Travelling | The Clark Family's Amazing Adventures

Back to Chile after 21 years

09 May 2013 10 Comments

by Martin Clark in Family Gap Year, Travelling Tags: Atacama Desert, Bolivia, Calama, Chile

4th February 2013. Our bus from Uyuni in Bolivia to Calama in Chile leaves at 4am so we are up at 3am to get out of ‘El Salvador’, our less than salubrious hostal. My suggestion of just going for a late dinner and and crashing on a park bench hadn’t been met by much (any) enthusiasm and our 3 bed, £9.50 room with rather basic facilities was a bit of a climb down from the 4* Salt Hotel the day before. I am quietly satisfied that BZL share beds and sleep on the floor with few complaints, better to view a comfy bed as a luxury to be appreciated rather than an entitlement that the loss of ruins your day.

The Bolivian Chilean border

We are out the door at 3.29am to cross the road to the bus office, very glad that another gap year lesson of not unpacking everything each time you stop seems to be hitting home. ’Lazy Lara’ yet again refuses to carry her rucksack, no excuse as it only weighs 2.5kg, kind Dad having swapped her clothes for the kids life jackets. 2 years ago she carried a far heavier one in Cambodia like a trooper. I think the problem is a combination of being the youngest and a touch spoiled plus her force of nature personality that means she generally gets her own way and pushes the boundaries. Maybe I am a bit cynical (moi?) but I think she has worked out that ’Mummy, I’m tired’ is a great way of getting your bag, and often Lara, carried! One to work on.

The 12ish hour journey with Trans Azul has cost us 750 Bolivianos or £14/head (interestingly the ticket says 700BS so the lady in the bus office has made a quick 50BS, about half a day’s salary, I bet she loves this job!).

Journey from La Paz to Uyuni

17 Apr 2013 6 Comments

by Mo in Family Gap Year, Travelling Tags: Andes, Bolivia, la Paz, Oruru, Uyuni

Rewind to 1/2/13.

I’m sitting on a train, as we make our way south on the 7 hour train journey through the spectacular southern Altiplano to Uyuni, Bolivia, catching up on blogs and diary in between looking out at lakes full of flamingos, small farms and villages and the occasional distant snowy peak! Martin is catching up on sleep and the kids are watching Mr Poppers penguins in Spanish. Everyone is happy!

Beautiful lakes which we cross on the train.

Beautiful lakes with flamingoes which we cross on the train.

The peaks of the Andes, seen from the train

We’re in executive class with More

Nine months, nine countries – South America in photos and stats!

16 Apr 2013 15 Comments

by Mo in Family Gap Year, Looking Back, Photos, Top Experiences, Travelling Tags: Argentina, Boipeba, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, Falklands, Family Gap Year, Paraguay, Peru, South America, Uruguay

11th April 2013. Nine months today since our family of five touched down in Rio de Janeiro on a BA flight from Heathrow, London to begin our Family Gap Year travelling around the world.

Our journey so far…

We’ve almost done a (kind of squashed) figure of 8 around the continent, flown or boated to islands in the Pacific and Atlantic and are now in Santiago, enjoying our last days before flying to Easter Island (part of Chile) and then on to Tahiti in French Polynesia.

Nine months, Nine countries. Our Family Gap Year journey so far…

We’ve been to More

From Cusco to Lake Titicaca and Bolivia

01 Mar 2013 2 Comments

by Mo in Family Gap Year, Travelling Tags: Amantani, Bolivia, Copacabana, floating islands, lake Titicaca, Peru, Puno, Taquile, Uros

January 11th. Six months to the day after we started out family gap year journey in South America, we say goodbye to Cusco and take a 10 hour tourist bus to travel the Route of the Sun, south to Puno and Lake Titicaca.

It’s a much better option than a direct bus, stopping at view points and tourist stops along the way:- Andahualillas, where we visit the so called Sistine Chapel of America (we’d have liked to visit the tiny museum with the mummified alien babies that we’d heard of from Lainie and Miro, our friends in Cusco, but we can’t see it and follow the guide to the church! Ah, the difficulties of being on a tour bus!). It has huge, dramatic frescos all over its insides (photos strictly forbidden!) and the kids enjoy studying them, then we’re off to the amazing Raqchi temple of Wiracocha which in spite of all the sites we’ve visited, still wows, although its hard to figure out how much, if any, is original!

