Posts Tagged 'Road Trip'

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TotalAdventure flew from Cali to Santa Marta – from the Pacific to the Atlantic in one day. Arriving in Santa Marta at night I had a swim in the pool, then off to the Old City for supper. Now a laid back tourist town – where the barren brown Andes meet the Caribbean – Santa Marta was the main trans shipment point for cocaine to Miami back in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

In Santa Marta, I attempted to rent a 4X4 pickup tuck, but all that was available was a little eggbeater of some Kia sort of car. I then set off for the wilds of La Guajira.

Incredible Places To Eat Along The Highways. Vegan is often not option – just salad or rice and beans.
Fresh Grouper on the coast of La Guajira Peninsula.
A simple hotel room in San Juan del Cesar, $ 30 ( 120,000 Pesos) Per Night. Great AirCon and WiFi.
In the video you will see the journey through the desert. Life is hard in the Guajira – local people were selling a bitter fruit by the side of the road. I did buy some in support, but it was unpalatable and fed it to goats instead. La Guajira is one of the regions now safer to travel since the Peace Treaty was signed with FARC. FaRC is still active in scattered regions. TotalAdventure then drove through the Sierra Madres del Santa Marta back down to the Caribbean.
TheColombia Adventure ended in Cartagena, where I turned in the little Eggbeater and relaxed in the excellent rooftop pool of my hotel. It was my first time back since April,1988 when I was a reporter of the Trans Amazon Rallye. Check out the primitive but amazing website from 1995.
In a back street of the Ciudad Vieja.
Rooftop Pool – Great at the end of a long hot day.
Caribbean Sunset. To the West is Panama.
One day in Cartagena I went to meet an old family friend, the Artist Rafael Ortiz . Above, the artist in his studio.
Rafael Ortiz Art.

Rafael Ortiz Art.

The Artist directed this mural in a Barrio near the studio. To See more of Rafael’s work ,please visit his Instagram

After 11 Days in Colombia, TotalAdventure returned to Miami on the 2hour, 45 minute flight. flight – around the same time as to go to New York from Miami. Note the plane boards from both front and back – 15 minutes total as opposed to 45 minutes in the States.

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They always say travel when you’re young, and rarely do young people actually get that luxury. But in a stunning turn of events that was changing as I had taken on a new journey away from my warm little home. Early morning of July 1st, I was taking on a more domestic adventure of traveling to Marion, OH with my partner, no less. At first, we genuinely had never heard of this destination, but it was something new and it definitely wasn’t Florida living.

This was a 1,040 mile trip.
“Florida Citrus Center; Adorable Baby Gators!”

The first portion of the trip was definitely a stretch, Florida an unforgiving mistress as she caused a bit of a detour and led us to stopping in Ocala, FL definitely a fun place to “horse” around.

Now, if you have never gone to Ocala that little joke would have flown completely over you, but this lovely little town is a prominent horse town with gorgeous horses commonly walking the street or even where being a horse groomer is a high demand job.

After taking a short rest stop with a friend of my mothers, I set back off with my partner and this time choosing to drive at night despite warnings to get my next stop over in Atlanta where my family was celebrating 4th of July.

From there we were going back on the road with music blaring, the mountains greeting us soon enough and making even my eyes widen at truly seeing how majestic they could be with the fog rolling in from the early morning.

I-75 in Powell, Tennessee; Beautiful Sunset

With a brief stop to rest in Powell, Tennessee, we got to see the sun rise and hear the early morning chirping of the birds. But all calm must end, as we drove through a rather rough time with rain showers, and trucks surrounding us from every angle. But eventually we made our way to Lexington, Kentucky where I got to see my little sister.

The Smokey Mountains

Finally with almost a grand entrance we made it into Ohio, our first city to pass being that of Cincinnati, green and lush just as expected but congested the entire way in. Definitely a bit of a bummer but that was soon fixed with a bit of gusto and maneuvering through traffic and we were soon blazing the rest of the trail. Directly to our final destination home of the Harding Memorial.

Beautiful Ohio Fields

A five day journey came to an end but we were greeted by my brother and his current girlfriend and we couldn’t have had a better trip!

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Don’t forget, NASA is always looking for new recruits… if you can make the cut.

 

The Rocket Garden

 

The feeling you get from being in the presence of these magnificent towers that helped bring our species into the space is truly unparalleled. You wouldn’t believe how big some of the thrusters are on these guys.

 

The Space Shuttle

 

What was not too long ago the pinnacle and symbol of space travel now rests here as a monument to all its achievements

The thrusters alone tower above all else in the area.

 

Space Fairing Nations

 

Here we have all the nations that have contributed to the further evolution of our presence in Outer Space.

 

Replica of the Control Room

Here we have a replica of the control room as it was the 20th of July, 1969, the day we first put men on the Moon.

Astronaut Memorial

 

This solemn area is much different than any other zone in the facility. Gone here are the laughing of families and friends, and the overpriced ice cream. Here we remember the men and women who have given their lives in the pursuit of something greater than themselves.

 

 

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A recap of ArcticTropic’s Australian Adventure last February. We are soon relaunching as totaladventure.travel and are currently in testing phase.

All TotalAdventure Packages In Australia