RV – theplaceswe

We’ve spent the last six weeks traveling around South America with a friend of ours. Originally we had thought we would catch long distance buses to move around but decided we couldn’t be bothered with that so we flew around instead. These are our highlights from the past month.

Colombia
We met up in Cartagena and it was the picturesque start to our trip together that we had hoped for. One day we paid for a return trip across the bay to a popular beach. We had a really relaxing day and met a great family there. At the end of the day, a few minutes before our agreed return time we packed up our things and went in search of our boat driver. Half an hour later we were still on the beach with the driver nowhere to be seen. Welcome to South America, where you should never pay for a return trip because you probably won’t get it!

aadsc08238 — Little did we know we would be left on this beach!

We flew to Medellin after a few days in Cartagena and took a day trip to the Rock of Guatape where you climb 740 stairs to reach the top and over look to scenery. At a higher than normal altitude 740 stairs actually takes your breathe away and we quickly learnt that anything in altitude is harder than normal. Medellin is also where Mark discovered a girl was trying to pick him up by offering to be his guide.

On our flight to Bogota I met a guy who had lived in NZ to study English and after I told him where we were staying he advised me that it actually wasn’t a safe area. Upon arrival at our hotel we discovered that it wasn’t a safe area very quickly and once we got to our rooms and realised they didn’t lock properly we picked up our bags, booked a room at another hotel and left. Our new hotel was more like an apartment which was perfect because we hosted a dinner party to say thank you to Joel and Carolina for taking us out the night before and for Joel’s advice on where to stay – they did make our time in Bogota so much better!

Peru
We spent a day at the beach in Lima and then picked up a hire car and drove to Paracas to spend a few days there while our Brazilian visas were being processed in Lima. Along the way we were pulled over by the police and after 45 minutes of back and forth we were able to reduce our ‘fine’, which was in fact a bribe, to a quarter of what they wanted and then because they realised I was filming them they discreetly handed us the money back and then offered us some advice on police in Peru, even though they had just been asking for a bribe. Nevertheless because we were quite sure they would either follow us or radio the police up ahead we gave them some money as a token of our appreciation for their advice. Safe to say they were a bit shocked and wanted to confirm that it was a ‘gift’. They were quite happy when we confirmed it was and they freely took the money offered. Two days later we woke up early on our 365th day of travel and climbed huge sand dunes nearby and felt super proud that we had made it to a year.

Peru was full of nature for us. We spent 3 hours hiking up Rainbow mountain which was the hardest thing any of us had ever done but at the end it was so rewarding to be able to see how high we had climbed and look out over the mountain range. Surprisingly, out of the 3 of us, I was the only one that didn’t get hit with altitude sickness. Safe to say we slept well that night and 2 days later when we arrived at Machu Picchu we decided our legs just couldn’t take another hike so we got the bus instead and felt super happy with our decision once it started pouring rain.

Bolivia
Arriving in La Paz we were immediately hit with the altitude and pouring rain. It stayed like this for the entire time we were there and this time around I was the one to be hit with altitude sickness and spent a full day pretty much sleeping or not doing anything. We travelled to the town of Uyuni to spend a day visiting the Salt flats which were absolutely amazing. I had never seen anything so flat and white, not only that but because of the recent rains some parts of the salt flat looked like huge natural mirrors! Our day there was definitely the highlight of our time in Bolivia

aadsc08958 — Mirror, mirror on the floor

Brazil
We arrived in Rio with no energy whatsoever. It took us all a couple of days to recover from what we think was an effect of the constant changing altitudes we had been at. It didn’t matter too much though because we spent each day by the roof top pool which over looked Copacabana Beach and had views of Sugarloaf Mountain and if we stretched out over the ledge we could see Christ the Redeemer. We took a day trip out to visit Christ the Redeemer which is actually a lot bigger once you are standing right below it. The area was packed full of people though so it was difficult to stand still to appreciate it without being pushed from side to side. Sugarloaf Mountain was a lot quieter and gave us amazing views of Rio de Janeiro. On our last day we walked across to Copacabana Beach where we sat and watched all of the people for hours.

Argentina
We travelled to Argentina for the sole purpose of meeting some of Mark’s relatives that he nor his family in Australia had ever met before but to make the most of our visas we first stopped to see the huge Iguazu Falls that occupy both Argentina and Brazil.We arrived at the Brazilian side of Iguazu Falls and got a taxi to drive us across the border into Argentina. We spent just the day there admiring the huge waterfalls and then early the next day flew to Buenos Aires to meet his relatives where we were welcomed with open arms and they looked after us like they had known us our whole lives. We spoke a weird mixture of English, Italian and Spanish and were thankful when we were able to speak English and have it translated. We were fed amazing Argentine BBQ and home made empanadas and when we left it was once again an emotional goodbye of “until next time”, although no one knows when next time will be we were all sure that there would definitely be a next time.

aadsc09128

Chile
After a whirlwind 6 weeks of travel we arrived in Santiago and slept for hours and woke up starving but refreshed. After an intense period of travelling we always have to spend a few days planning ahead and looking back at our most recent trip and that’s what we did here in Santiago; planned for the future, and our immediate future holds a trip to Mexico, snowboarding through Canada and buying an RV. Can’t wait for the next few months!

