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back in the USA

christine — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 01:06:59 +0000

Two days shy of 13 months on the road, we made our way back to the US, and back to Philadelphia attempting to settle back into some sort of routine. It’s difficult to try to summarize the last year…it was obviously the opportunity of a lifetime–traveling, sightseeing, meeting new people, understanding other cultures, taking a year off from work, and spending lots of time together. But how do I wrap up the year in a nice little package that sounds witty and yet profound–I’m not sure it’s possible. Instead I will leave you with a few of my top ten…

TOP TEN PLACES:
Okavanga Delta, Botswana
Patagonia (El Calafate/ El Chalten/ Torres del Paine)
Bulungula, South Africa
Bazaruto Archipelago, Mozambique
Petra, Jordan
Galapagos, Ecuador
Tofo, Mozambique
Pammukale, Turkey
Molunlong, Lesotho
Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia

TOP TEN CITIES:
Cape Town, South Africa
Istanbul, Turkey
Barcelona, Spain
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Oaxaca, Mexico
Cinque Terra, Italy
Cagnes Sur Mer, France
Havana, Cuba
Dubrovnik, Croatia
Cartagena, Colombia

Top 10 things to bring:
mosquito repellent
pony-o’s
afterbite
Lonely Planet travel book
Blackberry with international data plan
flashlight
a knife
a book
more money than you think you need
an open mind and plenty of patience to live/travel at a slower pace in order to appreciate every moment.

A tale of two buses

mike — Sun, 25 May 2008 01:46:10 +0000

Before Bolivia, our experiences with buses in South America has been pretty good. Sure, spending 15-20 hours on a bus isn’t ideal, but the buses in Brazil and Argentina are really something else. Take a look. It’s a luxury liner. You get meals, drinks, movies, a bathroom and a steward on board. Compared to the Chinatown bus to New York, these buses are like riding on the space shuttle. Check out this animation below, demonstrating all of the seat choices. Premium class turns into a bed. Pretty sweet.

[kml_flashembed movie=”https://www.yobosayo.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/clasico.swf” height=”230″ width=”570″ /]

Now this is a bus in Bolivia. Study the photo intently and you may notice a few differences. There’s no need for an animation depicting the various seat choices because there are no choices. In fact, you don’t even need a seat. They will sell you standing room…on a 10 hour overnight trip! Our ride from Uyuni to Sucre had 40 seats, and 55 passengers. People standing and sleeping in the aisles, sitting on each other’s laps…the only thing missing was livestock. Somehow we managed to get a few hours of sleep despite the bumpy ride. (only 5% of roads in Bolivia are paved)

Salar de Uyuni Panorama

mike — Sat, 24 May 2008 14:55:25 +0000

eating llama

christine — Thu, 22 May 2008 14:11:02 +0000

I know they are so cute, that it should be a crime to eat. But I couldn’t resist when I saw this woman in Uyuni selling fried llama meat with potatoes and corn. Only 5 Bolivianos (about 70cents). It was very tasty, seasoned with just a little bit of cumin and salt.

Unexpected wildlife sighting in the Salar de Uyuni

christine — Thu, 22 May 2008 14:08:33 +0000

Playing with perspective is a favorite thing to do on these tours…our group even brought their own props for this reason.

Salar de Uyuni

christine — Thu, 22 May 2008 14:06:57 +0000

We joined a tour in San Pedro de Atacama in Chile. The tour took us from the Bolivian border in the south, driving though the desert and salt flats and terminating in Uyuni. The highlight is the visit to the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flats in the world. There is an estimated 10 billion tons of salt on the 1048 square miles that make up the salt flats. The trip is only about 180 miles in total, but it takes 3 days to get to the salt flats. It requires a bit of hardship, and there’s no avoiding it (when traveling south to north). On days 1 and 2 we mostly visited various lagoons– the green, red, white lagoons, as well as a thermal hot springs, and the morning sun geyser basin. The scenery was picturesque and beautiful, but the driving through the desert, slow and dusty.

Dealing with the altitude was difficult. At our highest we were at 4270 meters. Shortness of breath, dehydration and headache occurs, along with the continued need to pee. The high altitude also means that temperatures vary greatly. It can be cold and windy even with the sun out, making it necessary to be bundled up. My daytime outfit: a jacket, sweater, hoody, long sleeve tee, short sleeved tee, camisole, leggings, jeans, two pairs of socks, hat and gloves. If the wind dies down, it’s possible to strip down to a long sleeved top.

Our first night, the11 of us on the tour were split into 2 dorm rooms–which in itself was not my favorite–to sleep with 6 strangers in the same room. But the real issue was dealing with no heat in the rooms and having bathrooms outside. The temperature was around about 5’F outside. Inside, Mike and I squeezed into a single bed hoping for shared body heat. With 5 heavy blankets, a sleeping bag each, and my daytime outfit, I was just about right. Our second night, we stayed in hotel made of salt. We had a private room and bath with hot water. It was not nearly as cold as the first night, even without heat.

The third morning we woke at 5am to catch the sunrise on the Uyuni Salt Flats. This was beautiful. With the first light of the sun reflecting off the hexagon-like pattern of the salt flats, it was just incredible. Once the sun was up, it was impossible to look onto the salt flats without sunglasses.

Santiago to Calama in the north

christine — Tue, 20 May 2008 18:38:02 +0000

From Santiago we took a 22 hour bus to Calama. The trip should have been 20 hours, but the bus broke down adding another 2 hours to our already long ride. The Bolivian Consulate in Santiago ran out of visas (the actual sticker that goes into the passport), so we headed up to Calama to get our visa. Obtaining the visa turned out to be a pain, and we later learned that you can bypass the system by booking a Uyuni tour, and the tour operators will get you the visa at the border. I wish we knew that before we went through all the trouble.