Home sweet home

We made it home safe and sound! Our few days in Buenos Aires was fun, we got to walk around the city and see the sights, but we were anxious to get home.

Our last meal on the trip was a big one! We went to a Parilla restaurant and ordered a heap of meat for lunch before going to the airport. It was delicious! The Argentines sure know how to grill.

The flights went well with no complications and we arrived into LAX on Tuesday around noon. Thanks to Uncle Pete and Jenny for welcoming us back to the states with our parents, it was a great reunion!

We are so grateful for you all who have followed us on our journey, and we hope that the blog posts were not only interesting, but maybe our travels sparked your interest and made you want to get out and see the world! It was a great experience for us, and we couldn’t have had such a great time without the support of you all!

We want to give back to those of you who would like to know more details about the trip, so Robin counted up all the receipts and figured out how much we spent on what, and we all answered some questions that have been asked about the trip.

OVERALL BUDGET: (Unfortunately there was about $1,750.00 that we spent and forgot to record along the way, so these numbers aren’t perfectly correct, but definitely close)

Food: $1,059.00

Gas: $3,731.00

Lodging/Laundry: $720.00

Tolls/Parking/Ferry rides: $381.00

Car (purchase and maintenance) : $8,003.00

Border crossings (visas, taxes, car permits and insurance) : $513.00

Misc. (shipping the car, boat ride, train tickets, plane tickets, souvenirs) : $4,340.00

Unrecorded: $1,750.00

Total with car: $20,500.00

Total after selling the car: $15,800.00

Here are some frequently asked questions we were asked:

Q: What’s it like to drive in the various countries?

A: Almost everywhere we went the drivers were crazy, but they all were crazy in harmony with each other. We were constantly passed and cut off, because everyone is more offensive than defensive. There was a lot of honking but it did not seem as much out of anger as it was just letting other people know that they were there. More often than not the traffic regulations were ignored, so we had to be careful about people running stop signs or driving too fast.

Q: Who drives well?

A: We would say that South Americas drive better than Central Americans. We noticed that in Chile it seemed overall there were the best drivers.

Q: In which country was it most difficult to drive? This could be because the roads were terrible, signs non-existent or because it was difficult for an American to adapt to the country’s driving style.

A: No specific country, but the roads in Mexico and Central America were significantly worse that South America. In the big cities it was harder to drive, especially because in some cities there were a lot of narrow one way streets.

Q: Which country had the fastest drivers? The slowest? The worst roads? The best?

A: Everyone drove fast. Central America in general had the worst roads. Peru, Chile, and Argentina had the best roads.

Q: What did y’all do to prepare the van for the trip? (This isn’t Hot Rod, so I need only the major modifications. The answer may be “other than install sleeping quarters and cooking area, the van is stock.”)

A: We moved the bench seat from the back to the middle and built a bed in the back two feet off the floor for storage space under it. We removed the two captain chairs that were in the middle all together. We built a table that could be hung between the two open passenger doors. Installed a converter and extra battery along with an inverter to plug things into, as well as had a new alarm system installed.

Q: How many miles did the car start with? How many miles did it end with?

A: 90,230 to start and 105,750 at the end

Q: Where were the most beautiful highway?

A: The coast of Central America and the mountain roads of Columbia and Ecuador.

Q: The ugliest?

A: Peru. Desert and mountains of sand

Q: The worst? (why?)

A: Central America because of the thousands of pot holes

Q: The best? (why?)

A: Chile, because they provide 24 hr roadside assistance along the main highway for free.

Q: Was it hard to find gasoline?

A: Not hard at all, except in some areas of southern Argentina where we avoided because we knew even with extra gas tanks we might not make it.

Q: What’s the most expensive gas you found?

A: Belize was about $7 a gallon and Costa Rica was close to that.

Q: The cheapest?

A: Ecuador by far. Only $1.50 a gallon

Q: Did you have to repair the van?

A: We had to replace the front brakes and get the rotors turned.

Q: How many tires did you have to replace? Other parts?

A: We had to get 1 new tire in Columbia and 2 in Chile and put the spare on in Chile. No other parts although we did replace the upper and lower radiator hoses before we left. We changed the oil once in Columbia.

Q: Would you recommend this trip to others?

