Sunday, March 22, 2009

See The World In Green And Blue Pt. II

I am now officially all booked and ready for my summer trip to South America.

July 10th I will fly from Helsinki to Rio de Janeiro a few days before my actual trip starts, and stay there a total of six days as I want to break in the jetlag properly before I start hopping around. I hope some long days on Copacabana and Ipanema with a book and a coconut will shut work out from my mind right from the start.

From Rio I will fly to Iguazu, to see the Iguazu waterfalls from both the Brazilian and Argentinian side, and by this get my first brush with nature on the trip. Trying not to think about the spiders! From Iguazu I will take a night bus out to get to my next flight into the Pantanal wildlife reserve, where I will spend three days.

After this I am heading for Santa Cruz in Bolivia, which apparently might be somewhat difficult as the trains services are a bit unpredictable. It should take a maximum of two days, meaning I might, and might not, have time to spend in Santa Cruz itself before I enter the Amazon Amboro National park.

Have I not been eaten by spiders and/or piranhas, I am heading on from there to Vallegrande, the area where Che was killed in 67 getting a history injection. From there I go by bus to Cochabamba and from there on to La Paz. This should again take approximately two days, giving me two days in La Paz upon arrival. After adjusting to the altitude, I will continue on by bus to Oruro, and from there by train to Uyuni to see the salt desert, going on to Laguna Colorada and ending up in Laguna Verde where I will reach the highest altitude of the trip of around 5000 metres.

Having done Bolivia well and proper, I'll cross over into Chile, where I will spend a few days in the village San Pedro de Atacama, and from there on I'll go by bus to Santiago where I will spend a few days before flying back to Finland.

A whole month in places I've not seen before. I cannot wait.

"Touch me,
take me to that other place."
U2 - Beautiful Day (All That You Can't Leave Behind, 2000)

8 comments:

abraxas242 said...

Dette høres jo helt fantastisk ut. Reiser du alene?

Anonymous said...

That looks like it'll be amazing.

Are you all on your own for it or joining other small groups?

I'm trying to work out what I want to do with my free time. But am torn between doing a fixed route and getting frustrated and doing it all on my own and getting bored of my own company!

C said...

I'll be on my own in the cities, but for transport legs and jungle visits I'll be in a small group of 4-5 people. Some things aren't possible to organize for me from here without spending way too much time figuring things out, and some things I wouldn't dare to do on my own.

I like to not have people depending on me when I travel, though, expecting me to want to do and see the same things that they do. I have my own agenda, and guess I'm too much of a lone wolf to fit well in bigger travel parties.

N said...

Beach to Jungle to Mountain top - nice trip! Though I'm not sure whether the Amazon basin would be my cup of tea. I guess I prefer the mountains and the sea..

Hope the top of the world won't be too much of a headache for you! ;-)

C said...

Hey you :)
It's been a long time since I set out to do something I was really scared of, and I'm really scared of the Amazon. So, I guess this is my way of saying "I'm turning 30, Goddammit, and I'm doing this no matter how much scary stuff this place holds!". I don't think it's possible to define beauty without mountains and the ocean, but then again I am a bit partial, being Norwegian :)

I'm hoping the top of the world will treat my head well, and I think I've built in enough time to adjust. I have a feeling it will all work out fine, I find life usually does :)

Daniel said...

Wow. Sounds like you'll need a vacation when you're done :)

Don't worry about the spiders though. Just picture them naked, and everything's going to be ok.

C said...

I think the idea of naked spiders possibly scares me even more.

Daniel said...

That might turn out to be a problem. Because, well, they don't really dress up too much anyway, except maybe on saturdays.

But enough with the spiders already. You've got way too many good things ahead of you to let literally tiny details spoil anything at all :)