Time to wrap it up!

Top places visited (even though putting these in order is really hard and probably quite pointless

1) Finca paraiso, Rio Dulce, Guatemala
2) Semuc Champey, Guatemala
3) Coroico & Yungas road, Bolivia
4) Iguazu falls, Argentina/Brazil
5) Ilha do mel, Brazil
6) Pantanal, Brazil
7) Islas Ballestas, Peru
8) Volcano Pacaya, Guatemala
9) Ilha de Santa Catarina, Florianopolis, Brazil
10) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
11) Ometepe, Nicaragua
12) Punta del diablo, Uruguay
13) La Paz, Bolivia
14) Cartagena, Colombia
--- under different circumstances also:
15) Bay Islands, Honduras - peak of the rainy season
16) Bocas del toro, Panamá - overdose of tourism
17) Lake Titicaca and Isla del sol, Bolivia/Perú - altitude sickness
18) Uyuni salt flat, Bolivia - altitude sickness

 Top 5 countries visited
1) Panama - people, weather and confort at reasonable rates
2) Equador - natural beauty and perfect weather
3) Guatemala - authenticity, nature and very friendly prices
4) Bolivia - totally different from Guatemala but same reasons apply
5) Uruguay - the best bits of Europe and more collected in the middle of South America

The things you get used to(!)
Some things that are weird or impressive at first soon turn into a part of your every-day life. For example:

1) The dozens of men with machine guns on the streets, in shops, in banks, in hotels, ect. are only there for general safety

2) Not having toilet paper or even toilet seats in any public toilets or budjet hotels is not an exception but a rule - "who would SIT on a public toilet anyway?"

3) Humming birds, huge colourful butterflies or herds of howler monkeys are always nice to see, but not really worth getting your camera out for after the first dozen times.

4) Every building has geckos or lizards of different colours and sizes and talking parrots and chained monkeys are at least as common as domestic pets as dogs.

5) Street dogs may bark, but they don't bite. Not even when their seem to run after you in a flock of 20 - the one running in front of the rest is just another bitch in heat ready to get inpregnated like they do every time that happens. Most puppies starve to death if no-one decides to adopt them until they get big and can be dumped to the streets again. Dogs are not pets, but considered more like rats.

6) Hissing, honking, whisling and shouts and whispers like "my love", "hi baby", "hello doll" and "how beautiful" will get to you only if you're tired or allready pissed off by something else. (The ruder, and at times more threatning sounding variants, like "I love so much baby, come here and I'll show you how much", were too much for me to get used to and resulted in nasty comments back to the gentleman in question, either in Spanish or in Finnish)

7) Freshly squeezed fruit juices from fruit you've never even heard of before won't cost you more than a euro per a big glass. Just try to get them "sin azucar".

8) Asking directions from less than 3-5 people to get to one place is waste of your time. People who don't know will send you off into the wrong direction wihout meaning anything bad by it. Ask another 3 and follow the majority. NEVER hop into a taxi without checking with at least one local how much they'd pay for the same journey and making sure your driver agrees to the same amount.

9) You NEVER flush toilet paper. Doing so will cause the toilet to flood. Difficult to remember in the beginning and at least as hard to do the opposite when returning to places with 'normal' plumming after 8 months.

10) Sitting next to a window in a bus can make you really dirty, and buses often leave behind pitch black clouds. Because they are retired and repainted school buses from the States.


Lessons learned

1) I need YOU
I love meeting and getting to meet new peeps whereever I go. But new acquaintances are not really enough for me; I can share nice moments with some new locals and bond with a co-traveller experiencing the same cultural differences as I am, but who can I turn to when I'm simply having a bad day? Why would someone who doesn't know me want to hear about my stomach ache, care about my broken heart or just put up with me when I'm tired and cranky?

A Finnish song tells that you can tell who your true friends are in times of trouble and even though I don't think the past 8 months have been the most problematic ones of my life, but I've sure learned that I need those true friends.

That's YOU I'm talking about (unless you're only reading this to get travel tips or for back stabbing material)!

2) I need to communicate
Not only talking about Facebook now. It was hardest in Brazil where I didn't understand the language, easiest in Bolivia and Peru where I had permanent travel companions. I'm not sure if speaking English or Swedish made a great difference compared to Spanish anymore at this point, but just being able to share things, good and bad, just as they happen, was pretty nice.

At the same time, I also felt it was really important to speak the local language to be able chat with locals: not only the English-speaking ones who only represent a tiny part of the whole population but with anyone; old ladies on buses, construction workers in lunch places, shoe polishers on the street and house wifes in parks.

In the beginning it was hard not to miss the Spanish I learned in Spain, but it got easier along the way, even though every Latin American country and many of the regions within them offered new vocabulary and accents to battle with. Just when you had learned what a certain dish was called in one country, you went to another where it was something totally different.

