A very quick note on some hiking & app tips

I have really made use (too much use?) of our Garmin 62. Apparently discontinued now, but I’m sure things like it are still around. On our friend Hamish’s excellent advice, we subscribed to the satellite imagery. It’s only $30 USD for a year, and you can get it worldwide. Very handy when trying to navigate.

I also found this site which has all the open street map data available for download in Garmin format. Very handy as then you can just upload it all into the GPS and you have all the contours, tracks etc. Very useful – at least so far in Argentina, remains to be seen what the other countries are like.

Still on hiking, our friends recommended getting an MSR whisperlite international. The international version, as then you can burn unleaded as well as kerosene (rather than just white gas). I slightly wish I’d got the dragonfly as it allows for better simmering. I haven’t been able to find white gas here (did find a nice datasheet with different countries translations of fuel types in it). I’m not sure if it makes a difference, shortens life / will lead to blockages to use unleaded. Need to do research! That said, filling up the bottle with unleaded costs $2 . $2 for about 10 nights cooking (if you’re careful and just firing it up to boil water). Very impressive.

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Also, on friends Neil & Frances’ suggestion, bought Primus Eta pots from telemark pyrenees online. I got the 1L and the 1.7L pots (doesn’t look like they have the 1.7L in stock at the moment). These are great. They stack together, they have a heat exchange system so use significantly less fuel, boil in minutes on the MSR, are non-stick and have a built in strainer (should you need it). Very happy we bought them.

 

Apps

Osmand – open street maps for android
Bought the OSMAnd app. It’s a nice interface for open street maps, and I can download all the countries for offline storage (and navigation, does not require internet)

AirBnB
Simple decent app for AirBnB

Google Translate
This thing is amazing. You can download the languages for offline use again (godsend!). It has this wonderful feature where you simply hold up the app with the camera on to some text, and it translates it on the fly. I must take a video, it’s really really beautiful and impressive tech.

XE.com – currency exchange
Again, very handy app this one, for knowing what you’re actually paying

hostelworld (tentative)
Have downloaded this one on a friends recommendation, will see how it goes.

Well, I think that’s about it for the moment, it’s amazing how far things have progressed so quickly. Does feel a bit cheaty at times, but still, very handy.

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