Here are a few answers to questions we often get asked.
Where are you from?
England, but commonly mistaken for (in order of regularity)
American, German, Dutch, French, Italian, Austrailian, Swiss, Brasilian/from Rio de Janiero, Argentinian, Venezuelan, Costa Rican, Chilean.
What does ihana mean?
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Flyer from the ihana disco |
Ihana means 'wonderful' in Finnish. Tom went to a disco in Helsinki called Ihana and always remembered the name so when he needed to choose a web site he couldn't think of anything else and this one was available.
How did you get the idea for the trip?
Tom and Barry went backpacking to Peru and enjoyed it immensely - except the backpacking and bus bits! Hence a plan was hatched to quit the dull routine of life earning loads of cash in Europe and do a big trip around all of Latin America in a vehicle. Tom had always wanted to do a trip somewhere in a Landrover so the plan was made.
What do you mean by wicked, doris and minging?
doris = girl
wicked = cool, great, excellent - e.g. wicked doris
minging = the opposite of wicked, ugly, smelly, horrible - e.g. minging doris (no pics of mingers!)
Who is sponsoring you?
Unfortunately nobody is sponsoring us. We made next to zero effort to get sponsorship anyway as it is notoriously difficult in England and we had a fair amount of cash ready for the trip (nothing now though!). Sponsors would be nice though, maybe for the next trip...
How much is all this costing you then?
By the end of the trip we will have spent about $20,000 each not including shipping the car to the USA and shipping it back from South America. Included in this is buying our laptop and digital camera in the US and also spending $1000 shipping the car to Colombia and a few shock expenses such as the timing belt breaking in Guyana where spares were very expensive.
Whats the cost of living down there?
In South America we have been able to eat a good meal for between $1 to $3. In Central America we ate a little less often in restaurants and did more cooking in the landy, costs are a little more, maybe $4 to $5 except in Nicaragua where its similar to South America.
What about fuel costs?
Fuel varies between $0.05 to $0.87 a litre (Venezula and French Guyane), diesel is always cheaper than petrol. The usual price in almost all other countries is around $0.25 to $0.35 a litre. Fuel is plentiful and easy to find unless you're really lost! LPG is also very common so a trip with a big gassed up V8 would be on the cards!
Is there anything you wish you'd taken?
A proper electric or hydraulic winch would be a godsend in bad conditions but we couldn't really spare the cash before the trip and we thought the hand winch would be easier to use than it was!
Where do you sleep?
In the countryside we sleep in the roof tent which is fixed to the top of the car. When it's warm B sleeps in a hammock to escape T's snoring! If there's nowhere to pull off the road due to fences we sleep in petrol stations. In a big town we sleep either in a car park (seriously!) or in a hotel, depending on whether we're going out partying or not. We never ever sleep inside the landy, theres not enough space and its usually full of dust.
Who does the driving?
We take it in turns from one day to the next.
How fast do you go?
We cruise at around 85kmh because we don't need to go any faster, it saves fuel, we see more scenery and the landy lives longer!
How do you update the web site?
We write the pages and choose the pictures on the laptop. Then we use the network of a friendly internet cafe to connect the laptop to the web and update the site.
More FAQ to come...please email us your questions.