My Year of Adventurous Travel

As this blog is called Charlotte's Travel Adventures, it seems only right to write a post about adventurous travel!

Of course, I like going on holiday to relax, and visiting places to see interesting sights...but travel is also about having new and different experiences.

The 15 months that I spent living in Chile were a time when I made an effort to go on some exciting and sometimes a little extreme adventures. Though of course, there were plenty of challenges during that time (which I wrote about in this recent post), I feel like I really made the most of it and had a lot of fun travelling and trying new things across South America.

Here are 5 of my biggest adventures from the year!

Indoor Surfing in Santiago

Though I'd tried windsurfing in 2016, I'd always wanted to have a go at classic surfing. Surprisingly enough, even though Santiago isn't by the sea, you can surf there - Mall Sport offers indoor surfing lessons, and Claudio and I took one in May 2022. 

This experience was actually the most extreme of them all, I'd say! You basically get have to try to stay afloat against powerful jets of water, and if you don't manage it, you get thrown across that big curved area you can see in my pictures. Though we had plenty of bruises and even a couple of scrapes afterwards, we had a lot of fun. 

A Speedboat Ride in the Pacific Ocean

Our weekend in Papudo was one of our most low-key trips away during my time living in Chile, but it was actually one of my favourites. We saw so many beautiful animals there, from adorable pet cats to incredible marine life. Plus, the town and its beaches are absolutely beautiful.

Our time there was mostly very relaxing, with the exception of a boat trip we took to Isla Los Lobos. To my surprise, the boat was actually a dinghy with an engine, and it went incredibly fast - it was fun, though I was slightly scared that either I or my stuff would fall in the sea!

But the sights we saw on that trip were incredible: Humboldt penguins, sea lions and even a beautiful dolphin. We finished off the ride with a jump into the water at a beautiful, secluded beach. It was such a memorable experience!

Ziplining in the Andes

Another extremely memorable experience was going ziplining in the Andes mountains. This was something I'd always wanted to try, and I was really excited about it...until we actually got there and saw it!

The experience took place at Cascada de las Ánimas activity centre in Cajón del Maipo, which is such an enchanting and beautiful place. But the zip-line is suspended 25 metres above the River Maipo and looks pretty daunting! We were both pretty nervous when preparing to set off, but it was such a fun and exhilarating experience!

In fact, we liked it so much that we did it again a few months later at Parque Aventura in Santiago. 

White-Water Rafting in Argentina

White-water rafting was another sport I'd wanted to try for years, and I took the opportunity to try it while renewing my visa in Argentina. Although my day at the activity centre was rather long without a lot to do, the activity itself was so much fun, and the landscapes of the Andes and the Mendoza River were beautiful. I definitely plan to go rafting again at some point!

Backpacking Solo to Machu Picchu

We had several adventurous trips during the 15 months, but the most adventurous was when I went to Peru for a week on my own with just a backpack. 

During my time there I took in the sites in and around Cusco, and travelled around the Sacred Valley of the Incas, before taking the train to Aguas Calientes and hiking up hundreds of stone steps to the famous citadel, Machu Picchu.

It was a trip I'd dreamed of for several years and took quite a lot of organising, but it all turned out really well. I had an amazing time!

In my opinion, trying new experiences and adventures like these are a great way to get out of your comfort zone and create memories that will last forever.

There are still several other adventurous experiences I want to try, such as surfing at a beach, paragliding, and maybe even scuba diving.

Perhaps there will be more extreme adventures to come on this blog!

Charlotte's Travel Adventures is 5 Years Old!

This blog, Charlotte's Travel Adventures, is turning 5 years old, so I felt it was only right to write a post to celebrate this special anniversary!

I published my first post on the 25th October 2018, which doesn't really feel that long ago, even though a lot has happened since then. At the time, I was back at university in Nottingham, having just completed a life-changing Year Abroad, and I wanted to try to keep this whole spirit of travel and adventures going, even though my everyday life had gone back to being something more mundane, which is why I decided to start this blog.

I didn't post again until January 2019, when I wrote about my trip to Chile to visit my boyfriend Claudio, who I'd been with for about half a year at that point. And after that, I didn't write much else until I finished final exams at university in June 2019. But since then, with the exception of the first couple of months of Covid lockdowns, I've written here pretty regularly, no matter what my situation is, or whether or not I've had many opportunities to travel.

The last five years have not always been easy for me. When you leave university, it's quite a weird time, where you don't have the structure of school and university anymore, and you're thrown out into the world to figure out for yourself what you're going to do next; it's hard to know if you're making the right decisions until you can look back with the gift of hindsight. Not long after graduation, I decided that being a teacher of English as a foreign language out in Chile was what I wanted to do for the next year or two, if not longer. So I got myself TEFL qualified, started teaching online, and eventually managed to find a job at a language school in Santiago, which I planned to start at some point in 2020.

Then, of course, the pandemic happened, and life was pretty much put on hold for two years. With the exception of the last few months of 2020, when Claudio came to visit me and my family, the pandemic was a time of just having to be patient and get through each day and week at a time, while waiting to be able to get my life started again.

And then in February 2022, I was able to finally move to Chile, and since then I've been making up for lost time! I had some fantastic experiences during my 15 months in South America, and then moved to Malta for a few months to complete an internship in digital marketing, and now I've got a permanent role in the marketing sector and am currently based in the city of Bristol.

