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Overland Destination: South America · The Overland Journal Podcast

0:07
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal Podcast. I'm your
0:10
Speaker 1: host Scott Brady, and I'm here with my co host
0:12
Speaker 1: Ashley Giordanollo and her friend companion partner, husband Richard Giordano.
0:18
Speaker 1: We are going to talk today about the principles of
0:21
Speaker 1: overlanding South America. It is certainly become one of the
0:25
Speaker 1: most popular international destinations for overland travels, and there is
0:29
Speaker 1: a million reasons for that, and there are very few
0:32
Speaker 1: reasons not to go. But we're going to talk through
0:35
Speaker 1: all of that today. We're going to do the deep
0:37
Speaker 1: dive into places to visit, logistics and our experiences as
0:41
Speaker 1: a group traveling down to South America in various times.
0:46
Speaker 1: It's just a wonderful place to travel. So kind of
0:48
Speaker 1: give the audience a little overview of what you guys did.
0:52
Speaker 1: This was your first big trip was to South America
0:55
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Speaker 1: three products and subscribe today. How did you get there?
1:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we left from Vancouver, BC in our nineteen
1:38
Speaker 2: ninety Toota pickup and we drove down through Mexico and
1:42
Speaker 2: Central America, and then we shipped from Panama to Colombia,
1:46
Speaker 2: and then we actually went down the west side of
1:48
Speaker 2: South America through Columbia, Ecuador, Cruelibya, Argentina and then Chile
1:54
Speaker 2: and then Argentina and Chile and Argentina and Chili back
1:56
Speaker 2: and forth. Yeah, and then we obviously made it to
1:59
Speaker 2: Shway and back to Buenos Aires and shipped to the
2:02
Speaker 2: US from there.
2:02
Speaker 1: One of the most common questions that I get is
2:05
Speaker 1: Central America versus South America. So we'll talk about that
2:08
Speaker 1: in a little bit. I did something similar but over
2:10
Speaker 1: a few different trips. So I in two thousand and
2:13
Speaker 1: nine I drove down to the Darien Gap and then
2:15
Speaker 1: ship my vehicle back to the United States from there,
2:17
Speaker 1: and then over a series of trips Colombia and all
2:20
Speaker 1: the way down to Ushuaia on a combination of motorcycles
2:23
Speaker 1: and follow drives. Part of Expedition seven was coming into
2:27
Speaker 1: Argentina and driving all the way down to Ushuaia, and
2:29
Speaker 1: then I drove the land cruisers across the continent from
2:33
Speaker 1: east to west and then up to Lima, and then
2:36
Speaker 1: ultimately I kind of completed the drive all the way
2:38
Speaker 1: back to Colombia, but on a motorcycle, and I did
2:40
Speaker 1: that on a BMWGS, which was incredible journey, much of
2:44
Speaker 1: which I did solo, so was my first real long
2:46
Speaker 1: distance solo travel as well. So South America is very
2:50
Speaker 1: very special. So let's dig into that first question of
2:53
Speaker 1: traveling in Central America versus traveling in South America. I
2:56
Speaker 1: could not have found them to be more different. My
2:59
Speaker 1: experience was that Central American countries, even though they are
3:03
Speaker 1: very different, and I don't want to at all suggest
3:05
Speaker 1: that they are not different cultures, because they are, but
3:07
Speaker 1: they are more similar than they are different. And a
3:10
Speaker 1: lot of the terrain and the geography and the geology
3:13
Speaker 1: of the area is very similar as well, heavily jungled.
3:16
Speaker 1: Pretty much stays the same all the way until you
3:18
Speaker 1: get to the dairy and Gap of Panama. Now, South America,
3:21
Speaker 1: the cultures are more distinct from country to country, and
3:25
Speaker 1: the geography and geology is very different oftentimes from country
3:29
Speaker 1: to country. What did you guys find differences between traveling
3:32
Speaker 1: through Central America and South America?
3:34
Speaker 3: All right, I'll go first again, huge differences between the two.
3:38
Speaker 3: I think it's it's hard because South America, you have
3:40
Speaker 3: these countries that are so.
3:41
Speaker 2: Huge in comparison.
3:42
Speaker 3: Sure that you know, I don't actually know the facts,
3:44
Speaker 3: but Colombia would most likely take over. Most of them
3:47
Speaker 3: are big chunk of Central America. Well, of course it's
3:49
Speaker 3: going to have huge differences in landscapes. And as those
3:52
Speaker 3: landscapes change, and we noticed it from the coast to
3:55
Speaker 3: the mountains, cultures changed. Right with South America being so huge,
3:59
Speaker 3: it was really cool as we drove south that, you know,
4:01
Speaker 3: you got to see each of those cultures and each
4:03
Speaker 3: of the landscapes change constantly.
4:05
Speaker 1: And they're all convinced that they have the best barbecue,
4:08
Speaker 1: and I all do. That was the thing that was
4:10
Speaker 1: really funny. If you dared suggest to a chile in
4:13
Speaker 1: that Argentine barbecue was better in a friendly way. You
4:15
Speaker 1: want to string you up with a smile on their face,
4:17
Speaker 1: they would string you up. Yes, And then I would
4:19
Speaker 1: suspect that the Brazilians have a strong opinion about their
4:22
Speaker 1: barbecue versus the Argentine barbecue. But the good thing about
4:25
Speaker 1: that is a gluttony of choice. So literally a gluttony
4:28
Speaker 1: of choice is that there's great barbecue all throughout South America,
4:32
Speaker 1: whereas you don't generally find that you don't find great
4:35
Speaker 1: food in Central America. Doesn't mean that you can't find
4:37
Speaker 1: restaurants that have wonderful food and have exceptional experiences, but
4:40
Speaker 1: in general, South America consistently has a lot more variety
4:44
Speaker 1: of food, a lot more options around that, and a
4:47
Speaker 1: lot more distinct cuisine from country to country as well.
4:50
Speaker 2: Sure, really, Central America is a lot of rice and beans,
4:53
Speaker 2: and like Chipico, which was delicious, but yeah, it was
4:56
Speaker 2: very similar.
4:57
Speaker 1: Yeah.
4:57
Speaker 3: And then we also found we're just from talking to
4:59
Speaker 3: other tracks velers, the ones who love surfing loves Central America.
5:02
Speaker 1: Oh that makes sense.
5:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, And because you've got the perfect place to do
5:05
Speaker 3: just that, make out all out every morning surf, come back,
5:08
Speaker 3: eat your rice and beans, go back out again.
5:10
Speaker 2: Whereas the beach life, everybody who likes the beach life
5:13
Speaker 2: really likes Central America.
5:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then we're from Canada, so that hot, humid
5:17
Speaker 3: temperatures are nonsense and melting exactly really pushed us into
5:21
Speaker 3: South America. And as soon as we made our way
5:24
Speaker 3: into the Andes and we're able to start hiking and
5:26
Speaker 3: trekking it, it really came to life for.
5:28
Speaker 2: Us for sure.
5:29
Speaker 1: So that's really good feedback. And that's interesting perspective because
5:33
Speaker 1: I don't surf. I would love to learn at some
5:35
Speaker 1: point in my life, but I don't surf, And so
5:37
Speaker 1: that makes sense if you really want to be on
5:39
Speaker 1: the beach and you really love that kind of hot, humid,
5:42
Speaker 1: junglely terrain, and Central America is going to be super
5:45
Speaker 1: rewarding because there's so much great beachfront camping and places
5:50
Speaker 1: to explore there that's interesting. Someone who really wants to
5:53
Speaker 1: go surfing should maybe make Central America higher priority. Whereas
5:57
Speaker 1: for me, those big landscapes and that really remote terrain
6:00
Speaker 1: and the huge variability of geography and geology, wildlife, wildlife.
6:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, I felt like we could get out into the
6:08
Speaker 2: wild a little more easily. In South America, Yeah, we
6:11
Speaker 2: could find really beautiful, epic camp sites more easily. I
6:15
Speaker 2: felt a little more restricted in Central America in terms
6:18
Speaker 2: of wild camping, for sure, more populated because of the
6:21
Speaker 2: size of the area smaller, that's true.
6:24
Speaker 1: I did find some good wild camping in Nicaragua. Even
6:28
Speaker 1: in Honduras, we did find some, and then certainly in Belize.
6:31
Speaker 1: There was quite a bit in Belize, but again, like
6:35
Speaker 1: you're able to camp right on the beach, was really special.
6:37
Speaker 1: And then Central America also has the challenges geopolitically. Nicaragua
6:41
Speaker 1: when I traveled through there was extremely safe, and now
6:44
Speaker 1: they've had a lot more turmoil, And it doesn't mean
6:46
Speaker 1: that you can't go there. But when I was there,
6:48
Speaker 1: Honduras was the hot spot I remember, and I've used
6:51
Speaker 1: this trick a bunch of times in my travels, but
6:53
Speaker 1: when you feel really unfamiliar with the place, the best
6:56
Speaker 1: guide that you have through a city is a taxi driver,
6:59
Speaker 1: and you can really incentivize them through entrepreneurs. They are
7:02
Speaker 1: all of them are and they have an entrepreneurial mindset.
7:04
Speaker 1: We grabbed one on the north side of Taguchi, Galpa.
7:07
Speaker 1: I gave him ten bucks, ten US dollars, and I
7:09
Speaker 1: said there's twenty more when you get us to the
7:12
Speaker 1: other side. There was no way in hell he was
7:14
Speaker 1: going to let us get lost or separated. We also
7:16
Speaker 1: asked him if he could get us to a grocery store.
7:18
Speaker 1: He got us to the best grocery store in town,
7:21
Speaker 1: and he watched our vehicles what we're perfecting it. He
7:23
Speaker 1: was perfect and it made a huge difference for us
7:26
Speaker 1: being able to get through the city because the route
7:28
Speaker 1: that I thought I needed to take through the city
7:30
Speaker 1: was not the one that he took us through, and
7:32
Speaker 1: the one he took us through was much better. It
7:33
Speaker 1: was bigger roads, you could tell a lot more infrastructure,
7:36
Speaker 1: traffic moved through their trucks and things like that, because
7:38
Speaker 1: we had a large earth roamer in our group. So
7:40
Speaker 1: having someone that was intimately familiar with driving through that
7:44
Speaker 1: city ended up being a huge benefit. That's awesome cheap
7:47
Speaker 1: thirty dollars totally when you have a big group of people,
7:50
Speaker 1: and we made his day. He totally made our day,
7:53
Speaker 1: So was a win for everybody involved.
7:55
Speaker 2: I think it's good to think of those areas that
7:58
Speaker 2: you might feel a little bit upper about in a
8:01
Speaker 2: different way. Like you know, I think a lot of
8:03
Speaker 2: travelers skip through Honduras and do the is it a
8:06
Speaker 2: double border crossing in one day?
8:07
Speaker 1: That's right?
8:08
Speaker 2: Which is I'm not like criticizing that decision because I
8:11
Speaker 2: think it's good for some people and for some people
8:13
Speaker 2: it doesn't work out that way. But I think for us,
8:16
Speaker 2: we decided, well, Honduras is kind of like the it
8:19
Speaker 2: has a certain reputation. We wanted to dig into it
8:21
Speaker 2: a bit. So we decided to volunteer there and that
8:23
Speaker 2: was a really cool way of seeing on the ground,
8:26
Speaker 2: kind of what was going on in an area we
8:28
Speaker 2: wouldn't normally go to.
8:29
Speaker 1: Tell me about that experience. Yeah, where did you volunteer
8:32
Speaker 1: and what kind of volunteer work did you do.
8:34
Speaker 2: We volunteered with a company called the Honduras Child Alliance,
8:38
Speaker 2: and it was really cool. We put together a photography
8:41
Speaker 2: lass for some kids. That was a lot of fun.
8:44
Speaker 2: So we did a camera drive back home. So we
8:46
Speaker 2: had all these digital cameras that we brought down with
8:49
Speaker 2: us like a big tupperwork into your full of stuff. Yeah,
8:52
Speaker 2: we just were in the classroom with them. I guess you,
8:55
Speaker 2: Richard probably could talk about that a little bit better,
8:57
Speaker 2: both like the itinerary and the area we went to.
9:00
Speaker 2: I can't remember the name of it. I think was
9:02
Speaker 2: the Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
9:03
Speaker 3: So it was great because the kids normally had school
9:05
Speaker 3: half the day and then the other half the day
9:07
Speaker 3: they were there going home or you had to find
9:09
Speaker 3: something else to do, whatever it was. We took that
9:11
Speaker 3: other half of the day and we did a photography
9:13
Speaker 3: scavenger hunt and a kind of like went through some
9:15
Speaker 3: basics of photography, like very very basic, and the kids
9:18
Speaker 3: just ran around took photos of all the things that
9:20
Speaker 3: were on the list, came back they were sharing with
9:22
Speaker 3: their friends. I think in the end they all went
9:24
Speaker 3: for riding the truck because a lot not a lot
9:25
Speaker 3: of them had been in the vehicle before, so took
9:28
Speaker 3: them for a ride around town and the pick up
9:30
Speaker 3: we had.
9:30
Speaker 2: We had a great time.
9:31
Speaker 3: I think we were in We were there for a
9:32
Speaker 3: few days and in Honduras for you know, two or
9:34
Speaker 3: three weeks or something.
9:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was really interesting. There was one kid and
9:37
Speaker 2: he was a little bit of a he's like the bad,
9:40
Speaker 2: bad kid, clus kind of disruptive and the rebel. Yeah,
9:44
Speaker 2: but it was funny by the end of it, because
9:46
Speaker 2: he was the one that really like was really sad
9:49
Speaker 2: to see us go and and really kind of led
9:51
Speaker 2: down his front, I guess at the end of the
9:53
Speaker 2: experience and really like had a good time and had
9:56
Speaker 2: a lot of fun riding in the truck, and we
9:58
Speaker 2: just didn't realize that some of the kids in that
10:00
Speaker 2: area had never been in a motorized vehicle like that
10:03
Speaker 2: before sure, and so that was like the first time
10:06
Speaker 2: riding in a truck, and so we were like, wow,
10:08
Speaker 2: that really blew our mind. So it was a special
10:11
Speaker 2: special experience for us for sure.
10:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, what a super cool experience. And that was similar
10:16
Speaker 1: to what we did. We came in through Belize into
10:19
Speaker 1: Guatemala and did some really remote stuff out there, some
10:23
Speaker 1: real remote jungle tracks, and then we went into Copon City,
10:27
Speaker 1: so we took that other border in the north kind
10:29
Speaker 1: of the northeast of Honduras, and that was really.
10:32
Speaker 2: Cool because the ruins are yeah, that's right.
10:35
Speaker 1: The Copon City and Copon Ruins, and we got a
10:38
Speaker 1: chance to just really hang out in that area and
10:40
Speaker 1: take our time. And we had no troubles in Honduras
10:43
Speaker 1: at all, nothing to speak of. So a lot of
10:45
Speaker 1: times these experiences, are they overshadow what is really a
10:49
Speaker 1: wonderful place because if one traveler has trouble, then it
10:54
Speaker 1: kind of spreads like wildfire. If that's an issue, all
10:56
Speaker 1: it takes is one story, correct And if you think
10:59
Speaker 1: about the number of people that are carjacked daily in
11:02
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, why would we ever go? But it's because
11:05
Speaker 1: Los Angeles is another North American city that we're all
11:08
Speaker 1: familiar with and we've been there and it doesn't feel
11:10
Speaker 1: that dangerous, even though it can be. When we're doing
11:13
Speaker 1: research on visiting in an all new place and we're
11:15
Speaker 1: a little bit apprehensive to begin with, those stories can
11:18
Speaker 1: really percolate to the top, And.
