Author Archives: Steven Shoppman

Off the grid for a few days.

We are headed into Northwest Argentina, followed by the Atacama Desert, eventually driving through the southern region of Bolivia where their famous salt flats reside and then to Santa Cruz where we will obtain our Brazilian visas for the Pantanal.  This means that we will be out of contact for about the next week; however, we already have some new content ready and will be working on some more while we make our way through this region and anytime we have Internet we will be uploading.

More importantly, we have been making some huge progress lately and by the time we enter the Pantanal we will have finished nearly 3/4 of the miles that we will drive in South America.  While we are going on almost 2 years for this journey, it is a true sense of accomplishment to be able to see the finish line.  I don’t want to get ahead of myself, as we still have some crazy adventures ahead of us…maybe even some of the craziest yet (still have to find a way around the Darien Gap), but to put this in perspective…

It is like we have been in University, now we are seniors and in the last semester.  Unlike all of the semesters before this one, we were always signing up for the next round of classes, this time the story is different.  I guess just like college, it is exciting and scary to think that the end is getting close.  Now the usual question that we get has much more meaning: What are you going to do when this is all over?

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New Video - New Photos - It is even more intense on video.

Just after leaving Buenos Aires, we were treated to two different delicious asados. It has now been about a month since then, and after spending a few hours editing the video together from our time there the experience was that much more intense. Sometimes when you are in the moment everything is happening so fast that you miss some of the little details, but after reviewing all of the video and photos the primitive style of cooking meat here in Argentina it is quite a larger extravaganza than I remembered.

For those of you that might want to meet us…

I have updated the timeline on the site so that everyone can have an idea of where we will be in the coming months.  We would love to have more people join up, even if for short periods of time to say hello.  So to all of my friends that have not made it out to be part of the adventure, you better get planning, because we will be home soon.

The Timeline


A short window into our 6 week delay.

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.

New Photos - Volcano Chaitén

Melissa recently wrote a more objective point of view about the devastation left behind by the Chaitén volcano. More simply and more personally, all of us agree that this is one of the most devastating things we have ever witnessed firsthand. Just looking at photos or the video we will have up soon can only paint a small picture to the feeling that comes over you when entering a town that has been abandoned for all practical purposes …