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Matt writes: How-to: Visit Easter Island

Posted on 08.17.10 in Easter Island, What about Preparation, Year in South America | No Comments »
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By Matt

If you go, here’s what we’d recommend:

  1. Spend at least 3 full days there. If you’re dedicated you can see the entire island in that time, without killing yourself.
  2. Buy your plane tickets in advance; set up your lodging when you land – at the airport.
  3. Bring a good guidebook and rent a jeep for two days; the tours are unnecessary.
  4. Spend a day walking around the town and checking out the daily life of the islanders, and the close Ahu and Moai.
  5. Eat at the best restaurant – He’tuu, on the main drag (but closer to the airport than the soccer field). Don’t waste your time anywhere else.
  6. We’ve heard that there is a big cultural festival there at the beginning of February – traditional dances and dresses and other events. I’m not sure of the authenticity, but it could be cool to see if you have the opportunity. Keep in mind that most travel costs (airfare, lodging, food) will probably be higher than normal, and that you’ll spend more on events because there are more to attend.

If you’re planning a trip to Easter island, let us know – we’d love to help you in any way that we can! Check out our photos here.

Matt writes: How to: Visit Antarctica

Posted on 08.12.10 in Antarctica, What about Preparation, Year in South America | No Comments »
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By Matt

Antarctica is the land of ice, it contains the south pole, and is one of the largest continents on the planet. For list-checkers, it is (often) the last of seven continents to visit. It houses some of the most incredible wildlife, from emperor penguins who brave the entire winter to protect their eggs, to huge leopard seals who look and move like the big cats, only on ice and in the water.

There are three ways to get to Antarctica:

  1. By cruise ship from New Zealand. The least popular route for two reasons: it’s a long way (three days across the weddell sea instead of one-and-a-half or two), and it’s on the side of the continent with fewer bases and wildlife.
    • Benefits: relative to other routes, you see a different area of the continent (not sure if it’s better). Also it’s less touristy (but the continent itslef isn’t very touristy).
    • Drawbacks: long, far away, and probably not very many viewpoints.
  2. By plane from Ushuaia (or other airports). This is mainly the way that scientists and journalists get to McMurdo base – the American research station that functions like the capital city of the continent (albeit with a population of 1000-2000).
    • Benefits: fast. Also gets you pretty far inland to the main base. Very educational opportunity.
    • Drawbacks: not a cruise, don’t get the opportunity to see more stuff.
  3. By cruise ship from Ushuaia. The most popular route, cruise ships leave Ushuaia’s port every day for trips that include some part of the Antarctic peninsula.
    • Benefits: well-supported, many travel options, probably less expensive than other routes.
    • Drawbacks: not always as fast, don’t get to McMurdo.

We went on a cruise ship from Ushuaia, and loved it. There are actually four categories of trips you can take from Ushuaia:

  1. The Antarctic Peninsula (11 days total, 5 days of landings/viewings). This is the classic (and the shortest) Antarctica cruise. It’s also the most prevalent and the cheapest. Your 5 days of landings will include different spots, at least one on the continent (others on islands), and probably a visit to a research base. Lots of wildlife and icebergs. Since you’ll be on the peninsula the whole time, you’ll most likely see a few different genus of wildlife (penguins, seals, albatross, etc), but not as many different species (macaroni, emperor, king, gentoo penguins) within a particular genus.
  2. South of the Circle (typically about 3 weeks). This cruise goes past 66.6 degrees south, usually in an icebreaker, and tries to get as far south as possible. I’ve never been on one of these, but my guess is that it’s all about latitude and doesn’t prioritize wildlife.
  3. Seeing the emperor penguins (typically about 3 weeks). This cruise goes early in the season – November usually – in an icebreaker as far south as possible. Then, as soon as the weather is clear, everybody boards helicopters to fly to the emperor nesting grounds. This is probably one of the coolest cruises, but it is pretty much exclusively focused on one penguin species – the emperor.
  4. Antarctica, the Falklands, and South Georgia (typically about 3 weeks). This covers two different island sets as well as the peninsula. It probably covers the greatest variety of wildlife possible, and certainly the greatest diversity of landscapes – from bright sandy beaches to icy/snowy/iceberg landings, all kinds of weather and conditions. This is what we did – and it’s almost three weeks long! We loved it.

Booking: cruises to Antarctica operate differently than any other kind of travel I’ve experience. Typical booking timeframes are a year or more in advance. Anything less than 3 months is considered last-minute. Why? It’s hard to get to Ushuaia, these are really expensive, and they’re long enough that it would be difficult to give only two weeks warning for a three-week vacation.

You can certainly book in advance, but if you can plan to take enough time off, it’s probably best to just go down to Ushuaia, plan to spend 2-3 weeks shopping around for a good cruise, and then the 2-3 weeks to take the cruise. You could probably save about 40-70% off the list price and still get the same cruise experience. Remember, there are only about 20 or 30 boats that go to Antarctica, and they’re operated by about 5 or 6 companies, so the market is pretty simple. Keep in mind, Quark Expeditions is widely considered to be the best company out there – that’s who we went with, and we had an amazing experience.