11:19
Speaker 3: Especially when you're planning from home and you don't have
11:21
Speaker 3: any control of the situation because you're not even in
11:23
Speaker 3: the situation yet. Sure, yeah, I feel like as soon
11:26
Speaker 3: as we're somewhere on the ground and something's happening, and
11:29
Speaker 3: you tell a story at home, like when we were
11:31
Speaker 3: in Jordan, when we were in the middle of a
11:33
Speaker 3: riot the beginning of a protest for fuel price increase
11:37
Speaker 3: and I'm walking around with my lonely planet in my
11:39
Speaker 3: hand and my backpack on and all of a sudden
11:41
Speaker 3: I stopped seeing women and children, and I start seeing
11:43
Speaker 3: the first sun, and I start seeing men with these
11:45
Speaker 3: coverings on, and I thought, maybe we should leave now.
11:47
Speaker 3: I don't think this is the right spot. And that's
11:49
Speaker 3: one of the guys on side of the road said,
11:51
Speaker 3: thank you. Guys are in the wrong place. Yeah, So
11:53
Speaker 3: we hopped it in the taxi and left. You know,
11:55
Speaker 3: if you tell that story to somebody else back home
11:57
Speaker 3: and they see sounds sketchy, can't believe weve gotten it situation.
12:01
Speaker 3: But when we were there, no big deal, hopping a taxi,
12:03
Speaker 3: We're gone. We can solve that situation too.
12:05
Speaker 2: When we were researching Central America and planning for the trip,
12:08
Speaker 2: I think two of the requirements were a white sheet
12:12
Speaker 2: and traffic triangles, and we were like, why do we
12:15
Speaker 2: need a white sheet? And we brought one, and we
12:17
Speaker 2: brought the traffic triangles and we didn't need either one
12:19
Speaker 2: of them. I think the idea is that the cops
12:21
Speaker 2: would pull you over and be like, do you have
12:23
Speaker 2: your white sheet? And I don't know if it was
12:24
Speaker 2: for like a body or what. We never needed any
12:27
Speaker 2: of it. I don't know.
12:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, yeah, the triangle. I think it's just like
12:30
Speaker 1: a traffic thing, like you got to have some reflective
12:33
Speaker 1: tape on your back, you know those old things that
12:34
Speaker 1: gives them an excuse maybe to pull you over. But
12:37
Speaker 1: I remember I was in Nicaragua, I think, no, it
12:40
Speaker 1: was in Costa Rica. We were camped out on this
12:42
Speaker 1: lake and these cops pull up and there I speak
12:45
Speaker 1: some Spanish, sufficient for travel for sure, but not I'm
12:48
Speaker 1: not fluent. And these two police officers are saying they
12:50
Speaker 1: started saying to me and Elbosa, and I'm thinking, oh,
12:54
Speaker 1: a corporo is a that's a body and I think
12:57
Speaker 1: a bulsa is a bag or a purse, right, And
12:59
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, oh, like do we have we have we
13:01
Speaker 1: seen a body bag? We have a bodybag? And then finally,
13:04
Speaker 1: after some translation, you know, back and forth, I was
13:07
Speaker 1: able to understand that they were looking for a body.
13:10
Speaker 1: What it had been. It was like a domestic violence thing.
13:12
Speaker 1: It was they think someone had been killed and thrown
13:15
Speaker 1: into the lake.
13:15
Speaker 2: Gotcha.
13:16
Speaker 1: So it didn't make the place any more dangerous than
13:19
Speaker 1: any other city where violence happens. But it was really
13:22
Speaker 1: interesting and they were super cool about it, and everything
13:24
Speaker 1: was really fine. And again my experiences in Central America
13:27
Speaker 1: were really wonderful. But South America is certainly a gem.
13:31
Speaker 1: And that's what we're going to get into now. When
13:33
Speaker 1: you guys shipped from Panama to Columbia, how did you
13:36
Speaker 1: do that?
13:37
Speaker 3: So we shipped vicantainer and it was just through word
13:39
Speaker 3: of mouth, I think with Zeteia, I can't remember.
13:42
Speaker 2: Her name was, Yeah, yeah, there was. There were two
13:43
Speaker 2: agents that people were really using at that time, and
13:46
Speaker 2: one of them was ta I think her name was.
13:48
Speaker 2: I believe we found her on maybe the Pan American
13:51
Speaker 2: Highway Facebook group pan America Travelers, right, that was a
13:55
Speaker 2: really good place to find shipping partner. We found our
13:58
Speaker 2: shipping partner on that.
13:59
Speaker 1: Gus to forty footer and you put two vehicles in it. Yeah,
14:02
Speaker 1: I got it cool.
14:03
Speaker 2: And yeah they there's a lot of money care of
14:05
Speaker 2: most of it.
14:06
Speaker 3: I think the only difficulty we had was that it
14:08
Speaker 3: was it was around Samana Santa or something I believe
14:10
Speaker 3: when we were shipping, so around the holidays, and of
14:12
Speaker 3: course when we went to go bring the vehicles to
14:14
Speaker 3: the port to put them in the container, they didn't
14:16
Speaker 3: have a container at the time or something, so we
14:18
Speaker 3: had to drop off the truck in his hand off
14:20
Speaker 3: the keys and just hope for the best. It was fine,
14:22
Speaker 3: truck hinded up in a container and eventually in South America.
14:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was easier than we expected. I think when
14:28
Speaker 2: you hear about shipping from Panama to Columbia, like, oh,
14:31
Speaker 2: this is like this big deal and it's so stressful
14:33
Speaker 2: and all these things can go wrong, and I don't
14:35
Speaker 2: know if maybe that was actually happening before we shipped,
14:38
Speaker 2: but we found it was a lot easier than we
14:40
Speaker 2: expected it to be.
14:41
Speaker 1: Panama was totally squared away. We didn't use a fixer
14:45
Speaker 1: in Panama. In hindsight, I probably would do that now,
14:48
Speaker 1: but I wanted to learn. So going down to the
14:50
Speaker 1: police station to get the tech band of board, yeah
14:53
Speaker 1: canceled in all of those things. That was all a
14:56
Speaker 1: really great experience with the port in Panama is just
15:00
Speaker 1: wear it away. It's like brand new tidy. And we
15:02
Speaker 1: did the same thing. We threw them the keys to
15:04
Speaker 1: the car because we were doing roll on roll off
15:06
Speaker 1: the vehicles, so we just just like throw them your keys.
15:09
Speaker 1: And then it showed up in Houston, you know, a
15:11
Speaker 1: couple months later, four months later or something like that.
15:14
Speaker 3: So I feel like it always feels like a little
15:15
Speaker 3: bit of a gamble when you're handing off the keys
15:17
Speaker 3: and you're hoping for the best.
15:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and glad that.
15:19
Speaker 3: The truck was worth ten thousand dollars and not one
15:21
Speaker 3: hundred and ten thousand dollars or more.
15:23
Speaker 2: And the other thing that was funny was there was
15:25
Speaker 2: a big rainstorm before we packed a truck up to
15:29
Speaker 2: put it on the ship into the shipping container, and
15:31
Speaker 2: so some of our bedding was like slightly damp, you
15:34
Speaker 2: know how humid it is there, and it just like
15:36
Speaker 2: baked in there and was totally moldy. When we opened
15:39
Speaker 2: it up on the other side, it was so nasty.
15:41
Speaker 3: It's just like an oven in the ship container.
15:43
Speaker 1: Oh totally. But it's it's not a super big deal
15:46
Speaker 1: to do that. There's plenty of agents. There's a lot
15:48
Speaker 1: of shipping traffic that goes through Panama. They've got it sorted.
15:52
Speaker 1: If you can find a kind of a trusted resource
15:54
Speaker 1: like you guys did, that makes a huge difference, I
15:56
Speaker 1: think as well. And then I know that a lot
15:58
Speaker 1: of motorcyclists are using boats and sailboats to ship down there,
16:03
Speaker 1: which I think would be a really neat experience. With
16:05
Speaker 1: my love for sailing. How fun would that be to
16:07
Speaker 1: just kind of keep the adventure going on a sailboat
16:09
Speaker 1: over a couple of days to Colombia.
16:11
Speaker 3: And I think that overland embassy in Panama is now
16:14
Speaker 3: facilitating shipping back and forth between Colombia.
16:16
Speaker 2: Are Yeah, it's like a couple of overlanders and they
16:19
Speaker 2: started up an overland embassy in Panama. It was a hostel.
16:23
Speaker 3: And yeah, he'll actually track down vehicles for you in
16:25
Speaker 3: Panama if you're looking to buy Highlex or Troopy or not.
16:28
Speaker 1: Just sure.
16:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty awesome.
16:30
Speaker 1: Well that was Christian Peltier who we both we all
16:33
Speaker 1: know he did that for a while. Panama Passage was
16:35
Speaker 1: the name of that one. And Matt Scott, who's another
16:38
Speaker 1: co host of this podcast, he actually worked at Panama Passage,
16:42
Speaker 1: so he was responsible for setting up shipping for everybody.
16:45
Speaker 1: So it is awesome. Shipping is definitely not something to
16:48
Speaker 1: be concerned about too much. There can be costs that
16:52
Speaker 1: come into it that can be a surprise. When we
16:54
Speaker 1: ship the land cruisers from Africa over to South America,
16:57
Speaker 1: we shipped them into Buenos Aires, which I would not
17:00
Speaker 1: do again because I did find it to be pretty
17:03
Speaker 1: rife with bureaucracy and its close cousin. We were a
17:06
Speaker 1: little bit on a time crunch because the boat had
17:09
Speaker 1: been delayed more than we expected. When you have a
17:11
Speaker 1: large group of people, if you want to expedite it
17:13
Speaker 1: just costs a lot of money otherwise, But if you've
17:15
Speaker 1: got six seven people eating in hotels, you can add
17:19
Speaker 1: that money up very very quickly. Sure, And so to
17:22
Speaker 1: expedite those vehicles out was a bit of a challenge.
17:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think for us, for shipping the truck from
17:27
Speaker 3: Panama to Columbia, it was all in with something like
17:30
Speaker 3: fifteen or sixteen hundred dollars plus flights to Cardahana.
17:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, what was that like twenty fifteen, yeah, I believe.
17:37
Speaker 2: And then actually shipping from Buenos Aires to Jacksonville. Yeah,
17:41
Speaker 2: that was seemingly more stressful and annoying.
17:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely more stressful trying to get a truck out
17:46
Speaker 3: of Jacksonville than it was out of Kardahanah.
17:49
Speaker 2: For sure.
17:49
Speaker 1: Interesting or even more difficult than getting it shipped out
17:52
Speaker 1: of Buenoser.
17:53
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, we were stuck there for a while.
17:55
Speaker 3: We were stuck in Florida for three weeks when the
17:58
Speaker 3: truck was stuck in port lots of it was a
18:00
Speaker 3: little problem.
18:02
Speaker 2: But there are other shipping routes too. I think a
18:04
Speaker 2: lot of people ship to Vera Cruz.
18:06
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, they're learning what's good and where the
18:08
Speaker 1: bureaucracy is a little bit more consistent. People are shipping
18:12
Speaker 1: into Alparaiso in Chile as well, which I believe is
18:17
Speaker 1: a problem around right hand drives, which is why we
18:19
Speaker 1: did not do that, and that may have been resolved.
18:21
Speaker 1: The last that I checked it was an issue shipping
18:24
Speaker 1: right hand drives into Chile. So those that are listening,
18:26
Speaker 1: that might become a little bit of an issue. But
18:28
Speaker 1: the shipping thing is, it's just part of the deal.
18:30
Speaker 1: You get a ship from somewhere to get there because
18:32
Speaker 1: there's no way is very limited options and getting through
18:35
Speaker 1: the dairy and gap currently that will certainly change at
18:38
Speaker 1: least within our lifetime, but which I'm excited about at
18:40
Speaker 1: some point. And they did have a they actually had
18:42
Speaker 1: a ferry. They had a very many years ago, and
18:45
Speaker 1: then they just a few years ago they tried it
18:47
Speaker 1: again and I think it only made it a couple months,
18:50
Speaker 1: and then they only did motorcycles for a couple more
18:52
Speaker 1: months after that and then it was done.
18:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a great idea. We thought we were
18:55
Speaker 3: going to be able to get on the ferry.
18:56
Speaker 2: We almost did, and then yeah, it stopped running. Yes,
18:59
Speaker 2: right at that time, when.
19:00
Speaker 3: We were two or three weeks before we got there,
19:02
Speaker 3: it was like done.
19:05
Speaker 2: Yeah.
19:06
Speaker 3: But I think with the shipping, it was like, originally
19:07
Speaker 3: our plan was to drive to Panama and back because
19:10
Speaker 3: we thought the shipping logistics were going to be way
19:12
Speaker 3: too difficult.
19:12
Speaker 2: We thought it was going to cost way too much money.
19:14
Speaker 1: Yeah.
19:14
Speaker 3: But then once you start talking to more and more
19:16
Speaker 3: people who have done it and you gather the information,
19:18
Speaker 3: it becomes a lot less scary, a lot less overwhelming,
19:20
Speaker 3: and you just make a list of things you need
19:22
Speaker 3: to do and start checking them off, and all of
19:23
Speaker 3: a sudden, you're truxtunting another continent.
19:25
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. Rarely do you hear the stories
19:28
Speaker 1: of like where they don't work it out, like it
19:30
Speaker 1: just takes Sometimes it just takes time and just take
19:32
Speaker 1: some patience. And that's the biggest thing is patients. Those
19:35
Speaker 1: people are working hard every day too. This is their job.
19:37
Speaker 1: Some of them are in a position of authority that's
19:40
Speaker 1: very respected within their country, and as a result, they
19:43
Speaker 1: kind of are going to expect that from us as
19:46
Speaker 1: travelers as well. So we have to remember that in
19:48
Speaker 1: some countries, someone that's in the port authority would be
19:52
Speaker 1: viewed as someone with a lot of influence. We want
19:54
Speaker 1: to make sure that when we're interacting with those folks
19:57
Speaker 1: that were asking about their day, asking about their family,
20:00
Speaker 1: maybe you show up with a coffee or you do
20:02
Speaker 1: something that shows some deference to their position of authority
20:05
Speaker 1: and being respectful, having a smile on your face, not
20:09
Speaker 1: being entitled for something to work as efficiently as we
20:12
Speaker 1: may be used to in the country that we currently
20:14
Speaker 1: live in. So and even in any country there can
20:17
Speaker 1: be problems and loss efficiencies and all that, but recognizing
20:20
Speaker 1: that we don't have control over the situation, so to
20:23
Speaker 1: let it go a little bit, yeah, and just kind
20:25
Speaker 1: of soak up that whole experience. Isn't that why we
20:27
Speaker 1: did it to begin with? Yeah, we wanted to go
20:30
Speaker 1: experience something totally different and new and maybe difficult when
20:34
Speaker 1: it starts to happen, let's just remind ourselves that that's
20:36
Speaker 1: why we did it, that's why we left to begin with.
20:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, take those the North American goggles offer yeah short, well, yeah, total,
20:45
Speaker 2: totally yeah.
20:45
Speaker 3: And sometimes you just have to go and and trust
20:47
Speaker 3: what's happening, even though it doesn't feel comfortable all the time,
20:50
Speaker 3: such as when you're emailing somebody you've never talked to
20:52
Speaker 3: on the phone and they're telling you to go to
20:54
Speaker 3: a bank and here's a number, like a bank account
20:56
Speaker 3: number to deposit your twenty five hundred dollars for shipping
20:59
Speaker 3: in US funds.
21:00
Speaker 2: And you just go down to the bank in the
21:01
Speaker 2: middle of the city.
21:02
Speaker 3: In Panama and you're depositing these funds and crossing your
21:05
Speaker 3: fingers and hoping for the best.
21:06
Speaker 1: Totally, it's fun. It's so fun. It's just amazing. Let's
21:10
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the cultures of these countries
21:14
Speaker 1: in South America. We've not all three of us have
21:16
Speaker 1: not been to every country in South America, so we'll
21:19
Speaker 1: talk about the ones and they're also the most common
21:21
Speaker 1: ones that people travel through as well. I've spent a
21:23
Speaker 1: lot of time in Colombia. It's one of the countries
21:25
Speaker 1: in South America that I love the most, and a
21:27
Speaker 1: lot of that may be influenced by the fact that
21:29
Speaker 1: I have good friends there. So Micho Escobar with Elephant
21:33
Speaker 1: Moto Company. He's down there, and I've done a lot
21:35
Speaker 1: of traveling with him, and he's just someone that I adore.
21:38
Speaker 1: So because I skid the travel around his country with him,
21:42
Speaker 1: I've had these really wonderful experiences because of that, whereas
21:45
Speaker 1: I've traveled in a lot of other countries just on
21:47
Speaker 1: my own and I don't have that same connection to
21:49
Speaker 1: the place. In Columbia's defense, I think it is very special.
21:53
Speaker 1: So what'd you guys think of Columbia.
21:54
Speaker 2: We enjoyed it a lot. Yeah. One thing we noticed
21:57
Speaker 2: that was really interesting was the hace of speed each
22:00
Speaker 2: in the mountains versus coast, sure, which we I think
22:03
Speaker 2: we experienced that elsewhere, but it was really pronounced there.
22:06
Speaker 2: Like on the coast it was very very fast and
22:09
Speaker 2: like a lot of slaying, and then in the mountains
22:12
Speaker 2: it was a lot slower and we could understand it
22:15
Speaker 2: a little bit more and it was almost more like
22:18
Speaker 2: the Spanish in Mexico that we kind of knew, and
22:21
Speaker 2: certain words had changed when we came over, So we were
22:24
Speaker 2: calling our tent like a tienda throughout Central and then
22:28
Speaker 2: in South America, tienda was like a little shop and
22:31
Speaker 2: so everybody's like, what are you talking about a shop
22:33
Speaker 2: on your truck?
22:33
Speaker 1: I understand you selling it.
22:35
Speaker 2: Yeah.
22:35
Speaker 1: Yeah.
22:37
Speaker 2: So those language differences were really really interesting, and they
22:41
Speaker 2: did definitely continue to change as we moved south, which
22:44
Speaker 2: was interesting to try to like keep up with all.
22:46
Speaker 1: It changes a lot, It changes a lot. There are
22:49
Speaker 1: several routes in Columbia that I think are very much
22:52
Speaker 1: worth exploring. There's the Tatacoa Peninsula in the north, which
22:57
Speaker 1: I've not been to, but a lot of people have
22:58
Speaker 1: had great experiences in And one of the ones that
23:00
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed it was a trip that I did
23:02
Speaker 1: with Micho and Sinwey Xavier who's been on the podcast.
23:06
Speaker 1: But we went out towards the border of Venezuela. We
23:09
Speaker 1: went through Loshianos, which is their kind of their big grasslands,
23:12
Speaker 1: and it was just very remote. You could easily camp
23:15
Speaker 1: out there. It felt like a like you were driving
23:17
Speaker 1: through Africa. I didn't felt like you. I feel like
23:19
Speaker 1: you were riding through through a South American country. But
23:22
Speaker 1: then in the south you've got a Colombian death road.
23:25
Speaker 1: Did you guys do that?
23:26
Speaker 2: You didnot.
23:27
Speaker 1: My closest near death experience on the Columbian Death Road
23:30
Speaker 1: was actually another Overlander with Idaho plates that were come
23:33
Speaker 1: in the other direction. So I'm like working my way
23:36
Speaker 1: around this corner, which would mean like imminent death. And they,
23:39
Speaker 1: of course they're they're trying to go up the hill
23:41
Speaker 1: and maintain speed in this big, full sized forward truck
23:44
Speaker 1: with a camper on the top, and they come flying
23:46
Speaker 1: around the corner. I'm skidding to a stop, like in
23:48
Speaker 1: the loamy soil at the edge. His eyes are as
23:51
Speaker 1: big around as saucers. And then and then he hears
23:54
Speaker 1: me say whoa, whoa, whoa, and he's like what And
23:57
Speaker 1: I said, I said, you almost ran me off the road,
23:59
Speaker 1: like like an English and he's like, oh man, I'm
24:01
Speaker 1: so sorry. So it's like these two Americans like trying
24:07
Speaker 1: not to kill each other on the Colombia. So it
24:10
Speaker 1: was fantastic. And then there's a oh, maybe I said
24:12
Speaker 1: the peninsula wrong. It's did I say that? He did?
24:17
Speaker 1: Yah Lahwahita peninsula. So the Tatakoa is a desert in
24:23
Speaker 1: the south, and that is it's like Arizona. It's amazing
24:27
Speaker 1: and it's very fun to ride in. It's very fun
24:29
Speaker 1: to drive in. Did you guys go there, he did.
24:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, the desert we loved el Kakui.
24:34
Speaker 1: Yeah.
24:35
Speaker 2: Okui National Park was oh man, it was beautiful.
24:38
Speaker 3: It reminded me of some of the hikes that we
24:40
Speaker 3: do in the Rockies, except that we were the only
24:42
Speaker 3: ones on the trail for hours, seven eight nine hour hikes.
24:46
Speaker 2: Interesting storms, I think we were. Yeah, and high elevation.
24:50
Speaker 2: We felt elevation for sure.
24:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like the Andes like splits in that area.
24:55
Speaker 1: Another thing that I noticed about Columbia because when I travel,
24:58
Speaker 1: I really do enjoy the cities. The cities were awesome
25:01
Speaker 1: in their own way. It felt very safe to me. Again,
25:04
Speaker 1: you talked about women and children out and about earlier, Richard,
25:08
Speaker 1: and you could be two o'clock in the morning and
25:10
Speaker 1: there's kids, you know, eating corn on the cop two
25:13
Speaker 1: in the morning. One in the morning, there's just families
25:15
Speaker 1: out in about and people are jogging through the parks.
25:18
Speaker 1: This was Bogatah. I experienced the same thing in Meta Yen.
25:21
Speaker 1: I've spent time in Karta Hana, but I was actually
25:23
Speaker 1: a little bit out of Carta Hana with some folks
25:26
Speaker 1: that I knew up there. But just a really special spot.
25:28
Speaker 1: So yeah, very cool, the cities are great.
25:30
Speaker 3: Yes, I think the street food in Colombia was it
25:33
Speaker 3: was really good.
25:34
Speaker 2: And the music and I just remember walking around at night,
25:38
Speaker 2: like you were saying, the night life there's really vibrant
25:41
Speaker 2: and totally was that movie Romancing the Stone really like
25:44
Speaker 2: saw this one area. I think that they filmed in
25:47
Speaker 2: Kartagena or a couple different areas on the water that
25:50
Speaker 2: were in that movie with Michael Douglas and I can't
25:54
Speaker 2: remember the actress's name anyways, but yeah, it was really
25:57
Speaker 2: really hot there, like really really really probably the hottest
25:59
Speaker 2: part our trip.
26:00
Speaker 3: I think it was forty five degrees celsius when we
26:02
Speaker 3: were there.
26:02
Speaker 1: That's all.
26:03
Speaker 3: It's really that's perfect for us in a truck with
26:06
Speaker 3: no air conditioning.
26:08
Speaker 1: But that's another thing that's so great about the Colombian cities.
26:10
Speaker 1: They build them a little higher up in elevation, so
26:13
Speaker 1: Bogata just has great weather. It's it can rain there,
26:16
Speaker 1: for sure, but for the most part, every day is
26:18
Speaker 1: very comfortable. And it's a motorcycle city. I mean there's
26:21
Speaker 1: people ride motorcycles, locals ride motorcycles, and it's just it's
26:25
Speaker 1: a fairly easy place to ride a bike around, which
26:27
Speaker 1: I thought was really great too. You can have a
26:29
Speaker 1: great hotel, you can go to a great meal if
26:32
Speaker 1: you want, fantastic restaurants. Columbia, I know, is not on
26:35
Speaker 1: a lot of people's lists, but it is nothing like
26:38
Speaker 1: you think about Columbia from the eighties. This is a vibrant,
26:41
Speaker 1: very safe, very progressive, very cool place in the world
26:45
Speaker 1: in my mind.
26:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. It was really funny when we were
26:48
Speaker 2: going there and my dad kept being like, are you
26:50
Speaker 2: going to Columbia? Are you sure you're going to Columbia?
26:53
Speaker 2: And I'm like, I don't understand why this is a problem,
26:56
Speaker 2: Like it seems completely fine. And then we watched Narco's
26:59
Speaker 2: I think, you know when it came out, and I'm like, oh,
27:01
Speaker 2: I see why he was concerned. He lived through all.
27:05
Speaker 3: That time period, where as we were going in with
27:07
Speaker 3: no preconsumation whatsoever.
27:09
Speaker 1: Well, and I think it was not all that long
27:10
Speaker 1: ago that they finally rounded up all of escobars, Like
27:13
Speaker 1: I had a bunch of like African animals that were
27:16
Speaker 1: running around, like hippopotamus in the river and stuff. They
27:19
Speaker 1: finally found they finally rounded them all up.
27:22
Speaker 3: You can still go to his old property, I think, Yeah,
27:24
Speaker 3: I regret not doing that after learning about it a
27:27
Speaker 3: year after we had been there.
27:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Colombia is very special and it's also quite
27:32
Speaker 1: easy to just have a fly in drive or fly
27:35
Speaker 1: and riot experience there. Adventure motorcyclists been doing it for
27:38
Speaker 1: a long time, and you can go in and you
27:40
Speaker 1: can rent a Fortuner or a high Lux or all
27:42
Speaker 1: these cool vehicles we've always wanted to have. You can
27:45
Speaker 1: rent those things in Colombia and go to have your
27:47
Speaker 1: own experience.
27:48
Speaker 3: And we spent all we spent a month there and
27:50
Speaker 3: it didn't feel like we were rushed. I think it
27:52
Speaker 3: was a good amount of time. So you had if
27:54
Speaker 3: you had two, three four weeks to go explore.
27:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can see a lot of the country, Yeah,
27:58
Speaker 1: no doubt. Yeah, it's very cool. Spot. Just to the
28:00
Speaker 1: east of there as Venezuela, which I had planned to
28:03
Speaker 1: go into, but the borders were all shut and they
28:06
Speaker 1: were only doing limited humanitarian aid and other things across
28:09
Speaker 1: the Colombian border into Venezuela. So Venezuela currently is a
28:13
Speaker 1: little more difficult to travel into, and I've tried a
28:16
Speaker 1: few times to go there. The first time they denied
28:18
Speaker 1: my visa because I was prior military, and then the
28:21
Speaker 1: second time the borders were closed. So I've made some
28:23
Speaker 1: attempts and I would love to go there because it
28:26
Speaker 1: is very much an overlanding culture there. They loved their
28:28
Speaker 1: vehicles and they loved to camp, and they love to
28:31
Speaker 1: go explore in the jungles and in their grasslands and
28:34
Speaker 1: everything like that, and they're just we all know so
28:36
Speaker 1: many wonderful Venezuelan so that are now travelers or have
28:40
Speaker 1: left the country, and they're just beautiful people. So hopefully
28:44
Speaker 1: someday we'll all be able to talk about that.
28:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I felt like we got a little taste
28:48
Speaker 3: of Venezuela when we were in Panama because we spent
28:51
Speaker 3: days a week with a huge, huge group of Venezuelans
28:55
Speaker 3: that were that took us in like family, brought us
28:57
Speaker 3: to the Panama Canal.
28:58
Speaker 1: We worked on a truck.
28:59
Speaker 3: We had to go to a couple a couple of
29:00
Speaker 3: things to the truck and went over to their place
29:02
Speaker 3: for it was a birthday dinner of some sort, I
29:04
Speaker 3: don't know. They just invited us in and we had.
29:06
Speaker 2: A really good time. Yeah. Lots and lots of Venezuelas
29:09
Speaker 2: in Panama for sure.
29:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's just a really important reminder for us
29:13
Speaker 1: and for those that are listening that the people of
29:15
Speaker 1: a country are so different than the bureaucracy or the
29:19
Speaker 1: people that are in charge. People are generally good and
29:21
Speaker 1: governments are generally in some degree of screwed up. So
29:25
Speaker 1: that's fair and that's universal. So then if we go
29:29
Speaker 1: a little south from there, we go into Ecuador, would
29:32
Speaker 1: you guys think of Ecuador? Be really little surprise for
29:35
Speaker 1: me too.
29:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, the border crossing was so easy we didn't even
29:38
Speaker 2: realize that we had completed it. And then the roads
29:41
Speaker 2: were paved perfectly because I guess they have the Chinese
29:45
Speaker 2: money coming in for the roads there, so they were
29:48
Speaker 2: all like pristine. And I remember one of the first
29:50
Speaker 2: drives we did coming into it was Fincas summer wind
29:53
Speaker 2: in whatever was that town, I can't remember, Ibarka, Ibarra, Ibarra. Anyway,
29:58
Speaker 2: there were like keen plants all along the road and
30:02
Speaker 2: all the flowers flowery, blueing and it was really beautiful.
30:05
Speaker 3: And a motorcycle track across from the campground as well.
30:09
Speaker 1: That year. What time of year were you in Ecuador?
30:11
Speaker 2: Do you remember you were there in twenty fifteen? Did June.
30:16
Speaker 2: I think so something like that.
30:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, so your guys' trip was literally right between I
30:20
Speaker 1: got done in twenty fourteen with Ushwaya and then I
30:23
Speaker 1: went back there in twenty sixteen, so you guys were
30:25
Speaker 1: literally there right between me. But yeah, the Ecuador experience
30:28
Speaker 1: was total surprise.
30:29
Speaker 3: What were your favorite part and what surprised you?
30:31
Speaker 1: Well, there was a couple of things that surprised me.
