One of the best ways to travel is by doing an overland tour. Overland tours are basically road trips/car camping/hotel stays, except with an organized group. Overlands are a great way to experience a country, but as their name states, they require a lot of overland traveling.
My mom, dad, sister and I went on a tour with Tucan Travel that crossed through 5 countries: Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru. 5 countries equals a lot of driving.
Thankfully we were in a spacious yellow truck made for hardcore adventures. The Tucan Travel truck had around 30 seats but our tour had only 13 travelers, so everyone took up a row for himself or herself.
The truck, named Frank, was a Mercedes with a trailer that was converted to accommodate people. Frank was really rugged and nothing too luxurious. The seats weren’t the most comfy and there wasn’t even air conditioning. I really wish there was Wi-Fi (and a bathroom)…
About ¼ of our entire 46 day South American overland tour consisted of only driving. At times there were amazing views, but other drives were just plain boring. The average driving day was 10 hours long and started at around 6 AM.
Once, while traveling through Salta, Argentina, the inside of the truck was below freezing. There wasn’t any heat so everyone bundled up in the provided blankets, but my fingers and toes were still numb.
Towards the end of the tour, I started to have a driving day routine. First, I would sleep, usually until 9 or later. From then on, I would just stare out the window and listen to music. Every 2 hours, we would have a bathroom stop, or sometimes just a ‘bush stop’.
Driving days were also a weird way to bond with the other travelers. Towards the middle of our trip, I remembered that we could play board games like Monopoly or Risk on my iPad. From then on, other tourists and I would play overly passionate games of Monopoly on the iPad. Our games were so intense that I would actually feel a bit stressed out when I was losing.
For me, lunch was always a really weird situation. I would look forward to it because I just wanted to get out of the truck, but then I didn’t really want to eat because it was almost always a cold ham, cheese and tomato sandwich.
While driving through high altitude countries like Peru and Bolivia, our driving days got even more complex. I would find myself panting while just sitting down. I would also seem to always get headaches from motion sickness and the altitude at the same time. Then I would need to drink more water. That left me with a dilemma: would I risk going in my pants, or would I settle with a headache. I decided to risk it. After all, I’ve been practicing holding it over the course of all of my public school years.
Surprisingly enough, driving days were a fun adventure. They gave me time to reflect on what I had seen during the tour and to bond with other tourists.
Do you like road trips? Leave your comment below.
Wow, that sounds like quite the adventure driving around South America and then the altitude and the curvy roads. Sounds like you survived OK!
It was an adventure! 🙂