Archive for the ‘Epic Travels’ Category

Cynthia Aguilar is going to paddle from Cuba to Key West Florida.

Check out Cynthia Aguilar in her world record breaking 130 paddleboard attempt from Cuba to Keywest this Friday and help her raise money for the Make a Wish Foundation.  Cynthia along her entire support crew will all be outfitted with Sunday Afternoons Hats to keep them protected during the voyage. You can make donations at www.keeppaddlin.org or just visit the sight join in the excitement and fun.

Clayton wearing a Sport Hat and Island Breeze Shirt near the end of his 185 mile fastpack

An excellent story submitted by one of our customers:

One fine Sunday in August past, I stopped at the Canadian border. I didn’t
have to stop. There were no Homeland Security folks to give me grief:  there was no fence, no guard station- not even a stop sign. Yet there I was. And I stopped, if just for a bit.

My companion on this fastpack (one could hardly call it running) was a
gentleman from Ashland by the name of Ric Sayre. And he took the obligatory photos of me standing, grinning foolishly, at the Northern Terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail. I was 2627 miles (or thereabouts) and a whole lot of lifetimes removed from the large concrete wall that stands behind the Southern Terminus at the Mexican border, near El Campo, Ca. It’s a trail that connects extremes, a unifying path in our human need to simply get there, wherever there is, once in a while. And I was
there, where I’d set out to be, finally…..

Read the rest of the story here.

Iguazu Falls

So here I am backpack on my back, a good buddy to my right and my lovely girlfriend on my left ready to ready to hit the road… Nothing to hold us back we are ready to live! Mission Iguazu Falls!  Unfortunately we are still in Buenos Aires and Iguazu Falls is a staggering 18 hour bus ride away.  Dang! I guess we will have to start this story in a little bit. We all hop on the bus and attempt to hibernate for an entire day.

Sweet! We are finally here!  Iguazu Falls borders both Argentina and Brazil and currently has the greatest average annual flow of any waterfall in the world. The location is tropical, very hot, and utterly amazing.  It’s also BIG! like real big! and exploring the falls can take up 5 days.  Being the sun protection and Sunday Afternoons advocate that I am, I made sure to bring along my Adventure hat as well as a Sport Hat for my lady and  another Adventure Hat for my friend.  I also made sure to bring adequate sunscreen for my arms legs and top of my feet (I like to wear flip-flops).  I tell you what, I am sure happy that I brought the sun protection that I did.  Not only was the sun intense, but we were out in it with very little cover for the better part of 3 days.  I saw countless beet red tourists going for the lobster look and doing a pretty good job at it. Thank you Sunday Afternoons!  Anyway back to the story.

Another shot of Iguazu Falls

There are 2 sides to the falls, Brazilian and Argentinean, with the latter being much more impressive.  Therefore we decided to check the Brazilian side first, the only hold up is that Amanda (my girlfriend) does not have a Brazilian visa.  No problem. The first taxi we talked to said he was fine with smuggling her across for the day.  It was a pretty easy procedure by all counts and gave us some bragging rights for sneaking into Brazil.  Before getting to the falls our cabby stopped to let us a check out a bird sanctuary first.  Sure, why not? Lots of weird looking birds and you can get quite close to them as well.  I even saw one guy petting a toucan.  Unlucky for us our driver did not know that the falls closed an hour early that day so after sneaking Amanda over the border we didn’t even get to go.  In attempt to make it up to us he drove us to a river where you can see all three countries join together.  Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay.

Next day we actually make it to the falls.  Argentine side this time.  Holy moly!  This place is amazing! I have seen the falls in documentaries but it does not even come close to the real thing.  There are so many different falls to see from a variety of different angles its really incredible.  Iguazu definitely qualifies as  a wonder of the world.  We ended up spending two entire days on the Argentine side of the falls and still didn’t see everything. We all would have been willing to spend another day exploring.  Looking at the falls doesn’t get old, it makes you feel small, but like you’re a part of nature.  No jokes, all of our jaws dropped several times each day.

At last the our time at Iguazu has come to an end and we are ready to whisk ourselves off to another exotic location (well not quite whisk, we will be on a bus for a least another day before we reach our next location).

Final Verdict: Nearly free of sunburn for me and my two companions.  I got sunburn feet as forgot to reapply sunscreen throughout the day and Amanda got sunburn legs for the same reason.  My other friend burned the tops of his feet too. Oh well,  at least  our Headwear gave us stellar protection.  For more info on Iguazu Fall check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iguazu_falls. I recommend a visit to Iguazu Falls for anyway who want a combination of adventure, sight seeing, and natural wonders.  Just make sure you bring a sun hat.

Till next time,

Meadow