Below is an itinerary of all the places I managed to visit on my trip to the Southern Hemisphere in 2010/2011.
Friday morning was a pre 6am start as we had around 14 hours on the road to complete in order to cover the 800km drive from Bonito to Foz. As the morning progressed the heat in the truck meant that pretty much everyone except the drivers were at least resting their eyes! After Lunch Beers were cracked open and quite a lot by some people, and beer drinking games started, before eventually the beer bong was dragged out for it’s debut too! One thing is for sure it made the drive go a lot quicker and just after 9pm we arrived in Foz do Iguacu. Read the rest of this entry »
We arrived in Bonito from Pantanal late on Tuesday afternoon to be greeted by a rather great hostel with a lovely pool and hammock to relax on. We were given a talk on what can be done here activities wise, and they insist on people having a guide at all attractions. Which is a good way to hike up the prices somewhat. Pretty much all the activities involved some form of swimming and well as I can just about manage to not drown for somewhere between 5 and 10m that was somewhat of a concern to me! Everyone booked onto a snorkling tour down a really clear river, so I just kinda followed suit after being assured if you can’t swim much you’ll be fine with a life vest. Read the rest of this entry »
After two and a half days on the road, 28 hours of driving covering 1450km we finally managed to go from one side of Brazil to the other. And that’s at the narrow end of Brazil. The drive took us from the costal town of Paraty to the wetlands of the Pantanal which team with wildlife and spreads across the Paraguayan border. The drive itself was largely unspectacular interms of views, with much of the way just the same farmland view for miles and miles. However on the truck many games of Cheat and Shithead mixed in with beer managed to pass the time well enough. We bush camped the second night, but it was nowhere near as illustrious as that sounds. We were just camping on some land round the back of a service station as all land in Brazil is privately owned and the service stations are the safest places to do this. Shortly before arriving in Pantanal I managed to rack off the 3rd Brazilian race track I’d modelled that I’d seen in Campo Grande. This time I only saw it for about 5 seconds though as we drove past. Read the rest of this entry »
The 3 week dragloand trip I’m presently on from Rio to Buenos Aires started in earnest on Monday morning. Unfortunately the truck we were meant to have for this broke down in Buenos Aires on its way up here, as a result we used another trips truck to get down to Paraty before spending an extra day there whilst two people drove another truck over from Santiago, Chile. It took the two other leaders 24 hour round the clock driving between them to get it here from Monday morning to Friday morning! Read the rest of this entry »
My time in Rio de Janeiro was quite interesting, but I didn’t really get on too well with the city however I feel that I didn’t see the best side of it either. My flight landed and the shuttle bus to the other airport Santos Dumont which is right in the centre of town. This took 2 hours due to the heavy traffic. I met Bruno a work colleague from Reiza Studios when I got off the bus and tried to make our way to the hostel. The hostel was in an area called Santa Teressa which is on a hill near the centre of Rio and an area called ‘Lapa’ which had a lot of things going on a night. We tried to get a taxi there but most people said no. We then looked at walking up, but by this time it had got dark and it was a really steep hill and with my bag that really isn’t a good idea. Eventually we found a cab that would take us up there and got to the hostel okay. Read the rest of this entry »
I spent late Monday until early Friday morning last week on a short road trip which covered an awful lot of ground. Infact I did a little loop starting and ending in Sao Paulo as my flight from Florianopolis to Rio changed there. Read the rest of this entry »
Monday started off a little slow, and we didn’t do anything until after lunchtime despite being up for breakfast at 9am. We took lunch at a place just outside an office where Renato had a meeting shortly afterwards. Lunch was a fairly basic bit of mince meat into a platter, with pasta and some mashed potato. Meals generally seem to consist of multiple carbohydrates with some meat and nothing too complicated with the sauce. Renato had me try a couple of deserts afterwards which were small, but really filling and sweet!
So I spent my first weekend away at the Brazilian Grand Prix. This meant for me anyway, really early starts both days, but I managed to handle them rather well. A lack of sleep on the flight meant I got to bed early Friday evening and was up by 6.30am on the Saturday to go to qualifying and after a quick breakfast at the hotel we were on our way to the track. We travelled on a bus put on from the hotel to the track and they knew exactly which route to take to avoid the traffic. We were there in about half an hour. By this time it had started raining and the weather was looking pretty glum for most of the day. I’d brought my water bottle to take into the track, turns out that type of thing is definitely not allowed! I didn’t want to throw it away, fortunately the bus was still open and we could put it back there. Read the rest of this entry »
So I have under 3 weeks until I’m off on a 7 month trip around the world on my own, with just a few friends who I’ve met for a few days on past adventures to visit along the way. If you’ve never been travelling alone before I guess that sounds quite daunting, but having spent 2 and half months travelling North America in the summer of 2009 it doesn’t feel like such a big deal. At least not yet anyway.
So how do you go about planning for such a trip? There are various things you need to be aware of and prepare for, the most important are obviously are those that concern money and health. Being properly vaccinated and having the right medication as required is obviously really important, and anyone going on a trip to places which aren’t anything other than the most developed countries you are likely to need some vaccinations. I’ve had to have a Hepatitis A vaccination at the doctors, and also got to go to a private clinic to get a Yellow Fever vaccination for travelling in South America. It’s also not 100% clear if I need malaria tablets for my time in South America, I’ll be getting clarification when I go to get my Yellow Fever vaccination. Additionally good travel insurance is to be blunt a pain in the arse to find. In the end I’ve got mine from Essential Travel and works out at £160 for 7 months, which is pretty reasonable and seems to have good coverage on the key factors. However you only ever find out if these insurance companies are worth while when you need to claim. Here’s hoping I don’t have to find out. Read the rest of this entry »
Cities I’ve Visited