Posts Tagged ‘flights’

We just finished another 22 hour bus ride, so I thought I’d post this.  I wrote it a little while ago, but wanted to get it up to document our planning process and how the trip will go!

When we started to plan our trip we looked at all kinds of options for getting ourselves around the world.  From our reseach it seemed to us that most people doing this type of trip do one of two major options.

Option 1:  Buy your flights as you go.  This provides a lot of flexibility since nothing or at least not everything is booked up front.  You also can shop for cheap flights as you go and try to save money that way.

Option 2:  Buy a Round the World ticket from one of the major airline alliances.  This has the advantage of the price being set upfront, you have dates and flights set before you leave home, and there’s usually at least some measure of flexibility built in, although you may have to pay to change some things on the fly.

We went with option 2.  After checking around we decided to buy our ticket here: Oneworld Alliance.  We liked their planner and found that we could get the kind of trip we wanted this way.  Even if you aren’t setting off around the world it’s fun to play with their planner and see all the places you can go!!!  Oneworld Planner

Our Itinerary:

Ready to Travel

I have been meaning to write this post ever since I hit publish on part one.  When we were preparing for our trip I found this kind of information so helpful and was anxious to document what I’m carrying with me.  So this is long overdue.  On the other hand, now that we’ve been on the road for four months I’m in a much better position to comment on what has been needed and used and what hasn’t.  So here it is, what I have with me now. (more…)

Justin has been doing an awesome job filling you in on our “W” hike, but we’ve been really busy since then as well, so I’ll try to catch things up!  We had a day of recovery after all of the hiking and two awesome nights at our favorite hostel in Puerto Natales.

The next stop on our agenda was El Calafate, Argentina which is known almost exclusively for its glacier.  We took a bus to get there and had a very easy 6 hour ride, spending only an hour at the Chile-Argentina border crossing.  We weren’t quite prepared for what El Calafate would be like since it was pretty different from Ushuaia and Puerto Natales.  Firstly, it was EXPENSIVE.  Especially the food.  Secondly, it seemed to be built just for the tourists and while the other towns had shops for tourists and tours for tourists, this place had a kind of Disneyland overpricedness to it.  We were very lucky though because we stayed at a wonderful hostel (Hospedaje Lautaro) run by an incredibly welcoming family who did masses to ensure that we could make the most of the glacier and the town.  They also provided a very tasty breakfast each day.  We were also able to save a bit of money by using the kitchen instead of the overpriced restaurants.

The first night in town we cooked dinner and then went and did a little beer tasting at the local brewery, Sholken. The beer was interesting!  We agreed that their pale ale was the favorite, but the dark beer tasted EXACTLY like beef jerky.  They must use hickory or something in the process.  I have never had a beer that tastes like meat before!

Beer tasting!

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We made it to Argentina!!!  Still working on getting our feet back on the ground, but so far Buenos Aires has been pretty good to us.  It was a looooong trip to get here.  We woke up at the holiday park in Auckland at 5 am and then got a taxi to the airport.  It was a 3 hour flight from Auckland to Sydney and a pretty bumpy one at that.  We only had about 35 minutes in Sydney to transfer and found out when we got there that we had to go through security again.  I was bummed because I had bought a bottle of water in Auckland for the long flight and not even opened it yet and it got taken away at Sydney security.  We had just enough time to get another bottle of water before our flight started boarding.  This flight was the longest that either of us had ever done at a little over 13 hours.  It was a nice flight on a giant plane and the food was actually good.  My favorite part was right before it began to get dark outside they came by and gave us hot chocolate with a marshmallow and a cookie as a goodnight snack.  I was able to sleep a little, but Justin didnt get any.

The airport in Buenos Aires was incredibly chaotic.  It took us over an hour to buy some shampoo, get some money from an ATM and get change for the bus.  By this point we were pretty exhausted and quickly realizing that we dont speak Spanish.  We somehow managed to get the city bus and arrive at our hostel in one piece (2 hours later).

Since then weve managed to get around a little better and are starting to lose the deer in headlights look when people talk to us.  We have registered for a Spanish class and will spend 4 hours a day for the next 3 weeks learning how to speak.  Weve had one day already and its incredibly helpful to hear a native speaker and start to get our ears used to the language here.  Its actually quite different from Spanish in Spain or Latin America.

Language school common room

The Spanish school has internet, so we should be able to check in fairly regularly.  Thanks to everyone who is keeping us up to date on everything going on at home!  And sorry for the weird punctuation in this post…I havent quite figured out the keyboard.

View from the language school

Well, we discovered to our dismay that we’ll be staying for an extra 8 hours while they find more people to fly to New Zealand!  Of course, they didn’t say it that way but we know that’s what was going on.  Stayed at a reasonably nice hotel with free breakfast and lunch though!  No sightseeing, just lounging and napping to be had.  Too bad it will take away from our time in Auckland but all in all it could have been a lot worse.  See you in New Zealand!