YQrtw: Why South America, Central America

Out of all the places I am going to on my round-the-world (RTW) trip, South America and Central America are least familiar to me.

For me, South America’s allure is its mystery and affordability. (Sort of what western tourists think about South East Asia.)

I’ve wanted to visit the continent but never did because it’s expensive to get there for no reason. Since I’m doing a RTW, I might as well visit South America along the way. Besides that, South America is most likely cheaper than Europe or the United States.

I have only 2 months in South America. That’s very little time so I won’t be visiting some countries.

For example, I won’t go to Brazil because they speak Portuguese there. (A rather strange reason but I want to practice Spanish and not get muddled up.)

I’ve put Central America into the blog title, but I’m only visiting El Salvador. My flight from Lima to Los Angeles had a stopover at San Salvador so I requested an extra 7 days there.

Argentina

National Capital at Buenos Aires, — old timey buenos aires

Credit: OSU Special Collections & Archives : Commons

I stop at Buenos Aires after a transit at Dubai airport from Istanbul (yes, the connection is terrible). I don’t plan to spend too much time in the capital because I’ve heard that things can be as expensive as the US or Europe.

I want to be able to speak Spanish so I might take a week or so of lessons here. I’ve read that Argentinian Spanish is very different from the rest of the Latin American countries but it would be quite cool to speak differently from others.

From Buenos Aires, I plan to head to Iguazu Falls to see the magnificent waterfalls. I’m thinking if I should take the chance to step into Brazil and Paraguay since they are near the falls.

Bolivia

Mountain gorge near La Paz, Bolivia
Photo credit: Smithsonian Institution Archives

I didn’t know of Bolivia until I started reading up on South America. I fell in love with the name Bolivia and want to visit the place very much.

Another reason I want to visit here is because I’ve heard that living expenses here is really really cheap. If I can handle the high altitude, I might even take Spanish classes (if I haven’t done so in Argentina).

[Side note, while in search of La Paz, I found a photo of this posed skeleton.]

Peru

Credit: Epsilon31

Can you go to South America without heading to Peru? (Well, technically yes but my plane leaves from Peru so I must be there.)

Top on my list for Peru is MACHU PICCHU!!!!!! OMGWTFBBQ!!! I haven’t made any bookings for the site. I wonder if I will be able to get into the place when I am there.

El Salvador

I have a week in El Salvador to recover from my 2-months in South America. Since my flight from Lima has to make a stop in San Salvador, I requested Airtreks to let me extend a week here for an extra US$60.

I have no plans for San Salvador but I will probably stay in the country for the whole week despite it being the smallest country in Central America. (It might even feel like Singapore without the tall buildings, great public transport and airconditioned malls.)

What tips do you have for South and Central Americas?

My round-the-world 2013 route

It’s rather strange being at home on a Wednesday afternoon, typing at my computer…

Oh ya, I am unemployed now. Anyway, I have a whole lot of things to pack in my room and should spend less time on the computer. (I’m only getting started with “things on the floor”. I’ve only managed 15 tiles and it seems that I’ve dug out more things than I’ve tossed.)

Anyway, not to bore you with my packing, I’ll share with you the route of my round-the-world trip (while I procrastinate packing).

My concrete route for now is:

Malaysia -> Sri Lanka -> Dubai-> [Stopping by Jordan and Egypt on a cruise ship] -> Italy -> Greece -> Turkey -> South America (most likely Argentina, Bolivia, Peru) -> El Salvador -> Hong Kong

While there are other places in the world which I want to go, not all of them are on the list. The reasons why they are not in the list are: money, time and out-of-wayness.

The plans that you see now have been distilled from a murky “These are the places I want to go if I am rich” to something that’s more possible.

What my previous goal was

When I was planning the trip, I had big dreams. I wanted to see India, Egypt, Greece, UK (for flight transfer), USA, Hawaii (and by budget airline to) Australia.

I wanted to cross the Atlantic or Pacific oceans on a cargo ship. Even though this might sound like a good and cheap option to cross the sea, turns out it’s rather expensive and very time consuming.

I wanted to do so much but I knew my budget was limited. In the end, I narrowed down my destinations to a few continents while keeping to a few important places: Greece and South America.

Destinations such as Egypt and Hawaii were crossed out because it would be rather expensive to go solo (especially for only a few days). Since Hawaii was out, there was no point going by budget airlines to Australia which I’ve not found the wish to visit yet.

