That said one of Laurie's goals is to improve her Spanish speaking skills which is also a beneficial thing to know at work. She had heard of a great Spanish immersion program in Oaxaca Mexico and we looked into that. Although the school and surrounding area were probably just fine we were hearing way too much about the rapidly rising crime rate in Mexico and Central America. I had heard this first hand from people who traveled to Mexico frequently and said they were not going back until the situation changed. It might be fine if you are staying in one predictable place like a resort but as a place to launch a bike tour it was looking to risky. So we started exploring other options. We had been to the Lake District of Patagonia a few years ago and felt like there were a lot of places we did not have a chance to explore. The only real downside for us is that the typical diet is meat, potatoes and corn on the cob everywhere including the restaurants. I forgot to mention pan which is a little white bun they eat breakfast lunch and dinner every day as far as I could tell.They line up at the bakeries in the mornings to get large bags of pan. They taste good but are just empty calories that make you constipated. If that is what you like all the time you are all set but we like to eat a lot more fruits and vegetables and whole grain products if we can get it. We could never believe in Costa Rica how they mostly ate rice and beans in lard when it was one of the most bio diverse places on the planet. Rumor has it there is good sea food in the coastal areas and I am bringing some fishing gear. Touring in Thailand was high on the list for the better food options. We will get by. If it weren't for the Spanish aspect for Laurie we would have looked at New Zealand or Thailand.
The huge upside to Patagonia is that being twice the size of California there is a lot to explore and it is beautiful. Other than a few touristy areas like Pucon, Bariloche and Torres del Paine there are not a lot of people outside the cities. If there was something like the Pacific Crest Trail in the southern hemisphere we would have opted for that. Bike touring in Patagonia is about as close as you can get to that for an extended period of time. We heard of some people hiking through the length of the Andes but the description of their adventures did not sound too appealing. We could have opted to say, start at one end of South America and ride to the other end but, this sabbatical is not about those sorts of goals. Personally I would much rather tramp around the Sierras a few months and then go to the North Cascades and tramp around there than do the PCT the whole way just so I could say I did that. To each his own.
I forgot to mention that part of the reason for choosing to
go somewhere in the southern hemisphere is that one of Laurie's colleagues Pat is also taking a half
year sabbatical. Pat’s wife is a professor
and has summers off. Laurie and Pat are
working full time in each other’s absence during the time they will be taking sabbaticals. Back
to back sabbaticals for Laurie and Pat were the easiest solution otherwise it
might not have been possible at all. We
have some bucket list items in the northern hemisphere. A ski
vacation would have been a possibility but that would have been super expensive
with all the lodging at ski resorts even if what we did was mostly Nordic ski.
One other reason for going to Patagonia versus say Central America is that the days are long there in their summer so that makes camping a lot more feasible. If you are near the equator, the days are short year round and the sun sets hard at 6 pm. There is not a lot of lingering twilight so that makes for a long time to be hanging around in a tent in the dark unless you go out to eat and drink every night. That is the problem with backpacking in the fall here.
By the way one of the things I do for a living is GIS as a reservist for FEMA. After a record breaking year for disasters in 2011, I am choosing to make myself unavailable. Unless something like Katrina hits I will not be changing my status for that until I get back.
Tom
(Laurie has to work and doesn't have time to get this going. I wanted to do a lot of this basic yada yada before leaving so as not to have to do it in some potentially creepy internet cafe)
