We left our dear friend in Morelia and continued north, dropping back down into the desert conditions of north/west mexico.. I would say this was by far THE MOST uncomfortable, and disgusting I’ve felt and I’m sure Carlo too (apart from sleeping in the humid climate of Cartagena in Columbia..) throughout the trip. The heat was incredible, dry like a sauna with no escape but paying for an air coned motel room for 6hours, which i think you can guess is one of “those motels..”.

The crossing into the US was another successful and unexpectedly quick accomplishment! I loved the west coast of the US, it’s simply awesome but a complete culture shock to the system after the year we’d had… All I can say is, “Ralphs Supermarket?!” We’ve been used to corner shops that have bars where the door should be, and having to point at the very limited options on display to the shop keeper! so this was like walking into a palace for us.. We must have spent a good hour walking the isles in awe of all the choices!

We made several stops along the way up with friends in: San Diego, LA, San Francisco.. and took our final “excursion” to visit Yosemite Park, which was epic! Autumn in Yosemite is beautiful, and even saw snow on the ground for a couple days! Then, returning to San Francisco had us wrapped into a new production!

The New Production:
The “Omprakash” foundation, we hadn’t realised properly until we met up with our friend & fellow volunteer Lacey (whom we’d met when at Fairplay/Helping hands in Peru) that Omprakash is directly connected to both organisations Carlo and I did productions for in Peru. Over night she’d come up with an idea!
Within the following morning we’d spoken to Willy the founder of Omprakash, and were commissioned to create a film/documentary showing an outreach program of a volunteer, grant recipient & now member of their committee, Vance, who was riding his bike from Seattle to San Francisco and stopping at pre-arranged university’s along the way, to spread the word of volunteering for no costs through using “Omprakash”.
Visit: www.omprakash.org/howitworks – to find out more details.
Video coming soon!

With the tour already well underway, we had a week for pre-production planning and were soon on the road from San Fran to meet the man ‘Vance’ in Eugene, to then travel back south, getting the footage we needed of him riding the coast, the ‘avenue of the giants’, and riding through wine country – which was a definite crowd pleaser ;)

We spent three weeks on the road with Vance, documenting his outreach tour for Omprakash.

I won’t give to much away, you’ll have to wait in anticipation for the finished result… coming very soon!

Omprakash Foundation - Outreach Tour PhotoTeaser

SAN DIEGO

Tori Roze & The Hot Mess #1

Tori Roze & The Hot Mess #2

Tori Roze & The Hot Mess #3

Tori Roze & The Hot Mess #4

2/5 of the Hot Mess

Causing a splash in San Diego with Tori & The Hot Mess

Yeah, we kind of went for that dead looking look.

Tori & The Hot Mess band shoot - Adele's vs

Some 'behind the scenes' action from Tori & The Hot Mess shoot

more BTS

Getting cold 'behind the scenes' but still having a laugh

COASTAL FREEWAY

Freeway 1 - Coastal Freewayway. Beautiful views from our ride betsy

Has there ever been a picture of us on here together?? Don't think so.. must have been that sea breeze

Gorgeous day & Stunning views

I recommend this drive to anyone going to California! We were lucky with the weather being it was October, the summer was still lingering

Hovering over the edge..

I actually have no idea where this was.

LOS ANGELES

LOS ANGELES BABY!

Sleepy seaside town at a place called Shell Beach

SAN FRANCISCO

San Francisco! Taken at Lands End, cool view of the Golden Gate Bridge

Lands End, another point of view

Nice and close using the 300mm.. Golden Gate Bridge

San Francisco Fire Dept

Rolling hills of San Fran

Yeah baby!

San Francisco Blue "Grass" Festival. Were we in a time warp?

Blue grass Festival - and no i dont know who the young guy is ;) ??

Stunning image here by multi talented photographer Adele Thomas

Early morning light overlooking the city of San Fransico

YOSEMITE:

Maybe I looked too much at that Ansel Adams book uh? Or maybe not enough...

This doesn't give justice to how magnificent these trees were.

Yep, it was cold in the van.

Sunset in Yosemite

Shining bright

There's a rainbow faintly showing in the mist

Yosemite Park

Yosemite Valley

OMPRAKASH ON TOUR:

Avenue of the giants. Omprakash Movie

Hanging out. The other awesome VW couple Siomara & Rustin, Vance on a GIANT log.. Ricci in awe

Rustin not stuck in a gigantic tree! Unlike someone else we know whom was! lol

this, not only make's Vance look like a flutterby but is the actual bottom end of a fallen sequoia tree.. its huge!