Where I’m going

I will be heading home to Sabah next Tuesday and spend about 2 weeks there. Then I’m heading to Sri Lanka for seven days which will coincide with the the local new year celebration. [Catch the Sri Lanka updates here.]

After Sri Lanka, I will be in Dubai for a few days before my cruise leaves for Italy. [Dubai posts here.] Yes, that’s right, I’m going on a cruise despite being on a backpacking trip. I’ve never been on a cruise but two people who have been on cruises told me it’s dead boring. Will I be bored to death? Stay tuned.

The cruise covers Jordan and three sites in Egypt so I might go on an excursion at those places.

While in Europe, I will only visit Italy, Greece and Turkey because I only have a month there. Mom will join me in Turkey! Yeah! We’ll be checking out exotic locations in Turkey.

After Turkey, I’m heading to South America for TWO MONTHS. Holy macarena! Two whole months in South America in winter. Actually, two months is not much if you consider how gigantic the continent is.

After SA, it’s a week in El Salvador. I know it’s a bit weird but I had a flight connection there and for an extra US$60, I could stop over for as long as I like. Great!

After El Salvador, I’m heading to Los Angeles for a transit to Hong Kong. I am not staying in the US because living expenses there is crazy compared to the other places I have on my plan. But I still need to pay US$160 for visa, even though it’s only a 4-hour transit. Boo hoo.

Finally, I will be heading to Hong Kong. I’ve only been to Macau so I look forward to the many dimsum feasts which I will have.

After Hong Kong, it’s back to Malaysia. I’ll take a mini break before I figure out the next step.

What will happen during RTW?

Of course my RTW isn’t a long vacation which some think it is.

I will continue blogging and share travel tips for the locations I go to. I will also jot notes for the book that I want to write after the trip.

During my journey, I also want to find “the next place I want to stay semi-permanently”.

I’ve been in Singapore for 7 years, which is about one-quarter of my life. I am not sure if I want to be in Singapore for the rest of my life so I want to find the next best place. What better way than to go to places and check out the place? (By the way, this doesn’t mean that I want to settle down in a place with “that special someone”.)

Do you have any recommendations for the countries I’m visiting? Share them in the comment!

Hola! Let’s learn Spanish.

I’m travelling to South America some time next year and I want to be able to speak Spanish to help me go through life easier.

I went to a Spanish language school a few months back and quite enjoyed it. My four semesters of French made it easier to pick up the language compared to my other classmates who were were thrown into the deep end of the Spanish pool.

Even though the language school has higher level classes, I don’t think I am want to spend about S$300 to improve my Spanish.

Self studying Spanish

What will I do then? I plan to self study.

I’m a fan of self-proclaimed language hacker, Benny Lewis, who evangelizes speaking from day 1.

While I probably won’t be as hardcore as he is buy speaking from day 1, I plan to learn from his methods and do a lot of self studying.

I’ve borrowed some language books and CDs from the library which I can practise reading and listening from.

For more listening and vocabulary practice, I can check out Spanish versions of pop songs (although I’m not that sure of some of their accents).

I also discovered that my current-favorite TV show/band (Flight of the Conchords) has Spanish dubs. I’ve put up a playlist of Los conchords in Spanish. If I can get my hands on the lyrics, I’ll be able to learn new vocabulary.

If you are interested in laughing out loud to songs, I recommend:
– Fashion is Danger [English | Spanish]
– You Don’t Have to be a Prostitute [English | Spanish]
– Business Time [English | Spanish]

Even though it’s still too early, I have a Spanish version of Bridget Jones’s Diary which I bought second hand while in San Francisco. I have the English version, maybe I can do a side-by-side readings? My goal is to understand at least 50% of the content by the time I leave for South America.

Bridget Jones's Diary, en espanoil — Bridget Jones’s Diary, en espanoil

To end this post, I bring you the only Spanish song I know all the lyrics to.

This blog post was inspired by BootsnAll’s Indie Travel Challenge weekly travel blog project.

Week 43 of the Indie Travel Challenge is a challenge to start learning a new language:
Q: Do you speak two languages or more? What are those?
A: Fluent English, Mandarin Chinese and Malay. Conversational Japanese, French.

Check out my other #indie2012 posts.

Category: South America