Tag Archives: travel

A short window into our 6 week delay.

October 22, 2008 – 2:49 pm

I am still hard at work on the blog regarding the exact details of what happened with the trucks in Buenos. With Fernando’s help we are putting together a blog that will give a better researched insight not into just what happened to us, but more importantly, why it happened the way it did. More importantly we want to give everyone an insight as to why it is such a tragedy that Argentinean government treats not only us this way, but treats all of the citizens in Argentina the same.

By Steven Shoppman | Posted in Argentina, New Videos, Paperwork, shipping, south america | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Kudos to Colorado

October 15, 2008 – 6:12 pm

The overlying goal of The World by Road is to inspire people to get out and travel and hopefully, through our photos, videos and stories, we will encourage more people to go explore more of the world that they live in. This is especially true for people living in the United States. We have said it countless times before and that is by and large, people in the United States do not leave the country that much…

By Steve Bouey | Posted in Interesting, Observations, Trip Thoughts, Wanderings | Also tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Anyone Can Do This

July 17, 2008 – 11:08 am

One of the main messages I think that we want to convey during and after the course of this expedition is that anyone can do what we are doing. Sure, we are all exceptionally intelligent, sociable and good looking here at TWBR, but honestly, all it takes is an idea or a dream and the conviction to follow through with it and you too can find yourself halfway around the world on a trip many people thought would never even happen. A lot of people that we meet say that we are doing this at the right time in our lives. We are young, we do not have many family commitments, (i.e. no children or spouses) and we can always go back to our jobs later on if we so choose. I guess this is a pretty good time to do something like this, but then again, I think you can always find time to chase your dreams, no matter what age you are.

Case in point, while we were stuck in the Congo trying to sort out our Angola visa problems, we met Stewart and Annaliese. Stewart and Annaliese hail from Cape Town, South Africa and are in the midst of driving their Land Rover around Africa. On the surface, that may not sound that interesting because there are a lot of people driving a lot of Land Rovers around here in Africa. What makes Stewart and Annaliese a bit of an exception is that they both left well paying professional jobs in Cape Town, sold their home and basically everything they own and put it all into a trip they had been contemplating for quite a while. They did have to wait for their son to go off to university, but it just goes to show you that you can always find the time in your life to do something like this. Just like us, Stewart and Annaliese’s friends thought they were totally out of their minds for giving up all of the things they had worked for in life, but as they point out and as we have experienced, a lot of the people who thought we were crazy are the ones checking out our respective websites and wishing they were in the car with us. It was nice bumping into the couple because we all shared an understanding of the rigors of overlanding but more importantly, what it feels like to take a big, potentially risky, yet rewarding step out of our comfort zones. You can follow Stewart and Annaliese’s adventures on their website: Roots in Africa.

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By Steve Bouey | Posted in Africa, Congo, Friends of TWBR, Interesting, Observations, South Africa, Trip Thoughts | Also tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (1)

New Photos - North Cape (Nordkapp)

July 7, 2008 – 8:29 pm

In the far far north of the northern part of the north European country of Norway, there lies a cliff encircled point called North Cape.  This is the farthest you can drive north in Europe and a truly majestic site.  With giant cliffs, tunnels, ice covered roads and little to no light, the drive up to here is a true adventure in the middle of winter.  The sub zero temperatures, snow storms, wind and incredible hunger that abides when darkness is far more common than light nearly drive you mad as you count the number of days since the sun has actually shined on you.

On our speedy journey to the north and the little information we could gather about making it all the way to the cape led us to a closed gate just 12 kms from the finish line.  After a day of driving around trying to find the right people we were able to get a convoy with a snow plow and safety car to take us to the top, but at a cost…it ended up costing $1000 for that last 12km, and although that $1000 is still sitting on my credit card accruing interest…to all of us it was well spent.  We drove all the way from Cape Otway Australia, over 30,000 miles through jungles, deserts, mountains, rivers, rebels and more to make it there and nothing would stop us.