Behind the Scenes of the Omprakash tour film..

The beautiful & ancient redwoods - Avenue of the giants (Old Highway 101)

Yeah, you know, just some location scouting on the way up..

An awesome day off from shooting

The redwoods. Pretty much incredible.

Same same

A shot from the Omprakash shoot. within seconds a bike running at 300km/h will cross the frame

Yeah! Let's go check out that lighthouse!

Alright folks, here we are.

I know it’s been a while, but hey, we didn’t just mess around. I believe this last month has been the most intense of them all. And we like to show something interesting rather than just writing a post for the sake of doing it.

We knew the boat crossing had to come at some stage, but you’re never ready for something like this. Especially when our always incredibly small budget doesn’t really allow us to treat ourselves in any way, especially when we really need it: stressful moments.

So when you combine the worse and hottest weather we had in the whole trip together with driving many miles and shipping our beloved (and behated) Betsy on a Cargo boat, you soon realise that there wasn’t much time and mind space for creativity and pictures.

Having said that, definitely a lot happened in this last month.

We left Ecuador, crossed all Colombia, stayed two weeks in Cartagena to organise the shipment of the van, met up with Miky who traveled with us until Nicaragua, sailed to Panama, got the van back and drove to Nicaragua trough Costa Rica.

In between, all this (in no specific order):

• Stuck in the middle of nowhere in the Colombian highland, under a tropical storm, dark at night with the engine not able to cool down because of the very steep uphill mountain road, we then slept on the side of the road
• Spent two weeks in the most horrible climate ever in Cartagena, with unseen bureaucratic procedures to ship the van to Panama
• Sailed from Cartagena to Panama in the open ocean, puking my soul
• Snorkled with a shark
• Had to fix the transmission joint under a storm with just a screwdriver
• Seen 5 more mechanics
• Spent my 30th birthday in a mechanic shop
• Spent the day after my 30th birthday with an Ecuadorian family of 30 relatives dancing Macarena and what not
• Hitchhiked with a few truck drivers under the rain and in the middle of nowhere with the van down
• Had no shower for over two weeks
• Had a night shower and a pool bath on the roof of an authentic colonial palace, gently offered by Giuseppe, a 73 year old italian ex military now in Cartagena where he founded a school for disadvantaged kids, and his wife
• Got wasted on a desert island with the boat captain completely drunk, naked, with a starfish on his penis. And we almost sinked on the way back from the island to the boat, because the weight on the dinghy wasn’t properly distributed. You can imagine how funny it was to then watch the same drunk captain trying to lift the dinghy up on the boat.. Same guy who then eventually tried to “cure” a wound on the forehead of one of the passengers by pouring rum on it. He eventually brought us to Panama.
• Sailed in open ocean at night under a full thunder storm
• Had a fight with the guardian who had to release the van from the Colon Port, under pissing down rain, completely wet deep to my underwear
• Got drunk with a bunch of locals in Anton, a 200 people town in the middle of Panama, in a local bar with porn on the TV on the wall, and Elton John jukebox songs all over. But hey, 60 cents a beer? Adele and a prostitute were the only females in the bar.
• Biggest achievement of my life: finishing the Rubik cube while spending 5 days on a fantastic hostel on a beach, in front of the pacific ocean swinging in hammocks.

As usual, I’ll let you guess the rest of the story from the shots below. Stay tuned, the rest of Central America and Mexico are coming soon.

The first glance of Colombia, one of the most beautiful drive of the whole trip

A photographer's heaven. Landscapes don't usually get much better than this.

An open breach after climbing up a very steep mountain in the clouds

While Adele is hanging out of the van to take this one, a gigantic drop is underneath her camera..

Frames of life on the side of the road: #1

#2

#3

A breathtaking sunset in open ocean on the way to Panama

Enjoying the open ocean? Not exactly. The boat is swinging like a bi**h and everybody is just concentrating to avoid vomiting. So romantic.

Gypsy Moth, our ride.

Fish cooked on the BBQ, naked bath under the stars, starfish on penis and rum on wounds. Ah, desert islands..

Our best producer/photographer/advertising guru/agent on the boat doesn't want to be bothered while she's working very hard on her tan.

Storm is coming, boat is ready.

Kunas working in the San Blas

The Life Aquatic #1

The Life Aquatic #2

The Life Aquatic #3

The Life Aquatic #4

Entering Nicaragua. It's not always sunny beaches, palm trees and cocktails.

Miky aka "Diamante" aka "Merenda" aka "Il cocchiere" aka "The gringo who counts money at the hostel" aka "speedo"

Carlo's vs

Adele's vs

The biggest achievement of my life. By far.

