WEATHER: Hot and 36C
HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Pretty cool truck stop for the night
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Noisy truck stop for the night
WORD OF THE DAY: hauling arse……
DISTANCE TRAVELLED: 768KM
It is purely a truck day today. On the itinerary we were to have 2 enroute nights, which is basically pulling into a service station or truck stops for the night and then getting out of there first thing in the morning. Mark and Gray decided to have a massive truck day today, and a large one tomorrow to cut down on one en-route night and getting into Paraty for an extra night by the beach. We all agreed and decided it was worth the hard yards to have 2 long days in the truck than an additional truck stop.
I had a week’s worth of blogs to do as it was just too hot to sit on a computer so I was lucky that no-one wanted to charge anything on the truck and I was able to plug in my laptop and just blog blog blog. I generally get 2.5 hours out of my laptop battery these days, so I really can’t fart around once it’s on, so it was good to be able to charge as I typed and take some of the pressure off.
We are traveling with another Tucan truck to Paraty, and then onto Rio. She is called Malagy and they have a group of a similar size. We also saw them in Asuncion and Trinidad in Paraguay as well. I have always liked travelling in convoy and the 2 massive yellow trucks look awesome together.
The travel day today have given me time to work out dates for my Plan B and revised itinerary should we get a green light for our credits. Plan C would be if they said no (I would be very upset) then I would still go to Ethiopia for the month and then rejoin the tour. The question would be to try and get back in time to do the 5 night Amazon cruise from Belem, or to come back after that and rejoin the tour in Manaus. I will need to check with Mark what I am missing on the cruise, as I am not that keen to be sleeping in a hammock for 5 days and I was going to upgrade on that section anyway. Hmmmmm something to ponder should the need arise. As I have always said there is always another side to the coin and I am now grasping at that to make me feel better.
What is the good side of Zeme not coming?
Well I will get to see him in Ethiopia for 4 weeks and get a better look and feel for a place that I am moving to in August. I still get to see Zeme, just not in South America. I get a break from the tour and not have to live out of a backpack and tent for 4 weeks. I will be meeting Zeme’s family for the first time. We can visit the Australian Consulate to see what is require for a visa for Z to visit Australia in July and get that ball rolling now if we can. And if we get the credit we both have a holiday already paid for next year which is a bonus and then we still get to do the trip together. See things can always be alt worse and when you look at the positives, it don’t look so bad after all. Disruptive, lost a few bob, but not too bad at all! All things considered.
With a few toilet stops and a stop for lunch we made it to this massive truck stop at 7.30pm. A 12.5 hour day. It actually didn’t seem to bad, but whne you are prepared mentally to sit in a truck for 12 hours it never seems as bad. Just think you could fly from Asia to Europe in 12 hours. We drive 700+KM in 12 hours. I was lucky I was able to kill hours on the computer as well which helps blow the time. The truck stop was massive and after asking permission if we could camp on some grass near the truck wash on the provision that we ate dinner at their restaurant, our tents were up and we were surfing free wifi over dinner at 8.30pm. They had awesome toilets and it was the first time that I have seen myself in a mirror for over 4 days!!! I looked tired and burnt. It probably would be bad to not see another mirror for another 4 days. The truck stop also had its own pharmacy, ATM, chapel, mechanic garage, restaurant and shop. You couldn’t ask for a better en-route stop even if we tried. There must have been over 50 trucks parked there at any one time and being so near the truck wash, which was an oversized car wash, that thing pretty much ran the whole night. Guess you can wash your truck any time night or day.
It started to rain as we left the restaurant so it was in the tent by 9.45pm to read for a little while and then crash for the night with a 7am departure in the morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment