Bienvenidos Aventureros!

Welcome travellers, friends, family and alumni to our blog! It seems like high time that we let you know what we are up to in our last minute preparations for our 27 week epic adventure around incredible Sudamerica!

So first things first, introductions: Simon and Emma will be taking the helm of the Good Ship Ithaca (ok she’s a truck, not a ship, but definitely not a bus.) Who are we exactly? Well Simon has just finished working the Istanbul to Singapore Odyssey trip and after a few weeks at home in the UK he realised that the real world was just not as good as overlanding, so now he’s back on the road and back to a part of the world he loves. Simon loves climbing which has taken him all over the world, he loves his camera and new zoom lens, he loves driving and he loves getting covered in engine oil.

Simon, not covered in oil

The other half of the team is Emma. This is her first full-flung Odyssey trip, though she has recently returned from Central Asia where she was lucky enough to join the Beijing to Istanbul group for a month. She’s mad about all things Latin-American, particularly Argentinean, she loves chatting to the locals, drinking mate (a South American herbal infusion that makes a double espresso look like a drink for sissies) and thinks every meat-eater should get to try a proper Argentinean steak at least once in their lives. Whilst a Londoner by birth she’s recently lived and worked in New Zealand as a tour guide and is very excited to be back camping out under the Southern Cross again.

Emma stocks up on mate

Emma's new mate gourd

Not to be outdone on the shopping, Simon's treated himself to some exhaust clamps!

At the moment we’re in sunny Montevideo, a little too sunny actually, both of us are suffering from sunburn after a long stint working on Ithaca yesterday - yes we know, we’re idiots, but we were so caught up getting the truck ready for everyone that we forgot about sunscreen!

Ithaca is looking great, she’s been hanging out in Uruguay for a few months so we’ve been giving her a once over. The tents have been pulled out and dusted off, we managed to block the entire yard in the process which called for a bit of high speed tent deconstruction when suddenly everyone wanted to get their vehicles in and out all at the same time.

Ithaca, the best looking truck in the yard

Tents

Taken just before everyone wanted to move their buses...

We’ve also been getting Ithaca to her physical peak, she’s got some shiny new tyres and lights and Simon’s been in his happy place: getting covered in oil and tinkering with the engine. In the mean time Emma’s been up to her elbows in dirt and dust cleaning off every last Tupperware box and plastic crate. (Not her happy place - see below.) She even scrubbed clean a bottle of Dettol, which struck her as a bit ironic.

Simon's toys

New festoon lights

Simon's happy place

In between all the work we managed to find time to explore Montevideo, which mostly involved sheltering from torrential rain in a cafe and treating ourselves to coffee with whipped cream and Argentinean alfajores (little chocolatey circles of loveliness stuffed with dulce de leche.)

Chocolate and coffee fest (Emma's happy place)

We also found time to eat steak, in fact it took us all of about 3 hours after getting off the plane to make it to a Buenos Aires parilla (grill restaurant) our jet-lag was forgotten, it was amazing, so amazing that we forgot take photos, but it looked something like this...

Thanks Google!

We’re very excited to meet the group, some of your are probably in the last stages of your packing/panicking, (it will fit, somehow it always does) some of you will be winging your way over the Atlantic or Pacific, some will already be congregating in beautiful Buenos Aires. The 3 of us (Emma, Simon and Ithaca) will be heading over to join you all very soon, until then: buena suerte y buen viaje!