So far, our travel plans include the majority of the west coast of South America: Ecuador, Peru, and Chile. Our original plans were to travel south through Chile after our Peruvian
adventures, and our last week of vacation was scheduled as busing from
city to city, enjoying the different parts of the country. But upon examining this map a little more closely...
...we (as in Tanya, mostly) quickly realized that there is a whole other part of South America that we are literally right next to. And as her parents said, we're there, and who knows when we will get to be there again, so why not take advantage of it? Money is trivial; these experiences are what make a life. So without further ado, we present to you our final week of travel:
ARGENTINA
and URUGUAY
Once we reach Calama, Chile, we will fly to Santiago, then fly to Buenos Aires. We will spend about two days there before catching a ferry from the city center to Montevideo, Uruguay. We will spend about three days (not long enough!) there, and then head back to Buenos Aires, Argentina for a couple more days before heading back to Santiago, Chile. We'll spend one more day there before heading back home.
Basically, one thing I am learning while planning this trip is that I really, really, really want to spend more time in South America. Eventually, our travels will take us there again. We have some Patagonia to see, as well as Antarctica. For a long time I had very little desire to spend time in this part of the world. Besides the fact that I have already traveled to this continent, mostly it just scared me. Mostly because I knew so little about it. And what I had heard often had something to do with spiders.
Rick C. West: Arachnologist
Really big spiders. (This particular species of Tarantula will probably not be seen by us, as we won't be in the rain forest all that much. But it eats bugs, not people, and there is no documentation that a person has ever died of a Tarantula bite. There are a few documented cases of crapping one's pants, though.) Well, spiders are still going to be an issue, as I'm legit arachnophobic. I see, however, that there's probably a lot more to these places than just enormous spiders.
Like Colca Canyon in Peru
http://www.backpackinglight.com
Where we will see the flight of the Andean Condor
National Geographic, Anne Keiser
One of the largest birds in the world able to fly. It can weigh up to 33 pounds, and has a 10-foot wing span! So it lives in windy areas where it can glide without much effort. It only has one chick every other year, so unfortunately in its current endangered status, the survival of this species relies on captive breeding programs. We will see this flight of the condor from Cruz del Condor Viewpoint, which is about 10,784 feet above sea level.
http://www.backpackinglight.com
I'll stop there before I go into a rant about why travel is so, so, so, so important (because it is), because I'm probably preaching to the choir. The whole, learning about new cultures and learning about different ways of life and learning EVERYTHING and how that makes us more empathetic and open-minded toward things that are not our own customs or other parts of the planet and conservation and then it leads to open doors and so on and so forth.
I've digressed. Our added destinations, Argentina and Uruguay, now make our grand total of distance traveled 30,209 miles.
In Buenos Aires we are making it a point to visit a Tango dinner show that Tanya's parents visited while they were there. www.tangoporteno.com Needless to say, we are pretty excited about our upcoming trip. It's a little surreal. Like, is this really happening? Are we REALLY going to South America for 2 MONTHS??? Do we REALLY get to see all these amazing places we've been reading about and planning for? YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We're about 6 weeks away, folks. :)
This weekend we are planning to go through our packs to get a better and more final idea of what we need to take - things we have that we don't need, and things we need but don't have yet. Since we will only be taking a single carry-on bag, about 40L, and we will be traveling for so long, this is an enormously vital piece of our trip. At least one blog will be devoted to this. Stay tuned!
This weekend has been exceptionally busy, but also very social. Currently I (Karis) am training for a half-marathon (Crazy, right? What am I thinking??),
so every weekend of my training schedule includes what us in the club call a "long run." Difficult jargon, I know. Don't strain your brain, it is exactly what it is - a really long run. From here on out, every long run that I do will be the longest I have ever run at one time. Saturday it was 9 miles. In actuality, we did about 9.5. This is okay. Anyway, while running a long run, the goal is to run at a slower pace than your desired race pace (for several reasons that I won't go into because this is a travel blog, not a running blog), which means we should all be able to talk to each other. Now, all of us are teachers, so shop talk inevitably occurs. One thing that teachers often discuss is the salary of teachers around the U.S. As a married woman, I realize fully how lucky I am to, at this stage in my life, feel as financially stable as I am, especially as a teacher, and the likelihood of my continued financial stability for the rest of my life because my wife chose a career path in the medical field. Not overtly "rich" or "loaded" or even above the typical "middle class" by any means. But definitely stable. Anyway, this came up, and I realize that my perspective of a traveler, even as I'm talking to you now, is much different than what it was four years ago. I was traveling to have fun and spend as little money as possible, which meant not taking the kinds of precautions that I probably should have. Now, while everything we do is on a strict budget to get the most out of our trip, we are also able to purchase things like travel insurance, which is one of the most important things to have while traveling. Truthfully, I should have never left the country without it. And now I never will again.
Perhaps you are thinking, "This still does not help me." Well, yes, it does.
