Hola,
Andrew and I are currently living in Vancouver, BC, Canada after a season of snowboarding & working at the ski resort Marmot Basin in Jasper, Alberta, Canada.
We leave in 6 week's on our next adventure - exploring the wonders of Las Vegas, Mexico and South America (Venezuela, Columbia, Ecudor, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile & Brazil).
There is loads to prepare - the shipping of our snowboards and excess baggage back to New Zealand, purchasing travel insurance, purchasing necessary items such as hiking boots and light rain coats (for our 4 day Inca Trail hike), a first aid kit with water purification tablets etc for our time in the Amazon and of course, a new bikini for the beach! We also have appointments booked in to get our immunisations for yellow fever, typhoid & maleria...
We are in the process of booking flights and accomodation, although we are never booking too far in advance unless absolutely necessary as we want the freedom to go when and where as we please. However, we have made a wish list of destinations and due to money and time restraints we have had to cut a lot off it. There is still a lot on it though which will mean that we will be moving place to place every 2-3 days for almost 6 months. That's pretty full on but very very exciting!
I have to admit that I am very nervous about the reported crime on tourists (aka gringos) in these areas. Many people have been pick pocketed, bags slashed, held at knife point and taxi's hijacked which results in you being forced to clear our your bank accounts....These country's are so poor and the people so desperate that they'll do anything... but on the whole, I haven't heard of too many people being badly injured, just threatened and robbed. (Got to focus on the positive's right?!)But there is no reason to live in fear and halt going to these places because of horror story's of being in the wrong place at the wrong time... at the end of the day it could happen anywhere in the world and the beauty & magic of these place's are worth the risk.
We have done a great amount of reseach on what to do, what not to do, what to take, what not to take, where to go including places off the beaten track, where not to go etc We have even been going to spanish classes and I think i'm picking it up ok so far!
Of course, anyone is welcome to join us on our adventure at any point. If you are interested, please do let me know.
For those of you in New Zealand, we will be arriving around March 17th 2012. I can't wait to see you all and for you all to meet Andrew :)
Chao!
