Preliminary Itinerary

Today, the big adventure feels more real. I bought my airline tickets! STA travel had great student fares, travel insurance and a South America airline pass. I will do my best to enjoy my last "student" tickets.

As a good friend of mine (Melanie) told me, two things she learned while backpacking were patience and flexibility. The bus may not come at the time it is supposed to, so you might as well sit on your pack and wait. You may meet people who you really like who are going somewhere you didn't intend to go, so why not change your plans? Hence, I scheduled lots of time for each place and bought tickets that could be changed.

It will be interesting to see what the actual itinerary turns out to be, learning some flexibility and patience would not hurt me either :-)

Sept. 18 to Oct. 11
Travel within Central America, mostly Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica
Spanish colonial towns, volcanoes, rain forest, SCUBA

Thursday Oct. 12
Fly from San Jose, Costa Rica to Sao Paolo, Brazil
overland bus ride to Rio de Janeiro for beaches, bossanova and samba

Wednesday Oct. 25
Fly from Rio de Janeiro to Salvador, Brazil
beaches, capoeira and Portuguese language lessons, buy Natascha a bracelet at the Church of our Lord at Bonfim

Sunday Nov. 5
Fly from Salvador to Iguazu Falls, Brazil
fantastic waterfall, cross over to Argentina

Wednesday Nov. 8
Fly from Iguazu to Buenos Aires, Argentina
tango, salsa and writing short stories at cafes

Thursday Nov. 23
Fly from Buenos Aires to Cochabamba, Bolivia
train to salt flat at Uyuni, Lake Titicaca, cross over to Peru to meet Hung and Matt for the Inca Trail and Machu Picchu

Tuesday Dec. 19
Fly from Cuzco to Lima, Peru
fulfill grandmother's promise to St. Martin de Porres at the church were he is buried, national museum

Thursday Dec. 21
Fly from Lima, Peru to San Pedro Sula, Honduras
share stories with family, eat grandma's cooking, prepare to be a math professor!