April 15, 2019 – May 12, 2019
Buenos Aires is often referred to as “the Paris of South America”. It is a multicultural city, full of parrillas (steak house), red wine, weekend ferias (craft/antique fairs), tango dancers and magnificent buildings.
Continue readingApril 8, 2018 – April 15, 2018
We had booked a “roof-top cabin” in the historic centre of Montevideo for a week. We tried to pack light, but we were going to be without our truck for about 7.5 weeks, so the bags ended up being pretty heavy, despite our best efforts. We struggled with our bags and Piper through the streets of Montevideo, quickly overheating in the midday sun. We arrived at our building, hauled our bags up two interior flights of stairs and were led to an outdoor, circular, metal stairway that would lead us to the roof and our accommodations. We certainly did not anticipate the drama that was about to unfold.
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August 29, 2018 – September 4, 2018
Legend has it that the sun god, Inti, looked down on the world in the 12th century and decided that the people needed a leader. He created the first Inca (king), Manco Capac and his sister-wife Mama Occlo. The pair emerged from Isla del Sol in Lake Titicaca. Inti gave Manco Capac a golden rod and told the pair to settle where Manco Capac was able to plunge the rod completely into the earth. This spot would become the navel of the earth (qosq’o in the Quechua language). And that is how Cusco got it’s name. The city has been inhabited ever since, making it the oldest continuously inhabited city in South America. It was the centre of the vast Inca empire and it was, and still is, the centre of Inca culture.
June 20, 2018 – June 22, 2018
Since we had survived the drive through Bogota, why not drive through the second largest city in Colombia, Medellin! We made our way through the city, then through a 4 kilometre tunnel, and wound our way slowly to the north west of the city to a small colonial town called Sante Fe de Antioquia. There we camped for a couple of nights at Los Cabanas de Pino, where there was a very nice swimming pool!
June 12, 2018 – June 14, 2018
Villa de Leyva is a beautiful colonial town near to the city of Bogota. Its 400 plus year old streets are lined with tourist shops selling ponchos and leather bags. There are lots of restaurants to chose from, and it has the largest plaza in Colombia (14,000 square metres). We loved it.
June 8, 2018 – June 12, 2018
We needed to fill our propane tank, and we had seen on iOverlander (we seriously use this app daily) that there were two places in the town of San Gil that other travellers had had good luck with getting their North American style tanks filled. San Gil was on our way….perfect. We tried both places, and they both refused to fill our tanks….we were not 100 percent sure why, but Derek thought that maybe they had said that the pressure levels and the fittings were different, making it impossible. We still had a bit of gas, so we decided to head on to camp and see if we had enough fuel to make coffee and dinner for the next few days.
May 25, 2018 to June 1, 2018
Upon arriving in Cartagena, we needed pesos, as always, and then looked for a place we could stay for a few days until we could get our truck back. It was super hot we were carrying our travel bags and we had our dog in tow. Fortunately, we found our land legs, a bank machine and some free wifi pretty quickly. Derek waited outside with the dog while I went into the air-conditioned shopping mall and selected a convenient hotel.
The container was supposed to arrive on Friday the 25th, the same day that we arrived, but when we were finally able to get some shipping information, we found out that the shipment had been delayed…at first we were told that the truck would arrive on Wednesday the 30th, then we were told it would arrive on Monday the 28th. Eventually, it actually arrived on the 29th.
April 8 – April 12, 2018
We left Lago de Apoyo and headed towards the city of Granada, only 20 or so kilometres away. We had planned to camp in the parking lot of the Red Cross in Granada, as we had read that they allowed overlanders to stay there for only 100 Cordoba a night (about $4) and it was close to the city centre and had some facilities.
Campeche is the capital city of the Mexican state by the same name. The city was founded by the Spanish in the 1500’s on top of an existing Maya village, but they kept getting attacked by pirates and buccaneers (familiar names like Francis Drake, Henry Morgan and Jean Lafitte are just a few of the sea captains and privateers who attacked the city) so in the late 1600’s they built a wall to surround the city. Much of the original wall is still intact, and the rest has been restored.
Oaxaca (pronounced Wa-ha-ka) is both a state in Mexico and the capital city of the state. We drove through some beautiful high mountain terrain to Oaxaca city. The roads were quite good, if not all the drivers. I have dash cam video of two cars, a semi and a pickup truck, all shoulder to shoulder trying to pass each other, going up hill and around a corner…..again, wish I had the internet power to upload the video, maybe one day.