Monday, September 30, 2013

The After-Korea: Part 2

As many of you will have read, (and if not you can do so here) I wrote recently about one of the options I am considering for my time after Korea: Turkey. Turkey offers a chance to get back to the Middle East, where I studied for my degree, but gives some people pause due to the political situation at the moment, both in neighboring Syria and within Turkey itself. At the moment, I am not too worried about Turkey, but chaos and riots seem to love me, so who knows.
Syria, of course, worries me. But I'm not going there. And I will of course, if I choose to go to Turkey before the Syrian Civil War comes to an end, evaluate the security of any sites I plan on visiting which lie within a reasonable distance of Syria.
But enough talk about Syria. That shit's depressing. I wanna talk about option two!

Option Two: Latin America
I hinted at the end of my last post that if you knew me you would likely not have a hard time guessing this, and I'm sure anyone who ventured a guess was probably right.
In addition to the Middle East, I also spent a chuck of time during university studying in Chile. I speak decently fluent Spanish, and I didn't travel at all outside of Chile while I was there (though I have been to Argentina on a previous trip).
A trip to Latin America would be a huge, encompassing undertaking. It would likely take a couple of years, since I would likely stop often along the way to work, volunteer, lie on the beach for exorbitant amounts of time, etc.
There are obviously several ways that one can go about traveling through Latin America, and the route doesn't really matter to me; I would likely just buy a ticket to wherever was cheapest and then see where I could go from there.
In my previous post I made a list of things to be seen in Turkey, mostly because I'm fairly confident most of you have never looked into what is there. Latin America, on the other hand, has many more well-known destinations. I will, however, let you know some of the things I most look forward to about a trip through Latin America:
  • Machu Pichu (Peru)
  • The Amazon (Mostly Brazil, but also Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru)
  • Carnival in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
  • Patagonia (Argentina and Chile)
  • Beautiful beaches
  • Old friends
  • The Galapagos Islands (Ecuador)
  • Scuba diving (mostly Belize, but elsewhere as well)
  • Mayan ruins (Central America)
  • Huge salt flats (Bolivia)
  • Angel Falls (Venezuela)
  • Colonial architecture
  • Iguazu falls (both Argentina and Brazil)
  • Great hiking
  • Humungous glaciers (Chile and Argentina)
  • Amazing food
  • Giant Jesus of Rio (Brazil)
  • The ancient and super-strange Nazca Lines (Peru)
  • Tons of indigenous cultures
  • The Panama Canal (I think you know where that one is)
That ended up being a longer list than I imagined it would be, but that just goes to show how much there is to see in Latin America. 
The pay for English teaching is not great, but if I keep my savings from Korea it shouldn't be an issue. With my language skills I also have the option of working in hostels, bars, restaurants, et cetera, and I don't think I would have much trouble finding work. But that would not be the point of this trip. This would be largely vacation, with some work thrown in to make some money. In that way this would be quite different from going to Turkey, where I imagine I would travel for a while and then get a job, or maybe visa versa.

What going to Latin America would mean:

  1. Probably spending a chunk of my savings rather than adding to it.
  2. Improving my Spanish rather than taking up a new language (Turkish).
  3. Probably being able to go home for a while on the way, seeing as there really is no direct anything from here to there.
  4. Traveling instead of working all the time, while not spending all that much of my savings.

While I've been writing this, I've actually started giving serious thought to what has generally been my option number three, and so although I was not originally planning on it, I think this will end up being a three-part blog. Stay tuned for option number three, which I think will be a bit harder for y'all to guess. Who knows. It's not that much of an oddball.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

The After-Korea: Part One

Ok, it's been a long time. Like, nearing a year. What can I say, this is supposed to be about my travels and I've been uninspired.
But now I am planning! Double planning, really!
I'll be finished in Korea in February, and I'm very, VERY itchy to get out. There are currently two major options for my immediate post-Korea life, and neither of them involve the US for any extended amount of time (something my family is of course sad to find out).
Option number one: Turkey
'What's in Turkey?' You ask?
  • Istanbul, where Europe meets Asia - and all the architecture (Hagia Sofya) and art that you can imagine would go with that
  • Cappadocia, home of other-worldly landscapes
  • Awesome mosques
  • Tons of history
  • Beautiful beaches (Mediterranean, Aegean and Black Seas)
  • Lots of camping
  • Ancient Roman ruins, including the Ruins of Ephesus
  • Troy
  • Mount Nemrut, home of disembodied heads (made of stone) and beautiful scenery.
  • Mount Ararat, supposed resting place of none other than The ARK. You can't climb it without insane permits (nor has anyone lucky enough to do so ever actually found anything), but still.
  • Ancient and (more) modern castles
  • Beautiful art
  • Deserted nature
  • A monastery in the side of a cliff
Besides all of this and more, going to Turkey would bring me back to the Middle East, a region I have been longing to return to since my abrupt departure almost two and a half years ago now. The Middle East intrigues me, and the five days I spent in Istanbul before leaving the region has whet my appetite for more.
Finishing here in late February/early March, I would be arriving in Turkey as the snow is beginning to melt. This would give me a couple of months to maybe work and get a bit more money before the ideal time (summer) for travel in most of Turkey. Living somewhere and having a job for a while would mean learning some Turkish and generally hanging about for a while, hopefully in Istanbul, which I could then explore during my non-work hours, enabling me to see more of it than I would passing through. A downside: A lot of the good jobs in Turkey are September (new school year) starts.

What going to Turkey would (likely) mean:
Not going home after this contract
Spending some of my savings from two years in Korea
Maybe do something like a TEFL course in March (Italy? Prague? Spain? France?) before the weather warms up enough for camping (which is both fun and money-saving).

I'm already working on the post for option two. If you know me, you can probably guess what region of the world it might be in. Stay tuned.