This website, which I have posted about before, will help you, budgeted traveler, find a reasonably priced travel insurance package that is based on your ability to spend and what kind of coverage you may need. Travel insurance is for every traveler, free spenders and budgeted alike.
Along with being avid exercisers, we also enjoy a frequent board game with friends. Side note, we learned a new game last night called "Bananagrams." You may have played it. We now love it.
We are word game people. As an English major, I kind of can't get enough of them.
Moving on, this (wonderful) couple is also planning an overseas trip to Ireland for a wedding, but of course will be staying for longer to enjoy the place. They even told us about a falcon school they signed up for. As in, actually holding a falcon and giving commands. A FALCON. But back to the topic at hand, we frequently share travel tips and stories, and travel insurance came up last night. One of the ladies' father just recently was in the hospital for taking a fall, and at his age any medical emergency can be a pretty big deal. For her, then, travel insurance is essential, invaluable even. If something were to happen while she were overseas, some travel insurance packages would allow her to return home early at almost no extra cost.
Here are some things we found most important for our trip's insurance plan:
Trip Cancellation (on the part of the company providing tickets or travel plans, plane tickets, etc.)
Employment Layoff (this was an actual concern for us...)
Emergency Medical
Medical Evacuation or Repatriation
Travel Delay
Baggage Delay
Baggage or Personal Item Loss
Missed Connection
These last four are of particular importance since we will be taking several flights while in South America, and for some a connecting flight is vital to our plans. We have tried to plan around this possibility, but ideally, we would not like to lose money if we have to get on a different plane.
We ended up with a plan through Alliance, but https://www.squaremouth.com/ lets you compare different packages through different companies, seeing price and inclusions, to help you choose what is best for you. Again I say, do not travel out of the country without travel insurance.
And by "genius," I do mean the one, the only, Tanya. She has been sharing super useful links with me left and right. So without further ado, here are her words.
"This link is probably the best link! It tells you everything you need
to know by country, you can look up the travel alerts/warnings to
certain countries and why, you can look up visa info, it has vaccination
requirements, and all sorts of other good stuff. The tabs across the
top are great... I wish I found this link sooner."
ONE:
This post may be one of the most important and most helpful to fellow
world travelers. Over the months, we (and by "we" I do mean mostly "Tanya") have
found some really great resources in planning our trip. Some of them
are books, and some are websites. There's no way a complete list of
these resources will really be practical (who is actually going to click
on every single link, right?), but we'll try to go over the most useful
ones. And maybe, just maybe, a future traveler will see our website
and find this helpful, saving them time and frustration. To that
traveler, we humbly say, "You're welcome."
This first
two websites are from the U.S. government. First, is U.S.Embassy.gov,
which is a great resource for particular countries you're visiting. It gives you information about the U.S. Embassy (location, happenings, etc.), entrance visas, emergency contact information, and many other resources. The
second one is a STEP program, and if you sign up (FREE!!), it will give
you updated information about goings on at your destination. This can
be especially useful if, say, some major civil unrest breaks out or,
fate forbid, a major natural disaster happens. The greatest feature is that if something is happening while you are there, it will send information to a person back home for you in case you can't make contact. Of course, this is
useful for any destination. I'm making it bold so you don't skim over it.
GetToAndFrom.com
is a great resource for estimating bus travel times between cities.
This can be especially helpful if you are doing all your own travel
plans, which we are. This way you can have more realistic ideas of
opportunities and tours in the areas to which you are traveling and how
long you will actually want to stay there.
This
next website has proved to be a particular gem for us. Hostel Bookers seems to
have a greater variety of locations for the places we are traveling than
other hostel booking websites. Most of our hostels were booked here. Another similar website is Booking.com. It has one or two additional locations, but they are at a higher price
than we were looking for.
Tanya recently came across this in her searching. Customs and Border Protection has a lot of really great resources including advisories and common questions and complaints about things like traveling with pets or medication, bringing food into the the U.S., and documentation you will need. Probably the coolest thing, however, and this is already being saved on each of our travel Flash Drives (more information on this to come), is the Know Before You Go PDF documents. This is incredibly helpful!! And it can be found HERE.
One more helpful resource for the general world traveler is a YouTube video, The Coolest Travel Hacks. Now, you may be thinking, "Ladies, there are BAZILLIONS of videos and websites on life and travel hacks." Trust me. We know. Tanya assures me that this is among the best she's seen.
P.S. She tried the money in the chapstick tube thing, and the cash is way too difficult to get out. But there are lots of ways to hide cash - cash belt, old shampoo bottle, old deodorant tube, etc.
THE BEST RESOURCE for travel information - and this is
pretty much just information about where you are going, not so much
ticket buying - is National Geographic Travel. It's awesome. Use it.
TWO:
I know. But Two will be shorter. Maybe. I just want to make sure you get some general travel resources AND some more specific ones about South America and the fun places we're going. I'll limit it to the major destinations. Some I'll give travel resources, some just cultural.