A: Absolutely. It is an amazing adventure and well worth the time and effort.

Q: What would you recommend they do differently?

A: Give yourself longer than 3 months, and take a car with better gas mileage, 4 wheel drive and a higher suspension than our van. It wasn’t horrible for us, but it could have been a lot smoother in another car.

Thanks again to all of you for reading our blog!

from Buenos Aires, our last city!

We apoligize for the long time between our last post and now, but honestly there wasn’t really that much going on for us to tell you all about. We had a great time in Ushuaia, walking around the city and seeing “the end of the world” in all it’s cold summer glory!

This was the huge sign that welcomed us into Ushuaia, we were so excited to finally get there!

 After our 2 nights in Ushuaia we returned to Punta Arena’s Chile to figure out the process of selling the van.  Everywhere we went in Patagonia was breath taking, and even though we drove this part twice, it was still beautiful on our way back to Punta Arenas!

This was about 30 minutes out of Ushuaia. It's still snowy there even in the middle of the summer.

 After we got back to Punta Arenas, we stayed again in the hostal we did before we went to Ushuaia. The couple who owns the place are extremely nice, and let us use their showers and internet the whole week, even though we only stayed inside two more nights (they let us park the van in front of the hostal and we stayed there most of the nights).The whole week was pretty much a waiting game for us, we had a few people make us offers, but then things wouldn’t work out on their end. The paperwork of nationalizing the car (for the buyer, not us) takes 2-4 weeks, and the first guys interested in the van were itching to get on the road and didn’t have the time. We waited a few days, with Se Vende (For Sale) signs on the car and a surprising amount of people stopped to look at it and were genuinely ineterested. Eventually a man named Gustavo was the most adamant about buying it, and made us a great offer. The process only took 2 days for us, all that was needed was the owner’s signature and a few papers filled out at the Chile Customs office. Gustavo is a really nice guy, and his family goes camping a lot, so we know they will get a lot of good use out of the van, and the camping equiptment we had to leave behind.

This is the last picture we took with the van! It definitely served us well these past 3 months, we are so happy to have had it. Thank you Mr. Carroll for selling it to us!

We found a bus that left at 12:00 on Friday, and got on it! The first bus was 5 hours, from Punta Arenas to Rio Gallegos, Argentina. The second bus was 36 hours, from Rio Gallegos to Buenos Aires. The second bus was basically like a plane flight, with an attendant and meals included, so it really wasn’t that bad of a ride. We arrice this morning at 8:00 and found a hostal in the city, where we took showers, naps and are now going to go check out the city! Dustin lived here for a month when he was on his YWAM trip, and Daniel came to visit him here, so we won’t have too much trouble getting around.

We are so lucky to have gotten some great tickets on a United flight from our grandpa, and will be leaving here Wednesday! We are really excited to almost be home!

Our last post will be from home, and we will be writing all the travel information and advice we have for anyone in the future wanting to do this trip (or anyone who is simply curious). If you have any questions about our trip, ask us (either by email or post a comment here) and we will answer it for you!

 

Hello from Ushuaia!

We’ve made it! Last night after a 10 hour drive from Punta Arenas, Chile we arrived in Ushuaia! It was a strange feeling finally getting to our destination, especially when it was 10:00 pm and it was still light out.

The drive from Sanitago to Punta Arenas was long, and half of the drive was actually in Argentina, but we made it to Punta Arenas on Thursday afternoon. Driving through Patagonia (the lower region of Chile and Argentina) was of course beautiful, as we expected, but it was also surprisingly flat in some parts! We assumed that we would be driving through the Andes the entire way, but it was more like we were driving next to them.

 

 

This was our first sunset in Argentina, and it was at about 9:15pm. It's summer here for sure!

 We got to Punta Arenas on Thursday afternoon and stayed in a hostal, where the proprietor was very helpful in telling us our way about the city, gave us information about getting from there to Ushuaia, and helped us find out more information about selling our van.

In order to get to Tierra del Fuego, you must go accross the Magellan Straight by ferry. This one was only $24 and took 15 minutes!

 When we arrived in Ushuaia last night (Friday), we were definitely expecting more snow on the mountains. We know it’s summer here, but it still seemed like everything would be covered in snow! There is some up high on the mountains surrounding the city, but unfortunately we won’t be able to make a snowman.

