15
Nov

It’s Penguin Season Again! – Antarctica

Posted on November 15th, 2011 :: Posted in Adventure, Animals, Antarctica, birds, Boat, Ocean

November marks the beginning of summer in Antarctica, summer being relative term, and the beginning of the Antarctic travel season. Right about now boats of various shapes and sizes full of passengers of various shapes and sizes are leaving Ushuaia (the southernmost town in the world), braving the Drake Passage and heading for Antarctica as the short tourist season opens. Penguins rule the frozen continent. The rest of us are just visiting. We visited Antarctica last year right about this time aboard the MV Antarctic Dream and, as we posted at the time it was a dream come true:

The White Continent or Bust
MORE Antarctica Photos

Right now we’re debuting some videos we shot in Antarctica–shown for the first time here.

Penguins, orcas and seals

Penguins are adorable. Orcas are deadly. Seals are way bigger than you think. We got close to all of them. Check it out.

Gentoo penguins in Port Lockroy

More penguins, this time they’re swarming around the research station in a rocky, windy place called Port Lockroy.

Aboard the MV Antarctic Dream

The truth is that you’re going to spend most of your Antarctic adventure on board the boat traveling to various points of interest and/or waiting out bad weather. Much of this video was shot from onboard the MV Antarctic Dream, including up in the bridge as well as from Zodiacs during excursions away from the ship.

A (relatively) calm day on the Drake Passage

The Atlantic and Pacific oceans bump bellies at a spot called the Drake Passage. This notoriously rough stretch of sea must be crossed immediately leaving Ushuaia and again returning to port in Ushuaia. It takes two to three days to get through the Drake Passage and seas are usually rough to hellish. We lucked out with swells peaking at just 30-40 feet (moderately rough). Here’s a taste…
If we’ve helped inspire your own Antarctic dreams, check out our tip-filled newspaper story about How to Make the Most of an Antarctic Adventure and our piece about all the fun you can (hopefully) have with the humans in Antarctica.

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18
Jul

2.5 Years, 250 Posts, 7 Links Worth Re-Visiting

Posted on July 18th, 2011 :: Posted in Antarctica, Belize, Best Of, Guatemala, Mexico

We started our Trans-Americas Journey blog 2.5 years ago and we’ve produced more than 250 posts since then.

When we were nominated by Immersed in the World to contribute to the “My 7 Links” project on Tripbase it felt like the prefect time (and perfect reason) to take a little stroll back through blog history and fulfill the pretty simple mandate to come up with seven posts that fit into the following categories.

Some posts are old favorites, others are unsung heroes but they all deserve a second look!

Our Most Beautiful Post

You Know You Want It: MORE Antarctica Photos

Even the word Antarctica is beautiful and we made the most of the wonders of the white continent (penguins! glaciers! killer whales!) during adventure aboard the MV Antarctic Dream.

Our Most Popular Post

What’s In Your (Travel) Wallet?

Our own frustration at being charged foreign transaction fees when using a credit card outside the US inspired a whole lot of digging until we uncovered the one, the only credit card that makes sense for serial travelers like ourselves who just can’t bear giving someone money for nothing. Which credit card is it? You’ll have to read the post (like more than 7,000 other travelers have) to find out.

Our Most Controversial Post

Rockstar in the Bullring

Spaniard Pablo Hermoso de Mendoza is not just a rejoneador (a matador who fights bulls on horseback). He is the world’s best rejoneador so when we had the chance to watch one of his fights during his most recent tour of Mexico we had to go. Whatever your feelings about bullfighting (and, trust us, there ARE feelings) the experience gave us an amazing glimpse into Latin culture and an amazing display of horsemanship.

Our Most Helpful Post

How To Have A Mexican Road Trip

After 18 months and nearly 25,000 miles on the road in Mexico we learned a thing or two (sometimes the hard way) about how to have a Mexican road trip. This comprehensive post covers all the bases from topes warnings to how to get out of a police shakedowns to which insurance to buy to the pros and cons of toll roads. Read this before you drive over the border (we sure wish we’d had a resource like this before we left). You’re welcome.

The Post Whose Success Surprised Us

Fiesta de 188 Aniversario – Union de Tula, Jalisco, Mexico

We went to Tula with our friends in the Delgadillo family from Guadalajara. The patriarch of the family, who was born in Union de Tula, returned with his family to his home town to celebrate the 188th anniversary of its founding and we tagged along. We had a lovely time being welcomed to each neighborhood’s food and tequila and music-filled street parties and we produced a very nice post about a very nice Mexican town. End of story.

Nope. This post was an instant, huge hit. It rocketed through the roof and instantly to the top of our most popular posts list and stayed there for months. What readers were (and still are) after are the two videos embedded in the post–one of an adorable 5-year-old cowboy dancing up a storm in front of a band and another of couples dancing (very closely) to banda music in the town square. To date, these videos have been viewed more than 54,000 times. That accounts for more than 25% of all the views of all of the 150 videos on our YouTube channel.

Turns out, a high percentage of those born in Tula now live and work outside Mexico–mostly in the US (we met the two long lost sons, below, during our time in Tula) and they’re homesick. Very, very homesick.

The Post We Feel Didn’t Get the Attention It (totally) Deserved

Children of Semana Santa – Antigua, Guatemala

Come on! This post has adorable children and one of the most famous and colorful religious events in one of the most popular destinations in Guatemala. Did cold-hearted readers care? Not so much.

The Post We’re Most Proud Of

Flower Wars: Is Your V-Day Bouquet Destroying the Jungles of Belize?

Published just prior to Valentine’s Day, this post alerted many readers to a hidden problem with that annual V-day bouquet. Besides being more than a bit trite as love tokens go, many bouquets use an innocuous-looking palm frond as cheap, long-lasting filler. This frond is from a species of xate palm and almost all of it is harvested in the jungles of Belize (having already been seriously depleted in Guatemala and Mexico) and sold to huge international floral companies.

Where’s the problem? Let’s see…illegal border crossing, animal poaching, jungle clearing, theft, violence and all of it in vast tracts of untouched jungle where endangered species like the harpy eagle are trying to regain a foothold. Makes chocolates look like a genius move.

To keep the ball rolling, We’d like to nominate the following great bloggers to take part in the My 7 Links project:

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3
Mar

This New Map Puts our Posts in their Place

Posted on March 3rd, 2011 :: Posted in Antarctica, Belize, Mexico, Post Location Map, USA

With a little help from Google and our Geo-Mashup plugin we’ve created a map that allows anyone with a really boring job, a doctor’s note ordering bed rest or a passion for maps to instantly see where our blog posts correspond to, geographically speaking.

Roll over the markers to see the post title. Click on the markers to see a portion of the post. Click on the post title to open that post in full. You can move around the map, as well as zoom in and out as you would with any Google map.

It’s like a “Where’s Waldo” for our blog posts and we hope you’ll return to this post (where this map will live in a continually updated state) and check out this graphic way to see where we’ve been and what we’re talking about.

[geo_mashup_map]