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We're two happy-go-lucky travellers (well, one super-efficient organiser and one procrastinating neurotic risk-taker) on an adventure together spanning 7 months and most of the mainland countries in the Americas. Follow us from January until August 2012 for tips on marital bliss (peace? cessation of hostilities, perhaps?) and how a vegetarian tea-totaller and an inebriated carnivore find suitable places to dine ... together.

Sunday 1 January 2012

10 days to go

   It is 1st January 2012, I don’t have a hangover and we are only 10 days away from departing on our “big adventure”: 6 months overland from Argentina to Canada.  So far Kizzy has booked the flight to Rio, arranged the travel insurance and visas, sorted out accommodation for the first seven nights and packed up our entire flat.   I have thought a lot about the itinerary and read several history and travel books on Latin America.  We have the next week to organise thoughts on a possible route map and to finalise the list of things that will go in our backpacks.

   On those two questions, does anyone have any pearls of wisdom to offer? 

   Our route will roughly go from Rio overland to Buenos Aires, via Ihla Grande and Iguazu Falls, then a flight down to Tierra del Fuego, before heading north to Columbia up the West coast of South America.  Things on our list include a couple of days in the Torres del Paine National Park, some time in Bariloche and the Argentine lakes district, La Paz and Lake Titicaca, Machu Pichu, the Amazon basin in Ecuador and finally Cartagena on the Carribean coast.  After that we will fly to Panama City and drift up to the US border with a decent amount of time on a beach somewhere in between.  From the US border we will buy or rent a car and drive to Vancouver via Grand Canyon, Yosemite, San Francisco and Seattle.  Then we will take a quick flight over to New York and mooch on up to Boston and Toronto.


   In terms of what to take our current points of contention are:
  • Sleeping bags - yes or no?
  • Cricket bat?  (I think this makes so much sense – good talking point at customs, surely)
  • Should Kizzy take proper walking boots or walking shoes?  The default position is that she is taking flip flops, sandals and a pair of trainers.  (I’m taking hiking boots and sandals)
  • Should I take the lightweight trousers that are still a fraction too small or should I stop banking on that first bout of gastro helping my figure, bite the bullet and by a new pair?

   Any advice gratefully received!
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1 comment:

  1. ctg9 January 2012 at 13:16

    I hope you have made up your minds on what to take, but if you haven't the first advice is on boots (or shoes), and that is, use used footware rather than new ones. Also boots are preferred over shoes as you don't know what sort of creepy crawlies are going around.

    Second, sleeping bags or blanket. The choice really depends on your personal taste and either one of them does work as long as you're willing to carry them.

    Third, cricket bat... *shakes his head* I would ask why to bother, when firearms are readily available in the countries you're going through. Would it be easier to get a snub-nose .38 and use that for personal protection?

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