Easter Island
So I'm a teacher, right? The year that I taught Biology and Earth Science I relied heavily on a few internet resources, and one that I fell in love with is NOVA, a product of PBS. Anyway, they have a pretty cool website dedicated to the Secrets of Easter Island, so if you are one who likes to know about the history and culture of where you're visiting (you should be!), check this out.
Galapagos Islands
I became obsessed with visiting the Galapagos once I started kayaking. It was one of those, I knew it existed but I hadn't thought much about it. Then I saw a couple pictures and I was suddenly hooked. It helps that I'm a believer in evolution and have read about Darwin's travels here. If you haven't, you should - this is where he took many of his notes about differences in animals of the same species depending on their locations. Anyway, World Atlas gives a pretty broad overview about basically everything Galapagos.
Machu Picchu
I don't have to do much convincing that this is one of the top must-see places to visit before you die. Let's not waste time with tourist websites. Tanya booked our tickets at http://boletomachupicchu.com/.
Here are Tanya's words on the matter:
"You
are supposed to be able to buy MP tickets on the official government page but it hasn't been working for a long time. There are a lot of
scam sites that will have you pay and send fake tickets, but one way to
protect yourself is to pay with a credit
card and once you get the tickets they should have a reservation code
on them. Then simply go to the official site and type in reservation
code (as if to print tickets again) and your reservation should pop up.
If it doesn't, then you got scammed, but at least you can dispute it
with a credit card. Otherwise, smart tour agencies have found the value
in slightly over charging (~$10 more) per ticket to have people be able
to buy tickets ahead of time to physically have them as it sells out
quickly with daily occupancy limits."
There are also lots of ways to get information about the area and traveling there. I'll let you find those - we used travel books, mostly. Moon and Lonely Planet are both really great. Make sure they are up to date! For you, though, here is an article in the NY Times. NOTE: The last line of the article says to stay in Cusco to acclimate the altitude. This is actually not all that necessary. Cusco is at a higher elevation than Machu Picchu. You should probably stay in Sacred Valley for a couple days, then go to Machu Picchu, and end your trip in Cusco to gradually get your body used to the high altitude.
Lake Titicaca
I may have said this, but much of our travel destination info came from Moon and Lonely Planet travel books. Actual books made of paper that you have to hold in your hand and physically turn the pages. I read quite a bit about the floating islands and the cultures found on them. I can't give you a link to a book, but here is the Lonely Planet website that will give as much or more - and more up to date - information as I have.
Happy first day of 2014, everyone! Tanya and I are sitting in Kaladi Brother's doing our internet business. We do not have internet at home (another way to save money!!), so all internet things we either do on our phones or at the coffee shop with laptops. And some things are just easier done with laptops. Anyway, Kaladi workers are volunteering their time today, and all the money the coffee shops earn today go towards charity. This year, it's for Children's Lunchbox - a great local program, if I do say so myself.
Alright, trip stuff. Tanya had drawn our route on a map for us to post for you. I asked her, "Can you blue tooth me the route?" This is what she sent me.
And then she said, "Now, would you like the route?"
On that note, a brief overview of our trip:
- Anchorage down to Santiago, Chile (with a few stopovers in between)
- Easter Island
- Back to Santiago
- Up to Quito, Ecuador
- Guayaquil
- Galapagos Islands
- Back to Guayaquil
- Down to the border, eventually to Mancora, Peru
- Piura
- Lima
- Cusco
- Sacred Valley
- Machu Picchu/Aguas Calientes
- Cusco
- Puno
- Lake Titicaca
- Arequipa
- Arica
- Calama
- San Pedro
- La Serena
- Pingüino de Humboldt National Reserve
- Constitucion
- Viña del Mar and/or Valparaiso
- Santiago
- Santiago back to Anchorage
We are flying in and out of the same city because round trip tickets to one city are cheaper than two one way tickets to different cities. Once we fly up to Ecuador from Chile, we'll mostly be taking buses back down so we can hit a bunch of places in between. We'll be taking different forms of transportation (plane, bus, train, taxi, boat), though, depending on the distances between where we are and where we want to go.
Money Saving Tip: We did not hire a trip planner of any kind. Tanya is doing ALL of it. Also, she is really, really good at it. So we got plane tickets and bus tickets and hostels, etc. with her researching the best deals available and getting most things months and months in advance to ensure our spots. In fact, that's what she's working on right now.
In eight weeks, we will have visited three countries...
...plus 4-5 islands between the Galapagos and Easter Island...
And distancing a total of 28,541 miles!!!
In the meantime, we'll be living the dream here in Alaska. There are lots of different kinds of preparations we're making, so stay tuned.
There is ONE thing I need from you, dear readers, though, and that is, do you have any book suggestions before we go on this trip? Anything you think I should read in preparation for visiting these great lands? Any and all suggestions are much appreciated.
A blurb for those who don't live in Anchorage...
Don't worry, moose! I'll only shoot you with my camera.
This little lady was wandering through our neighbourhood the other day. Moose are REALLY common here, and we see them all the time. To me, though, it never gets old!