30:35
Speaker 1: It's very easy to be a tourist there. They actually
30:38
Speaker 1: have quite a bit of tourism infrastructure, and they have
30:40
Speaker 1: a lot to see. For example, you know, if you
30:43
Speaker 1: want to go have a coffee experience, there are places
30:46
Speaker 1: where you can go and see the whole process of
30:48
Speaker 1: how they make coffee and how they picked the beans,
30:50
Speaker 1: and like I went to an organic coffee farm where
30:53
Speaker 1: it's fair trade and the people are paid a living
30:56
Speaker 1: wage and all of those other things. It was elevated
30:58
Speaker 1: up on this on this ridge line, just like sipping
31:01
Speaker 1: a cappuccino that was made with the beans that were
31:05
Speaker 1: growing right down below me. That was a very special experience.
31:08
Speaker 1: There's a fairly rich adventure motorcycle culture there as well.
31:13
Speaker 1: We were able to when I was there with Expedition
31:15
Speaker 1: sixty five. We were able to interact with a bunch
31:17
Speaker 1: of the locals and go and see their country and
31:21
Speaker 1: their overland routes that they take between these colonial villages
31:25
Speaker 1: and some rough and rugged tracks which were really fun.
31:29
Speaker 1: And then of course it uses the dollar, which is
31:31
Speaker 1: which makes it very easy to kind of understand how
31:34
Speaker 1: what things cost. And yeah, it's just very easy. It
31:38
Speaker 1: was the easiest place for me to ride around solo
31:41
Speaker 1: because I went down through Ecuador with the group and
31:44
Speaker 1: then I left them in Peru and rode back over
31:47
Speaker 1: some time by myself, so I was just all alone
31:50
Speaker 1: and it was a very easy, easy place to do that,
31:52
Speaker 1: super friendly people, very easy to travel in, so national.
31:57
Speaker 3: Parks stay from the seven or fourteen days.
32:00
Speaker 2: All the volcanoes were probably highlights. Some of the highlights
32:04
Speaker 2: of our total trip actually Cotopaxi and Chimborazo.
32:08
Speaker 3: Trying to drive around Cotopaxi, getting stuck in erupting, having
32:12
Speaker 3: to get out of there really quick.
32:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, Cotopaxi, there's great overland routes around there. I mean,
32:16
Speaker 1: I've got photos of adventure motorcycles with Cotopaxi in the
32:19
Speaker 1: background and it's all snow capped and stunning, stunning mountain.
32:23
Speaker 3: Jeez, it's not as easy to drive around as you
32:25
Speaker 3: may may have been told.
32:26
Speaker 2: But I didn't drive.
32:28
Speaker 1: I didn't drive around it, didn't drive around it. We drove.
32:32
Speaker 1: We drove on the what would be the west side
32:35
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, it's pretty yeah, And it was all
32:37
Speaker 1: back roads. It was all two tracks, cheap tracks and
32:40
Speaker 1: stuff like that, but it was it was totally doable.
32:43
Speaker 1: We didn't try to ride around it.
32:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, some fellow overlander told us that we could drive
32:48
Speaker 2: around it, which I believe they actually mixed it up
32:50
Speaker 2: with the other volcano.
32:51
Speaker 1: Oh, I got it.
32:52
Speaker 2: And we had quite an interesting experience trying to drive
32:56
Speaker 2: around and then getting locked out. Sure, because there was
33:00
Speaker 2: a gate at the border of the national park. So
33:02
Speaker 2: we went out and then we were in who knows where,
33:05
Speaker 2: and then we realized there's no road to drive around
33:07
Speaker 2: the volcanos. We started coming back and the gate was
33:09
Speaker 2: completely locked. Oh no, And we couldn't get around it
33:13
Speaker 2: at all because there was like basically dirt on either side,
33:17
Speaker 2: so we couldn't even scramble over it. And so we
33:19
Speaker 2: just like hung out there until a taxi came eventually
33:22
Speaker 2: a few hours later, and felt like we were.
33:24
Speaker 3: It felt like we were in the absolute middle of nowhere,
33:26
Speaker 3: especially when you're locked out and then all of a sudden,
33:28
Speaker 3: dude in a taxi rolls up with the key and
33:30
Speaker 3: you're in low range ups locked. Yeah, we're getting you,
33:33
Speaker 3: get your inReach. He had to ping in every five minutes.
33:36
Speaker 3: And then here comes a taxi driver.
33:38
Speaker 2: He's got a two wheel drive, his zoozoo track.
33:40
Speaker 1: Totally, that's so good. I love those I love those
33:44
Speaker 1: interactions because it just like brings you back. It's like
33:47
Speaker 1: it's like, no, I'm not actually Indiana Jones today, I'm
33:49
Speaker 1: just like hanging out with the taxi driver exactly.
33:52
Speaker 2: But we're like, where is he going? Because there was
33:54
Speaker 2: like nothing out there. I don't know what he was
33:55
Speaker 2: doing pretty great, but he wouldn't leave us.
33:57
Speaker 3: Afterwards, we went all the way back to the lodge,
33:59
Speaker 3: and every time we was getting a little too far away,
34:01
Speaker 3: he would slow down because he did not trust that
34:03
Speaker 3: we knew where we're going.
34:05
Speaker 1: But how sweet is that?
34:06
Speaker 2: Exactly?
34:07
Speaker 1: So, Yeah, Ecuador is lovely. That's a great way to
34:10
Speaker 1: describe it. And there's a lot to see, a lot
34:13
Speaker 1: of national parks. They've been very thoughtful about how they've
34:16
Speaker 1: developed their country for tourism and industry and agriculture. And
34:20
Speaker 1: it's really a special spot, total surprise for me.
34:23
Speaker 3: Lots of history in the cities keto, right yep, Yeah,
34:27
Speaker 3: so it just go do it. Ice cream is really
34:30
Speaker 3: good there, it is.
34:31
Speaker 1: They're totally into the ice cream. Yeah, and you can
34:33
Speaker 1: get it at every gas station, which is a problem.
34:37
Speaker 1: I haven't tried this version of the Magna or whatever
34:40
Speaker 1: it is. This is chocolate with double chocolate chocolate crunch
34:47
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Speaker 1: the rugged Australian outback and specifically designed for back country
36:00
Speaker 1: use where efficiency, durability and reliability are key to having
36:04
Speaker 1: an enjoyable and safe overland journey. Probably one of my
36:08
Speaker 1: most fun experiences in Ecuador is this Adventure motorcycling group.
36:12
Speaker 1: They got us access to a racetrack, So here we are.
36:16
Speaker 1: We've got all these heavily loaded adventure bikes with knobby
36:18
Speaker 1: tires and everything. They just unleashed us on this road course.
36:22
Speaker 1: So yeah, maybe I can get the clip to Paula
36:25
Speaker 1: of me riding around that thing banging off the rev
36:28
Speaker 1: limit or on an adventure. Mic, what am I doing?
36:33
Speaker 1: Why am I but I want to.
36:34
Speaker 2: Go faster mechanical racetrack.
36:37
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, Well, oh cool out of Columbia and or
36:42
Speaker 1: excuse me, out of Ecuador and into Peru.
36:45
Speaker 2: Now our favorites.
36:46
Speaker 1: Now Peru is interesting on the on the border side
36:49
Speaker 1: of things, so this is and they may have improved
36:51
Speaker 1: this slightly, but they're pretty locked down around your documentation.
36:55
Speaker 1: So I ran into trouble twice. So from the south
36:58
Speaker 1: coming north with the E seven trucks. They were all
37:03
Speaker 1: registered to this entity of Expedition seven out of New Zealand,
37:07
Speaker 1: of all places. Yeah, they wanted to have nothing to
37:09
Speaker 1: do with that because the names didn't mattch It didn't
37:11
Speaker 1: matter that we had articles of incorporation, all those things
37:14
Speaker 1: that worked in every other country that we had traveled
37:17
Speaker 1: to except for that one. So we actually had to,
37:20
Speaker 1: through a lot of effort, get the vehicles registered in
37:22
Speaker 1: the United States temporarily to be able to get through
37:26
Speaker 1: the border. We were parked there for a very long time.
37:29
Speaker 1: I've always on bigger trips, I've always brought a printer,
37:32
Speaker 1: which seems excessive, and I hadn't needed it, but that
37:35
Speaker 1: day we needed that printer. You can copy things, you
37:39
Speaker 1: can print things off that come in. You can make
37:41
Speaker 1: it work. They were very good about it. They were
37:43
Speaker 1: not They had their marching orders. I have to say
37:46
Speaker 1: that that's very refreshing. And I didn't suggest that there
37:49
Speaker 1: was some way that we could resolve the problem. Normally
37:53
Speaker 1: they will tell you that there's an option to resolve
37:55
Speaker 1: the problem. They never suggested that. But they were also
37:58
Speaker 1: kind and understanding, and they allowed us to work through
38:01
Speaker 1: the process of getting the documentation that they need that
38:03
Speaker 1: checked off their boxes. Now coming from the North on
38:06
Speaker 1: a motorcycle that I didn't own that I was renting.
38:09
Speaker 1: Despite all the letters of authorization and all of those
38:12
Speaker 1: other things, the only thing that worked was I had
38:15
Speaker 1: an issue of Overland Journal, and things escalated a little
38:18
Speaker 1: bit where I was asking for someone with a little
38:20
Speaker 1: bit more authority just to have a chat with and
38:22
Speaker 1: so the kind of the comandante of the border crossing,
38:26
Speaker 1: and I just I told him how much I love
38:28
Speaker 1: his country. I've been there before, and I'm so excited
38:31
Speaker 1: to go back, and I'm so excited to document my
38:34
Speaker 1: experience of his country in my magazine. And I showed
38:37
Speaker 1: him Overland journal and I flipped through the pages. I
38:39
Speaker 1: showed him my name on the masthead and he says,
38:41
Speaker 1: no problem. So that is an example of you know,
38:47
Speaker 1: maybe some privilege that I had that I was aware
38:50
Speaker 1: of in the time, but maybe I can help others with.
38:52
Speaker 1: When you go there, make sure that the documentation that
38:55
Speaker 1: you have matches your passport, because they're going to want
38:58
Speaker 1: to make sure that it's your vehicle. You know, they're
38:59
Speaker 1: not open to solving the problem for you. You've got to
39:02
Speaker 1: solve it on your own, So make sure that you
39:04
Speaker 1: go into the country. I mean, at the end of
39:06
Speaker 1: the day, he understood, like, yeah, this is a rental vehicle.
39:08
Speaker 1: I'm a tourist. I'm trying to I'm a journalist. I'm
39:10
Speaker 1: trying to. All of the pieces made sense to the
39:12
Speaker 1: guy in charge who could stamp off on it, and
39:14
Speaker 1: he was so excited for me to go to his country.
39:16
Speaker 1: But not everybody will have that option. So it's just
39:18
Speaker 1: making sure you show up with the right documentation. Yeah.
39:21
Speaker 3: Sure, that's happened at a few different border crossings where
39:23
Speaker 3: we haven't like if we don't have it done correctly
39:25
Speaker 3: in the beginning, if you're patient, yeah, eventually you can
39:28
Speaker 3: make it happen, or maybe you go to a different
39:30
Speaker 3: border crossing and you find a different border guard who
39:32
Speaker 3: may have a little bit more sympathy for you and
39:34
Speaker 3: as willing to take the time and kind of make
39:36
Speaker 3: it happen for you.
39:37
Speaker 1: So, yeah, and just being flexible and not getting frustrated,
39:41
Speaker 1: because if you think about it from their perspective, if
39:43
Speaker 1: they see someone getting agitated and frustrated, how many times
39:46
Speaker 1: do they see that from someone who's up to no good?
39:48
Speaker 1: Like why are you upset? Why are you now all
39:50
Speaker 1: of a sudden frustrated with me? What are you up to?
39:53
Speaker 1: What are you trying to do here? Whereas if you're
39:55
Speaker 1: a happy you should be a happy tourist. You're getting
39:57
Speaker 1: to be on vacation, Yeah, you know, and be and
40:00
Speaker 1: smile and tell them that you're so grateful for the
40:03
Speaker 1: opportunity to see their country, which we are, and a
40:05
Speaker 1: lot of times that changes the tone, yeah, a little bit.
40:08
Speaker 3: And we always went really as early as possible in
40:10
Speaker 3: the day, mostly just because it alleviated any stress from us.
40:14
Speaker 3: Things went sideways. You had all day to figure it out, true,
40:16
Speaker 3: as opposed to five minutes before the border close and.
40:19
Speaker 2: You're trying not to drive at night, You're like reducing
40:22
Speaker 2: the chances of having to drive at night.
40:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's a factor pretty much anywhere in the
40:26
Speaker 1: world unless you're in a super developed country. Yeah, And
40:30
Speaker 1: any trouble I've ever had has happened at night on
40:32
Speaker 1: my travels for sure. Same. Yeah. In fact, that was
40:34
Speaker 1: another thing that happened in Ecuador was tacoing a GS
40:38
Speaker 1: twelve hundred wheel going into an open manhole cover like
40:41
Speaker 1: the how frightening is Oh, but the car in front
40:43
Speaker 1: of me goes over it and then it's an open
40:44
Speaker 1: hole and I had a moment to just kind of
40:46
Speaker 1: blip the throttle to take away some of the impact.
40:48
Speaker 1: But you know, pinch flat flat on the side of
40:50
Speaker 1: the road. It takes a lot of work to get
40:52
Speaker 1: a wheel like that fixed. You got to go to
40:53
Speaker 1: the right guy who knows how to heat them up
40:56
Speaker 1: and reshape them. And it worked. But it took a
40:58
Speaker 1: whole day to get it fixed.
41:00
Speaker 3: And only the major flat we had was I can't
41:03
Speaker 3: remember where we were actually got them all long, but
41:05
Speaker 3: we had this like it was a bolt that was
41:07
Speaker 3: a half inch diameter six inches long and it was
41:09
Speaker 3: in one of the transitions to a bridge, rove over it.
41:12
Speaker 3: The tire was flat. By the time we got to
41:13
Speaker 3: the other side of the bridge. It was middle of
41:14
Speaker 3: the day but still super busy on either side of
41:17
Speaker 3: the road that was very, very narrow, and I just
41:19
Speaker 3: jammed like seven or eight tire plugs in it and
41:21
Speaker 3: pumped it back up. But if that wasn't night, it's
41:23
Speaker 3: a whole other, give totally story.
41:25
Speaker 1: It really is. And that's an important thing to around tires.
41:28
Speaker 1: South America is a big place. It's easy to wear
41:30
Speaker 1: out a set of tires if you're traveling for long
41:33
Speaker 1: periods of time down there and you're really exploring the continent,
41:35
Speaker 1: or you started in Canada and by the time you
41:38
Speaker 1: get down there, you're through a set of tires. So
41:40
Speaker 1: if you think you need to change your tires, get
41:42
Speaker 1: them changed sooner than later. There actually is pretty good
41:45
Speaker 1: infrastructure of aftermarket performance off road tires in Columbia. You
41:50
Speaker 1: can certainly find them there. In some of the really
41:52
Speaker 1: big cities like Santiago, winness areas and stuff, you can
41:55
Speaker 1: find tires like that. So if you're going into that
41:57
Speaker 1: place and you're thinking you might want to change your tires,
41:59
Speaker 1: do it. Sooner than later, because you're not going to
42:01
Speaker 1: find that oversize, that tall, skinny mud tire somewhere. You're
42:05
Speaker 1: just not going to find it.
