Blue Dot Explore

March 30, 2024 - Perito Moreno Glacier I was very excited in the weeks leading up to the Patagonia camper chapter of our journey. Our tent truck through Namibia and Botswana has been one of, if not my most, favorite activities during this trip so I was looking forward to returning to the camper life. Similar to our Sub-saharan Africa trip, we knew there would be cold nights that we were not equipped for so our first stop after the overnight bus from Santiago was to pick up cold weather supplies in Puerto Montt. This included all our sleeping gear, and we didn’t hold back out of fear of the cold; pillows, sheets, a comforter, AND two sleeping bags just to be safe. Lucky for us, we hit all the end-of-season sales and were able to pick it all up for significantly cheaper than I had expected. We also found a Wal-Mart-type store to grab sweatpants and long sleeves to supplement the few items we had picked up at used clothing stores in Santiago. Add on a pretty big grocery haul of canned goo...

  February13, 2024 - View into Devil's Throat at Iguazu Falls, Brazil Having left Carnaval a couple days before the cumulating event to try to limit our expenses, we caught a flight with a serendipitously long layover in São Paulo. Without prior planning or realization, it just happened that we would be in a huge city exactly during the Super Bowl. Flying into São Paulo, I was absolutely blown away by its size. Skyscrapers literally as far as the eye can see, it is the 12th largest city in the world, most of the others being in Asia. After essentially throwing our bags down in our airport hotel, we were off to one of the known ex-pat party neighborhoods to find the game. There were lots of dressed-up revelers in the street, reminding us that Carnaval was still in full swing, but there were also a surprising number of bars showing the Super Bowl. We went first to one that Johnny found online as "the" place to watch, but it was so crowded we left at halftime to find a more ...