RONNIE & Michelle
Careering OffAfter over 30 years working, Ronnie & Michelle have decided to take the gap year (or two!) that we missed out on at the usual time. We have had stressful careers in Technology and Finance until now including start-ups and self-employment.
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Click on a pin, and then on the title link to read the blog article.About
The kids – Cameron & Daniel – have fled the nest to pursue their own adventures in life, leaving only the cats Tiger and Lexey to tie us down.
Following a health shock and seeing what has happened to many people we know around our age, we decided not to wait until we are in our 60’s and retired before resuming our love of travel and seeing the world. We are in the fortunate position of being able to pause working for a while.
It’s now time to career-off.
THE BLOG
Colorado Capers
At the end of our South American adventure, we met Mike and Gill in Colorado, USA for a ski holiday. We stayed in the lovely town of Breckenridge, and skiied Breckenridge, Keystone, and Vail. The weather and ski conditions were wonderful. The back bowls at Vail. Vail...
Desert driving
We drove hundreds of kilometers across the Bolivian desert in 4x4s. We stopped to see the Train cemetery. Even the "A" roads are just dirt. We stopped for a dip in the hot springs. We stopped for a break at a "Service station". We spotted a...
Uyuni Salt Flats
Much of Bolivia is amazing, but the highlight has to be Salar de Uyuni, the famous salt flats. 4x4s picked us up to take us out onto the flats. At this time of the year, the salt flats are flooded by just a few inches of water. Apparently this is better as you then...
Sucre and Potosi
The most significant cities in Colonial times were Sucre, the original government capital and still the judicial capital, and Potosi, the silver mining capital. Firstly we visited Sucre. On a tour of the market we were taught to ask for our "yapa" (Quechuan) - just a...
La Paz
We flew from Brazil to La Paz, Bolivia. La Paz, like most of Bolivia is very high altitude. The airport is at 4,200m so it was a bit of an altitude shock and a number of the group (including Ronnie) were affected. Some altitude sickness drugs, and Coca tea (made from...
Pantanal
The Pantanal is the largest tropical wetland area in the world. It's home to lots of birds and caiman (relatives of the crocodile). We stayed on a working ranch. We went for a boat trip. We stopped to fish for Piranhas to feed to the Caimans (Caimen?). We were lucky...
Iguazu Falls
Iguazu falls are definitely one of the natural wonders of the world. We viewed the falls from both sides - Brazil and Argentina. Depending on the amount of water, there are up to around 300 individual waterfalls. The Iguazu falls are wider than the Victoria falls and...
Coasting in Brazil
The G Adventures tour we joined in Rio "Atlantic to the Andes" used to be done in reverse so had some more relaxing visits at the end. So we started with relaxing on Ilha Grande ("large island") which is just down the coast from Rio. There are no cars on the island...
Rio revelations
We had a few days in Rio before meeting our next small group tour "Atlantic to the Andes". Rio de Janiero was discovered and named by the Portuguese explorer Gaspar de Lemos. He thought the bay was a river mouth hence "Rio" in Portuguese. If he managed to make it...
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