When we arrived, we decided to make ourselves a late dinner and explore the town today. This picture was taken at 11:00pm! It might not have been dark, but it was definitely cold!

 Today we had a fun day walking around the city and seeing what “the end of the world” is like. They are so proud of being the southernmost city in the world here! It was a great day, and we are very excited to have reached our goal!

 

 

3 months and over 15,000 miles!

 Even though we have officially reached our end goal, our trip isn’t quite over yet; we still have to get home! We are going back to Punta Arenas tomorrow to meet with a potential buyer for the van, and if everything works out, by the end of the week we will be on our way to Buenos Aires (by bus), and then we will be able to fly home from there! If it ends up not working out to sell the car here, we will be driving to Buenos Aires, then going into Paraguay with hopes of selling the van. Just like any other part of this trip we know plans change every day, so we can’t count on everything. We apreciate you keeping us in your thoughts and prayers, and we will update you again (hopefully with good news) by the end of the week!

 

 

Cusco and Chile

 

Hello all from Santiago!

After our last [real] blog post, we had  great time celebrating New Years Eve in Cusco, Peru. We met up with our new friend David and his girlfriend Nicole in Cusco and spent the day walking around the city and ejoying the cold mountain air. It is a pretty touristy city, but it reminded us a lot of Antigua, Guatemala and we really loved it. All the buildings are quite old, the streets are cobblestone, and among the people there are indiginous people walking around the town, Alpacas in tow.

For New Years Eve, the celebration in Cusco is one of the largest and well known in the world. (We didn’t actually know this until we arrived, and we had to search high and low for a hotel room.) What happens for the holiday is everyone gathers in the main plaza to listen to bands play, drink, and walk around until midnight. The tradicion is to wear yellow underwear for good luck, but everyone pretty much wears as much yellow clothing as they have. At midnight, everyone who is in the square immediately starts to run around the plaza in a giant circle 1 1/2 times, another tradition for good luck.

Robin didn't have any yellow clothes, but there were places to buy streamers everywhere!

 On the morning of January 1st, we checked out of our hotel and went to get our car out of the lot that it was parked in, but of course, for some reason the lot was closed until 5 pm that day, and we weren’t told. Unfortunately we couldnn’t get on the road until late that day, but it was nice gettin another day to hang out with David and Nicole in the city.

We arrived at the border of Bolivia on the 2nd, after driving past the beautiful and huge Lake Titicaca, the highest lake in the world in elevation. It was beautiful, and we drove next to it for about 150 kilometers to the border.

This was taken of the lake from the side of the road we drove on. The colors were so brilliant!

 After going to the border of Bolivia and finding the cost too expensive, we were told to return to the town of Puno, go the the Bolivian Consolate and get visas that were cheaper than $135. The consolate was closed when we arrived, so we spent the night outside the city and returned the next morning when the opened. Of course there was no other type of visa, and the man at the border was either a complete jerk or just ignorant for telling us so. After that we made the decision to head to Chile instead, and we haven’t regretted it yet! It will shorten our trip by a few days, and will be less expensive in the long run, so everything worked out. We also found that entering Chile by car costs nothing, rather than the $140 we had thought it would, so that was a huge and great surprise!

We crossed the border on the 4th, and even though the scenery didn’t change much from Peru into the Northern parts of Chile, it was nice to finally be in another country. It was especially nice when we found out the hard way that the toll roads have 24 hour free roadside assistance though! On Firday while on the road we had 2 flat tires in 30 minutes. How this happened, we don’t really know, but it left us on the side of the road for at least 3 hours, trying to figure out what to do. Luckily Daniel was picked up with the less damaged tire and taken to get it fixed, for free! It was awesome. We then drove 80 kilometers to the nearest city and stayed there for the night so we could get our tires fixed on Saturday morning.

To make this next long part of the story short, we met a man named Eduardo in the gas station we were parked in, and he spent almost the entire day with us.  He took us to get new tires, had his own mechanic fix our wheel for free, took us to his house to meet his family, and then treated us to a typical Chilean lunch in the town over, right on the beach!

This is Eduardo in his house. He loves old cars, Marilyn Monroe and Elvis.

 

 

This is one of his many old Vespas that he owns, Dustin took a ride on it! (Actually just sat on it...it doesn't actually run anymore)

 

Eduardo owns 100 acres of avocados and the company that transports them to California! We have probably eaten some from his farms before at home.

Eduardo also owns a fruit stand. He took us there and literally just handed this huge box of fruit to us. What an extremely nice man!

 After leaving Eduardo in Vina Del Mar, we drove around the city and took in the ocean view. The climate here is almost identical to Southern California, and it makes us feel like home! We then drove into Santiago Saturday night to meet our nexts hosts. We have stayed for the last 2 nights at the home of a friend’s father’s counsin’s family. A very random connection, but we are so greatful for their hospitality and wilingness to open their home to us! We spent the day yesterday being shown arorund Sanitago by Alejandra and her two kids, Ignacio and Alejandra. We have had a really fun time with them, and it was great to have some locals show us the best parts of the city!

This is us looking over Santiago. It was a beautiful day!

 Alejandra is a travel agent, and this morning she is going to help us plan out the best route to take from here to Ushuaia. We are so lucky to have met her! It has been great being here with her and her kids, and we are sad we didn’t get to meet her husband Richard, who was out of town for work this weekend. They are actually moving to Virginia this year, so maybe we will just have to drive accross the states some day soon and see them again!

Today we will be leaving Santiago and heading down south. Hopefully we will make it to the “end of the world” in less than a week, and perhaps our next blog post will be from Ushuaia! We can’t wait, our ultimate destination is so close!

Quick update

Hi everyone! This is a short, pictureless update just to let you know we have had to majorly change our plans today. We arrived at the Bolivia border yesterday to find that it will cost more than our budget to get in (something we did not find in our inicial research). We came back to Puno, Peru where we stayed the night and took time to make a decision on what to do. We have decided that even though it costs the same amount to get into Chile as it does for Bolivia, we can only afford to go into one, rather than both. From here, we are changing our route and now are going straight down Chile to Ushuaia, then up to Buenos Aires, Argentina. From there we will be going into Uruguay to hopefully sell our car, then flying home from Buenos Aires or Uruguay. We are very dissapointed that we will be missing out on Bolivia and Paraguy, because of the great places to see there, but that was the price we are paying to save money.

Thank you all for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers, and even though this was a tough decision for us to make, we realise that it might have been they way it was supposed to happen all along. Who knows, we’ll just have to wait and find out!

We will be posting pictures and a longer post about our exciting New Years Eve in Cusco in the next few days. We only had a little bit of time to post this today, because we really want to get back on the road!

Happy New Year from Cuzco!

Thank you all for the Christmas tidings, we hope you all had a great day! We were very glad to be in a home for the holiday, and it was especially fun seeing the Kappen girls, Lilly and Violet, open their presents. We had almost forgotten how unbearaly exciting Christmas morning can be!

Amy hand sewed these rag dolls for the girls, they were super cute!

 While on our way out of Ecuador, we passed through a little town called Banos, and decided to stop and dive off a bridge! It’s one of the many adventure attractions the town offers, and it’s alost like bungee jumping, but instead of going straight down and back up, you dive off and swing under the bridge. We have videos of all of us going, but they won’t load to the blog so if you want to see them, let us know

Robin decided to go first because she didn't want to watch the boys and get scared out of going. In reality it was a lot less scary than she thought though. We are thinking about starting our own bridge jumping business when we get home! (just kidding mom and dad)

 After Banos we headed for the border of Peru and crossed on the 27th. It was 2 days to there from Shell, Ecuador, and unfortunately the driving did not let up. Until today we didn’t stop for more than a few hours in Lima, and of course to sleep. It was 5 days of mostly boring desert. Peru is so long, and there isn’t mush to see, either! The Panamerican Highway runs along side of the Andes, which is nice because it’s a smoother drive, but also a not very exciting one.

Yesterday when we cut North towards Cusco however, it was all mountains. We are in the middle of the Andes here, and it was a long and windy road that kept going up! At one point yesterday it snowed on us! It was very surprising, but also pretty cool.

This was the first patch of snow we drove through yesterday, and later on in the afternoon it was actually coming down pretty heavily! We didn't expect to see snow in Peru!