If I were to do it for the first time, I would do what we did – last-minute book an Antarctica+Falklands+South Georgia cruise. I would do it early (November) or mid-season (December or January) though.

Antarctica is incredible. It’s really an amazing place that is slowly dying as climate change takes hold of our planet. If you get a chance, visit – it truly is a place like no other! See our photos here.

Matt writes: How-to: Visit the Falklands Islands

Posted on 08.10.10 in Antarctica, Argentina, What about Preparation, Year in South America | No Comments »
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By Matt

The Falklands Islands are a small group of islands about 500 or 600 miles of the southern Atlantic coast of Argentina. In addition to being a safe haven for Britishites around the world, they are really a beautiful collection of islands, with some amazing views and a really impressive set of supported wildlife.

They’re an independent British territory, and have been controversial territory for the two countries for about 400 years. Getting there is tricky, because you can’t fly there directly from Argentina. To get there, you basically have 3 options:

  1. Fly from Punta Arenas, Chile. LAN flies to Stanley from Punta Arenas, and you can get to Punta Arenas from either Santiago (international airport) or Ushuaia (international airport, but if you’re coming from another country, you’ll probably land in Buenos Aires and them fly to Ushuaia).
    • Benefits: Easy flight to the Falklands. If you’re already in South America, this is the simplest way to get to the Falklands (and probably the cheapest, as well).
    • Drawbacks: this flight only happens once per week, on Saturdays. So not only would you arrive on a Saturday, you would have to leave on a Saturday as well. So you’d need to spend exactly a week there (or two, or three, and so on).
  2. Fly from an RAF base in England. The RAF offers semi-chartered flights (with some tourist seats) to the Falklands from the UK on an irregular schedule.
    • Benefits: you can get there direct from above the equator (pretty far north in the northern hemisphere, actually).
    • Drawbacks: just about everything else about this flight is a drawback- there’s no published schedule, costs are pretty extreme, and it’s really really long.
  3. Visit in a cruise ship from Ushuaia. This is probably the best option, and is included in certain Antarctic cruise routes (which is how we went).
    • Benefits: scheduled visit, at a reasonable cost, guided tours of the sites on your itinerary.
    • Drawbacks: may not be flexible enough to allow for independent exploration.

What to do there:

  • Visit Stanley, the main town (of 3000 people), and check out the museums, some of the memorials (including an Argentine one, which is a recent addition), and some of the wrecks in te harbor.
  • Visit some of Camp (the outlying islands and residences). The thing about camp is, most of it is on other islands. You can try to travel by boat, but the distances are often long enough to eat up a day of travel. There are a few private planes that you can fly to different locations from, and I assume flight costs are reasonable – although I know nothing about them. Be aware that travel around the islands is unpredictable an often weather-dependent, so you may want to have a few days of flex time if you are making the travel arrangements.

As I mentioned, the islands are really beautiful – check out some photos if you don’t believe me…

Matt writes: How-to: Visit the Galapagos Islands

Posted on 08.05.10 in Galapagos, What about Preparation, Year in South America | No Comments »
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By Matt

The Galapagos Islands are truly an amazing place – tons of wildlife, but simply unafraid of people. Here are our tips for getting there, having an authentic experience, and not overpaying!

  1. Fly through Quito. It’s a much safer city than Guayaquil and there are actually things to do there (unlike Guayaquil). Even in Quito you have to be careful though, FYI.
  2. Book last-minute, unless you’re visiting between June and August (due to it being the high season, with school and summer vacations in the US and Europe).
  3. You can either book last-minute in Quito or in Santa Cruz (flight would be to “Baltra”, then).
  4. There are two types of tours: speedboat, and cruise ship. We did speedboat tours – they’re usually cheaper than the cruises, and you stay in hotels on the different islands (which is kind of cool, you can see different restaurants and bars).
  5. The standard tour goes to about 8 different islands, including the 4 populated ones. These can range from 4 days to 8 or 10. 8 or 10 days is probably too long for just those islands.
  6. A good “cheap” price target should probably be between $120-$140 per day, all meals and hotels included. Expect to pay more to rent snorkel gear, but not much.
  7. There are lots of other beautiful islands, like Bartolome. They don’t get included on the standard tours; if you go for a much longer cruise (10+ days), it might be included on your cruise (expect this to be a bit pricier, though).
  8. If you think you might like it and can budget for it, plan your flights so that you spend 3-5 extra days on Santa Cruz after your tour. You can jump onto one or two all-day tours that are really cool and worthwhile. Again, price between $120-$140 per day for these. A lot of them (like Bartolome) start really early – think 5 am pickup, because it’s a 4-hour boat trip, and the marina is an hour’s drive from the town.

Want to see some of our Galapagos photos? Check them out here.

Matt writes: A Tale of Two Wireless Companies

Posted on 08.03.10 in What about Preparation, Year in South America | No Comments »
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By Matt

While we were traveling, we found our unlocked cellphone really useful. We basically just bought a prepaid sim card in each country that we visited, used it to call hotels, tours, and restaurants, and then ditched the card when we left. It worked really well, but was also quite funny, because almost no one knew what an unlocked phone was.

