The Black Market: The Crash of the Peso and the Rise of The Dolàr Blue

Posted on January 25, 2015 by The Wandering Nomads

“And don’t let the feeble excuse of work keep you back. Remember the Haitian proverb: if work is such a good thing, how come the rich haven’t grabbed it all for themselves?”

Did you know that Argentina has a parallel black market for their peso, a market you really must take advantage of unless you want everything to be astronomically expensive? Nope? Well neither did we until we arrived. We pulled out money from the ATM once we arrived in Argentina only to discover that after a hefty fee it would only allow us to take out 120$ at a time, a dilemma which turned out to be a blessing in disguise since, as it turns out, we lost fifty percent of that transaction (that’s 60$!) as it was. This is because there are two exchange rates in Argentina, the “official one” – which our ATM withdrawal gave us – and the “unofficial one,” the one you need to bring in U.S. dollars to take advantage of.

Ushuaia: A Few Days at the Bottom of the World

Posted on January 23, 2015 by The Wandering Nomads

“On the loose to climb a mountain, on the loose where I am free. On the loose to live my life, the way I think my life should be. For I’ve only got a moment, and a whole world yet to see, And I’ll be searching for tomorrow, from sea to shining in sea.”

The town of Ushuaia.

Ushuaia is known to be the southernmost city in the world with only 1,000km separating it from Antarctica. It’s a place I’ve always dreamed about visiting, well not Ushuaia in particular, but Patagonia in general which is what this amazing mountainous expanse of land at the very bottom of Chile and Argentina is referred to. I couldn’t imagine a place more suited to Kevin and I as we have been told that we will find vast spaces of nothingness, some of the best rivers for fly fishing, and of course, mountains upon mountains to cycle through! Needless to say we are extremely excited and honored to begin our year long expedition throughout the Andes here at the bottom of the world.

Bike Touring 101: How To Get Started

Posted on January 21, 2015 by The Wandering Nomads

“The journey itself is my home.”

Cycling Through Kashmir in the northern Indian Himalayas.

Cycle tourists, you know, the people who cycle around their neighborhood or even around the world fully self-supported with bags attached to their bikes must be crazy athletes. They must have trained for years before embarking on such an adventure, an adventure reserved for a very select (slightly crazy) few. They must be hardcore cyclists who eat, breath, and think about cycling 24/7. And because I’m not like that, it must not be for me. That’s what you are thinking, right? Don’t worry, that’s what I thought too before I actually began, so now I’m here to debunk a few myths surrounding cycle touring in order to prepare you for your very own two-wheeled adventure.

The Stress of Airplane Travel

Posted on January 19, 2015 by The Wandering Nomads

“There are dreamers and there are doers, but what the world needs are dreamers that do.”

Kevin and I have had a stressful week, though as you will see, everything did end up working out as we are currently in Ushuaia – at the very bottom of South America – more than ready to explore the Andes.

Turkey Through the Lens

Posted on January 17, 2015 by The Wandering Nomads

“Meaning is not something you stumble across, like an answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life.”

We started our Turkish adventure in the rain, though thankfully, along with the rain came a whole lot of friendly people and chai.

From East to West: Cycling Across Turkey

Posted on January 15, 2015 by The Wandering Nomads

“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is not cure for cuiosity.”

As you already know, we really enjoyed cycling through Turkey as the camping was easy, the weather was great (mostly), and the people were incredibly friendly. Here is a summary of what we experienced through throughout those two months.

In Honor of The Gals Who Adventure Alone

Posted on January 13, 2015 by The Wandering Nomads

With the recent release of the movie Wild, Lois Pryce (an avid female explorer) wrote a piece about female explorers and why they aren’t often in the spotlight. While describing a scene from the movie where the main character is afraid (due to the fact that she is a girl) Pryce explains that “the scene captures two fundamental truths about the female experience on the road. Firstly, that a woman travelling alone is conditioned to expect the worst and, secondly, that this fear is unfounded because, actually, most people are kind, hospitable and curious. I know this from first-hand experience; I have lived that exact scene (including the husband line) all over the world, from Alaska to Angola to Iran during the round-the-world journeys that I have taken on my dirtbike. I never quite lost my wariness, but my instinct became honed and I learnt to trust it.”

Snow And Steam in a Turkish Hammam (Bath house)

Posted on January 12, 2015 by The Wandering Nomads

“When you stop doing things for fun you might as well be dead.”

Myra and I spent one afternoon in a Turkish bath house (hammam) which was an interesting experience to say the least. After we walked in we were ushered into a room to change out of our clothes (except for our underwear) at which point we were escorted into the bath house, a large beautiful room with many different water taps all around. We spent thirty minutes or so dumping water upon ourselves before we were called in for our scrubbing. Though we assumed that the scrubbing would be relaxing, we quickly realized that it’s a bit more like grinding sandpaper all over your body as the point is to peel away all of your dead skin. After that they lathered us with soap and scrubbed us down again, this time, with a bit of a massage. The scrubbing and soaping took about twenty minutes each, after which time we were allowed to stay as long as we pleased in the bath house or sauna washing ourselves. Historians believe that the Ottoman Turks inherited the Roman bath concept (and architecture), and then adapted it to the Turkish taste, and throughout our trip, we have seen all kinds of hammams both new and old.

New Years and Cappadocia

Posted on January 10, 2015 by The Wandering Nomads

“To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.”

We had no plans for New Years, so we were quite happy to spend the night at an Eco farm we had been staying at in order to celebrate with a twenty year old French guy, a Turkish women, and a German/Turkish man in his fifties who cooked us a wonderful meal. We spent the last few hours of 2014 playing an intense game of ass-hole which ended just thrifty seconds before the New Year in the most dramatic way possible which left us all howling with laughter. My brother, who had left the night before on what was suppose to be an eleven hour bus ride, spent New Years in the bus, as his ride ended up taking three times as long as it should have (32 hours) because of the snow. Thankfully, he still arrived in time to catch his flight back to university, and ended up experiencing the kindness of Turks as many of his fellow bus travelers gave him food and presents in order for his extra long journey to pass more smoothly.