 Today we mad it to Cusco, which is a really cool city in the middle of the mountains. This is where everyone stays if they want to see Machu Picchu, it’s only a 2 day round trip from here to there. Unfortunately we won’t be going to Macu Picchu because it’s more expensive than we have funds for, but it’s nice enough to be here in Cusco! Robin is especially excited to be here because it’s her birthday today! We decied to spend a little extra money on a nicer hotel than we’ve stayed in on the trip so far. It was defintely a wonderful thing to take a hot shower after being in the car for 5 days without! We will be here until the morning of January 1st, where we will be headed to Bolivia. We hope you all have a great New Year celebration, and we want to let you all know our resolution is to get home before February, so hopefully we can make that happen

Merry Christmas from Ecuador!

Hello from rainy Ecuador! It was a long few days of driving, but we made it from Colombia to Ecuador safely! Driving through the Andes mountains was slow going, but it was a beautiful.

This has been the scenery throughout our past few weeks of driving! It looks like a patchwork quilt...so cool.

The weather has stayed cool and mostly rainy (something we didn’t expect going over the Equator) which is great for us, because it makes sleeping in the van so much more comfortable.

This is a "suburb" of Quito, Ecuador. The city went on for miles, and it was all houses packed on one another like in this picture.

Right now we are very glad to be here in Shell, Ecuador in the home of Matt and Amy Kappen for this Christmas holiday, and are very grateful for their hospitality and willingness to let us in on their family celebration. Their kids are adorable and fun to play with, and it’s been great being here with their family.

On the edge of the Kappen's neighborhood there is this walking bridge that goes over a river, and we took a walk over it. It was almost like we were on a canopy tour! Amy just had a baby boy 3 weeks ago, and even though you can't see him, he's strapped around her tummy in this picture.

Matt is a doctor at the local teaching hospital, which is staffed by missionary doctors from the U.S. and Europe. They have been living here almost 2 years, and will most likely be here for one more.

This is Matt and his and Amy's two daughters, Lilly and Violet. He took us on a tour of the hospital when he was on call yesterday.

Today the three of us went on an indigenous adventure of sorts! We were taken by a guide around the area to different sites of interest in this area of Ecuador. First we went to a monkey reservation, where there are about 100 monkeys (and a few other small animals, including a very playful river otter) that live “wild” in a contained area without cages. They were climbing all over us, hopping from shoulder to shoulder!

This little monkey was crazy! He loved Daniel. Robin was the only one in our group who wasn't jumped on by a monkey, which made her feel left out. (It was probably a good thing though, because apparently these monkeys steal people's glasses off their faces often, and that would have sucked if they ran off with hers!)

We then rode a canoe carved from a tree trunk down part of the Puyo River, which was super fun!

There were 2 others with us in our tour group, a teacher and a student of hers from Florida who were here to teach about engineering to local schools. It was fun having them on our tour.

After that we hiked through the jungle to a massive waterfall, and along the way painted our faces, wove headbands from palm leaves, got a cleansing mud face mask and learned about many of the plants we passed along the way.

It was raining all day (hence the ponchos) and after getting our faces painted and making our headbands we decided to try and see if we could hid in the jungle. Obviously we aren't great at camouflage

Our last stop was to an indigenous people’s village, where we were given Chi-Cha to drink, which is one of the most important traditions of the people here. What it is, is yucca root that has been cooked, chewed up by the women in the tribe and spit back out into a jar and left to ferment. Apparently it is extremely rude to refuse it when offered, so we obliged. The day overall was great fun and we were excited to learn about the Ecuadorian people’s culture!

Tomorrow morning we are going to stay until after breakfast, then head out on our way. We are planning on making it to the Peru border and crossing on Monday (the 26th). If our calculations are correct, we will then be able to be in Cusco, Peru by New Years Eve! We are meeting up with a friend there whom we met on our boat ride to Colombia.

We hope this Christmas finds you all well and safe, wherever you are in the world! We wish a very Merry Christmas to you all, and will update you soon about our final week in December.

Cartagena to Bogotá

We have now been in Colombia almost 2 weeks, mostly because of the time it took to get our car. Last Friday we thought we would be getting our car out, but of course were disappointed…but unfortunately not surprised. We were still planning to go to Barranquilla though, so we took a bus from Cartagena and were very pleased and relieved when we were dropped off at the mansion of a house we were going to stay in. A friend of ours from California is Colombian, and his Aunt and Uncle were gracious enough to open their home to us. We were treated to more than enough traditional Colombian food, and a weekend of relaxing in hammocks. It was a great turn of events after being on the awful boat.