Considering the safety truck was less prepared than we were if something was to happen and the plow had already been up that day so the road was already clear, the price was for little more than the Norwegians making yet another dollar off of us. Expensive for nothing, but worth it.

Link to Flickr

Link to TWBR Gallery

The open plains no longer support tree life at this latitude.It is unbelieveable that they went to the trouble to build a road all the way up here along the side of these sheer cliffs.The usual 2pm loss of light, you cannot really call it a sunset since the sun never rises up here.There is more light in the tunnels than there is in the middle of the day.The roads are 100% solid ice for the last 1000km approach to the North CapeThe colors from the polar night are reason enough to come up hereThe tunnels have doors up here to prevent them from icing up.1000s of kms later we realized that the Norweigans will never miss a chance to add another fee.Without a convoy of snowplow and safety car, you cannot drive the last 12kmsThe final town before the last stretch of road to NordKappWith screaming winds and sub zero temperatures, a day of fliming only allows minutes outdoors before frostbite sets in during thThis was one of the coldest moments of the trip trying to film for 30 seconds with the wind blowning strong enough to knock you This is a true life shot, no posing, just pure cold.The is the end, after the run with the snow plow and safety truck we finally reached the farthest north point.In my Mongolian Dahl, I setup shots of the trucks with the last bit of light.The giant cliffs around NordKapp are breathtaking.The parking lot is not quite all the way to the point.So we had to walk the last few hundred yards to the globe.Thousands of miles of driving, countless nights sleeping in the trucks, and three tired crew members later, we were there.Inside there are photos of what the midnight sun looks like, circling the sky in summer.Time to leave the cape.Here is the $1000 plow that we had to pay to plow a total of zero inches of snow for us, and the safety car? Less equipped thatThere is nothing like this moment. We made it all the way north...in winter!!

 


By Steven Shoppman | Posted in New Photos, Norway, Road Conditions | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

New Photos - The Mauritanian Sahara

June 27, 2008 – 1:18 pm

Months ago many of you watched the video that we put together about our time in the Sahara in the Banc d’Arguin National Park.  Here are the photos.

Photos On Flickr

See the video

The first big dune we had to cross got us stuck a good five times.The Tundra has so much weight that it gets stuck much more often.Miles and miles of sand and no roads gets a little uneasy at timesGPS is pretty acurate, but without a good map of GPS coordinates it can get tricky.More kilometers than not we made our own tracks.The Mauritanian desert is no easy task to navigate.Sometimes you have to stop the trucks and hike ahead to make sure that the sand does not get too deep.Deep ruts slow the trucks down in the Sahara desert.We had the entire costline to ourselves for miles.So Bouey practiced his arabic a little bit.Mautitania was french occupied, so who would we be to not collect some fresh escargot?Nothing like living large in the middle of nowhere.As the sun goes down you begin to realized why you spent all day eating sand.Words cannot explain the beauty of a sunset that you have worked so hard for that day.As the sun goes down farther and farther, the light just got more amazingLeaving our beautiful beach campsite was no easy task with sandy hills and cliffs surrounding us.Setting up for some action shots.Taking a break from driving.The huge, wide-open basins are great for speed testing:)Civilization at last! ??The high tides make fields of shells in the middle of the desert.Bouey is taking a rest from some hard runs dune surfing.Dunes as far as the eye can see.Brook...making some fresh tracksSteve checks out his line.He goes for the leapAnd botches the landing, with a nice mouthful of sand as a present from the desert.And the hike back up.At night these little guys would crawl under your tent for warmth and make a really creepy noise.After you get the car unstuck, it cannot stop for danger of getting stuck again, so the diggers have to walk.A little free souvenir, some sand.Every once in a while there is a lone rouge tree that says,

 


By Steven Shoppman | Posted in Africa, Mauritania, New Photos | Also tagged , , , , , | Comments (0)