42:06
Speaker 3: And I think south of Santiago it gets harder and
42:08
Speaker 3: harder it does. So, yeah, we swapped tires in Santiago.
42:10
Speaker 3: I think another couple we were traveling traveling with did
42:12
Speaker 3: the same thing because they had I think they had
42:14
Speaker 3: thirty sevens on their van on thirty five to thirty
42:16
Speaker 3: sevens and that was you know, it's kind of the
42:19
Speaker 3: last chance you get to put new tires on the truck.
42:21
Speaker 1: And Santiago's like it's super modern, super safe, all the things, right,
42:27
Speaker 1: So yeah, very cool. All right, So in Peru there
42:31
Speaker 1: is a lot of antiquity to see as well. Did
42:33
Speaker 1: you guys make it Tamachu peach you and other places.
42:35
Speaker 3: Like yeah, don't forget to bring your passport or they
42:37
Speaker 3: won't let you in.
42:38
Speaker 1: That's right, they check your passport again when you go
42:40
Speaker 1: into the mountain. Yeah.
42:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because we walked.
42:43
Speaker 1: We did the trail, all the trail. Yeah, perfect, that's
42:45
Speaker 1: got to be great.
42:47
Speaker 2: That was perfect.
42:47
Speaker 3: We left the passports in a safe place in the truck,
42:50
Speaker 3: locked up, and then also my driver's Like, since I
42:53
Speaker 3: think I don't, can't.
42:54
Speaker 2: We let My driver's license was in the truck, but
42:56
Speaker 2: Richard had his driver's license.
42:58
Speaker 3: So we I us had our past track all the
43:00
Speaker 3: way into Aguas Calientes and we take the bus all
43:03
Speaker 3: the way up to to match you peach you, and
43:05
Speaker 3: we're in the lineup and asked for the passport, like.
43:09
Speaker 2: I don't know why. We didn't know, but because.
43:11
Speaker 3: We're idiots, I don't even know why we left our
43:12
Speaker 3: passports in the first place.
43:14
Speaker 2: We always always keep your passport on that whole trip.
43:18
Speaker 2: We were so dumb. We did lots of dumb things,
43:21
Speaker 2: learned a lot. Yeah, but I think that was the
43:23
Speaker 2: only time that I lost, almost lost my cool. Was
43:26
Speaker 2: they were just like, no, and we had a ticket.
43:29
Speaker 2: We had it all printed out. It had all our
43:30
Speaker 2: personal information. At least one of us had our driver's
43:33
Speaker 2: license with our name and it wasn't their fault. But
43:35
Speaker 2: I was just like, dude, we what are we going
43:37
Speaker 2: to do now? And anyway, we got in. We weren't rude,
43:40
Speaker 2: we were nice, but it was still like Canadian losing cool.
43:45
Speaker 1: You stopped smiling.
43:48
Speaker 2: I said sorry twice as much.
43:51
Speaker 1: They're like Oh wow, the Canadians just still smiling. Please
43:55
Speaker 1: enter enter.
43:58
Speaker 2: I actually thought that there were really great. I love
44:02
Speaker 2: but I to be honest, I really love the Sacred
44:05
Speaker 2: Valley more.
44:06
Speaker 1: I didn't go there.
44:07
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's less busy, and I just felt like,
44:10
Speaker 2: I don't know, you feel something a little different.
44:12
Speaker 1: There and you're wonderful.
44:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, a wide variety of different ruins to see and
44:16
Speaker 3: you just take your time and they're very few tourists
44:18
Speaker 3: or it was fantastic.
44:19
Speaker 1: Yeah. Still, the stone work and the masonry is just
44:23
Speaker 1: like you hear about it when you're a kid and
44:25
Speaker 1: you study history and they talk about how precise the
44:28
Speaker 1: stones are and everything, and you're like, when you see
44:29
Speaker 1: it in person, it's unbelievable. Yeah, yep, I can't get
44:33
Speaker 1: someone to do tile in my house that good.
44:36
Speaker 2: Did you take the train there or how did you
44:38
Speaker 2: get I took the train, Yeah, that's what we should
44:40
Speaker 2: have done. But I really recommend people do a cool experience.
44:42
Speaker 1: Well, and if you're if you're one that's prone to
44:45
Speaker 1: motion sickness, make sure you do what all the things
44:48
Speaker 1: in premoration for the train, because it's it's like crossing
44:51
Speaker 1: the Pacific Ocean. It just goes rocks from left to
44:53
Speaker 1: right for ever three or four hours. It just rocks
44:56
Speaker 1: back and forth. Now, so if you're prone to emotions,
45:00
Speaker 1: which some people in the group were, yeah, be aware
45:03
Speaker 1: of that. But it's very cool, super cool experience and yeah,
45:06
Speaker 1: really really wonderful and a neat little town and all
45:09
Speaker 1: of that.
45:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, did you take it from Cusco or did you
45:11
Speaker 2: take it? Yeah? Thats also really cool town.
45:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, I really liked Cusco. It's just some of those
45:17
Speaker 1: streets and just walking around there with a camera. For
45:20
Speaker 1: those that are listening, make sure you always ask permission
45:22
Speaker 1: before you take someone's photograph anywhere in the world. I mean,
45:24
Speaker 1: imagine if you were sitting at breakfast at Wildflower and
45:27
Speaker 1: someone just came up to your table I started taking
45:30
Speaker 1: pictures of you and your family, Like how you would
45:32
Speaker 1: feel You'd be like, excuse me. They feel exactly the
45:35
Speaker 1: same way. Make sure when you take photos of others
45:37
Speaker 1: when we're traveling that we ask permission. And I've never
45:40
Speaker 1: had a situation where they weren't generous with that. And
45:43
Speaker 1: sometimes they may ask for a little bit of money,
45:46
Speaker 1: and that's up to you to choose if you want
45:47
Speaker 1: to engage in that commerce. With them or not. Yeah,
45:50
Speaker 1: it's just some really beautiful photos of that area just stunning.
45:54
Speaker 3: I found that lately if I asked for ask to
45:56
Speaker 3: take a photo, most of the time the response is
45:58
Speaker 3: that they want to take a pot with me by
46:01
Speaker 3: a selfie.
46:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, always a selfie.
46:03
Speaker 1: Which is awesome.
46:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love it.
46:05
Speaker 1: What a trade of experiences. They get to meet someone
46:07
Speaker 1: unique and you get to capture a memory of someone
46:10
Speaker 1: very unique. The andies through Peru are just really really special.
46:14
Speaker 1: There are some great overland routes just even the paved
46:17
Speaker 1: roads are In fact, it's good that they're paved because
46:20
Speaker 1: it's so beautiful that you're not really paying attention. Yeah,
46:23
Speaker 1: so it's kind of nice that you're on a paved road.
46:25
Speaker 2: Yeah. We loved just outside of ze Warez and that area.
46:31
Speaker 2: There are some really beautiful hikes up there, like Luna
46:33
Speaker 2: sixty nine was one that we loved, and we did
46:36
Speaker 2: the Santa Cruz Trek, which was like three days and
46:39
Speaker 2: I could have stayed there and hiked forever to chure
46:42
Speaker 2: Up as Well'gna Trurope. Yeah. That area, like I would
46:45
Speaker 2: definitely go back for sure, is just mind blowing. Like
46:48
Speaker 2: you hurt your neck, you're looking up the mountains are
46:51
Speaker 2: so high.
46:51
Speaker 1: And then if you go over the Andes, which I
46:54
Speaker 1: was able to do into, basically you're going, you know,
46:57
Speaker 1: into the jungles of Peru, so you're you're starting to
47:01
Speaker 1: get into that huge jungle region of the Amazon that
47:04
Speaker 1: borders Brazil. And that's also extremely interesting. It just changes
47:08
Speaker 1: from these high desert tea mountains dried mountains, and then
47:12
Speaker 1: now you're in this this rain choked area and it's
47:15
Speaker 1: just really incredible nice.
47:16
Speaker 2: We did not make it over there.
47:17
Speaker 1: It was so different though. It was so different culturally,
47:20
Speaker 1: and it's just a different place and it has a
47:22
Speaker 1: different vibe, a little bit kind of like outposty kind
47:25
Speaker 1: of different spot. People are to look at you a
47:27
Speaker 1: little bit different when you're when you're over there, like
47:30
Speaker 1: why are you here? So it's like you go into
47:32
Speaker 1: a small town in Montana, they look at you the
47:34
Speaker 1: same way. Arizona plates, uburten plates, No good, it's the
47:40
Speaker 1: same thing. But it's just gorgeous, isn't.
47:43
Speaker 2: It incredible too. You can go into the jungle there,
47:45
Speaker 2: or you can be in the Andes, or you can
47:46
Speaker 2: come down towards the water and be in a like
47:48
Speaker 2: more desert kind of environment, Like it's got so much
47:52
Speaker 2: variety there, it really does.
47:54
Speaker 1: I found that Lima was a great city too, if
47:57
Speaker 1: you like food. It's kind of become a foodie town,
48:00
Speaker 1: so great restaurants, and they care about cuisine there and
48:03
Speaker 1: they've they've done a lot of maybe consider a piasco
48:05
Speaker 1: sour for those that are take yeah in libations, so
48:09
Speaker 1: the pisco sours like the South American margarita.
48:12
Speaker 2: Yes, I didn't think.
48:14
Speaker 3: That we spent that much time in Lima, but I
48:16
Speaker 3: do remember walking by a coffee shop and people saying
48:19
Speaker 3: hello to me and using my name, so I must
48:20
Speaker 3: have been.
48:21
Speaker 2: There a lot.
48:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, but how great is that to dig into the locals?
48:26
Speaker 3: And I missed that we weren't rock climbing for the
48:28
Speaker 3: first time there, like on the indoor rock climbing app
48:31
Speaker 3: Oh so fun.
48:32
Speaker 2: I was going to say too. I don't know if
48:33
Speaker 2: you went to northern Peru in the like the mountainous side,
48:36
Speaker 2: because you can kind of cross to the beaches and
48:38
Speaker 2: they're surfing and then there's the mountain region. And we
48:41
Speaker 2: just loved it there. It was so interesting and there
48:44
Speaker 2: were hardly any tourists and it was so culturally rich
48:48
Speaker 2: and all these like old kind of archaeological sites and
48:52
Speaker 2: it was really like probably one of my favorite parts
48:55
Speaker 2: of the whole trip was that northern section.
48:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's what I did on the way down
49:00
Speaker 1: with the motorcycle was ducked into the mountains right away
49:03
Speaker 1: to get off of that kind of Pan American route.
49:06
Speaker 1: I remember I camped at fourteen thousand feet, so I
49:09
Speaker 1: had a terrible headache, and I was it was like
49:12
Speaker 1: warm down in the valley, but like it was so cold.
49:15
Speaker 1: I was the coldest I've ever been camping, Like concluding Antarctic,
49:19
Speaker 1: I was like because I was totally unprepared. I had
49:21
Speaker 1: a super lightweight sleeping bag, all lightweight gear because I
49:24
Speaker 1: was on a motorcycle, and I just remember like putting
49:26
Speaker 1: my motorcycle jacket over me and everything that I had
49:29
Speaker 1: on to try to somehow survive the night. But it
49:32
Speaker 1: was just a beautiful ride. The next morning, I just
49:35
Speaker 1: dropped down, kept dropping elevation and going through these little
49:37
Speaker 1: villages where they just didn't have tourists. I just found
49:40
Speaker 1: a road on the map and just took it all
49:42
Speaker 1: the way out towards the coast, and I remember I
49:45
Speaker 1: was talking to someone in Peru and I stopped at
49:47
Speaker 1: a coffee shop or a restaurant or whatever, telling them
49:49
Speaker 1: where I came from, and they're like, you know, that's
49:50
Speaker 1: where the Shining Path started. But I don't know. It's
49:54
Speaker 1: like they weren't expecting me. I guess. Yeah, it's pretty fun.
49:58
Speaker 1: Peru is really neat. And then of course you've got
50:00
Speaker 1: Nasca in the south.
50:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we did.
50:02
Speaker 1: Did you guys go up on a plane to see that?
50:04
Speaker 1: We climb up a ladder tower. I did the same
50:09
Speaker 1: with Kurt and all the and Greg and everybody from
50:11
Speaker 1: East seven. We climbed up the tower, more of a
50:14
Speaker 1: tower than a ladder, but I thought you could see.
50:16
Speaker 1: You could see a lot of the lines. It was
50:19
Speaker 1: fascinating to think about how they produced those so long
50:22
Speaker 1: ago and so so intricate, how they did that.
50:25
Speaker 3: I felt like every day there was something so special
50:27
Speaker 3: in Peru. Yes, and yeahs constantly mind blowing.
50:31
Speaker 2: It's fun.
50:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, Peru overall a lot of diversity in terrain and
50:37
Speaker 1: some very ancient cultures that are still in many ways intact.
50:41
Speaker 1: You guys probably felt like giants in certain places when
50:44
Speaker 1: you're walking on.
50:44
Speaker 2: The I am five eight.
50:47
Speaker 1: Well, but I mean, like some of the shortest people
50:49
Speaker 1: I've seen in my life were there. It's a combination
50:51
Speaker 1: of the altitude and all of those other things, and
50:53
Speaker 1: they it can be very very tiny people, which is
50:56
Speaker 1: such an interesting experience to come across.
50:58
Speaker 3: So I was thinking, even just as driving into Lima,
51:01
Speaker 3: discrepancy between the outskirts of Lima and downtown is crazy.
51:05
Speaker 3: Like all you have to do is get a few
51:06
Speaker 3: blocks from the water and all of a sudden there's
51:08
Speaker 3: a mall on the waterfront with a.
51:14
Speaker 2: The discrepancy between wealth, I guess there is very shocking.
51:19
Speaker 1: That seems to be fairly consistent in South America, with
51:21
Speaker 1: the exception of Chile. Chile's gotten a rock and GDP
51:25
Speaker 1: and a healthy middle class and everything. So they also
51:28
Speaker 1: have the lowest corruption rate in all of South America too,
51:30
Speaker 1: so it seems to be some correlation between equity and corruption.
51:34
Speaker 1: So all right, so then, yeah, I really like that area.
51:36
Speaker 1: And I did a bunch of dune driving just north
51:39
Speaker 1: of Nasca, huge dunes down there. Had a lot of
51:41
Speaker 1: fun with that pars it could have been, Yeah, I'll
51:44
Speaker 1: have to look on the map. Sometimes all these trips
51:46
Speaker 1: kind of together, but.
51:48
Speaker 3: I've said every single city wrong so far. I remember
51:52
Speaker 3: part of it exactly.
51:55
Speaker 1: Everybody forgive us, like our enthusiasm isn't damping, but maybe
52:00
Speaker 1: maybe memory is dampened a little bit. Those dunes were great.
52:04
Speaker 1: You can do that. You get a permit to go
52:05
Speaker 1: drive in the dunes in Peru and they're They're huge
52:08
Speaker 1: dunes and really really amazing. I wonder if they were
52:10
Speaker 1: used for maybe part of the Dakar route down there
52:12
Speaker 1: could have been I would think, so, yeah, very cool.
52:15
Speaker 1: And now did you guys go into Bolivia?
52:16
Speaker 3: Oh?
52:17
Speaker 2: Ye did?
52:17
Speaker 1: And now I haven't been there, so talk to us,
52:20
Speaker 1: talk to us about Bolivia.
52:21
Speaker 3: I think that the craziest drivers I've been involved with
52:26
Speaker 3: is in Lapause. Okay, Saudi Arabia's first, and then Lapause Bolivia,
52:30
Speaker 3: I think is it is a close second. I love
52:32
Speaker 3: Bolivia so small comparatively, I guess to a lot of
52:35
Speaker 3: the other countries in South America, but also so diverse.
52:39
Speaker 1: You know.
52:39
Speaker 2: We started off Copa Cabana, I think, so like the
52:42
Speaker 2: northern at the lake Lake Titty Kaka Yep.
52:45
Speaker 3: And then right after crossing acrossing the border, were immediately
52:48
Speaker 3: on some boat with like an eight horse outboard and
52:51
Speaker 3: by boat I mean a raft of sorts. Sure that
52:55
Speaker 3: we're throwing the truck on putting across the river. That
52:57
Speaker 3: was immediately another excited thing to do.
53:00
Speaker 1: So instagram worthy exactly.
53:04
Speaker 3: That was almost before Instagram started.
53:06
Speaker 1: That's how it started.
53:07
Speaker 2: Was that moment, that moment right there.
53:10
Speaker 3: And I don't know, I think that you've got the obviously,
53:13
Speaker 3: the thing that stands out in my mind is the
53:16
Speaker 3: Salarti Uni and then the lagoons were out from there
53:18
Speaker 3: into Chile as being it felt like that's what we
53:21
Speaker 3: were meant to do in South America. Correct at five
53:24
Speaker 3: hundred kilometer route, that's five or six days long, sure,
53:27
Speaker 3: And I don't know, it was pretty incredible. Any goosebumps
53:30
Speaker 3: thinking about it right now. You know, you got like
53:32
Speaker 3: these brightly colored lakes, orange blue, flamingos.
53:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty insane. It was definitely one of the highlights.
53:40
Speaker 2: And I think Sahama National Park was another really amazing
53:43
Speaker 2: experience too, with the volcanoes, you know, snow capped volcanoes
53:47
Speaker 2: and then hot springs and just driving around and feeling
53:51
Speaker 2: the kind of isolation of the natural world out there
53:54
Speaker 2: was pretty special. And we traveled with friends through Bolivia
53:57
Speaker 2: as well, two American couples actually, so yeah, that whole
54:01
Speaker 2: time is just pretty incredible.
54:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, and especially when you're talking about Shama National Park
54:05
Speaker 3: with snowcap peek in the background. We're in a hot
54:08
Speaker 3: tub with our friends and that's it, a natural hotspring,
54:10
Speaker 3: natural hot spring, nobody around and waking up with.
54:15
Speaker 2: I don't know if they were guanacos. You know, there's
54:17
Speaker 2: like sunrise and they're all surrounding your vehicle, like a
54:20
Speaker 2: big hurd of them, and you're like, where am I?
54:23
Speaker 1: So great?
54:24
Speaker 2: What is this life?
54:25
Speaker 1: It's wonderful.
54:26
Speaker 3: And also I think Bolivia was that was the only
54:28
Speaker 3: time we ever had real problem like vehicle problems with
54:31
Speaker 3: the people were with some electrical problems here and there,
54:34
Speaker 3: and then Intake boots split on a three liter V
54:36
Speaker 3: six and a four runner and a fuel pump was
54:39
Speaker 3: having some issues, and we're just out there. We're problem solving, troubleshooting,
54:43
Speaker 3: doing the best we can, making it work and getting
54:45
Speaker 3: back into a town.
54:46
Speaker 1: So fun though we needed to do that, but we.
54:48
Speaker 3: Were pretty we're all pretty confident with what we're doing
54:51
Speaker 3: and having a good time and relaxed and.
54:53
Speaker 2: It's pretty fun. I think the fuel is something important
54:55
Speaker 2: to talk about too, because legally they're not allowed to
54:59
Speaker 2: sell fuel to f there. I don't know if that's
55:01
Speaker 2: the case now I'm assuming it is, but you know,
55:03
Speaker 2: everything's changed so much in the world and in overland travel,
55:07
Speaker 2: so things are changing all the time. But when we
55:09
Speaker 2: were there, you can't just, like, as a foreigner, drive
55:13
Speaker 2: up to a fuel station and be like filler up,
55:15
Speaker 2: Like you're not allowed to do that, and so we
55:17
Speaker 2: had to be a bit creative in how we got fuel.
55:20
Speaker 2: We were told.
55:21
Speaker 3: I guess in the past, or prior to us being there,
55:24
Speaker 3: what people would do is they take a jerry can
55:25
Speaker 3: or two, walk into the gas station, get it filled up,
55:28
Speaker 3: and walk out their truck. But they also weren't doing
55:31
Speaker 3: that for us. So every time we had to put
55:33
Speaker 3: fuel in the truck, it was a little conversation with
55:35
Speaker 3: the gas station attendants. They said there were cameras people watching,
55:39
Speaker 3: so they couldn't fill up our truck. And then they
55:41
Speaker 3: would be whispers amongst I guess two or three of
55:43
Speaker 3: the gas station attendants, and then all of a sudden
55:46
Speaker 3: it be like a Nascar stop and they're like, come
55:48
Speaker 3: in now, drive in real quick, fill it up, exchange
55:51
Speaker 3: cash and get out of there. As if the cameras
55:54
Speaker 3: couldn't see us.
55:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, they would still do it.
55:56
Speaker 1: It's like an admission impossible movies like the camera angled
56:00
Speaker 1: just real quick, and I know this is when you
56:02
Speaker 1: got to do it. Go go, go, go go.
56:04
Speaker 2: Yeah.
56:04
Speaker 3: I never understood what it was because it wasn't like
56:07
Speaker 3: we were giving them like a whole bunch more more
56:10
Speaker 3: per leader when the than the locals gave.
56:12
Speaker 2: But interesting, yeah, but we we never had a problem.
56:15
Speaker 2: We always had we got gas, and I think in
56:18
Speaker 2: the more populated areas like in La Pause, they were stricter,
56:21
Speaker 2: so once we got out of there, it was a
56:23
Speaker 2: little bit easier.
56:24
Speaker 1: Interesting. How cool though, any other highlights that you had
56:27
Speaker 1: from Olivia.
56:28
Speaker 2: I don't know. The whole country is great. We did
56:30
Speaker 2: a hike. It was kind of like or a trek,
56:33
Speaker 2: I guess, multi day trek that was on almost like
56:36
Speaker 2: a Bolivia's match you peach you, I guess. It was
56:38
Speaker 2: all on stone wow entire way, which was it was
56:42
Speaker 2: raining the entire time, like really heavy raining the entire time,
56:45
Speaker 2: so slippery and but yeah, it was beautiful.
56:47
Speaker 3: And it started off at a higher elevation. I think
56:49
Speaker 3: it went down to the jungle and back up and.
56:52
Speaker 2: It was cool. Yeah, it was a big us treacherous.
56:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I remember that there are some some of
56:57
Speaker 1: those communities at the higher elevations, they don't really bury
57:00
Speaker 1: their dead. They kind of with them open communal like
57:04
Speaker 1: where they kind of sit Grandpa up next to Uncle
57:07
Speaker 1: Joe and they're all kind of hanging out there. We
57:09
Speaker 1: had that, We had that on the cover. It was
57:11
Speaker 1: actually the most contentious cover we've ever had. Interest So
57:15
Speaker 1: we had Yeah, this was the Turtle expedition, Gary and
57:17
Speaker 1: Monica Westcott and they had their vehicle park or maybe
57:20
Speaker 1: it wasn't the vehicle wasn't even in the photo. Possibly
57:22
Speaker 1: it was just but there was this big pile of
57:24
Speaker 1: human remains. But that's how they bury their dead, and
57:27
Speaker 1: it's how they choose to do that. And yeah, a
57:30
Speaker 1: lot of people just said I'm unsubscribing because of that.
57:33
Speaker 2: Interesting.
57:34
Speaker 3: It's so different than in Canada, where my mom just
57:36
Speaker 3: has the ashes of my grandparents in a gift bag
57:39
Speaker 3: on the shelf.
57:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, everybody does it a little different, And of course
57:42
Speaker 1: our goal is to show the uniqueness of travel, which
57:45
Speaker 1: is why we did it. But it was it's interesting
57:48
Speaker 1: how how we all deal with death differently. That's part
57:51
Speaker 1: of the experiences of travelers to begin to understand how
57:54
Speaker 1: people deal with death, and it helps maybe us learn
57:57
Speaker 1: a little bit about how to deal with our own mortality.
58:00
Speaker 1: So I think that that's really interesting to see cultures
58:03
Speaker 1: where they do that differently, so they can go visit them.
58:05
Speaker 1: They actually do. They go like they're going to go
58:07
Speaker 1: hang out. I like that a lot, actually, totally, so
58:09
Speaker 1: very cool.
58:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's always a privileged to be able to go
58:13
Speaker 3: and see and experience that and actually understand another culture
58:16
Speaker 3: a little bit more.
58:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why we do it. Yep.
58:19
Speaker 1: Deadlis Mortos in Mexico is like a whole celebration of
58:22
Speaker 1: the people that they've lost and just different, so they
58:25
Speaker 1: go have a picnic.
58:26
Speaker 2: Better than repressing it.
58:27
Speaker 1: I think so. I think so. I mean, who's to
58:29
Speaker 1: say what's better, But it's.
58:31
Speaker 2: Better for me than repressing it.
58:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that you're right. So into Chile and Argentina,
58:38
Speaker 1: which they kind of become close bedfellows for the overlander
58:42
Speaker 1: because you're going over back and forth over the Andes
58:45
Speaker 1: so many different times. But they are so different, they're
58:48
Speaker 1: so unique. Culturally, you know, Buenos Ares feels like you're
58:51
Speaker 1: in a European city and it has again that great nightlife,
58:56
Speaker 1: wonderful restaurants, a lot of European influence. There's a lot
59:00
Speaker 1: of Italians that moved there, a lot of Germans that
59:02
Speaker 1: moved there, and other cultures that moved into Argentina throughout time,
59:08
Speaker 1: and it reflects that. It reflects that really unique combination
59:13
Speaker 1: of European cultures I found in Buenos Aires. They have
59:17
Speaker 1: a love for motorsports there and a lot of other
59:19
Speaker 1: things that make it feel very European as well. And
59:22
Speaker 1: they've had their challenges financially as a country, so it's
59:25
Speaker 1: just something to be aware of when you go there,
59:27
Speaker 1: but you know, it's just really a beautiful city.
59:29
Speaker 2: Yeah.
59:30
Speaker 3: And speaking of the financial challenges, I think we were
59:33
Speaker 3: there the first time. First time we got there, the
59:35
Speaker 3: Blue dollar was a real thing and worth exchanging money
59:39
Speaker 3: behind the coffee shop changed some US dollars get a
59:41
Speaker 3: really good rate when the Blue dollar, and we felt
59:43
Speaker 3: like the first couple weeks in Argentina was very inexpensive,
59:46
Speaker 3: and then they got rid of that while we were
59:48
Speaker 3: gone and really got to see the difference in what
59:50
Speaker 3: inflation does because we came back and it was no
59:53
Speaker 3: longer a thing, and all of a sudden, it cost
59:54
Speaker 3: us twice as much to travel through Argentina.
59:56
Speaker 2: Interesting, so you can imagine like talking about it, Yeah, exactly.
1:00:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, the people that lived there, they really suffered at
1:00:02
Speaker 1: the hands of that hyperinflation that they experienced. But it
1:00:06
Speaker 1: is a massive country. Interestingly, in historical times, I mean
1:00:10
Speaker 1: historical context, Argentina at one point in time was more
1:00:13
Speaker 1: wealthy than United States, and they have an incredible amount
1:00:16
Speaker 1: of diversity in landscape which allows them to be very
1:00:19
Speaker 1: productive around agriculture and livestock, animal husbandry. They've been just
1:00:25
Speaker 1: very successful as a country in that and you can
1:00:27
Speaker 1: see why when you do a lot of coastline for fishing.
1:00:30
Speaker 1: There's just a lot of opportunity for Argentina to be
1:00:33
Speaker 1: really successful. And you can see a lot of that
1:00:36
Speaker 1: when you travel around.
1:00:37
Speaker 3: And we felt I think northern Argentina felt like a
1:00:40
Speaker 3: vacation when you're you know, and you're going to the
1:00:43
Speaker 3: wineries and wine tasting.
1:00:45
Speaker 1: You guys did Mendoza.
1:00:46
Speaker 2: We did.
1:00:46
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think my teeth were purple by the time
1:00:48
Speaker 1: I left that. I was supposed to go watch the Dekar,
1:00:52
Speaker 1: and you couldn't really get to it because Argentina is
1:00:55
Speaker 1: quite affluent in the grand scheme of things, so people
1:00:57
Speaker 1: have cars and they were all excited about the Dakar too.
1:01:00
Speaker 1: We could never even get close to it, so we
1:01:01
Speaker 1: just made like a left hand turn and went to
1:01:03
Speaker 1: Mendoza and drank wine for a week and a half.
1:01:05
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember being able to rent it. Sounds ostentatious,
1:01:08
Speaker 1: but we rented a villa. But it wasn't like it
1:01:11
Speaker 1: was just a big, very big house. They called it
1:01:12
Speaker 1: a villa. So we had three couples there and it
1:01:15
Speaker 1: was just so inexpensive. And then you just go do
1:01:18
Speaker 1: wine tours.
1:01:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we buy one wine from Santa Julia still buy.
1:01:23
Speaker 2: It in Canada. Yeah, it was so good.
1:01:26
Speaker 1: I'm all beck, Yes, yeah.
1:01:28
Speaker 2: Three dollars when we were in Argentina a little bit.
1:01:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, all Beck's a very affordable wine.
1:01:34
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:01:34
Speaker 1: Mendoza is great. That was one of my That was
1:01:36
Speaker 1: my first trip to South America. Started off and Santiago
1:01:39
Speaker 1: went to val Pereiso, drove a one to ten over
1:01:42
Speaker 1: the Andes into Mendoza. I was going to try to
1:01:45
Speaker 1: find the de Car and that didn't happen, so then
1:01:47
Speaker 1: just bounced around over the andies, which was wonderful. It's incredible.
1:01:51
Speaker 2: It's a lot of fun down there. The andyes were
1:01:53
Speaker 2: particularly spectacular. I think like when we did was it
1:01:57
Speaker 2: Mount Fitzroy, m Chelty Yeah, and Moreno Glacier and I
1:02:05
Speaker 2: think was Torres del Pine and Chili. Yeah, but all
1:02:10
Speaker 2: those three are pretty well known, but they're actually quite
1:02:12
Speaker 2: far apart from each other.