A lost surfers beach. Betsy almost didn't make it back. Shot with the same first camera I started my passion in photography with! #1

#2

A little corner of paradise in Nicaragua we treated ourselves with before hitting the road again #1

#2

#3

Worldwide released advertising by Adele Thomas / Photographer and Wonderful Person

First off, I would like to introduce the third and final video we have created for Pisco Sin Fronteras: The Challenge. The idea was to challenge the wanabe volunteer, while also showing the diversity of the international people that come through PSF.
Take a look: (if you see a freaky looking Italian a couple of times and a wind swept English slangy Cornish girl.. we had to make up the numbers.. apparently..)

After one month of volunteering with PSF and putting together some videos, photography and helping out here and there with projects, it was time to get back on the road again.. It was sad saying goodbye to the cool and interesting people we had met, they had made our experience even more unique.


A quick jump in, jump out of Lima and we were back on course, heading north following the Peruvian coast. Spending our nights again in the sticks, the first night in particular was spent on a towering cliff top over looking a bay and the open ocean.. it was a lovely spot with nothing but dunes all around. We had parked reasonably close to the cliff edge on a slight angle which didn’t bother me at all until we were tucked in to sleep that night, waves were crashing into the rocks and it grew very dark, I suddenly felt very disorientated and all I could picture was the van sliding off the edge into sea… I felt like every movement might plunge me to my death! Not the best night sleep as you can guess…


At sunrise we drove on, the scenery stayed dry and dusty with desert dunes, sometimes mountainous, sometimes bumpy and flat. We were stopped by ‘every’ police officer along the way… which made the journey seem to take forever, (we should change the colour of the van to look like a taxibus!) but on the final one that got us, Betsy’s wouldn’t start up… when we turned the ignition it just clicked over.. this turned into 4 days living in a mechanics workshop in Truijjo, with replacing the ignition itself, which technically should have taken… hmm, around 3-4 hours! but we had to wait for the part to come in.


Around one week after, we were crossing into Ecuador. Greeted at the boarder with a warm welcome and given gifts?! That’s never happened before.. we instantly had a good impression about this country. It was clean, green and the people were so friendly. We stayed west passing banana fields and mountains until we entered into the national park where the land became blander in colour, but the ocean came back into view with stretches of golden beaches and restaurants perched along them. Throughout this part of the journey there was a slow but definite tapping sound when accelerating, coming from underneath the van, towards the drivers back wheel.. it grew worse as we progressed towards the capital city Quito, and the taps soon became bangs… hence Quito becoming part of our agenda..


The mechanic changed two parts on the back wheels before finding out, that wasn’t the problem and the banging was still there.. They figured it must be the gearbox! As you can imagine, we were pretty upset hearing this, and it would honestly be the last straw if we had to replace. The diagnosis on Betsy’s gear box was a gear piece had broken into bits and was clanging around inside the gear box, and is not exactly a straight forward piece to replace either, you can’t just pick up a new from a store.. We have three options, SELL! Replace the gear box, or replace the piece.. We don’t want to sell for obvious reasons and the last two options cost $1000 and more. We cant afford that kind of money, so the mechanic proposed to take the broken part to a specialist and ask them to copy the grooves and nooks into another piece we found, to make it fit.. $150. Plus mechanic fees. So, we’ve spent the last 10days and nights on curfew to be back at the workshop by 5:30pm for when they lock up and lock us in. 7ft walls surround us with broken glass shards sprinkled along its edges! At home we call this prison. We sleep in the van that’s perched up on jacks, waiting for this new part to come in.. All fingers and toes crossed that we are good to go by this wknd so Carlo can at least see his 30th birthday out of these four walls and perhaps within four walls of a nice bar? Sounds reasonable.
I think we’ll keep you posted on that one ;)

The "scary view" which kept Adele awake..

Those tires signs on the sand are Betsy's. She was looking to commit suicide.

Carlo is cooking while Adele is taking this picture. The world up-side-down

A lonely man lost in the.. wait, oh snap. That's a woman.

Well, this is pretty cool, isn't it?

The answer is: I have no bloody idea..

On the way out of Peru, breath...

Jungle and bananas

An incredible morning, waking up in front of the ocean after one of the really few dinner out just off the beach... Priceless.

Our prison

In case you missed it in the previous one

The one on the left is the ma*a*uc*er which broke. The other one is our $150.