South America didn’t always live up to our expectations. In some moments we were pleasantly surprised but at other times we would travel somewhere and feel like that particular place was letting us down. This is one of the downfalls of travelling for as long as we have. We have seen so much of the world that unfortunately now we know what we like and what we don’t like and this makes appreciating great places difficult because we don’t want to see great, we want to see amazing places. This isn’t to say we didn’t enjoy our time in South America because we most definitely did, but if we are to ever come back we will be very selective about where we go, spending most of our time in Argentina, Chile & Brazil.

For our past week in Canada we have spent the majority of our time with an old friend of Mark’s (back from his Canada days) and his girlfriend. What still amazes me along this trip is the hospitality of friends and family but especially those we don’t expect it from. Steve and Danelle have been amazing from the moment we saw them. They came out on a Thursday night to have drinks with us, stayed out until late, went to work the next day and then met up with us again the next night for dinner. This was all before they picked us up at 5:00am on Saturday morning in their RV full of beer, wine, food & snow gear. They had planned out our weekend for us and for the first time in a long time we didn’t have to organise a thing. We arrived at Sunshine, hired snowboards and jumped on to the gondola. It has been maybe 3 years since I’ve been to the snow to attempt to learn to snowboard and so this time around it was just starting from scratch although in much better snow than we find back home. After Mark spent an hour or so with me we met up with Steve & Danelle to sit in the snow and have a drink and chat before the 3 of them went off to go down a few runs together. After they were done we ate some lunch and then all went for a ride together, I again spent more time on my ass than I would like to admit but hey, gotta start somewhere. We spent the night in a campground in Banff and made a trip out to the town for dinner where we encountered more Aussies & Kiwis than we did at ANZAC Day in Gallipoli. They were everywhere and we learnt that most people would just assume we lived and worked there when they heard us speak.

Waking up in the RV after such a deep sleep and stepping outside in the cold was surprisingly refreshing. I am glad though that we parked as close as we could to the bathrooms because it quickly stopped being refreshing and quickly became cold. The only shower in the bathroom was occupied and I felt like a bit of a creep waiting in the bathroom for the lady to finish but I didn’t want to lose my place in the imaginary line I had conjured up in my mind and therefore keep everyone waiting. It didn’t take too long though and when I made it back to the RV everything was packed up ready to go. We drove back to the town and bought breakfast before stopping by Lake Louise to have a drink, enjoy the scenery and just relax before we were dropped off at our hotel and Steve and Danelle made their way back home.

The next two days we spent at Lake Louise. The first day Mark spent up on the hill snowboarding and I spent the day doing nothing that was particularly interesting but all the same needed to be done – I worked on our trip. When Mark got back I asked him how his day was and all I got back was “I was sick”. I thought at first it was something he ate so started asking him about everything he ate during the day to which he just shook his head and said “No, I was sick because I was so exhausted.” And at this I just laughed and knew he would be sore the next day but he unfortunately had to drive us into town so we could eat.

screen-shot-2016-11-21-at-8-49-29-pm — Mark out and about

On the second day we packed our things into the hire car and spent one last day together on the hill. We left Lake Louise that day and drove to Radium Springs to enjoy a bit of quiet and also enjoy the hot pool. We spent the night there and the next day after a quick last stop at Banff Mark put an address into Google Maps and told me to direct. When I looked at it I saw it was a Cinema. Not sure if that was correct I asked him where we were going and his reply was “I thought we would kill some time and go see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”. I love Harry Potter so going to see the movie at an actual cinema was so exciting I sat with a smile on my face the entire drive but then wasn’t focussing and nearly caused us to take a wrong turn which would have meant delays and we were already running down to the minute. We got there though and the act of walking into the cinema reminded me so much of home it was strange. When we got to the counter though we had just missed the screening by about 2 minutes. After 30 seconds of slight panic on my behalf Mark bought tickets to the next one which was in 15 minutes. One movie, one large popcorn, two large drinks and a bag of Twix later I actually skipped to the car. I was so happy and excited – I can’t wait for the next movies to come out! We drove to Steve and Danelle’s straight from the cinema and met them there for a drink before we went out for one last dinner at a BBQ House. We ate, drank and laughed for hours before it was time to go home because although we haven’t worked for close to a year, they still had their normal lives to attend to the next day.

And so that next day brings us to today. After saying thank you and goodbye we drove to the airport (stopped by McDonald’s for breakfast on the way), flew to Toronto and then got the shuttle bus to our hotel where we have had dinner, packed our bags and I finally managed to book a house to stay at in Havana, Cuba, where we flew to tomorrow. Nothing like leaving things to the last minute. We don’t expect to have much internet (if any) in Cuba so you might not hear from us for a while.

Until we are back, our love, B & Mark xxx

Tag: RV

South America for days

Canada ey