Even more excitingly, Claudio and I had a civil union in May and plan to have a proper engagement and wedding in the near future! He'll be coming to join me here in the UK later this year, and I can't wait! 

So although there were a lot of of challenges over the last five years and there will surely be more to come, I'm really happy and grateful for how things have turned out.

And there has been a lot to document on this blog! I've spent 18 months of the last two years living abroad and have been on various exciting travels over the last five years. Since starting this blog, I've travelled in 12 different countries (13 if you count England and Wales as separate countries!), 6 of which I'd never visited before.

Here are a selection of highlights...

Visiting the Atacama Desert in January 2019

Teaching English in Poland in August 2019

Visiting Madrid in November 2019

Visiting Lisbon in November 2019

Visiting Buenos Aires in February 2020

Visiting Uruguay in February 2020

Exploring London with Claudio in October 2020

Visiting Stockholm in October 2020

Exploring Cardiff with Claudio in December 2020

Moving to Chile in February 2022

Visiting Machu Picchu in October 2022

Visiting Rio de Janeiro in December 2022

Visiting the Chilean Lake District and Chiloé in April 2023

Our civil union in May 2023

Living in Malta between May and August 2023

Visiting Sicily in June 2023

I hope that in another 5 years' time, I'll still be writing on this blog and will have plenty more exciting travel adventures between now and then!

White-Water Rafting in the Andes!

One thing I've been getting more into this year is adventure sports! Since our speedboat ride in Papudo, I've been eager to try out some more adrenaline-fuelled activities. So, at the start of February, Claudio and I went zip-lining in Cajón del Maipo (I'm sure I'll write about that soon enough!), and I also decided to make the most of my time renewing my visa in Mendoza to spend a day white-water rafting!

White-water rafting is something I've wanted to try for many years, and given that the Mendoza province is well-known for being a great place to practice this sport, I chose to book a 12-kilometre rafting session on Río Mendoza.

Although the day overall wasn't quite what I was expecting, the rafting itself was a fantastic experience.

The day started with the minibus from the rafting company picking me up from my hotel shortly after 9am. Once everyone was on board, we then drove towards the mountains for a little over an hour, going into the countryside. We stopped at a service station about halfway through the journey, and unfortunately someone stole my original seat when we got back on the bus, and I ended up in the worst seat on the bus - right in the middle at the back, wedged between two guys with their legs spread wide, who didn't make any space for me, even though it was clear I was uncomfortable.

During the latter part of the journey, we passed by Potrerillos Dam, closer than I had done on the journey to Mendoza from Santiago, and the views were stunning. Unfortunately, I couldn't get any pictures because of my position on the bus.

So, when we finally arrived at the activity centre, Río Aventura, it was a relief to get off the bus and have some personal space again.

We signed waiver forms at the reception area and then waited for the activity to begin. According to the information on the website I'd bought the activity from, we would go rafting upon arrival at the activity centre, and then we'd have a couple of hours of free time to take advantage of the restaurant and the pool before going back to the city again.

However, this was not how things worked out! Because the activity centre also offers other activities, like zip-lining, trekking and abseiling, and some people on the minibus had signed up for these activities, we had to wait until everyone had finished all of their activities before we could go back to Mendoza. For me, this meant waiting an hour or two before the rafting, and about five hours afterwards, in a place in the middle of nowhere with no internet signal.

Fortunately, I had brought plenty of snacks and drinks with me. And although I had left the book I was reading in the hotel, I luckily had a copy of Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry downloaded to my phone for situations such as these. I had only read about thirty pages of the story so far, but I ended up coming close to finishing it over the course of the day! (By the way, I finished it later that week, and thoroughly enjoyed it.) I also met some other British people during the rafting, and spent some time chatting with them during the afternoon.

So overall, I didn't have a bad time at all during those hours, but it was still an awfully long time to stay in one place when you're not expecting it. In hindsight, I would have paid extra to take part in some of the other activities, though they were all things I'd already tried before.

Of course, the most exciting part of the day was the rafting itself. I was definitely more than a little nervous beforehand, as the route covers Class 3 and Class 4 rapids (There are 5 classes, with Class 5 being the strongest!). But I was also determined to have as much fun as possible, despite my nerves!

I was on a raft with five other British people, coincidentally, and with the guide at the back. At the start of the activity, we learnt how to sit in the raft (quite a strange position, actually!), and the four commands we needed to follow ("forward", "back", "stop", and "lean in"). And then we set off down the river!

When we hit our first rapid, it was quite a shock! We moved about so much that I thought I might fall in, and we got absolutely soaked with water. And some of the rapids that followed over the course of our hour on the water were even stronger! 

Looking back, I would say that I spent the first half of the activity a little nervous, but in the second half, I started to really have fun. It was an amazing experience to be thrown around on the rapids of the river, surrounded by the beautiful landscape of the Andes mountains. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I wish I could have done it for longer, even though my leg had already gone completely numb from the weird position we had to sit in!

Overall, the inconveniences of the day were definitely worth it, as I had such a great time finally doing this sport that I'd wanted to try for so long!

To bring this post to a finish, here are some photos from the day. There are no photos of my group rafting, but I did take one of another group rafting, so you get the general idea! I also have some pictures of the site itself, which was quite attractive, and which even had a resident cat and dog!

To conclude, although I would be unlikely to come back to Río Aventura, I will definitely go rafting again at some point in the future!