Ever wondered what it would be like sailing from Panama to Colombia instead of the boring option of flying? So did we, and therefore we decided to give it a crack…

I mean, the only other alternative is overland travel through the Darién Gap, and it is really not recommended. Apparently it’s controlled by rebel Guerrillas and warring drug cartels. So naturally, hitting the high seas seemed right for us.

I thought that the 6 day voyage aboard the Polish run ‘Luka‘ yacht was worth documenting, so here you go.

If a picture tells a thousand words, than nine thousand four hundred and fifty pictures (give or take) should tell nine million, four hundred and fifty thousand words. Roughly.

And that is the very reason I make these videos, because damn that is a lot of typing. Here’s what happened while we were in Panama recently…

The whole reason we travel is to learn. Be the lessons good/bad/fun/horrible we take something away from everything, hopefully something positive.

Right now we are in Bolivia, in a city called Sucre. It has been our home for the last three weeks as we have been studying Spanish.

Here are a couple of things I’ve learned recently, from friends we have made here, that are not so cool:

* Due to a rapid increase in Western demand recently for locally grown ‘superfoods’ such as quinoa, semolina and amaranth, the poorer Bolivian and Peruvian locals can no longer afford to eat these foods. Formally staples in their diets, these same people must now resort to solely eating rice, which we all know is rich in starch and carbohydrates and therefore adding to the problem of poor diet and obesity in poorer regions.

* The US government supplies Bolivia with old, unwanted clothes which they distribute and sell at market stalls. In exchange, the US get to mine the mineral rich Bolivian land. If this didn’t seem like enough of a one sided deal, the repercussions of the secondhand clothes  making their way into the Bolivian clothing market is leading to the destruction of the Bolivian textile industry as the youth of the country now prefer the clothing that carries the labels of Adidas, Nike and the like, instead of supporting their local industry. My source reveals that the problem is so big that many families are being displaced as their only skills are no longer of any use.

* Much of the population of Bolivia is so poor that they cannot even afford to buy (UHT) milk for their kids who are in desperate need of calcium for their bones. The cost of a small bag of milk here is less than 2B, or about 30 cents. Yep that’s right I said bag of milk. It doesn’t come in a carton because the cost of the carton alone would be equivalent to an hours wage locally. I’m not just talking about the super poor, I’m talking about many middle class, university educated citizens that I have met that tell me they still cannot afford simple things like milk, despite working full time in their industry.

I’ve posted a lot of videos glamourising our time in Latin America, so I thought I should share some of the stuff that was eating me up, the stuff I can’t convey in the videos.

It Rained. Lots. It was high season, full of American tourists. Hey I’ve got nothing against American tourists except for the fact that Costa Rica was full of them, which meant we struggled to find a bed. When we did find somewhere to sleep, it was only an odd night here or there, which meant we usually had to be up and on the hunt again nice and early, which ain’t fun for a hangover.

I’ll be honest and admit we were both pretty pissed off the whole time we were there, and therefore didn’t shoot much footage. But keeping in line with this project, here is Costa Rica, vlog style. Next time CR…. next time.

We’re getting slack keeping this blog up to date sorry. Besides romping around the Caribbean seas with a knife in one hand and a bottle of rum in the other, we’ve been busy making these little movies (here’s two in one go for you BAM!) and doing other fun stuff including writing for Whiteboard which is the Rushfaster blog. Go read it!

OK, so i’m pretty sure that nobody reads this blog (and rightfully so, we are pretty drab at the best of times,) but IF you do, and you would like to see the next leg of our quest for world domination, then click the play button below and marvel at our amateur film making skills in AMAZING technicolor©

As you can see we have been keeping a bit of a vlog of our travels, and therefore neglecting the blog in a sense. Either way, the videos are kinda fun to make but take up most of our spare time. You know, when we ain’t sippin cocktails out of coconuts and shit.

As you’ll see, we’ve been busy. Well by busy, we mean busy travelling Mexico. It is a particularly fine specimen of a country, but I’m sure you already knew that.

Here is Part Two: Mexico

Newtown based Metal/Post-hardcore/Progressive band Arteries have just dropped their much anticipated debut track, Memento. Listen to it twice, not only is it epic, it is also abrasive and catchy as hell! If you like what you hear, you can catch them at their first ever show at the Annandale Hotel on the 25th of November for what will be, no doubt, a raucous and memorable evening.

You may, or may not, have noticed that DAA has been rather quiet over the past couple of months. There are two main reasons: one we were hacked, hence the different layout; and two we are currently making our way around the world. We packed in our jobs and started our travels in the good ol’ US of A. We have been documenting our trip using the great Sony HX9V Cyber-shot and figured it (hopefully) should be more exciting than reading about it.

We bring you Part One: The USA.