In Route

For this leg of the trip, we each had our own row! ¡Gracias a Dios!

Thankful to be here and have all our luggage, its 4:30 am.

I am in the Dallas airport as I write this. I have way too little sleep under my belt and we have about 4 more hours here before we depart for Lima. I spent my last two nights in Seattle working at Barrio, which was exhausting but good because it forced me to be more organized with planning and packing. I have been working hard for six months to save enough money for this trip and finishing strong just makes the whole change of lifestyle that much more drastic and exciting. Work hard, play hard!

While I am waiting for our plane to board I thought I would answer the most commonly asked question I have recieved from everyone I told about this trip.

“What is your itinerary?”

We don’t really know, and we like it that way. Sooner than later we would like to find a town we like and stay central in order to create a community. Not only will our funds last longer this way but we anticipate it will be more rewarding. We want to dig a little deeper, and hopefully be more connected to a few places rather than only scratching the surface of many.

Most likely our home base will be in Huaraz
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/peru/huaraz-and-the-cordilleras/huaraz

There we will have easy access to the Cordillera Blanca, and will be living at 10,000 feet which will allow us to acclimatize for climbing and, (bonus!) it’s too high for malaria carrying mosquitos! I’ll share the excel spreadsheet we made with several peaks we would like to climb and the beta we need for each, i.e. elevation, route difficulty, and coolness factor (according to us of course).
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ArZnijA0AJuvdGlCS0lTX3A0OW1VamRDaWFXV29HMVE&hl=en&authkey=CPeHpt8I

I made a similar spreadsheet for trekking in the Cordillera Blanca.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0ArZnijA0AJuvdGlCS0lTX3A0OW1VamRDaWFXV29HMVE&hl=en&authkey=CPeHpt8I

Possible highlights include natural hot springs, alpine lakes, gorgeous mountain passes and the occasional traditional Quechuan town. Sounds horrible, right?

Climbing and volunteering are of highest priority, but we also want to go to Machu Pichu, the Amazon, Lake Titicaca, Cuzco, and the National Reserve Paracas, home of the “Peruvian Galapagos”.  

I was recently reminded by a wise woman that this may be the most free I will be in my entire life. I do hope that I can find a way to be this free many more times throughout my life, but for now I will try to fully appreciate that this is a special experience. Our timeline is completely flexible as we have no real responsibilities back home, and we are lucky enough to have a pocket full of cash and an adventuresome traveling partner. Life is pretty good.

Lastly, I just changed my clock to Lima time! Two hours ahead, just fyi. NOW IT IS OFFICIAL.