This was the front door of the house in Barranquilla. It was huge, and we were told that once an episode of a Colombian soap opera! Classy joint!

Monday morning we took a bus back to Cartagena and spent all day on the process of getting our car out. It took until Tuesday afternoon to finalize everything, and Wednesday morning we were off! The family we shared the shipping container with was also headed to Bogotá, so we decided to caravan there.

This was our view for the two day drive...we were lucky to have the Kyvick family to navigate the way!

We have seen such beautiful scenery on this trip, and this last drive was no exception…such pretty mountains and valleys!

We took a small detour up to Mesa de los Santos (Table of the Saints) which is an area on top of one of the mountains where you can pay to see the view. It was worth the $5.

It was a long two days of driving, 30 hours in all, but we finally made it to Bogotá on Thursday night. It was the longest straight drive so far in our trip, but it was worth getting up early to make it in 2 days.

We just wanted to add this picture to show you what a normal meal is here in Colombia. We have decided that so far, we like the food best here.

Our friends the Spence family moved here to Bogotá about 6 months ago, to be a principal and teacher at a school here. They are an awesome couple with three energetic kids, and it’s been so much fun hanging out with them! Being in Bogotá has been the first time on our trip that we have encountered cold weather, and as it is so close to Christmas, it has been exciting for us to be cold at last! The whole city, including the Spence’s home, is all decorated for the holidays, and it has made us feel like home again.

This is the Spence family; Tom, Maria, Rachel, Riley and Elijah. We are so happy we got to stay here with them!

We luckily arrived here on their first day of Christmas vacation, so we’ve gotten to spend time exploring the city with them. Yesterday we went to a Colombian arts and crafts expo, where hundreds of people from all over the country came to sell things from food to handmade clothes. It was awesome! Today we went to Monserrate, which is a mountain that overlooks the entire city. You can either hike up or take a gondola ride, and we chose the latter. It was a really cool place.

This was at the top of Monserrate, and even though it was cloudy, it was a beautiful view over Bogotá.

Today we were planning on leaving the city and start on our way to Ecuador, but after getting caught outside in a rainstorm after going to Monserrate, we decided to stay an extra night here in Bogotá, then leave early tomorrow morning, hopefully avoiding a long drive in the rain.

*On a side note, I have been told that there are a lot of you out there who are reading our blog posts through your email, and might not know that if you go to our blog site ( www.fromustoushuaia.wordpress.com ) you will be able to see all the posts we have made from the beginning, all there together in order. The pictures also show up nicer on the blog site than they might in email form, and sometimes when we have a bad internet connection and can’t upload pictures we will add them to the post later, and it doesn’t notify you through email. So we just wanted to let you all know, in case you haven’t been on the site yet! Also, we want to say thank you all for reading our posts, and it is great reading all your comments! Thanks for your continued interest and support!

San Blas Island trip

 

Hello from Colombia! We finally arrived in Cartagena on Wednesday night, after the 6 day process of taking a boat here from Panama. The boat trip was an obvious choice over flying to Colombia and waiting here for our car to arrive, and overall we enjoyed our time during the passage. The people we met and spent time with on the boat were all wonderful, everyone had great attitudes and we all were able to help each other out when things got rough. When we say “rough” we are refferring to the disgusting condidtion of the boat, the unorganized and seriously unsafe Captain, and the stormy weather. We will be able to tell you in full length more about how much we struggled on this trip in person if you would like, but for now we would just like to show you all the highlights of our past week in pictures

We met one of our fellow boat passengers the day before we left, and after hanging out with him all day he basically necame our 4th sibling. His name is David, and he is from Australia, traveling through Central and South America on is own

 After 6 hours on the stormy Caribean Sea we made it to the San Blas Islands.

This might be a pretty picture, and it may make our boat "The Metacomet" look nice, but in reality it was very dirty, old and outdated.

 We were docked inbetween 2 of the San Blas Islands for 2 nights, and were able to explore both and have some quality time off the boat.