There are two primary cell service providers in most south American countries:

Their icons and messaging were usually the same cross-country, at least in the following countries:

  • Ecuador
  • Peru
  • Chile
  • Argentina
  • Uruguay

We tried both companies in different countries; here’s what we found:

  • Movistar beat out Claro in Ecuador and Peru. Not only were their cards cheaper, but I even got Movistar to set up complete Internet access for the phone in Ecuador – which Claro outright refused (and yes, I spoke with the techs in each of their respective national service centers).
  • Claro provided better coverage in Chile. Not much more to say about that, especially because we only spent two weeks total in mainland Chile.
  • Claro had the best service in Argentina. Not only was the coverage awesome, but Claro included WAP profiles on the prepaid SIM card, so I could automatically get mobile web on the phone. Quite cool!

It’s funny that both companies (subsidiaries of European conglomerates) operate across most of the countries; what’s more interesting is that the prepaid cards are sold through convenience and telephone services stores across the continent.

Of course, nobody understood what an unlocked phone was, so every time that I told them I could get a card from either Claro or Movistar I had to prove it to them – by opening up the phone and inserting each SIM separately.

Matt writes: The ins and outs of travel planning on the road

Posted on 07.29.10 in What about Preparation, Year in South America | No Comments »
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By Matt

There are three basic ways to plan a vacation:

  • Plan out every intricate detail, and schedule every minute of your time off
  • Plan nothing – just go somewhere and do whatever comes to mind
  • Something in-between – identify a few highlights/goals that you want to see/do/meet, possibly set some timelines as well.

We prefer the third option – it’s important to have goals, but if you schedule every minute, it’s not a vacation. So how do you balance relaxation and experiencing a different place? Here’s how we do it:

  • Read about a place first. We use guidebooks – specifically Lonely Planet to learn about the place and what options are available.
  • Identify a few “great opportunities” that seem really attractive to you.
  • Rough out a timeline to include those activities plus a few days of rest and a few days for the unknowns that could be cool.
  • When you arrive, talk to people to find some of the unknowns or the last-minute cool options. This helps to fill in the gaps, or to rearrange your schedule if need be.

Remember that it’s an experience, but it’s also for fun – it may not be the best plan to return from your vacation more tired than when you began it.

Matt writes: How we learned Spanish in south America

Posted on 07.27.10 in Year in South America | No Comments »
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By Matt

One of the focuses of our trip was learning Spanish. It was an interesting challenge, for three reasons:

  1. So many Latin Americans speak English, it’s pretty easy to stay in your comfort zone (as an English speaker) for as long as you want.
  2. Most of the travelers we met (especially in the backpacker hostels) spoke little to no Spanish; English was the lingua franca there as well.
  3. During the three longest stays of our trip (a month in Costa Rica, a month in Galapagos, and three weeks in Antarctica), we were primarily with American and European tourists, again – and everyone primarily spoke English.

So what did we accomplish? Stef went from not being able to say more than “Hola”, to having a solid grasp of “travel Spanish” – the ability to read a menu, order food and drinks, negotiate prices, get directions, find hotels and other spots, and handle typical travel situations. I went from being able to use a little bit of Italian and get directions and order to foods to reading the newspaper and Harry potter, watching the news and other television shows, doing guided tours in Spanish, having smaller political conversations, and doing all of this across the amazingly diverse accents of south America. Overall, we did pretty well, especially when you consider that we really only had less than six months of real opportunity to learn.

Here’s how we did it:

  • Traditional classes. Stef spent her month in Costa Rica studying Spanish (and doing yoga). We also each spent a week in Quito Ecuador studying as a part of our Galapagos volunteering experience. Finally, Stef studied Spanish for another week in Cuenca Ecuador on our way south.
  • Street practice. We tried to speak Spanish almost everywhere we could – restaurants, bus stations, airports, hotels, shops, museums, and of course, on the street. Tours were generally a bit more difficult, because most Spanish-speaking tours have Spanish-speaking tourists, so the tour guides often speak at native-speed, which is too fast for us. The vocabulary and grammar are often more complex as well.
  • Individual time. Whether with the newspaper that was at the hotel desk, writing in a notebook, or taking another piece of Spanish-language literature (Harry potter books, tour brochures, flyers, etc), we each found time individually to learn more aspects of the language.

Of course, being self-taught in this way often leaves gaps. For instance, neither of us knows anything about the vosotros verb forms – they aren’t used in South America. Also, I can use the subjunctive reasonably well, but can’t conjugate several verbs in the simple past or simple future tense at all (which are much more basic uses than the subjunctive).

We’re hoping to keep up our Spanish practice back here in the States with the help of a few things:

  • Pimsleur audio language courses
  • More Harry potter books (we have the first two; I’ve only finished one)
  • Our collection of Hispanic music, which we really enjoy
  • Meeting up with some of our Spanish-speaking friends to practice every month or so

Let us know if you’d like to join in!

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