get the truck papers stamped – so
frustrating! The most nerve-wracking for
me was the Argentina/Chile border as you’re not allowed to take across any
fresh food and we’d got chicken sandwiches stashed all around the truck as well
as other food – luckily although the vehicle search was thorough we’d done a
good job of hiding it all! The most scary
for Le Roux was the Guatemala/Mexico border where his paperwork was intensely scrutinised
and the official asked lots of questions – eventually he was allowed in much to
our relief.
Number of snack bag incidents: 14 - my beach
bag became our snack bag early on as I get really grumpy when hungry so it was
good to have some healthy snack options available on the long bus journeys
where food stops were irregular and unpredictable. Unfortunately, my love of bananas, which
don’t travel well has led to 7 squashed banana incidents. I have a taste for dark chocolate and have
had some stashed in the bag for moments of weakness, however, chocolate and
heat don’t mix well and we’ve opened the bag on 4 occasions to find melted
chocolate squished all over the bag and it’s contents. The poor snack bag has
been subject to 2 animal raids with permanent scars – nibble holes! The snack bag also faired badly in the
Brazilian rainy season as stuck in our damp tent for 2 days it started growing
mould – Ewh!
Number of food raids by animals: 5 - we’ve
suffered a number of food thefts by animals – the first was in our hotel room
in the Galapagos where a rat ate its way into Le Roux’s rucksack to get to the
trail mix inside. The snack bag has been
attached twice, as mentioned above.
Whilst camping we’ve also had 2 grocery bag raids with bread, sugar,
pancake mix and a few other things being chomped on. Following that we invested in a large plastic
box with a lid to protect our food supplies!
Number of games of President and
Yarniff played: 889 - I played a phenomenal number of card games, so much
so that I’ve had to replace 2 packs of cards.
We started playing President marathons on the big yellow Tucan bus to
while away the many hours spent on South American roads, but then we met Will
on the Navimag ferry in Chile where we learnt Yarniff which is the most
addictive game. Next time we saw the
Tucan gang we taught them and it wasn’t long before they were all sucked in and
we had 3-4 tables playing at once!
Highest & lowest altitudes
reached on land: +5000m and -86m - a
mountain pass in Peru on the way back from Colca Canyon took us up to 5000m;
and we visited the lowest point in the US at Badwater Basin in Death Valley
National Park, California which is 86m below sea level.
Most annoying dog: Campsite Dog,
Pucon Chile - I’m
not the biggest dog fan, but my feelings towards them reached an all time low
when I discovered 2 different shoes missing from our tent in Pucon, thanks to
the dog from the neighbouring property harbouring a shoe fetish. Luckily Le Roux found both of my shoes the
next morning hidden in different places, but not before I’d had a sleepless
night worrying about doing a 4 day trek in new shoes.
Classic trip phrases: The first of these the Tucan gang
will chuckle at - “I didn’t get the cards I deserved” which came out during one
of our lengthy President marathons. The
2nd is one Le Roux identified - “I love a good view I do” - as we’ve
seen so many amazing views that it became a little over used!
Things not to leave home without: sharp knife; water filter; SPF
lipbalm; mini laptop; waterproofs; spare camera battery; and extra memory cards.
Things I will miss: Amazing new scenery almost every day;
exploring new places; trying local cuisine; and meeting lovely friendly people on
a daily basis.
Things I won’t miss: Sewing up clothes; and living out of a
backpack.
How the trip has changed my outlook:
·
Believe
it or not but I am now capable of doing something without planning it down to
the minutest detail! However, I do still
love a spreadsheet - nothing’s going to change that!
·
My
perspective on size and distances has definitely changed – 12+ hours of driving
in a day became the norm in South America.
It would have taken 63hrs of solid driving to cover the 6,200km across
Canada from Vancouver to Halifax had we not taken the more sensible option of
flying the less interesting middle bit.
Back home now, everything seems a lot smaller and closer.
·
Being
away for so long has taught me to really appreciate my family and friends and
to make the most of time with them.
·
Taking
time out from work and real life has meant that I’ve been able to see how crazy
my life, and more specifically my job, was so I’m trying to achieve a much
better balance now I’m back, ie. more play and less work! My health has been better with far less
stress and I’ve got a lot more time to spend with family and friends and on new
and old hobbies.
I hope there
will be many more exciting and fun adventures in my life, but they’re going to
have to go some to top what was an incredible 10 months. I’m so glad I took the time to write the blog so that I can look back over
the trip and be reminded of the funny incidents and amazing things I’ve seen
and done.
And now back
to the real world and job hunting...or perhaps I’ll start the task of turning
the blog and photos into a book for me – much more fun!
THE END
