Tim Makins: February 2010 Archives

In February 2010, I joined yet another Dragoman truck to embark on a 6 month Overland journey around South America (See the full route on the map below.) Starting in Rio de Janeiro, and continuing every driving day since then, I have been recording the route that the Dragoman truck has taken, using my Garmin GPSmap60Cx GPS receiver. Some errors still exist - for instance, when the satellite signal is lost as we drive through a tunnel, the altitude can have unexpected results. When I have more time, I will try and edit these files to remove such glitches, but for now, these reports will at least give you an idea of what we have been doing. See below for additional notes.

After 6 months and 2 Overland trucks (Elle and Carmen) I arrived safely back in Rio de Janeiro. The truck odometers showed a total distance covered of Rio - Quito: 21,669km and Caracas - Rio: 7,800km, for a total road distance of 29,469. If I added the various additional taxis, minbuses, coaches, etc. that we've taken along the way, it would definitely top the 30,000km mark. The flight from Quito (UIO) to Caracas (CCS) on Santa Barbara Airlines added another 1744km. My Carbon Footprint for the trip shows as 1.21 tonnes for the 6 months. As the average footprint for people living in the United Kingdom is 4.90 tonnes for a similar period, I don't feel too bad about making this journey, though I do note that my 1.21 tonnes is almost exactly double the average footprint for people in India (0.60 tonnes). To offset my travels, I need to plant 2 trees, which I certainly intend to do in the near future.

Additonal Notes: Greetings and best wishes to all new friends and fellow travellers that it has been my pleasure to meet along the way - lets keep in touch on Facebook. Extra thanks to Bjorn Overland for the use of the .gpx files for day 1-5 of the Amazon Riverboat journey: he had a cabin so could keep his GPS receiver turned on all the time. I was in a hammock on deck, so didn't dare! All other .gpx files featured on this page are available for personal licensing - please Contact Me for details. All photos from the journey can eventually be seen at my GnomePlanet freelance photography website, but this may take a while, so why not check out the Central Asia, Mongolia, Russia, and India travel photos that are already there.