1:02:14
Speaker 1: It's a long distance. Yeah. I remember being on a
1:02:16
Speaker 1: road between Mendosa and Santiago and like there's Anna Perno,
1:02:21
Speaker 1: just like boom right then it's just incredible. It's like
1:02:23
Speaker 1: one of the seven Summits and you just like you
1:02:26
Speaker 1: can see it from the road. It was just absolutely breathtaking.
1:02:30
Speaker 3: I remember like just a silhouette of Fitzroy, like you
1:02:33
Speaker 3: see it all the time in the Patagonia logo. And
1:02:35
Speaker 3: but we're driving. The wind's coming straight at us. I'm
1:02:38
Speaker 3: in third gear doing fifty kilometers an hour and as
1:02:42
Speaker 3: fast as that truck will go, yeah, and just getting
1:02:45
Speaker 3: whatever seven miles per down. The wind just coming straight.
1:02:47
Speaker 1: At us totally.
1:02:48
Speaker 3: And but you know when the mountains come up over
1:02:51
Speaker 3: the horizon and you start you can actually see the
1:02:54
Speaker 3: silhoue out of them.
1:02:54
Speaker 2: It's just like mind blowing, it's insane. Yeah.
1:02:57
Speaker 1: So, did you guys go down Route of forty then
1:03:00
Speaker 1: in Argentina or did you come back up Rute of forty?
1:03:02
Speaker 1: You went down and then when you came back up.
1:03:04
Speaker 1: Did you do any of the coastal routes like near
1:03:07
Speaker 1: Port Tamont or anything like that.
1:03:08
Speaker 3: We did a bunch of the character Astral on the
1:03:10
Speaker 3: way south, the way south, Okay, got it?
1:03:12
Speaker 1: Yeah?
1:03:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, we came north on in Argentina on the east
1:03:16
Speaker 2: side of the Yeah.
1:03:17
Speaker 3: J three, that's where we met Jeff Monica.
1:03:20
Speaker 1: Oh nice. Yeah, the car of Terra Stral is one
1:03:22
Speaker 1: that I'd really like to do, and I've I've been
1:03:23
Speaker 1: as far south as Conception in that area and then
1:03:28
Speaker 1: over into Argentina. But I really liked Rut of forty.
1:03:31
Speaker 1: I really like those high mountain towns. There's a bunch
1:03:33
Speaker 1: of ski towns there as well. It kind of has
1:03:35
Speaker 1: this Bavarian feel up in the mountains, Arloche especially.
1:03:40
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, we did a good hike there. Yeah, no, well, Walpee.
1:03:44
Speaker 2: It was three days and my entire pink Quito was
1:03:47
Speaker 2: a blister. We got back obliterated, painful, right worth it.
1:03:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, the car Terra Straw is high on my list,
1:03:55
Speaker 1: and it's great to hear that you guys went there.
1:03:57
Speaker 1: I think that that's it's kind of an it's not
1:03:59
Speaker 1: super well known, but people are getting to understand that
1:04:02
Speaker 1: it's maybe a better option than Route to forty, especially
1:04:05
Speaker 1: if you want to kind of get away from the
1:04:06
Speaker 1: open landscape and the wind and everything else like that.
1:04:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were paving some of the sections of it
1:04:12
Speaker 2: when we were down there. Yeah, so I think it's
1:04:14
Speaker 2: gonna it'll change. Yeah, it'll change.
1:04:17
Speaker 1: But I did find huge sections of Route of forty
1:04:20
Speaker 1: still gravel. Yep, yeah, it's all gravel. Yeah, it is
1:04:23
Speaker 1: what I remember at least. Oh no, it's super fun,
1:04:25
Speaker 1: super fun. And then when you get down a little
1:04:28
Speaker 1: bit further south, so you guys did go see Fitzroy
1:04:31
Speaker 1: and all of that, And then you get into the Patagonia,
1:04:34
Speaker 1: and then there's a kind of that bouncing in and
1:04:36
Speaker 1: out of Argentina and Chile again. So you go from
1:04:40
Speaker 1: Rio Diegos and then you've got to go across the
1:04:43
Speaker 1: border into Chile, which is I recall the border crossing
1:04:48
Speaker 1: for both countries was in the same building, so you
1:04:50
Speaker 1: kind of just like you do all your paperwork on
1:04:53
Speaker 1: the Argentine side and then you walk like ten feet
1:04:56
Speaker 1: over to the other side and you do the rest
1:04:57
Speaker 1: of your paperwork. So remember that now. It was pretty
1:05:00
Speaker 1: It was pretty interesting. That was a different experience. You
1:05:03
Speaker 1: don't oftentimes have that, and it very much felt like
1:05:07
Speaker 1: an outpost. And then you've got to get on a
1:05:09
Speaker 1: ferry to go across like you do get into Chile.
1:05:12
Speaker 1: And then you've got to hop on a ferry to
1:05:14
Speaker 1: go through one of the straits there. I think that's
1:05:16
Speaker 1: the Magellan Strait, isn't it. Yeah? I think you got
1:05:18
Speaker 1: to go through that straight of Magellan.
1:05:20
Speaker 2: You take a ferry.
1:05:21
Speaker 1: Did oh?
1:05:21
Speaker 2: We did? There are two different ways to get onto
1:05:23
Speaker 2: Tierra Day, I believe.
1:05:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you can also did you guys go through
1:05:27
Speaker 1: point to Araenus on the way back or on the
1:05:29
Speaker 1: way south? Did you skip that all together?
1:05:31
Speaker 2: We skip you to skip it?
1:05:32
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, And I think a lot of people do.
1:05:34
Speaker 1: And it would be curious to get some more feedback
1:05:36
Speaker 1: from other travelers who've intentionally gone over there. I know
1:05:39
Speaker 1: some people will even ship from there too. There's a
1:05:41
Speaker 1: little bit more development as well, I found that that
1:05:43
Speaker 1: whole area was just really beautiful. And then you pop
1:05:46
Speaker 1: back into Argentina to get to Ushuaia, which was probably
1:05:52
Speaker 1: it was one of the biggest surprises in all of
1:05:54
Speaker 1: my overlanding. Usuaya is this like ethereal name. It's like
1:05:59
Speaker 1: you hear it and it's spoken of in like hush tones.
1:06:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, are you going all the way?
1:06:06
Speaker 1: And then and then you get there, it's like this
1:06:08
Speaker 1: huge city by comparison for being at the end of
1:06:11
Speaker 1: the world, huh, and the southernmost city in the world.
1:06:14
Speaker 1: It is a well developed It is well developed and
1:06:17
Speaker 1: you can absolutely get a triple latte, rapid gino, you
1:06:22
Speaker 1: can get all those things there. You can buy a
1:06:24
Speaker 1: Patagonia jacket, you can. And the reason for a lot
1:06:26
Speaker 1: of that that those affluent, you know, interfaces with tourism
1:06:30
Speaker 1: is because that's where the boats leave to go to Antarctica.
1:06:32
Speaker 1: That's where people fly into to do the cruises to Antarctica.
1:06:37
Speaker 2: It was I liked it.
1:06:39
Speaker 1: I totally liked a lot of people.
1:06:40
Speaker 2: Some people are like, we just didn't go or it
1:06:43
Speaker 2: was disappointing. I don't know, if we just didn't have
1:06:46
Speaker 2: an idea of what to expect or we didn't care,
1:06:49
Speaker 2: or we were just starting to get into I think
1:06:51
Speaker 2: it was fall and so there was like a little
1:06:54
Speaker 2: bit of snow dusting on the mountains and it was
1:06:56
Speaker 2: getting cold, and there was beautiful like artwork street total artwork.
1:07:01
Speaker 2: I don't know it was I thought it was really pretty.
1:07:04
Speaker 3: I think the people that waited anything negative to say
1:07:06
Speaker 3: about it maybe think that the reason they're driving to
1:07:09
Speaker 3: Ushuaya is whereas for us, for most people, it's the
1:07:14
Speaker 3: whole experience along the way. It's not because Usaya is utopia.
1:07:19
Speaker 3: It's because it's that's as far as you can go
1:07:20
Speaker 3: and you got to turn right around.
1:07:21
Speaker 2: Heay out of there. Yeah we liked it, but yeah,
1:07:24
Speaker 2: we were.
1:07:24
Speaker 1: There in September too, so there was dustings of snow
1:07:26
Speaker 1: and a little bit of ice on the roads on
1:07:28
Speaker 1: that pass you got to go over, oh yeah to
1:07:30
Speaker 1: drop down into town. Same and that would have been
1:07:33
Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen, so just not much before you guys
1:07:36
Speaker 1: got there. It was interesting because there's really good infrastructure there.
1:07:39
Speaker 1: A lot of people do ship back from Ushwuaya. We
1:07:42
Speaker 1: chose to drive the vehicles all the way back to
1:07:45
Speaker 1: the United States from there, but it was really cool
1:07:47
Speaker 1: to be there and to have that experience of Ushuaya,
1:07:50
Speaker 1: and I would highly recommend it. I just thought I
1:07:52
Speaker 1: thought that it is kind of also a respite for
1:07:54
Speaker 1: the traveler. You can get a hotel, you can have
1:07:57
Speaker 1: a great meal, you can rest a little bit, you
1:07:59
Speaker 1: can celebrate your making it to the end of the road.
1:08:03
Speaker 1: You can even drive a little bit further, which we did.
1:08:05
Speaker 1: You can drive a little bit further than there south
1:08:07
Speaker 1: and that. But that is certainly the southernmost city that
1:08:10
Speaker 1: you can find on the planet.
1:08:12
Speaker 3: I can't stop thinking about the mountains in the background
1:08:13
Speaker 3: of the city when you trce you was a little
1:08:15
Speaker 3: bit farther south than that view of the city looking north.
1:08:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, super special. That was also like an area
1:08:21
Speaker 1: where we ran into some challenges. There was local there
1:08:23
Speaker 1: was a local strike going on and protests, and they
1:08:26
Speaker 1: were burning pallettes in the road and they were blocking
1:08:29
Speaker 1: the road, and like we didn't know how we were
1:08:31
Speaker 1: going to get out of town because there's there's one
1:08:32
Speaker 1: road in and out of town and they had blocked
1:08:34
Speaker 1: that road off. So we actually we actually like like
1:08:37
Speaker 1: kind of feigned that we were going to go left
1:08:39
Speaker 1: and back into town and then we kind of got
1:08:41
Speaker 1: there's like a little bit of a dirt track, and
1:08:43
Speaker 1: we just backed up the other side of the road
1:08:45
Speaker 1: and we kind of waved to the people. And this
1:08:48
Speaker 1: was another one where it's kind of interesting because they
1:08:51
Speaker 1: people who were striking. One of them was like visibly
1:08:53
Speaker 1: upset that we were trying to game the system here
1:08:55
Speaker 1: and and I just I just said, journalista, journalista, you know,
1:08:57
Speaker 1: and I take my camera and all these clearly level
1:09:01
Speaker 1: read vehicles and everything. So they were like, yeah, yeah,
1:09:04
Speaker 1: it was pretty interesting, but they were trying to trying
1:09:07
Speaker 1: to get some consideration for what they needed. But you
1:09:09
Speaker 1: have to plan for those things. You have to plan
1:09:11
Speaker 1: for the fact that there could be a big strike
1:09:13
Speaker 1: or a protest that shuts down a road and you frequent, yeah, exactly,
1:09:17
Speaker 1: and you can't just expect it to always be the
1:09:20
Speaker 1: timing that you want, so you ma'd be stuck in
1:09:22
Speaker 1: town for a little bit.
1:09:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, we have the same thing. Going into Kuzco. We
1:09:25
Speaker 3: saw the Nasca lines and we decided we were going
1:09:27
Speaker 3: to go about halfway up towards Kuzco, camp for the
1:09:29
Speaker 3: night and then make them run up to Kuzsco the
1:09:31
Speaker 3: next day. But the place that we had stopped at night,
1:09:34
Speaker 3: which was you know, it was late, it was dark already,
1:09:37
Speaker 3: and we were tired from driving all day. We just
1:09:39
Speaker 3: heard from a couple of the people who were there,
1:09:41
Speaker 3: and they knew that that road was going to close
1:09:43
Speaker 3: because there was going to be a protest. I think
1:09:44
Speaker 3: it was about public transit or the ambulance drivers or
1:09:48
Speaker 3: bus drives.
1:09:48
Speaker 2: It had something to do with with transit.
1:09:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, And they said that the road to Kusco was
1:09:53
Speaker 3: going to close for a week. So you either go
1:09:55
Speaker 3: now because you have until five o'clock the next morning,
1:09:57
Speaker 3: or you don't go for a week, So pack up
1:09:59
Speaker 3: the truck, night pouring rain, just drive another eight hour
1:10:03
Speaker 3: or whatever whatever it was. And we arrived at seven
1:10:05
Speaker 3: three or four in the morning and just outside of
1:10:07
Speaker 3: a campground through the tent open fell asleep. Yeah, but
1:10:10
Speaker 3: you know, you just have to roll with the punches,
1:10:12
Speaker 3: and we just made a decision. We were either going
1:10:14
Speaker 3: to wait here at some random place in the jungle
1:10:16
Speaker 3: or keep going.
1:10:17
Speaker 2: I'm glad that we kept going, but I'm also glad
1:10:20
Speaker 2: that that road was really really well lit and well paved. Yeah,
1:10:23
Speaker 2: lots of reflectors.
1:10:24
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1:11:22
Speaker 1: I mean there's livestock and drunks and everything else that
1:11:24
Speaker 1: wander into the road, which can be pretty terrifying. People
1:11:27
Speaker 1: always worry about the bandidos and stuff, and you know
1:11:30
Speaker 1: it's a donkey. It's a donkey that's going to end
1:11:33
Speaker 1: your day. Yeah, totally, Yeah, you just can't see them.
1:11:36
Speaker 3: I remember we were once spot in Nicaragua and again
1:11:40
Speaker 3: same thing when it was It's one peninsula. We wanted
1:11:42
Speaker 3: a camp at we got there, it felt like there
1:11:44
Speaker 3: had been a music festival there for the last week
1:11:46
Speaker 3: and it's been over for three days. But the people
1:11:48
Speaker 3: who are just a handful of people left. That didn't
1:11:50
Speaker 3: feel quite right, so we decided to turn around, even
1:11:53
Speaker 3: though it's pitch black and around and it was really
1:11:56
Speaker 3: really dark, so I turn on the driving lights and
1:11:58
Speaker 3: then it's cattle on the side of the road kids
1:12:00
Speaker 3: and I couldn't see them with the headlights. So it's
1:12:03
Speaker 3: always that sort of thing yet to worry about when you're
1:12:05
Speaker 3: driving a night.
1:12:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, we need to trust our gut. There's times when
1:12:08
Speaker 1: we know that, like we need to move and even
1:12:10
Speaker 1: if it's the middle of the night, you need to
1:12:11
Speaker 1: trust that. And we need to trust our travel partners.
1:12:14
Speaker 1: I always recommend that when you're traveling with someone else,
1:12:17
Speaker 1: part of it is honoring what they're feeling because you
1:12:19
Speaker 1: already know who they are. Typically it's rare that you
1:12:21
Speaker 1: travel with a total stranger. So if either a person
1:12:25
Speaker 1: feels uncomfortable about a situation, and maybe you guys, even
1:12:28
Speaker 1: have a phrase or a word that you use to
1:12:30
Speaker 1: identify that this is not a comfortable spot, then there's
1:12:34
Speaker 1: no discussion. You can talk about it later, like what
1:12:36
Speaker 1: were you feeling and what could we have done different?