A series of shots for Angus' (a friend met at PSF) upcoming album. He's not just an amazing carpenter. He's a great musican too. n.1

n.2

n.3&4

n.5

We have never experienced such a diverse way of living.. From sleeping in a mechanics workshop for a week! To waking to the crashing of the waves on a rocky shoreline, to star gazing into a vast expanse of crystal clear sky – showing all of the beautiful milky way in the southern hemisphere and Orion’s belt in the north. After days of driving through the Atacama desert, the driest desert on earth, being able to dreamily take a walk upon the Atacama Salar and hearing the snow like crunch under foot from the crystallized salt… with nothing else but pure silence.. An eerie silence that is actually able to make a buzzing noise to your eardrum.. Life’s really all about taking the good with the bad or the bad with the good.. depending.. for instance, the hell Betsy puts us through some days, the last week makes it all worth while and even thanks to all ’16′ (yep, I’m counting!) mechanics we have had the pleasure of meeting, Carlo has managed to pick up a few mechanic skills along the way! Which of course has already come in handy, many a time.. Especially now, as tomorrow we venture into a new country, Bolivia. We have to acclimatize to being several thousand meters above sea level in landlocked La Paz and lake Titicaca before making another crossing by April into Peru!

Another motor to fix and these two customers also stay the night..

The Burbs of Vina

Neighborhood up the hills of Vina Del Mar

La Pangue observatory in vicuna, where we had a private tour with an astrophysicist called Eric! Thanks again Eric!

Telescope with 40cm diameter lens to observe the night sky in Vicuna, to the west of La Serena

Southern hemisphere, Milky way. Among these stars we were told by Eric, is one very unstable star that is dying and is turning into a supernova! (Which of course has already happened.. your always looking into the past when studying the night sky) and we are due to see this transformation happen within our life time, the effect will be like a 2nd sun and bring constant daylight to the earth and our galaxy for a couple of weeks! Good to know I think?! Eric told us, nothing to worry about though...!

Northern hemisphere.. Orion's belt (the polar bear..) visible on left of observatory

Osvaldo the mechanic in Chanaral, again very kind and fixed the accelerator cable. The list goes on..

Portofino beach at sunset

Hills of the Atacama Desert

It really is the driest desert on earth.. We kept hoping to glimpse a prehistoric geoglyph in the hillsides, to keep us amused.. but nothing but desert hills

The creation of a 'twister' in the distance, not quite as bad as the twisters in the movie..

The Salar de Atacama. An untouched part at least..

All deserts have an oasis

Just before reaching our destination of Arica, at the end of the desert, a prehistoric geoglyph?

Modern geoglyphs.. The new frontier of advertising for Coca Cola

Looking forward..

God Bless Asphalt. I know it may sound unpopular and not-eco-friendly but after 5 days and almost 700 km of awful dirt road where your top speed barely reaches 50km/h, a flat tire and a major problem with the engine (more on this on the next post..), seeing a paved road in front of you has more or less the same effect that an oasis has on a thirsty wonderer in the hottest of the deserts.
Having said that, this has been by far the most intriguing and interesting part of the trip; and the fact that only such a terrible road connects these remote areas of the country, contributes to keep the feeling of loneliness and wilderness which makes this a unique experience. Waving at other travellers when you pass them, is something that you might see only on desolate roads, where everybody shares the same feeling, and even just a quick movement of your hand, creates a connection that truly starts many miles behind.

The first day we decided to go for an off-track visit to a farm (“Estancia”), where we had the luck to find an awesome blue sky which enhanced the red coloured ground (which reminded us of Australia) and the yellow fields that surrounded the whole instalment. The light of the late afternoon gave us a fantastic opportunity to capture some details like the lining fluttering against the blue sky.

After a nice night indoors, drinking wine and telling stories in front of the fire, we left early to begin what we knew would have been the tough bit.

If you ever come this way and decide to descend Patagonia through the “Ruta 40″, prepare yourself with endless patience, a full second tank of petrol (Argentinians don’t seem to be particularly attentive on refilling their petrol stations and the phrase “no tengo super, nada mas.” with a big stupid smile on their faces is way more common that you might expect) and most definitely a camera.
If on one side this will stretch your enthusiasm for driving, on the other side it will pay back a thousand times in terms of scenic views and never-ending sunsets.
The landscape is mostly shaped by the wind, which will be your companion for the whole road and more. The wind is so strong that it can sometimes literally hold you up, push your vehicle for miles and change your plan according to where and if you want to sleep. At the same time it avoids any plant higher than one foot to grow and this is the main characteristic that you’ll have to face. I personally loved it, as it’s something profoundly diverse than anything else I have ever seen and the only other place in the world that can generate such a hostile environment is probably the Siberian tundra.

