where is laura? Live your questions now, and perhaps even without knowing it, you will live along some distant day into your answers. Rainer Maria Rilke

well I'm scheduled to leave for Quito, Ecuador on friday Dec 9. For the first 4 weeks, I'll be staying with a family, and taking spanish classes 4 or 5 hours each day. I'll have lots of access to email... so I'll keep up with the postings. a brief, but sketchy itinerary: Travel to the Galapagos with my dad, and his girlfriend, Mary,from Jan 8-15. Upon returning to Quito, I meet up with my travel buddy, Shira, and we start the bus adventures as we make our way down to Peru-- down the coast [spending a few weeks in Lima with an indigenous organization I hope to work/volunteer with/ www.chirapaq.org.pe]- then onto cusco, through Bolivia... meeting back up in Santiago by April to spend 6-8 weeks volunteering/working some more... scheduled date of return May 30 via Santiago, Chile.