South African Roadtrip

We finished up our work at Baphumelele Children's Home this morning (with lots of tears from Magge) and have a few more days in Cape Town before we tackle more of this country.  We will rent a car and drive roughly 4,000km over twenty days.  As opposed to our blitzkrieg style roadtrips in New Zealand and Australia, where we slept in a new location every other night, we decided to stay in fewer spots for longer periods of time.  Here's our tentative schedule, mostly for the benefit of our mothers since we'll often be without internet over the next three weeks.

November 22: Leave Cape Town, drive to Stormsriver in Tsitsikamma National Park.  We're stopping here mainly to break up a long drive, but there should be some nice hikes.
November 24: Nqileni village, Wild Coast.  A very rural area off the beaten trail.
November 29: Coffee Bay, Wild Coast.  More spectacular South African coastline.
December 2: Somewhere in the Drakensberg Mountains.  We haven't decided where we'll stay yet, but we know that we want to spend a few days in the mountains.
December 5: Graskop.  A small town that will make for a convenient base for a quick trip to the Blyde River Canyon before we head to Kruger.
December 6: Kruger National Park.  South Africa's best known game reserve.
December 11: Pretoria.  Probably just a bed for the night before our flight - I doubt we'll explore this city at all.
December 12: Fly to London.

Chile Itinerary

We've been in Peru for exactly two months as of today, and leave for Tacna, on the Chilean border, tonight.  Our schedule for Chile is more flexible than what we had for Ecuador and Peru, but here is what it looks like right now:

• January 26-27:  Iquique.  After taking a ten hour bus ride from Puno to Tacna, then a train across the border to Arica, then another bus, we will take a few days in relax in this beach city.  I missed out on parasailing in Lima, but may try again here, as it is supposedly a good spot.
• January 28-February 1:  San Pedro de Atacama.  A popular backpacker town in the Atacama desert that is close to hot springs, salt flats, geysers and mountains.
• February 2-5:  Copiapó.  Using this city as a base to venture into the seldom-visited Nevado Tres Cruces National Park.
• February 6-9:  La Serena.  This city has the reputation of being the prettiest city in Chile, architecturally.  It's also close to Pisco distilleries and obvservatories that take advantage of some of the clearest skies on the planet.
• February 10-20:  The Lakes District.  A region full of mountains and (you guessed it) lakes.  There are plenty of outdoor activities here, including the chance to climb a volcano.
• February 21-24:  Chiloé.  In relatively culturally homogenous Chile, the island of Chiloé is supposedly unique.  It is also famous for its oysters, which neither Magge nor I like.
• February 25-March 1:  Santiago and Middle Chile.  We're meeting Marcia and Lee (Magge's mother and stepfather) in Santiago, and will spend some time in the surrounding area and visiting Rachel (Magge's stepsister) in the coastal city of Viña del Mar.
• March 2-7:  Easter Island.  We'll continue with Marcia and Lee to this isolated island before saying goodbye to South America.
• Wild card:  Patagonia.  Due to the immense length of Chile and the cost of flying, we are not currently planning on visiting Patagonia.  However, we are keeping our eye on flight prices, and if we're able to find a deal, we'll accelerate the schedule (likely skipping Copiapó and La Serena).

Peru Itinerary

The wife and I sketched out the rest of our Peru travels over lunch the other day.  It was probably the most planning we have done for this trip since we decided on which countries to visit.  We are posting it here so that our parents can quench their thirst for Google Earth, although others may find it interesting as well (anyone want to make last minute plans to meet us?).  The schedule will still be flexible, but as of now it looks like this:

• December 23-27:  Spending Christmas in a lodge in the Cordillera Blanca, the world's highest tropical mountain range.  I've also seen claims that it's the world's second highest mountain range after the Himalayas, although there are a handful of higher peaks in the Patagonia, so I'm not sure where that nugget comes from.  The range contains sixteen peaks higher than 6,000m.  In comparison, Mt. McKinley in Alaska in North America's only peak greater than 6,000m.  The lodge where we are staying sits in the shadow of Huascarán, Peru's tallest mountain at 6,768m.
• December 28-30:  Lima.  We actually don't have that much interest in the capital city, but we need to break up the long bus ride from the north to the south.
• December 31 - January 1:  Pisco.  Bringing in the New Year with pisco sours.
  
