San Francisco—

So I’m 10500km away from Auckland now, at a well known area called San Francisco. I’ve stopped here for two days on transit to Costa Rica as at the time of booking my onward flight to Costa Rica, I was waiting for the cheapest price to appear and I have the advantage of having an uncle and aunt that resides in this beautiful area.

This is my second time here, I was fortunate enough have the privilege of going to Los Angeles in August last year for a relatively stress-free work trip and extended that stay to vacation in San Francisco. I’ve considered the prospect of working here in San Francisco, home of Silicon Valley, the headquarters of Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter and many other tech companies. The allure of this becoming my stomping ground has put this prospect high up on “what to do next” list, if only I can sort out obtaining a visa.

Anyway, this is only a quick stop over so on to the main topic of this post, my preparation for Central and South America.

Itinerary

On Saturday evening San Fran time, I leave for San Jose, Costa Rica via Denver, Colorado, arriving at 6am in Costa Rica. I have opted for the option of using public transport to get Santa Teresa, the location of the surf camp which is a 6 hour bus and ferry ride away. The surf camp is called Zopilote, I’ve booked myself there for 2 weeks.

In the conclusion of those 2 weeks, at this point in time, I have no bookings whatsoever. Travelling solo, I hope I find fellow travellers to either join or convince for a venture across the northern border to a town called San Juan Del Sur in the country Nicaragua. I’ve heard good things about the place, and during my preparation, I have earmarked it as a place to possible settle for a couple of months.

When I decide to go down to South America, I will definitely sail through the San Blas Islands within the Caribbean waters from Panama to Colombia. Not only is this highly recommended by experienced travellers, but it is much the much safer to go from travel between Panama and Colombia via the sea than it is by land through the notorious Darien Gap.

Things I have taken

After trawling through many other personal travel blogs on the internet, I came up with the conclusion that instead of the typical 60-80L pack that resembles a tramping pack, I’d go with a 40L pack. That is the size of an oversized school bag. Others have been able to manage it, and the perceived benefits outweighed the cons.

Let’s go over the benefits:

• Does not need to be checked in on flights - save some dinero there

• Can be on your lap for bus rides - no possibility of opportunistic pickpocketing as opposed to having to store it under the bus or the overhead compartment. Apparently, these inter-town bus rides are packed to the brim and these thiefs have honed their sleight of hand and have managed to steal from overhead compartments unnoticed.

• Bag is lighter and smaller - less physical exertion, can run faster i.e. from muggers, and be more nimble e.g. escape through branches without getting caught on them.

3 benefits, and only 1 negative

• Bag is (significantly) smaller - take less stuff that a normal sized pack.

The bag I ended up going with is the Kathmandu Litehaul 38L v2 pack. Contrary to the perceived size, it is actually quite capacious. The design is catered for travelling as opposed to tramping/hiking, sacrificing comfort for sheer carrying volume. With that said, this should require meticulous planning of items to take. Here are the items I’m taking and why

Clothes

As clothes are a necessity (argh), I’ll still need to carry the essential pieces , just reduce the quantity. I tried to pick clothes of all different colours so I don’t look boring.

• 3 shirts - 2 long sleeve and 1 short sleeve

• 2 singlets

• 3 t-shirts

• 2 pairs of shorts

• 1 pair of boardshorts - I looked at getting a hybrid pair but because of tree trunk thighs and normal sized waist, ones that fitted well around the waist meant absolutely no mobility in the groin area. So I settled with a pair of O’Neill Hyperfreak boardshorts as they are quite stretchy.

• 5 pairs of jocks - one I’m currently wearing not shown in picture

• 1 pair of jandals/flip-flops

• 1 pair of tramping shoes - I really wanted to take a pair of black Chucks as I find them quite versatile, but that really is only from an aesthetic sense, general functionality such as off-road running, jumping, walking through the Amazon river etc. is mediocre at best in comparison to any other shoe.

• Wu-Tang cap - “Wu-Tang is for the children” - ODB.

Looking at the arrangement of my portable closet, it was only possible because I only packed the tropical climates for travel within Central America/Colombia/Peru. If I do venture into chillier climates, I’ll look for some kind of comfy poncho, definitely their native cold weather clothing, that would be legit and worth sacrifice of other superfluous clothing.

Electronics

• 11 inch Macbook Air - ideal weight of about 1kg and has full sized keyboard so not does not feel cramped

• Kindle paperwhite - Deserved of a post of its own at some point in the future.

• Gopro - Robush, essential for action footage. Have now substituted the handle for this telescoping pole, useful for taking selfies on a solo trip.

• Old Nokia phone - Long battery life, indestructible. Won’t cry if I lose it.

• iPhone - My all-in-one device.

• iPad - In hindsight, a superfluous item.

• External HDD - For when I can’t store stuff in the cloud.

• Panasonic LX-7 and crappy waterproof case - so I can have fun being a hobbist photographer wannabe.

• Cables - I’ve organised all my cables with this Grid-it organizer, pretty handy item.

• Half decent iPhone waterproof case - Don’t really want to leave my iPhone on the beach unsupervised.

• Gopro accessories - Probably a bit excessive, have all types of straps.

• iPod shuffle (not shown) - Don’t want to drain my iPhone battery too quickly.

Miscellaneous

• Quick dry towelette

• Kathmandu back rain cover - Size M

• Hibermate sleep mask - For getting proper shuteye at party hostels

• Decent water bottle

• Flat fanny pack - Can hide this hideous but functional item under my top

• Sunglasses

• 2 pairs of prescription glasses - LASEK would of been a worthwhile investment, I’m not that blind (-1.75) but wearing corrective lenses is like looking at life in high definition.

• iPhone stand - don’t know why I am carrying this

• Throwdown wallets - My mate Pratt who recently travelled these lands said he met a person that took a long bus ride in Honduras and managed to get mugged not once, twice but three times. These throwdown wallets have ancient ID cards, invalid credit cards, and the equivalent of $10 NZD in local currency. Most theft in developing countries is non-violent, they are really just getting by so are happy with making it as trouble-free as possible. I hope this story is only the exception, and that I’ll never have to use these.

• Notebook and pens - When all else fails and have to resort to writing with my hand

• Torch

• Cheap sports watch - another item I don’t really know why I’m carrying

• Nixon 51-30 Chrono watch - this obnoxious watch will probably attract the attention of thiefs. Thankfully, punching with this half a kg weight strapped to your wrist will significantly increase chances of countering the said thiefs.

• Waterproof bag

I got tired of spreading everything, so I took a picture of all my toiletries packed, and used the passport to show the relative size.

Nothing too special in here, just all the essential items, in their travel-sized equivalents.

Visas

As a NZ citizen, I have the privilege that for travel purposes, that no visas are required for the pretty much every Central and South American country. You can extend your stay in some of the countries past the visa-free allowance by simply crossing the border for a short period of time then going back for a new re-issue.

What next?

My next blog post is likely to a few days into my surf camp stint, once I’ve settled in. In the meantime, please follow me on Twitter @charkydarkie, I’ll be updating that at least once every day or two!

Adios,

Charlie