Lost World Expedition (US-Central-South America)

[93BLAZER]

Colombia is hands down one of teh best countries I've been to!


Venture down to La Canderliera. Lots of great little places to eat. I love the weather in Bogota. You sweat your tail off in Cartagena and on teh coast, but the weather is a welcome relief in Bogota.

Medellin is great. Where do you plan to stay? Do you plan to venture south?

 

[UK4X4]

Nice to have met you both !

a few beers were drunk and even in a size of city like Bogota we even bumped into each other on my last day.....

I was in a pub as usual, enjoing the view and having a nice pint of "Rojo" from the Bogota Beer Company.

Still can't quite get over the restaurant we visited, I think I needed another 1/2 a bottle and a few more hours to get into the swing of it !

Anyway good luck on the rest of your voyage and if your ever back in Bogota look me up!

Back to the thread !

 

[dare2go]

Totally friggin' AWESOME!

As I tell everyone I meet who is traveling or wants to travel through Latin America, Colombia is not to be missed! :victory:

We second this! :iagree:

Nicest people we met on our travels

 

[lostworldexpedition]

It is hard to believe I haven't posted in over a year... This July will mark the third year since we left our house in California and moved into the LandCruiser for a 1 year drive to Ushuaia. That one year has evolved into a pretty unusual life, no longer a vacation or even a trip, I think we are more like nomads (except I guess we are not hunter gatherers, although sometimes we are).

I wanted to give you a quick update of our last year or so: We spent 4 months in Colombia and truly wish we would have stayed there longer. What an amazing country and what hospitable people. One of my favorite dishes so far comes from Colombia, the gut bomb artery clogging Bandeja Paisa

It has many iterations, but generaly includes chicharron (crispy pork belly with skin), beans, beef (steak or ground), a fried egg, sausage, avocado, fried plantain, rice & beans and an arepa (a corn dough based bread type thing).

We truly loved too many places to post about, but Salento tops the list an area dominated by Jeeps and coffee, the nearby Cocora Valley was mindblowing with its unique wax palm trees

We considered adding this beaut Honda to our rig, but couldn't figure out a way to carry it


I highly recommend visiting Colombia, there is an enormous amount of offroading and still relatively off the beaten path areas. Tourism is growing at an alarming rate, but it is a huge country.

 

[lostworldexpedition]

After 4 months in Ecuador we entered Ecuador and enjoyed the most beautifully painless border crossing of our trip. We never planned for what came next: 9 months in Ecuador!

Part of that was a great job we had at a hostel near Cotopaxi National Park, we spent nearly 4 months working there and loved every minute. Woke up to this view nearly every morning (every clear morning that is...)

This is a night shot from our bedroom window:

Our job included guiding hikes and horseback riding trips... Luis also did some BBQing and Pizza baking in a sweet woodfire oven

On our spare time we drove around the amazing trails in the area and the LandCruiser hit its first 15000ft pass like a champ (although dumping more smoke than a BatMan smokescreen)


After our time at Secret Garden we drove around the country for a while, enjoying the 1 U.S. dollar per gallon price!
We met monkeys

Did some of what locals call "sportfishing" which was nothing more than bait on a line thrown into a trout farm (yes, a little sad... but tasty and cheap)

I got to pet a tapir, who later bit me and Lacey missed the shot

We visited the Ecuadorian Amazon forest at Cuyabeno Reserve, an Amazing experience to say the least

and to top it off we spent 2 weeks in the Galapagos Islands which was one of our biggest dreams for this trip, there is a ridiculous amount of pics we took at the Galapagos at our website (LINK)

There is so much we did in Ecuador we haven't posted most of it on our website, but needles to say we loved Ecuador.

 

[lostworldexpedition]

So after the 9 months in Ecuador we drove into Peru. Our vehicle permit in Ecuador was vaguely legal so we opted to drive out of the country without checking the vehicle out... you see for every day past the vehicle import permit you overstay the owner must pay $264. What they call a minimum salary per day fine (yes minimum wage is $264/per day in Ecuador and pretty close to that every country we have visited in Latin America). We feared an impound and hefty fines so we drove out without checking the vehicle out... no problem, except the LandCruiser can never drive into Ecuador again.

We are currently on our 5th month in Peru and we love it! This is an overlander's paradise (except for the fuel price, close to 6 bucks per gallon). There are trails everywhere and friendly 4x4 clubs willing to share tracks!

Main problem is we have met our fare share of landslides and some have been impassable, some were being cleared as we waited

there is a ton of desert along the coast, so if sand and desert is your thing...
Sandwich break on a long drive

We where lucky enoug to coincide with an annual LandCruiser Peru Club event in the dunes just south of Lima and participated in a mini fun rally

Our 60 won 1st Place!!!

