Trip Stats

Cuba

A time capsule in country form. We stayed in Havana for five days, two of which were unfortunately spent overcoming food poisoning. Despite health challenges, we explored the city’s many neighborhoods on foot – encountering vibrant culture and kind people around every corner.

Entered: 9/25/18

Exited: 9/29/18

Days Traveled in Cuba: 5

Steps Walked: 95,912

Cases of Food Poisoning (or Dengue?): 2

Enrique Inglesias Tracks Shazam’d: 1, 4 times.

Guatemala

Born of volcanic fire, Guatemala impressed us with its rolling green hills, massive conical volcanos and incredible lakes. The people made an even larger impression, however, and we walked away with deeper understanding of this magical place.

Entered: 10/4/18

Exited: 10/15/18

Days Traveled in Guatemala: 12

Volcanos Attempted: 1

Volcanos Summited: 0

Miles Driven: 796.2

Honduras

We passed through Honduras in a single day, eager to pursue opportunities to surf in Nicaragua and wary of reports that alluded to danger in the areas that we’d be passing through. We still managed to have a few meaningful conversations with local people, and did our best to read about and discuss Honduran history prior to leaving the country.

Entered: 10/22/18

Exited: 10/22/18

Days Traveled in Honduras: 1

Miles Driven: 76.2

Nicaragua

A beautiful country in the midst of an ugly conflict. For the last few months, we’ve been keeping a close eye on the terrible events unfolding in Nicaragua with the hope that we would still be able to spend time in this country that neither of us had been to previously. Fortunately for us, the situation mellowed and our time in the country passed without danger (despite a certain degree of intensity in large cities and borders/police checkpoints). Everywhere we went, we were our accommodation’s only guests and every lineup that we we occupied was largely empty of all other non-locals. While incredible to surf Nicaraguan lineups with an amount of people mirroring the days before its true discovery as a surf destination, it was difficult to enjoy ourselves the local population suffered.

Entered: 10/22/18

Exited: 10/31/18

Days Traveled in Nicaragua: 10

Miles Driven: 281.8

Broken Boards: 1

Costa Rica

Unmatched natural beauty and biodiversity couple with fun surf to make Costa Rica an incredible destination. We moved through the country with pace, but still explored two remote parts of the country. First, we linked up with a good friend in Santa Teresa for several relaxing and mindful days, and then surfing the world’s second longest left point, Pavones, on fun late-season swell with very few people in the water.

Entered: 10/31/18

Exited: 11/6/18

Days Traveled in Costa Rica: 7

Miles Driven: 482

Total Spend on Accommodation: $0

Incredibly Gracious Hosts: 3

ECUADOR

Our first real encounter with the massive and humbling Andes. Welcome to South America. In Ecuador we set personal highest altitude records and then broke them. We hiked high altitude glaciers, rain forests and wind swept páramo landscape. We surfed massive tropical waves and paid a large bribe. Christoph’s family came to visit, and Sara and David swam amongst the penguins in the Galapagos. Ecuador exceeded expectations.

Entered: 12/10/18

Exited: 1/10/19

Days Traveled in Ecuador: 31

Miles Driven: 1,646

New Personal Altitude Record: 19,347 ft!

Iguanas Run Over: 1

Number of Times Spit in the Face by a Shaman: 1

Peru

After passing through the surf paradise of the dusty, desert North, we ascended into the mountain mayhem of Huaraz, revisited the coast via the traffic mayhem of Lima and rose into the mountains again by way of Cusco. A culture as thick as molasses permeates Peru and roads that seem drawn by the errant hand of a crayon-wielding toddler wind through the mountains beneath precarious rock-slide prone ledges. Peru was a whirlwind. Peru put us in our place, a humbled and respectful place.