The girls at Raqchi temple

The girls get the Kraps outside Raqchi temple

Escape to Coroico

24 Jan 2013 3 Comments

by Mo in Family Gap Year, Travelling Tags: Coroico, la Paz, lake Titicaca

As reported by dearest Hubby, we have indeed split up, well just for a few days anyway! The more hardy family members staying in Copacabana to explore further whilst Lara, Erika (Martin’s mum) and I take a bus to La Paz from Lake Titicaca (involving a short lake crossing where the bus floats across on a dubious looking ferry (raft?)
The coach crossing Lake Titicaca on its ferry come raft

… passengers, thankfully take a small boat…then a cab across the city and a minivan straight on to Coroico, two and a half hours away and a massive 2500m drop in altitude!

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Magnums after Midnight!

29 Aug 2012 5 Comments

by Mo in Family Gap Year, Travelling Tags: Belem, Fortaleza, Sao Luis

We are in the departure lounge in Sao Luis, Brazil. It’s 2.45am, Ben and Zoe are playing cards and we’re eating Magnums!

At Salvador and Fortaleza, Ben’s football and rock aroused some suspicion and there were fears the football would be confiscated or cut open! Ben with his suspicious looking stash, maybe it looks like crack?

Will we still be this lively when we arrive in Belem at 5.15am?! I hope so as we have to head down to the docks, find our boat and load up then head off to buy hammocks and provisions for our 5 day journey. It’s highly recommended to stock up on snacks and aside from having some goodies for us, it would be nice to have some spare for the young kids who apparently perform death defying leaps from their canoes to the boat in order to peddle some local snack or other but apparently are so poor they are grateful for anything the crew or passengers give them. It’s going to be an interesting journey…

Drowned Rats – Boipeba to Morro de Sao Paulo

25 Aug 2012 7 Comments

by Martin Clark in Adventure, Family Gap Year, Safety, Travelling Tags: Ben, boat, Brazil, Gap year, South America

We expected our gap year to feature some excitement but as so often with these things it can come at unexpected times. Super relaxed after a week on peaceful Boipeba staying at what could easily be the best pousada in Brazil and looking forward to our next stop in Morro de Sao Paulo we boarded our speedboat and waved goodbye.

Bye Bye Boipeba

The weather was overcast but this often clears quickly and we were impressed with the speedboat. Bigger than the normal motor launches it looked the business and we were sure Charles was right and it was the most comfortable boat around and at R$200 a bargain as they were picking up more guests in Morro!

On the way down to Boipeba we took the route through the mangroves from Valenca and expected to go this way again as most boats arrive this way. It is lovely and calm but about twice as long as the sea route if you look at the map. As often is the case ‘assume’ makes an ass out of you and me and our skipper headed straight out to sea. More

Rio de Janeiro to Ihla Grande

23 Jul 2012 3 Comments

by Martin Clark in Family Gap Year, Tips, Top Experiences, Travelling Tags: Angra dos Reis, Costa Verde, Ferry, Ilha Grande, Rio de Janeiro

We are on the island of Ihla Grande about 2 hours bus ride and an hour ferry West from Rio. A big and welcome change in scene from a bustling metropolis to an unspoilt island population 6100. Our 2nd apartment in Rio was in Copacabana about 10 minutes from the beach and surrounded on 3 sides by favelas (extremely poor and often dangerous districts) just a couple of blocks away. I am not sure if the constant police car presence on the corner of the small park outside our door was reassuring or a warning?

Our view on Ihla Grande

Spot the real fly and other important questions?

16 Jul 2012 11 Comments

by Ben in Family Gap Year, Photos, Travelling Tags: Ipanema, Jardim Botânico, Leblon, Rio de Janeiro, Southern Hemisphere

Day 6 in Rio and our last night in our apartment and my first blog post in Brazil. When I was on the plane I took a few pictures like this one when we were just on the equator. Did you know the water in the Southern Hemisphere goes down the plug hole clockwise? Which way does it go at the equator? Please put your answers in the comments.