3) 8 months is too long or 15 countries in 8 months is too much
I think I'd like my future travels (?!) to be shorter trips to more limited areas. Discovering one country in 2-3 months for example. Obviously, besides the airfare costs also the risk of falling in love with one place would increase, but it would definitely be less hectic and enjoyable than jumping from city to another every few days. And where would I go? Well, I didn't get to see Chile, my originally intended destination, and most parts of Argentina yet. Equador and Central America would also deserve more time. But then again, Malaysia, Vietnam and other South-East Asian countries are said to be fashionating too.

4) Not quite a hippie yet
My backpacks (55l+25l) weighted all together 26kg in the beginning of my journey. That included 4kg of textile bags that were presents for my CS hosts, 8 Swedish pocket books I hadn't have time to read, 2 boulders called travel guidebooks, a sleeping bag, a notebook, a good supple of cosmetics and basically everything I could need during the 8 month journey. Many others were a lot happier carrying their 10kg backpacks, but I don't regret my choice. Especially after the textile bags and books (in total 7kg!) were all left behind one by one...

I've learned that even though I travelled on a relatively tight budjet I don't want to give up on everything. I need a clean bed to sleep in, a daily shower and clean clothes. Those who can have the same t-shirt on for 4 days in a row can travel a lot lighter, but I don't really mind that. For the first time in more than ten years I stopped wearing make-up completely, but mainly too look as unattractive as possible (less attention, more safety) and not because my cosmetics bag would've got lighter as a result.

5) Don't book with a travel agency
... no matter how good deal you think you're getting. They won't help you in any way if something goes wrong and you can always find cheaper rates if you just look hard enough. Use Facebook and your bargain hunting expert friends if you're not one yourself!


Packing top picks

1) a front-loader with some extra pockets (I wish I had one)
2) duct/silver tape
3) a head light - try reading on you bed one night holding a regular flash light or going to an outside toilet on a pitch dark night and you'll know
4) a sewing kit
5) a couple of laminated copies of your passport (accepted as official id EVERYWHERE except when crossing borders; in Panamá & Costa Rica you need to carry a copy of your entrance stamp page too)
6) rubber bands – if you want to find your rolled clothes easily and creaseless
7) a couple of combination locks for locking the zippers of your backpack or your room
8) super glue (available at any street corner) for fixing everything from sunglasses & torn backpacks to sandals when you've only got two seconds to spare
9) a head set - all internet places, cibers, don't provide them and youtube videos you just NEED to show to other travellers might be too quiet to hear in noisy dorms
10) a nice notebook - a real one to keep you losing little pieces of paper with important contacts, timetables, addresses, shopping or to-do lists and other information (and which will be full of memories afterwards), and an electronic one if you want to update your blog regularly

All of this stuff, except the backpack, can be bought during the journey too – if you start in a cheap country. It's good to know that good quality travel gear & gadgets and electronics is generally NOT cheaper – European online stores have both better selection and rates.

Get rid of the local currency before you leave the country by exchanging them to dollars for example. On the other side of the border the rates are worse and you won't be able to get rid of your notes at all if you get far enough. For example in Costa Rica there's only one bank, located in the centre of the capital city of course, that will exchange Colombian pesos to dollars.


Budjet

1) flights
• Gothenburg-London-Mexico city-Buenos Aires-Mexico city – London by STA travel, 1294 € (in January 2011 I got a full refund not only for the cancelled flighs but the WHOLE package!)
• Cartagena-Bogota-Pereira-Panamá by Aires, 116 €
• Guatemala-New York-Reykjavik-Helsinki (inc ESTA) by Spirit airlines & Icelandic air, 413 €

2) Heath insurance 8 months, Backpackerförsäkring by Global, 234 €

3) Vaccinations Tyfoid, Hepatitis, Cholera, Yellow fever by Mediservice, 150 €

4) 8 months in Latin America; food, accommodation, travel, entertainment, phone expences, everything, 6900 €
• Cheap food; set lunches, local restaurants and self-catering in Brazil&Costa Rica
• Cheap accommodation or couchsurfing, splurging a bit in Bolivia & Nicaragua
• Cheap buses; comparing prices and finding second class terminals if possible
• Not many crazy nights out and DIY tours rather than organised ones
- The daily average comes to about 29€ per day (863 € per month) but there are great differences in the amount you spend in different countries. Getting by in Brazil, let alone in New York, for 40€ a day takes some effort while as with 20€ you can eat yummy 4-course meals, take pedicures and stay in comfortable hotels in Bolivia.

TOTAL ≈9100 € (-1294€ refund in 01/2011 for the cancelled flights)
NEW TOTAL ≈7800€



   
Final words

Thank you
- for reading this and for being part of this life I love living!