Hundreds of miles of no-man-land, or more accurately I would say “few men land”, as Patagonia is one of the lowest population density areas in the world and except for the sporadic and ghost towns (like that one where we changed the tire), you won’t find any human evidence, apart from a few fences limiting the territory where sheep and lamas share the ground with pumas and ostriches.

The second to last day of Ruta40, exhausted after a whole day of travel, at sunset we found this turquoise-blue lake in the middle of nowhere, and believe me it was surreal. After many hours of barren landscape where everything is so flat that it’s difficult to understand where the ground ends and the sky begins, discovering this unexpected gem at the magic hour reminded us why we’re here.

Where to start? 10 Days ago we started our journey south. With nothing but open road ahead of us and a rather freshly tweaked little camper, we flew our way onto the motorway out of the bustling city of Santiago to make the ‘long way down’ to Patagonia.

We drove several hundred miles over a couple of days and camped in the wild of a national park called Conguillio. The roads were horrendous but the landscape in comparison was beautiful. It held a couple of huge lakes, towering mountains, vast hilly woodland and an eyesore of a Volcano called Llaima stood smack in the middle! The devastation of the last eruption in the 30’s (which lasted for almost 30 years!) was still very visible with miles of volcanic rubble and ash left in its wake.

We passed into the boarder of Argentina with ease, even if we did chug along past the officers looking ‘more’ suspicious than we actually were… “Yes Officer, we are driving a BRIGHT orange van into Argentina” – However, thankfully no alarm caused. Pretty much all documents were in check and we were allowed to pass.

Our next stop was a meeting point just after the boarder crossing at Villa Pehuenia in the Lake District. Whereby we were on schedule to catch some friends of Carlo’s from Italy, Georgia, Lorenzo and little Olivia. By coincidence they are here at the same time and have rented a motor home to travel, so we have a few weeks together to head south.

We continue on, following the spine of the Andes, climbing into higher altitudes, experiencing the most breath taking crystal lakes of the Lake District. Surrounded by woodland, a mountainous landscape as far as the eye can see with winding roads meandering in and around these vast lakes, it can seem you are passing by a great ocean. We feel this really is a special part of South America.

*Couple minor problems with Betsy:

• The boot won’t close properly due to the sheer amount of vibration when driving off road – seriously bumpy roads!
• Carlo put the water cap on the roof of the van and drove happily away.. or shall I say not so happily..

On the plus side, she has been awesome so far. Were pretty organsised inside and we’ve made great use of the space. Very comfortable at night in the roof, except maybe a couple nights where the temperature dropped considerably and the weather was howling outside.. I thought, I might die..

Over the next few days we will visit a couple more national parks until we hit northern Patagonia and then we have 700k (3days) of dirt road into ‘no mans land’ to look forward to! Endless bumpy road into a barren and inhospitable terrain…

(“He’s climbin in your windows, he’s snatchin your people up….”)

We will be travelling for one year from the very bottom of Chile all the way up until Canada, just with a van, our gear and some underwear. This blog will be the place where we’re gonna share our photographs, videos, thoughts and experiences.

Join us for a documentary of Latin and North American culture, people and landscapes!

Hola amigos! And welcome to the very first entry of The Long Way Up travel blog. I’m Adele and the key person on this awesome adventure! I will be bringing along my very own cameraman who will be following ‘me’ around like a massive stalker! Carlo my jolly feller. His life mission is to become bolder than bad Santa and cooler than The Big Lebowski! His mission for the next year however, will be creating a kick-ass documentary, capturing the very essence of South America and life living on the road.

Bring on the sun, pool side cocktails… naked Spanish waita minute?! That would be a holiday not an expedition!

We intend to document with video and photography the people, cultures, lifestyle, food, fashion and spectacular landscapes of South America, off the beaten track..

My life is pretty much packed into one suitcase, strange how you can accumulate so much sh*t over the years but when it really comes down to it you really only need a suite case full of things. In Carlo’s case, his main luggage will be gear, gear and more gear! He prefers camera gadgets and gizmos to actual clothing! His hero nickname: SuperGeek!

We will lug our 45kgs each to Sydney airport on November 15^th 2010 and will arrive in Santiago, Chile the same day.  Here, we will spend 20days in a hostel to find the van. Keeping all fingers and toes crossed for the more roomy VW Camper Van like the Westfalia! This little baby will sleep, feed and carry our butts on the grand tour across Argentina down to the very southernmost part of South America, Patagonia, she’ll then venture right up the west coast into Central America and on to the US.

Final destination looking to be Vancouver!

As I understand it, 17 countries in all!

Excited much??!!