Shover Galim
About
Hey there. If you're a surfer looking for wave heights — sorry, Google sent you the wrong way. If you're browsing for information and inspiration on how to make your South America trip different and your own, you're in the right place.
What you'll find here
On Shover Galim I share guides covering places you won't find at all — or will barely find — on the popular travel sites. I'll give you contacts, names of real people, and authentic locations. From those, the road to something genuinely different is short. This is information I gathered along the way in several languages, and it matters to me to make it available.
I also share road stories — personal accounts with little practical information in them, but through which you can understand what travelling alone actually means, and what it means to step off the tourist route. The dangers, the uncertainty, but mostly the beauty of it once everything falls into place. That with a positive attitude and a bit of Israeli nerve you can turn the rough into something sweet. And if I can make you laugh along the way, even better.
About me, the person behind the keyboard
Ofek Aviv, 23, from Rosh HaAyin. And yes, you'll be very surprised to discover from the photos that I'm a redhead.
I finished my service in March 2018 with the Paratroopers' reconnaissance unit, and left for South America in January 2019. I run long distances, play piano, and love languages and different cultures. But most importantly — I'm one of you. Another Israeli, just out of the army, in South America.
I write this blog on my own initiative, as a keepsake from the trip. But inside that keepsake there's also a wish: to see more travellers leave the comfortable spot and get to know South America properly — its sounds, its warm people, its landscapes, and yes, its poverty, its corruption and its bleaker realities too.
A word about language
I want to stress the importance of the language up front. I arrived in South America with good Spanish, and it slowly became fluent. You don't need to be especially advanced, but the basics — the present tense and a working vocabulary — will help you enormously. The rule is that the more you know, the more the experience opens up, and the more natural it feels both to you and to the person across from you.
Finally
Thank you for choosing to read my guides and my stories. I hope you enjoy them, and that they give you inspiration — not to follow my footsteps, but to do it your own way. If you've read this far, I'm sure you already have the will to do it. So go on. Enjoy the read.
Want to talk?
Questions, corrections and stories are welcome — ofekaviv96@gmail.com