Post - liminaries

What we ended up actually doing...

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As you can see... we made one or two little deviations from the original plan. The most major of these was a trip to the US of A to check out graduate schools (Nick's mission) and just check things out and relax (my mission). Aside from that, and the skipping of Colombia, I actually managed to stick fairly close to the original plan... and I even managed to go further south than I thought I would. Below is a grid showing the schedule of where I was and when...

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
				11 January Mexico City	12 Mexico City	13 Mexico City
14 Guanajuato	15 Guanajuato	16 Guanajuato	17 Guanajuato	18 Guanajuato	19 Guanajuato	20 Guanajuato
21 Guanajuato	22 Guanajuato	23 Guanajuato	24 Guanajuato	25 Guanajuato	26 Guanajuato	27 Guanajuato
28 Guanajuato	29 Guanajuato	30 Guanajuato	31 Guanajuato	1 February Guanajuato	2 Guanajuato	3 Puerto Vallarta
4 Puerto Vallarta	5 Puerto Vallarta	6 Guanajuato	7 Guanajuato	8 Guanajuato	9 Guanajuato	10 Guanajuato
11 Mexico City	12 Mexico City	13 Mexico City	14 Mexico City	15 Mexico City	16 Oaxaca	17 Oaxaca
18 Oaxaca	19 Palenque	20 Merida	21 Merida	22 Merida	23 Merida	24 Cancun
25 Havana	26 Havana	27 Havana	28 Havana	1 March Cinfuegos	2 Trinidad	3 Trinidad
4 Trinidad	5 Vinales	6 Vinales	7 Havana	8 Caracas	9 Caracas	10 Puerto Ordaz
11 Puerto Ordaz	12 Canaima	13 Los Angeles	14 Los Angeles	15 San Francisco	16 San Francisco	17 San Francisco
18 San Francisco	19 San Francisco	20 Boston	21 Boston	22 Boston	23 Boston	24 Boston
25 Boston	26 New York	27 New York	28 New York	29 New York	30 New York	31 Boston
1 April Boston	2 Quito	3 Quito	4 Quito	5 Quito	6 Lima	7 Lima
8 Lima	9 Cusco	10 Cusco	11 Cusco	12 Cusco	13 Cusco	14 Salkantay
15 Salkantay	16 Salkantay	17 Machu Picchu	18 Cusco	19 Puno	20 Copacabana	21 Copacabana
22 La Paz	23 La Paz	24 La Paz	25 La Paz	26 Uyuni	27 Uyuni	28 Uyuni
29 Potosi	30 Cochabamba	1 May Asuncion	2 Asuncion	3 Asuncion	4 Foz do Iguazu	5 Foz do Iguazu
6 Sao Paulo	7 Sao Paulo	8 Sao Paulo	9 Rio de Janiero	10 Rio de Janiero	11 Rio de Janiero	12 Rio de Janiero
13 Sao Paulo	14 Montevideo	15 Montevideo	16 Buenos Aires	17 Buenos Aires	18 Buenos Aires	19 Buenos Aires
20 Ushuaia	21 Ushuaia	22 Ushuaia	23 Ushuaia	24 Calafate	25 Calafate	26 Calafate
27 Bariloche	28 Bariloche	29 Bariloche	30 Bariloche	31 Lanin	1 June Puerto Montt	2 Puerto Montt
3 Puerto Montt	4 Coyhaique	5 Coyhaique	6 Valparaiso	7 Valparaiso	8 Santiago	9 Santiago
10 Santiago	11 Somewhere	12 Melbourne

...and a pie chart showing the various percentages of transport taken. The numbers indicate the amount of time spent on each mode of transportation in hours. Yes, I spent 228.5 hours on buses and 83 hours on planes. This isn't even counting time spent in transit lounges and waiting around in bus stations.

Those buses... it would be difficult to choose a "worst movie" that I saw on those buses. There were many which were so bad that I simply tuned out and went to sleep (even if it was in the middle of the day), which makes it difficult to compare. Terminator 3 was laughably bad, mostly because of the sharp and witty dialogue that the governor of California got to deliver. The best movie was easily "El Senor de los Anillos" (The Lord of the Rings), which they showed on my bus ride from Ushuaia to Calafate. Border crossings were interesting... aside from the bribe-for-a-visa disaster on my way into Paraguay, everything went rather smoothly. In fact, the land borders especially were very relaxed. On may 4th, I accumulated 7 stamps - exit Paraguay, enter Brazil, exit Brazil, enter Argentina, exit Argentina, enter Brazil, exit Brazil, enter Argentina. This would have been much simpler if they had just built another bridge at the three borders area between Paraguay and Argentina (at the moment, you have to go through Brazil to travel between the two). There were also many border crossings between Argentina and Chile because bus routes through Patagonia often straddled the border because sometimes those were the only roads which linked certain towns to each other. Most of the car travel was done in Cuba, where we rented a car... and my boat ride from Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay to Buenos Aires, Argentina was my sole major boat trip.

Getting Back (12/6/07)

20 hours, 10 time zones, 5 months... we look surprisingly well-rested

Luckily, Santiago de Chile is not actually as far from Melbourne as Mexico City is... at least not by the "civil aviation metric". The flight from Santiago, Chile to Auckland is a mere13 hours, and the time from Auckland to Melbourne is only 4 hours. Adding transit time... the total travel time is only 20 hours. Our plane from Auckland to Melbourne got delayed because engine 2 was overheated or something. I also got my toothpaste confiscated... damn. I guess my plans for taking over the world with an almost-empty container of toothpaste will have to be put on hold for the time being. Unsurprisingly, I was held up in Australian Customs because I was asian. Just because I wasn't surprised doesn't mean that I was not also livid about it. I eventually got through customs who, after thoroughly searching my bags, determined that I wasn't as dodgy as the colour of my skin apparently suggests. Getting home was very pleasant indeed and when I went out for lunch later that day, I caught myself saying "gracias" to everyone and stopped just short of starting my order with "quiero comer..."

I can't quite believe that 5 months is over... blink and you'll miss it. When we left, we spoke almost no Spanish and had no idea what we were going to be doing next year. Now we speak some Spanish (although Nick's is head and shoulders above mine... just like... his head and... shoulders) and have definite plans for further education in the USA. Not only have I learned a great deal about the many countries I visited and people I met along the way, I think I learned much about myself as well. I hope people who have been following this journal can make it to the little homecoming gathering, it should be good.

..oh and PLEASE don't ask me "so Daniel, what was the best thing you saw in South America?", because that is way too hard a question...

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