This is the post that got deleted last time i blogged. How frustrating. I was sitting in the internet cafe, typing like mad, asked the guy for half an hour more, Greg came in, asked for half an hour more and paid (another half an hour) and after the first half an hour they shut me down...grr..
Anyway..it was all about how travelling is WONDERFUL...BUT! it has it´s definate pitfalls.
Ie when you go on ´holidays´ generally you go for a couple of weeks, or up to six weeks, prebook everything, have wonderful accomodation, take great clothes, buy lots of souvenirs and take a heap of pics. And ít´s great!ª (I LOVE to travel like this).
But when you´re travelling for an extended time...it´s very different! So i´ve found out! Every time we go to a fantastic place i´m really tempted to buy mementos....and have so far bought one ¨Paddle or Die´- I´ve survived the Zambezie¨ teeshirt in Zimbabwe. And i bought a table cloth and a painting at the markets at Blyde mountain in South Africa (that i sent back!) and that´s IT. Imagine. That´s all i´ve bought.
Because...what we buy...we carry. Or send back. And the stuff we sent from South Africa cost us more than what the contents were worth. We´ve decided to only sent back things that i can scrapbook later (Jilly, you´d love all the tickets and stuff i´ve got..inspired by all your albums!¨)
Also, the mode of travel is different. Buses and trains have people who splutter, cough, spit, vomit, fart, and make all sorts of bodily sounds...that is enough to turn anyone off! Planes are just so much better!!! Well, some of them..we´ve had experiences there too...Trains are the worst! People just let it loose! Ew.
Accomodation can be well....different. For instance the accomodation we´re staying in at the moment has twin beds. And a basin. Shower and toilet down the hall. Some don´t have towels, some don´t have soap. And we can´t really just go upmarket when we like..because if we did that..we´d be doing it every time we get new accomodation!!! So. We´ve stuck to our budget and we´re proud of ourselves. The more we do, the longer we can stay away and experience the world!
Luggage is another thing. In our packs, we have a sleeping bag, towels, sheets, toiletries, medical kit, clothes, diary and notebook and Lonely Planet guide (which is heavy, ask Greg!) maps, shoes and a few other things like coffee, tea, sugar etc
When we can finally post our pics (it´s a procedure..we have to download them to a disk and then upload them on here and at the moment we can´t find a computer with english comands so i´m not sure what i´m doing...might have to wait till Barcelona or France to do that.)
Food is the other basic necessary evil. Well, it seems like that sometimes because you can´t just go to your fridge. Everything is either bought at cafe´s or at a supermarket and the latter is more difficult because we have to find them first! Then. Everything is in a different language..so, like one time, you might think you´re getting olives stuffed with capsicum only to find they´re stuffed with anchovies..ew.
When we buy stuff at supermarkets we have to make sure we eat it before we backpack somewhere else because it´s heavy. So what we´re trying to do is buy the stuff when we have a two day or more stay and keep it in the room. Of course there is usually no fridge, but so far, at least in Spain and Portugal, the temperature has been low so it hasn´t been a problem. In Africa, it was too hot to keep food.
Tourist cafe´s are a no no. Too expensive. SO we´ve had to go looking for food.
It takes up a lot of our time. Looking for food and accomodation!
MAPS are so important. We just couldn´t do anything without them. So whenever we´ve arrived anywhere we´ve looked for accomodation to drop our luggage off...then we´ve looked for food because we´re generally starving, then we´ve looked for the tourist office to find out the best sites and monuments and features of the town we´re in to visit.
Washing and laundry is another necessary evil. Of course we have to wash our clothes!! I´ve been the washing lady seeing Greg´s doing the navigating everywhere and each time we´ve got two days or more i wash undies, socks and shirts. When we´ve got 3 days we look for a laundry to do our long pants and long shirts.
There´s a heap of other things...the nitty gritties...and i´ll write more later....now i want to fill in what we´ve been up to since Faro...
Oh Zac, you asked about the round-the-world ticket. What happens, with ours, is you book the ticket and pick the 5 continents (varies depending on what ticket you get...Ours are are Asia (Hong Kong), Africa (South Africa), Europe, North America (USA) & South America. ´We could stop at Hawaii or NZ on the way home, we chose NZ as we´ve both been to Hawaii and Greg hasn´t been to NZ.
Once you pick the continents, then you pick the 20 destinations. And then lock them into temporary times. We´ve got a general outline of the times for each destination but these are flexible. We can change the times with a small penalty for reissuing the ticket but the destinations are not negotiable once locked in.
But that´s no hassle as we have our fights but can just get other flights and transport in between. Ie when we went to Vic Falls we just got another flight there and back and still stuck to our itinerary.
And for Europe..we landed in Madrid and take off to the US from London! In between, we find our own way.
It´s a very cheap way to do it..It cost more to go to South America, there and back, than it does for a round-the-world ticket!
By the way, thanks Jilly for all your contacts..you´re a darl. We´ll see how we go :)
Greg´s travel advice: Plan only a day head..at the most, 2 days, any further is a headache as things change!!!!
