Well so far I am about a quarter of the way through, having made just under 2 1/2 months out of a planned 9 months, so I thought that this would be a good place to do a recap for myself as much as anyone else.
Currently I am in Cali, south Colombia and this is my last country in South America before I travel to Central America and go up through it, finally reaching North America for a few weeks before I start coming back down again through the Pacific.
So far I have travelled through over 25 cities in 12 countries and covered about 20,000 kilometers, crossed the Equator twice, the furthest north was my starting point in London of 51 32 North and the furthest south was in Rio de Janeiro at 22 57 South.
To reach new cities I have taken 1 x Ferry, 14 x Flights, 18 x Trains and 8 x Autobus's ( including mutiple flights and multiple train connections).
I have slept on a plane, on a boat, on a train, on an autobus, at an airport, on couches, in hotels, in hostels and in friends spare rooms.
I have made some friends, luckily no enemies ( that I know of ) and have managed to avoid the attention of the police, pickpockets and guerrilla soldiers.
I have spend about £5,000 if you include only the flights used so far and not the total booked in advance ( more than half in Europe in the first month, but I am slowly regaining my original estimate of costs as life in South America has been good to me ) and thankfully as far as I am aware I have not lost more than 3 socks, one modem extention cable and a small black padlock.
I have travelled from sea level to above 4,000 feet above sea level on more than one occasion, and I have been through rain, snow, hailstones, thunder, lightening, cloud, fog and blistering heat.
I have tried many local delicacies and traditional meals, though most I cannot pronounce the name of and so far the food has been good but not outstanding, but then that might be my fault of not choosing the right places to eat.
Thankfully I have only suffered two bouts of home sickness, had no episodes of Altitude / Travel / Flight or sea sickness, only had to suffer one attack of food poisoning and only experienced one week of being eaten alive by more mosquitos than I could count.
Approximately I have taken over 3,000 photos and wrote around 100,000 words on my blog.
I have visited Beaches, Bars, Museums, Discotecks, Night Clubs, a Casino, Cinemas ( including an Imax ), Restaurants, a Volcano, Red Light Districts, Rivers, Mountains, Lakes, Temples, Castles and two of the seven new wonders of the world - being Manchu Picchu and Christ Redeemer.
( The complete list of 7 is as follows :- Manchu Picchu - Peru, Petra - Jordan, Taj Mahal - India, Chichen Itza - Mexico, Christ Redeemer - Brazil, Colossium - Italy, Great Wall of China
The following were the other finalists that somehow didn't get enough votes, as these were all voted on instead of being dictated by a panel of experts.
The Acropolis - Greece, Alhambra - Spain, Angkor Wat - Cambodia, Statues on Easter Island - Chile, Eiffle Tower - France, Hague Sophia - Turkey, Kiyomizu Temple - Japan, Kremlin / St Basil - Russia, Neuschweinstein Castle - Germany, Pyramids of Giza - Egypt, Statue of Liberty - USA, Stonehenge - UK, Sydney Opera House - Australia and Timbuktu - Mali.
Of the other finalists I have already visited 4 in my life, and of the actual seven modern wonders on previous trips I have been to the Great Wall in China, though it is impressive enough for me to want to visit it a second time.
For more details of the new 7 wonders and the runners up visit this site - http://www.new7wonders.com/classic/en/n7w/results/ )
No comments:
Post a Comment