Entered: 1/10/19

Exited: 2/10/19

Days Traveled in Peru: 30

Miles Driven: 1,942

Guinea Pigs Eaten: 1

Life-Threatening Rock Slides: 1

Bolivia

Perhaps the most culturally unique stop of the trip, Bolivia kept us in a state of oscillation between utter shock, fear and jaw-dropped amazement. We visited the shores and islands of Lake Titicaca, summited another high Andean peak, drove the infamous Death Road and spent time in the world’s highest altitude city, La Paz, alternating time between witch’s markets and prison tours. We wrapped things up with a visit to the famed Salar de Uyuni and an adventurous three day off-road adventure through the high desert of the Lagunas Route with good friends from Mexico and Paraguay.

Entered: 2/10/19

Exited: 2/22/19

Days Traveled in Bolivia: 13

Miles Driven: 819

New Personal Altitude Record: 19,976 ft!

Terrifying Lightning Storms: 3

Chile

Chile is a long country, stretching over 2,600 miles from the high and dry desert of Atacama to the freezing southern reaches of Tierra del Fuego. We drove the full length of it, exiting and re-entering the country many times as we neared the narrow bottom of the South American Continent. Highlights include the massive, snowless peaks of Atacama, the interesting cultural nuances of Santiago, surfing the rugged waves of Punta de Lobos and the striking beauty of Chilean Patagonia throughout the Carretera Austral. We also experienced the beauty of Torres del Paine’s W Trek through some good luck and last minute booking magic.

Entered (first time): 2/22/19

Exited (last time): 4/11/19

Days Traveled in Chile: 31

Miles Driven: 3,064

Times Gasped at Natural Beauty: 17

Times Impressed by Chilean Road Quality: 194

Number of Miles Hiked: 119.3

Argentina

Argentina engulfed us. We began our travels through this beautiful and massive country in the northern province of Juyjuy, participating in an annual Carnaval that is known as a particular hub of Argentine culture. After washing off as much of the paint on our faces as possible, we advanced South – passing through the wine region and eventually seeing a large part of Argentina’s portion of Patagonia. Argentina was a land of hospitality for us. We met amazing people everywhere we met, many of whom invited us into their homes and treated us with extreme generosity. Highlights included El Chaltén and El Calafate, where we were joined by friends from home Mark and Reid, Ushuaia (the furthest southerly point on our journey), and the lakes district which served as our final destination within the promised land of Patagonia. We also surfed on the Atlantic coast and spent several weeks soaking up the city of Buenos Aires. Argentina showed us many of her faces, we found them all stunning.

Entered (first time): 2/27/19

Exited (last time): 5/25/19

Days Traveled in Argentina: 53

Miles Driven: 3,551

Maté Gourds Broken by Amateur Technique: 2

Asados Attended: 4

Photos from Argentina

The Final tally

We made it. As we both sit safely and soundly back in California, we look back on this journey with awe and extreme gratitude. The ability to pursue an adventure like this is not just a choice, it requires extreme good fortune. We thank our friends and family for enabling us to have these experiences and for all the people that we met on the road for making this trip so damn fun. Below are the final stats, the things we kept track of, from the entirety of our time on the Pan-American Highway. How’d we do?

Starting Date of Drive South in Bessie: 7/21/18

Day Bessie Shipped Home: 5/14/19

Days Traveled in Bessie: 298

Nights Slept in Rooftop Tent: 218

Miles Driven: 23,138

Serious Car Repairs: 4

Times Robbed: 1

Bribes Paid: $402

Times Pulled Over: Countless

Car Accidents: 0

Food Spilled in Car: 18 gallons of coffee, whole container of nuts :(

Miles Hiked (South America only): 318.25

Surf Sessions: 107 sessions at 48 distinct waves across 10 countries

Highest Altitude Reached: Summit of Huayna Potosi, 19,993 ft.

Highest Night Slept: High Camp Refugio Huayna Potosi, 16,900 ft

Biggest Surf: 15 ft, Mainland Mexico

People We Love Who Visited Us: Sara Rowland, Jenn Cizek, Vasu Prathipati, Sam Buccigrossi, Ben Green, Liliane von Ruexleben, Max von Ruexleben, Mark Lathrum, Reid Hollen, Paul Orszag

Times Scared: Daily

Times Grinned like Idiots: All day, every day