1:12:38
Speaker 1: But in the moment, you just trust a judgment and
1:12:41
Speaker 1: the insights and maybe the prickle on the back of
1:12:44
Speaker 1: their neck that came up around that situation. You just
1:12:46
Speaker 1: kind of honor it and you move on. But for
1:12:48
Speaker 1: the most part, South America is extremely safe, and we
1:12:52
Speaker 1: feel like that, yeah, it really did. And there's lots
1:12:55
Speaker 1: of wild camping, and there's and like the Argentines love camping,
1:12:57
Speaker 1: so there's lots of campgrounds in Argentina. I see lots
1:13:00
Speaker 1: of RVs on the road Argentines traveling around the road
1:13:03
Speaker 1: trip for them is a big deal. There's, of course,
1:13:05
Speaker 1: so much more of South America that we didn't talk about.
1:13:09
Speaker 1: I spent a little bit of time in Uruguay and
1:13:11
Speaker 1: really enjoyed it, but I haven't explored it extensively. I've
1:13:14
Speaker 1: not been to Paraguay, and that's supposed to be fantastic.
1:13:16
Speaker 1: Did you guys go there? We probably should get someone
1:13:19
Speaker 1: on the podcast that has spent time in Uruguay, Paraguay
1:13:22
Speaker 1: and Brazil, because Brazil is the vast majority of the continent.
1:13:26
Speaker 1: It's huge, and there's a bunch that I would love
1:13:29
Speaker 1: to go see at some point in time, So it'd
1:13:31
Speaker 1: be great for those that are listening if you've got
1:13:32
Speaker 1: some of you recommend or having a chat around Uruguay, Paraguay,
1:13:36
Speaker 1: Brazil and maybe even the Guyanas and sur and Am.
1:13:40
Speaker 1: That would be really interesting to do that. There's been
1:13:43
Speaker 1: travelers that of course spent a lot of time there,
1:13:45
Speaker 1: so that would be really fun to talk about that
1:13:47
Speaker 1: in the Amazon and everything else. So any other thoughts
1:13:50
Speaker 1: that you guys have around like recommendations, tips, ideas, maybe
1:13:55
Speaker 1: books that you've read that you really enjoyed around South America.
1:13:59
Speaker 2: I think it's important to remember just the sheer size
1:14:03
Speaker 2: of it. You know. We talked to a lot of
1:14:04
Speaker 2: other travelers that like, we're going to do it, or
1:14:07
Speaker 2: they said they were going to do it in a
1:14:08
Speaker 2: specific period of time, and then they realized like how
1:14:11
Speaker 2: big it is. Yeah, and they were like, never mind,
1:14:15
Speaker 2: we're going to have to change our plan or not.
1:14:17
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's just important to realize the size of it.
1:14:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, we spent a year there and it did not
1:14:22
Speaker 3: feel like we were rushing or taking our time. It
1:14:24
Speaker 3: was kind of a good for us. It worked out
1:14:26
Speaker 3: pretty well. But I feel like if we I had
1:14:29
Speaker 3: the opportunity to go back a few months after we
1:14:31
Speaker 3: returned home, but the trip was going to be done
1:14:33
Speaker 3: in twelve weeks. Yeah, and I thought that I didn't
1:14:36
Speaker 3: want to change our experience that we had and with
1:14:39
Speaker 3: a rush trip for sure.
1:14:41
Speaker 1: Yeah.
1:14:41
Speaker 2: I can't think of books. But there were two short
1:14:43
Speaker 2: films I really enjoyed, and one was The last Ice
1:14:45
Speaker 2: Merchant and Knows About the There was a man who
1:14:48
Speaker 2: collects ice on the Chimbarrazo Volcano and Ecuador and just
1:14:52
Speaker 2: highlighted his life and why he's collecting ice and he's
1:14:56
Speaker 2: the last Ice Merchant. So it was really cool. And
1:14:58
Speaker 2: then there is another one and I think it's called Chilidas,
1:15:01
Speaker 2: and it's about this group of Chilidas in I think
1:15:05
Speaker 2: it's Bolivia and they are some of I believe, the
1:15:08
Speaker 2: first to summit the highest mountain in Bolivia. I hope
1:15:12
Speaker 2: that's right. Yeah. I set that one too a few
1:15:14
Speaker 2: years ago, and that was really really cool. And they
1:15:17
Speaker 2: have the traditional these big skirts and I think it's
1:15:21
Speaker 2: a bit unusual to have a group of local women summitting.
1:15:26
Speaker 1: It's awesome down there.
1:15:27
Speaker 2: So that documentary was pretty cool and I think.
1:15:31
Speaker 1: There's also a great documentary from Yvonne Schnard of his
1:15:35
Speaker 1: travels down there by sailboat and by van. He's the
1:15:39
Speaker 1: founder of Patagonia. That's another really kind of neat inspiring
1:15:43
Speaker 1: adventure yarn and movie. There's a lot to do down there.
1:15:46
Speaker 1: If you're into rock climbing, there's a lot to do.
1:15:48
Speaker 1: If you're into whitewater rafting, there's a lot to do.
1:15:51
Speaker 1: If you're into mountaineering, there's a lot to do. If
1:15:53
Speaker 1: you're into overlanding, obviously, there's a lot to do skiing exactly. Yeah,
1:15:58
Speaker 1: you could go skiing when you're down there. I think
1:16:00
Speaker 1: it's equally beneficial to do the trip by foal drive
1:16:03
Speaker 1: or by motorcycle. I don't think it really lends itself
1:16:06
Speaker 1: better towards one than the other.
1:16:07
Speaker 2: You could do it in tooel drive, to be honest,
1:16:09
Speaker 2: Yeah you could.
1:16:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, the whole route is paved if you take the
1:16:12
Speaker 1: Pan American or gravel, but it would still be totally
1:16:16
Speaker 1: suitable for a tool drive in good conditions. But if
1:16:19
Speaker 1: you do have a foal drive, it's just like the
1:16:21
Speaker 1: same as here. It allows you to get just a
1:16:23
Speaker 1: little further off the beaten path, which gives you a
1:16:25
Speaker 1: little bit more of a remote experience if that's what
1:16:27
Speaker 1: you're looking for.
1:16:28
Speaker 3: Some of those those experiences that we remember the most
1:16:31
Speaker 3: are those ones that we went to because we're confident
1:16:34
Speaker 3: enough that we could get into out.
1:16:35
Speaker 1: Sure. Yeah, And I would just highly recommend those that
1:16:37
Speaker 1: are listening to do some more research on South America
1:16:41
Speaker 1: consider it as part of your overland travels. It's certainly
1:16:45
Speaker 1: become the most popular international destination that we've seen in
1:16:48
Speaker 1: recent years because the Silk Road has become a little
1:16:51
Speaker 1: bit more challenging in Africa's become a little bit more challenging.
1:16:53
Speaker 1: So we're seeing the last ten years, we're seeing just
1:16:55
Speaker 1: a lot more travels to South America and understandably so,
1:16:59
Speaker 1: and I think it can take that volume of travelers too.
1:17:01
Speaker 1: It's a big place. You get a bump into lots
1:17:03
Speaker 1: of cool people along the way, but it's just it's
1:17:06
Speaker 1: one of the most stunning places on the planet for sure.
1:17:09
Speaker 3: And you can do the trip however you want, because
1:17:11
Speaker 3: you can you can drive from hotel to hotel, or
1:17:13
Speaker 3: you can drive to hostele to hostel, or campground to
1:17:15
Speaker 3: campground or just wild camp the entire time, whatever mix
1:17:18
Speaker 3: of in between that you want to do. I think
1:17:21
Speaker 3: that's why it makes it so good for some like
1:17:23
Speaker 3: a beginner, somebody who doesn't have a lot of experience,
1:17:25
Speaker 3: is you can just take a little baby steps learn
1:17:28
Speaker 3: all along the way.
1:17:29
Speaker 1: So the majority of the route once you enter Mexico,
1:17:32
Speaker 1: all the way through Central America, so finishing off North
1:17:35
Speaker 1: America and Mexico, all the way through Central America, and
1:17:37
Speaker 1: the whole route that you guys did through South America.
1:17:40
Speaker 1: It's all one language, so you can interact with them
1:17:42
Speaker 1: in Spanish. And since English and Spanish are both Latin
1:17:47
Speaker 1: derived languages, there's a lot of crossover and there's a
1:17:49
Speaker 1: lot of English speakers in those countries as well. So
1:17:51
Speaker 1: I never found language to be a limitation. Maybe incorporate
1:17:55
Speaker 1: some immersion into your travels so that way you can
1:17:58
Speaker 1: really communicate to the locals as much as possible. But
1:18:01
Speaker 1: I could learn a lot of Spanish by the time
1:18:02
Speaker 1: you get to Ushuaia, for sure. Did you guys find that.
1:18:04
Speaker 1: Did you guys find that you picked up a lot
1:18:06
Speaker 1: of Spanish by the time.
1:18:07
Speaker 2: I think we did. We also, I think by the end,
1:18:10
Speaker 2: like when we were went Azari's, we rented an apartment
1:18:13
Speaker 2: there for what was it a month or something while
1:18:15
Speaker 2: we were waiting for shipping, and we actually felt like
1:18:19
Speaker 2: our Spanish had gotten worse there. I don't know, it
1:18:22
Speaker 2: just felt like we didn't understand anything in Argentina. But
1:18:25
Speaker 2: I think also, like you were saying, the immersion is
1:18:27
Speaker 2: a huge part. We learned so much just seeing signs
1:18:32
Speaker 2: on the highway or going to a store and reading things,
1:18:36
Speaker 2: or having to learn certain vehicle parts or like you know,
1:18:40
Speaker 2: tire shop or he would scott a yeah, pipe, Yeah,
1:18:45
Speaker 2: we knew that one really well. Yeah, I think our
1:18:47
Speaker 2: Spanish was good. It could have been better, but I
1:18:48
Speaker 2: definitely could have been better. We knew nothing.
1:18:50
Speaker 3: We knew no Spanish whatsoever. When we crossed into Mexico.
1:18:53
Speaker 3: Probably the biggest regret of that trip was not learning more.
1:18:56
Speaker 3: But to be honest, we learned really quickly along the way.
1:18:59
Speaker 3: We did some some classes in Guanawato and in uh
1:19:02
Speaker 3: where was the.
1:19:03
Speaker 2: Other one, Guatemala, and like, yeah, yeah, so that was
1:19:07
Speaker 2: really great and we actually know more Spanish than we
1:19:09
Speaker 2: think we do. After we went to Saudi and we'd
1:19:11
Speaker 2: understand literally four words of Arabic. Yeah, sure, you can
1:19:14
Speaker 2: see how far you've come, I guess no doubt, and.
1:19:16
Speaker 3: I feel with everywhere we went in Mexico, Central and
1:19:20
Speaker 3: South America, just taking a little bit of extra time
1:19:22
Speaker 3: and not rushing through a conversation. Even if you go
1:19:25
Speaker 3: to the coffee shop and they ask if you wanted
1:19:26
Speaker 3: the coffee for here or to go the first couple
1:19:28
Speaker 3: of times, I'm like whatever, throw my thumb out and
1:19:32
Speaker 3: point in the direction I want to go so they
1:19:33
Speaker 3: know that I want to leave, and then eventually asking okay,
1:19:37
Speaker 3: what did you ask and how do I respond? Yeah,
1:19:39
Speaker 3: and taking that time and then you just do that
1:19:42
Speaker 3: once and you learned that already and you can move
1:19:44
Speaker 3: on to the next phrase.
1:19:45
Speaker 1: And context makes so much because you're ordering a coffee.
1:19:47
Speaker 1: You're there in the coffee shop and you're trying to
1:19:50
Speaker 1: order a which fortunately it's still cappuccino down there, but
1:19:53
Speaker 1: like you know, it doesn't change. But they may ask
1:19:56
Speaker 1: you something else in Spanish and you can Yeah, that
1:19:58
Speaker 1: contexts adds so much to it. Your guys's blog is
1:20:02
Speaker 1: a great resource for those that are traveling to South America.
1:20:04
Speaker 1: You guys have done some really great work around the
1:20:07
Speaker 1: total cost of your trip. Do you remember how much
1:20:09
Speaker 1: that year was. I'm sure you still kind of have
1:20:11
Speaker 1: that number in your mind. Give people some perspective around
1:20:14
Speaker 1: traveling in a twenty two are Toyota truck around South
1:20:18
Speaker 1: America for the year.
1:20:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, on average, our average daily rate was about seventy
1:20:23
Speaker 3: to seventy five dollars a day, including shipping, fuel, food, maintenance, camping,
1:20:28
Speaker 3: everything included in that trip was about seventy five dollars
1:20:31
Speaker 3: a day.
1:20:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good way to plan. It's a good
1:20:33
Speaker 1: way to plan.
1:20:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, as opposed to when we're in the States or Canada,
1:20:36
Speaker 3: it's close to one hundred and fifty. Sure, if I'm
1:20:38
Speaker 3: doing any sort of distance whatsoever.
1:20:40
Speaker 1: Sure, Yeah, especially now with fuel prices so exactly a
1:20:43
Speaker 1: lot more expensive. So there's some great information on destaglory
1:20:47
Speaker 1: dot com. Correct. Yeah, you can reach desta Glory on
1:20:50
Speaker 1: Instagram as well, or desta glory.
1:20:53
Speaker 2: Ash on destic Glory, underscore.
1:20:55
Speaker 1: Ash Underscore, or you can reach me at Scott dot
1:20:59
Speaker 1: a Brady on Instagram as well if you've got some
1:21:02
Speaker 1: questions or some comments or some additional insights that we
1:21:05
Speaker 1: should cover when we go through Brazil and Uruguay and
1:21:09
Speaker 1: Paraguay and even some of the Guyanas as well. Please
1:21:12
Speaker 1: reach out to us, give us some feedback. This is
1:21:14
Speaker 1: going to be a new series that we're going to
1:21:16
Speaker 1: make sure we cover through principles of overlanding. We talk
1:21:19
Speaker 1: about individual continents as well, and then we'll probably have
1:21:22
Speaker 1: some kind of a destination series where we talk about
1:21:24
Speaker 1: individual countries in more detail as well. But this has
1:21:28
Speaker 1: really been fun, guys. It's brought me down memory lane
1:21:30
Speaker 1: in a couple of places. I'm like, I forgot the
1:21:32
Speaker 1: name of that.
1:21:33
Speaker 2: Thanks to We always love talking about our trip because
1:21:36
Speaker 2: it brings us back to the glory days. Yeah, destin glory.
1:21:40
Speaker 2: So thank you for allowing us to do that.
1:21:43
Speaker 1: We thank you both for being on the podcast and
1:21:46
Speaker 1: for being a part of Overland International, and for all
1:21:49
Speaker 1: that are listening. We appreciate your support and listening to
1:21:51
Speaker 1: the Overland Journal podcast and we will talk to you
1:21:54
Speaker 1: next time the