This was the main island we stayed near. The beaty of this place is almost undescribable, and in order to fully appreciate it you simply must go for yourself.

 Our first day exploring the island was so much fun! It was very small though, so we walked around the entire place in about 20 minutes.

There were starfish everywhere!

 The people who live on the San Blas Islands are the Kuna Indians, and they are one of the last remaining people groups who are still in control of their original lands. The Kuna have the most advanced political system of any tribal group in Latin America, and possible the world. It was very interesting to talk to and learn about them while we were there. Unfortunately they felt uncomfortable when we asked for pictures with them, so we have none.

This is one of the 5 Kuna family huts on the island we were on.

 One thing about our trip that was not so cool was that us passengers had to cook our own food. All the other boats we heard of had a chef on the crew. But in a way it brought us all closer together by having to cook for each other.

One of the days our captain bartered with the Kuna people for some fish, then he left us to cook it for ourselves for dinner.

 When all of us were on the boat at once, it was extremely cramped. There were only 15 actual beds, and 20 people, so we had to share. There was also only a tiny “kitchen”, which was basically just a stove, and a table that fit about 10 people at the most around it.

This picture above is of the outdoor seating area on the back of the boat. It was hard to get a lot of people in one photo because it was such a small space.

After the Kuna Islands we left for the 30 hour trip to Cartagena that ended up taking us about 45 hours, plus an unexpected stop on Isla Fuerte, an island that was not pretty, well taken care of or comfortable.

We had dinner on Isla Fuerte, and even though it wasn't the most satisfying meal, we were at least off the boat for a while.

We were very excited to finally be close to Cartagena after too many days on the open water with barely enough food, and very rough weather.

This is taken from the bow of the ship, while we were coming into the Cartagena harbor.

 The sun was setting as we approached the harbor in Cartagena, and it was one of the most beautiful sunsets we have seen on our whole trip. The beauty of it was also amplified a bit by our elatedness to be so close to getting off the boat

The city was a beautiful sight to our tired eyes.

 Last night we were able to all get together for dinner and celebrate not only our survival of the Metacomet, but also one of our fellow passengers’ birthday.

We had a great group of people with us the past week. This is everyone except two, the mother and father of the Spanish/Norweigian family.

 In all, we were 18 passengers (plus the captain and a “stewardess” who did nothing made 20). There was the family of 6 from Spain who are in a car, a Belgian couple on bicycles, 4 motorcyclists from San Diego and Denver, a Canadian/Argentinian couple in a car, an Australian backpacker and us three. It was a very family oriented group, which made things even more fun and easy going. We will most likely stay in contact with all of the people we traveled with on this boat.

Today we are hopefully getting our car from the shipping container and will be able to get on our way. Our next destination will be Baranquilla, Colombia, where a family we know from home is staying for the holiday season.

Speaking of the holidays, we hope you are all doing well and enjoying the winter season in the states! We are constantly thinking of you all and miss you a lot.

Panama Week 2

After almost 2 weeks of planning, changing plans and re-planning we have finally found passage to Colombia! We found a family needing to ship their car to Colombia a few days ago and we are sharing the cost of the original shipping container we booked for this Friday. It will now be half the price we were expecting, which is such a relief! As for our transportation, we have found that many people opt out of flying and take a 5 day boat “tour” of the islands off the coast here and dock in Cartagena, Colombia. We will be meeting our car there after our boat trip, so it’s perfect! Also, the trip will be costing only slightly more than flying, so we figured it was well worth it for 5 days of food, lodging and adventure! The family who is sharing our shipping container will also be joining us on the boat, so it will be fun to get to know them.

As for what we have been up to this week, it’s been a lot of driving back and forth from Panama City up to the northern coast, where we found out about the boat trips in a hostal. We found out about the hostal from a guy we met in Panama City who is riding his motorcycle from Colorado to Argentina. The hostal is in Portobelo, a small town about 40 minutes from Colon, the city we are shipping our van from. We stayed in Portobelo last night and will again tonight, because we leave from here in the morning.

We are very excited about this next part of our journey, and are so thankful we have been able to take care of our shipping arrangements! We have enjoyed our time in Panama, but are glad to leave and continue on! Apologies for the lack of pictures, but we really didn’t take many pictures this week. We will have plenty to post after we get off the boat in Colombia!