GETTING READY
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San Diego,
California,
United States
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
Once the not well thought out decision was made to make the trek, the planning began. Not having done this sort of thing before - Carol and I have traveled extensively throughout Europe with other trips to Asia, Russia, Africa,, and even South America but these have all been well traveled routes if by car or strictly fly in and out type of ventures and border crossings in Europe are non events - we were not sure how to begin.
We decided to Google Pan American Highway and the fun began. There are many people who have made this trip and a goodly number who have taken the time to have a travel site or travel blog as we have. One of the more informative site is Go-Panamerican.com. We also found - obviously - TravelPod.com which led us to other sites and blogs. I found the TravelPod site via an aquaintance in LaPaz in Oct. He had a friend who had a friend who did the trip last year. He talked to his friend who gave me the blog for Claudio and Cecelia - two wonderful people from Argentina who are living in Okalahoma. We had the opportunity to visit with them over Thanksgiving for five very short hours. Because of the visit we are now going to go through Columbia rather then bypass it and go to Ecuador.When I say go through Columbia I actually mean we will ship our vehicle from Panama - Colon, to Cartegna, Columbia. You can not actually drive a vehicle all the way because the Pan American Highway stops effectively in Panama City due to Darriens Gap - about a 60 to 100 mile section of road less jungle. I have been told and I have read where motorcycles have gone through this section but I believe it can be very hazardous to you health.
Other Useful Sites:
State.gov - the State Department has tons of info on every country including travel warnings. Their Consular Information Sheets are excellent for basic travel data such as visa and passport requirements, currency, etc
saexplorers.org - very useful info - although somewhat outdated - for planning purposes. If you join the Club - and we did - they send you a nice book on "Driving South America". You can also visit there clubs in four different cities.
Other Thoughts:
Communications - while cell phones will work - especially if you buy local sim cards - they only work when you are in major urban areas. For this reason Carol and I have bought a Satellite Phone. We are taking Carol's computer - it has a built in modum - and we both have 2 G Flash Drives upon which we have loaded all essential data essential to our continued use of computer tecknology. We also have a little device which will send out a message to an Emergency Service telling them we are in need of help and they will notify the nearest source of help to our GPS co-ordinates. We can also send out a message every day to 10 designated individuals - family - telling them we are fine - the message can be changed when you have Internet access - and giving them our GPS co-ordinates with Google embedded at the bottom of the message so they can see where we are at that point in time.
You can learn more about the device at findmespot.com.
Health - we contacted our physician and told him what we were up to and our concern for what our health requirements might be. Several countries will not let you in unless you have proof of having recent yellow fevor shots, etc. He directed us to a local Travel Med. Center who really took care of our health needs. The nurse at the clinic even took the time to determine how many pills for malaria we would need based on our tentative itinerary. They provided us with maps which showed where we would encounter potential problems. She took the maps and the itinerary and counted 81 pills each - we each have 90. It may seem silly but each pill is $6.00.
Health Insurance - in 2006 Carol and I spent 4 and 1/2 month in France. Prior to this journey, we found that our health insurance was valid for only the first 60 days we were out of the country. As a result of this we made a timely trip back to the States. Medicare A & B do not cover you while you are out of the country - period, however your supplement should cover anything for the first 60 days that Medicare would cover. As a result of this, we have procured a separate health insurance policy which provides emergency coverage, some limited basic coverage, and most importantly - evacuation insurance. The evacuation insurance covers from the site of a potential accident to the nearest qualified hospital and subsequent evacuation home. Expensive, but you should not leave home without it or some other plan B. There are many providers out there.
Car Insurance - we have had annual car insurance for Mexico for the past two years and it is diffenitely a requirement in Mexico. It is also a requirement for many countries in Cental and South America. Even with full coverage you will be required to purchase liability insurance for some countries which in fact covers anyone you might injure. To the best of my knowledge car insurance for Central and South America is offered by only one US company - AIG. The only broker I found was the Nelson Insurance Agency in McAllen, TX.
Vehicle - when we first talked of the trip we planned on taking our Jeep Wrangler Rubicon which is a sound off road vehicle. That has not changed although we are having some modifications - hopefully they will be a complete wastre of money. the modifications are as follows:
1. Off Road heavy dutry jack, lug wrench, and base
2. Steel frame rack
3. Two spare tires
4. Three 5 gallon gas cans
5. Power winch
6. Spot light on rack and floods on bumper
7. Large steel box bolted on rack - cans, box, and tire on rack - chained
8. GPS - maps for deviced are limited to basic shore line - but we can see on our
maps using the co-ordinates where we are. Also useful for setting a way point
when you venture off the main route - you can always see where you are and
where you want to be.
9. A device which kills the engine so it can not be started - more when I get back
10. Tire plug kit
11. Fire extinguisher
Additionally we will carry a basic road kit which actually is required in some countries. The kit will contain emergency first aid, flares, tire chains, warning signs, etc.
Documents - using State Department information we determined each countries requirements for docs. At the moment, only Boliva and Brazil require visa's. We are bypassing Boliva but we will have to apply for a visa for Brazil when we get to Buenos Aires. The reason is their visa is only good for 90 days from date of issue.Therefore we have to wait to obtain.our Brazilian visa's. Another important doc for Brazil is the drivers license. While it is a rare occurence, you could run into an official or police officer who will not accept your US drivers license. If you are driving a vehicle when this happens, they can insist on your not driving the vehicle and find you $250 dollars. This happened to a friend of ours who visits her father several times a year in Brazil and he had to come a drive the car home. I have no father in Brazil to drive my car home so I researched the problem and found out Brazil and Uraguay only accepts an Inter American drivers license besides the regular country one. It can be obtained using the same form AAA has by checking at the top of the form the Inter American blank . Carol and I have both the International and Inter American drivers license as well as our Ill. license.
Maps - we were lucky enough to find a book store who had a complete section of International maps - in Boston. We have a map for every country in Central and South America as well as Antartica. With these and our GPS we hope not to get too lost too often.
Guide Books - you can spend a fortune on guide books of all kinds and publishers. We have bought a few complete country guide books and have been given some.
Additonally, we went to Lonely Planet online and down loaded the sections of country guide books which we required. This is a new service of Lonely Planet and it cuts down on the weight. Speaking of weight, we have Sony Reader's, compliments of our daughters and son-in-laws which will allow each of us to bring as many as 100 books - or we can go online and buy as we go. At the moment, I have over 6000 pages of fiction on my Reader.