And I got to hang out with these ladies

We visited the amazing ruins of Kuelap in the north

and Pre-Incan sarcophagi nestled high on steep mountainsides

On a particularly rocky road we experienced our 9th flat of the trip!!! 9 in 2.5 years! A nasty sidewall tire killer.

After 3 years of faithful service our 33x10.5R15 BFG A/T's have been replaced. Now we are running 285/75R16 Kevlar Good Year's.

 

[Every Miles A Memory]

We truly loved too many places to post about, but Salento tops the list an area dominated by Jeeps and coffee, the nearby Cocora Valley was mindblowing with its unique wax palm trees
View attachment 99030

This almost looks fake its so amazing!!

 

[lostworldexpedition]

The colonial cities and towns in Peru are quite beautiful and slightly reminiscent of some of our favorite spots in Mexico.


We found what could be a great low key overland rig

We see a lot of riot cops everywhere, but mostly peaceful demonstrations

Nevermind owning a work truck

Nevermind hills on your bicycle

Nevermind hair on your dog

Nevermind clothes on your news anchor :sombrero:

 

[lostworldexpedition]

We spent quite a bit of time in Huanchaco, a lazy surf town that just sucked us in... Our friends Sprinterlife.com spent a healthy 6 or so months there.

It is not the prettiest town or the best beach, but there is just something relaxing about it (and everything is super cheap).
It is the home of the Caballitos de Totora

Beautifully made canoes of a local grass, some claim they were the original wave riding device.
Most sunsets in Huanchaco are breathtaking

We made it a point to sit and wait for sunset every day (preferably with a cold beer)


We saw the largest overland rig ever camping at the beach


Enjoyed some of the best and strangest kabobs ever... Peruvians call them anticuchos. Some are beef heart, chicken feet, gizzard, you name it... delicious!


We had an amazing time in Huanchaco

Learned how to BBQ with a 50 gallon drum in which you hang the meat... somewhere between BBQ and smoking, quite good


Cooked for guests on a regular basis, since the campground was quite busy (yes I wear an apron, lost to many shirts to grease splatter)

And took/posted the most commented photo we've had on our Facebook account, our kitchen

 

[LaOutbackTrail]

You guys are awesome. I keep up with you on facebook since you all don't make it here too often!

Great pics! Keep em coming!

 

[Redline]

Thanks for the ExPo update!

 

[lostworldexpedition]

Thanks guys. We really appreciate feedback! We've been pretty bad about updating even our blog We try to post a pic every other day on Facebook, so that our respective families and friends know we are all right. I also use Twitter regularly as it is turning out to be a good way to stay in touch (brief) with fellow overlanders.

We are actually in the midst of a crazy decision making time... our trip was originally intended to last one year, that quickly became a year and a half... well, now we consider ourselves nomads . We decided last year to continue the trip from South America to include the rest of the world. We recently found temporary jobs in the U.S. starting mid June. So we are leaving the LandCruiser in Chile and flying to Florida in order to try to add some fuel to our coffers.

During our time in the U.S. we will work on the blog, edit the thousands of photos we have, continue to self teach ourselves photography and photoshop/Lightroom editing and hopefully make enough bank to keep us going at least another year...

So if anyone is in Florida panhandle from mid June until end of September, please let us know. I will be bartending... and if you stop by Apalachicola I'll buy you a drink ("a" as in 1 :victory

BTW did you see the post when this tiny ***** piranha took a chunk of my thumb?

It was quite funny

Just glad I did not catch a big one...

 

[Christian P.]

alternating between work and travel is a great way to go.

 

[Ruined Adventures]

Best news ever

That's awesome guys, keep up the dream. Now we know that we'll definitely be able to catch up!

Shannon and I have always been curious, what did you and Lacey do for a living before you left on your trip?

 

[lostworldexpedition]

That's awesome guys, keep up the dream. Now we know that we'll definitely be able to catch up!

Shannon and I have always been curious, what did you and Lacey do for a living before you left on your trip?

Yep, we are hoping to meet you guys, Home on the Higwhay, The Nacho's and maybe Jeremy (World Apprentice)... There seems to be a whole bunch of north American overlanders coming down! We'll see what speed everyone settles to. Maybe we can have an Ushuaia party!

As far as our prior careers; I was (am?) an environmental /civil engineer and Lacey was(is) an environmental scientist and groundwater remediation specialist. Although for the last couple of years before she left she was a bartender as well (more mulla for the trip ).

BTW have you guys run into the DinoEvo crew? They don't have a blog but they are somewhere near Honduras...