• January 2-4:  Huacachina, an oasis surrounded by giant sand dunes.  This is primarily a backpacker town, so we don't plan on spending too much time here.
  
• January 5-11:  Arequipa and Canyon Country.  Peru's second largest city and the world's two deepest canyons (twice as deep as the Grand Canyon): Colca and Cotahuasi.
  
• January 12-23:  Cusco/Sacred Valley/Inca Trail to Machu Picchu/Amazon jungle.  This is the part of the Peru itinerary that still needs the most work.  We know we'll visit Machu Picchu, but are still uncertain about hiking the Inca Trail.  We'd love to make the trek, but the standard routes cost more than I'd like to pay and I've heard that they are not necessarily good values.  There are some alternate routes which may be cheaper, and we're in the process of exploring them.  We've also decided that we will definitely make a trip into the jungle.  I had wanted to do a guided tour that goes overland from the Andes into the Amazon Basin, going through the cloud forest, but we'll be there in the middle of the rainy season, which renders the roads impassable.  Instead, we'll likely fly into Puerto Maldonado and take a boat up one of the rivers to a lodge.
  
• January 25-28:  Lake Titicaca (simmer down, children).  The city of Puno will be the launching point to the islands in the world's highest navigable lake.  How is "navigable" defined?  Probably in such a way that makes Lake Titicaca the world's highest navigable lake.  Regardless, it is supposed to be a fascinating place for both its indigenous culture and scenery.
  
• January 29:  Tacna, where we will take a train into Chile.
  

Our Current Travel Schedule

Our itinerary is still somewhat flexible.  For the most part, we have decided which countries we will visit, and we have booked most of our international flights.  However, we're still open to making detours and we can still make changes to the dates of our flights.  If you want to meet up with us at any of these locations or anywhere close to these locations, just let us know.  However, be warned that we will stick our budget (somewhere slightly above shoestring), so there will be no Four Seasons or all-inclusive resorts for us.

• November 5 - November 27:  Ecuador.  A week in Quito before making our way down the spine of the Andes through Cuenco to the Peruvian border.
• November 28 - January 31:  Peru.  December will be spent volunteering at Bruce Peru in Trujillo.  We will take January to travel throughout the country, likely focusing on the southern Andes around Cusco and possibly making our way into the Amazon.
• Febuary 1 - March 7:  Chile.  We will travel by bus as far south as we can, hopefully making it into northern Patagonia, before backtracking to Santiago to meet up with Magge's mother and stepfather, where we will leave for Easter Island.
• March 7 - March 13:  Tahiti.  The only reason we're visiting French Polynesia is because it's the most direct route from Easter Island to New Zealand.  It's a truly unfortunate situation.
• March 13 - April 10:  New Zealand.  As of now, I suspect we'll spend a week on the North Island and three weeks on the South Island.
• April 10 - May 5:  Australia.  We'll begin in Sydney and then head to Queensland, where we plan on doing some scuba diving.
• May 5 - June 18:  Southeast Asia.  The plan here has not been nailed down yet.  We are flying into Singapore and are fairly certain we'll visit Thailand and Vietnam, but the dates are still up in the air.  Malaysia and Cambodia are still up for consideration.
• June 18 - June 25:  Jordan.  The primary goal for Jordan is to visit Petra.
• June 25 - mid July:  Greece.  I've already received some requests from folks to meet us here, but my parents and siblings have first dibs.
• Mid July - mid August:  Italy and Croatia.  We're meeting Magge's mother and stepfather in Croatia.
• Mid August - mid September:  France.  Here's where I get to test how much the French enjoy my jokes about the French.
• Mid September - early October:  Spain.  There's an outside chance we'll dip into Portugal.
• October - November:  South Africa.  Most of our time will probably be spent in Cape Town and the surrounding area.  We will do 1.5-2 months of volunteer work here.
• We will have some transit stops in London around our time in South Africa.  We may decide to spend more time in the city if the budget and schedule allow for it.