On our way...in a year.

Well very soon, anyway....so just a quick update. 

Juliano and I are embarking on the adventure of a lifetime at the end of summer next year. We are traveling across the country - not sure whether we are taking the northern or southern route. I would love to drive as much of old Rt 66 as we can.  We are hanging on the beach in Cali for a few weeks. Then we are traveling by car, truck, or van through all the countries of Central America to Panama. We are then shipping the car to Venezuela, while we take a relaxing break on some Caribbean island.  We are driving the East coast of South America all the way to southern Brazil, hopefully in time for Christmas. Once in Brazil, we will lounge on the beach, drinking Corona, dancing the Samba, enjoying Carnival and plotting ways to never come home again.

That is the plan....now here is what we have to do to get there....a whole lot.

1) Brazil visa issue - Juliano has been in contact with the Brazilian embassy in Panama.  Thank goodness I can get a visa for Brazil through them.  They have a ton of paperwork requirements, including three recent bank statements.  Not sure how that is going to work but we will figure it out.

2) Jul also got paperwork requirements for driving into Mexico...man there are a lot of

 requirements to do this.

3) I am writing an email to be sent to all the embassies so we can get free information! 

4) Last but not least and the most important, a friend is loaning me Rosetta Stone so I can learn Portuguese.  But what about our Spanish?  Oy.  That is two languages plus English.

I have had to tone down my excitement about this a little because I was getting to anxious to go and not getting any work done or taking care of my life.  But J and I are both paring down our lives, budgets and watching what we spend. We have to save and save and save. 

So that is where we stand. More tomorrow. 

Our Path, long as it may be...

Happy Mother's Day! I got you a map

Me and Mom at Obama's Inauguration

My Mom is cool.  She reads this blog and actually enjoys it.  She asked me if the route for our trip was all set as in if we had a clue where we were going. I though, damn, well that would be a good thing to include in the blog. 

I have been withholding trip specific information partly because there is so much but mostly perhaps because we are unsure - and maybe want to keep it this way.  So much of this trip - in my mind anyway - is lets throw it up in the air and see where it land.  No, not lets throw up, lets throw IT up....throw caution to the wind, take the backroad - not the one with banditos - turn off the GPS and just explore the world.

With that being said, I think it will make my mother and Juliano's mother much less anxious if we have SOME sort of plan.  I will do my best to provide our thoughts of a rough path.

Basic Route for Central America:   

1) Baja Mexico, ferry over the Mexico proper, 2) make our way across the Mexican countryside to Belize, 3) visit a program of the World Walk Foundation ( a group I volunteer with), 4) west to Guatemala, 5) visit a doctor friend there, 6) head south to El Salvador, which I sort of missed in my fabulous map making, 6) 0ver to Honduras, my cool mom volunteered in a bilingual school there, 7) down through Nicaragua to Costa Rica, some R and R and 8) then to Panama and Boca del Toro.  

From there we will have to head to South America by boat if we want to continue to drive ...but that will have to be tomorrow cause just explaining our CA trip made me tired.

Hasta Manana!

Driving the Pan America Highway

I received another book in the mail today, Driving the Pan-American Highway to Mexico and Central America: A Complete Guide for Do-It-Yourself Planning and Driving Through Mexico and Central America and I started to get a little nervous. Not about the trip but all the actual work it would take to get everything up and running. I like doing research, gathering facts and organizing information in three ring binders. But that can go on forever. I know there will come a time when we just have to go and say the information we have is enough, learn the rest as you go.

Sometimes trying to get all best information or the perfectly right answer is a way to avoid making the hard decision to let go and just go. For now, I will make my binders and be content to be as prepared as I can and discover the rest. Isn't that what it is all about after all?

Travel Books Galore!

We got our first travel book in the mail today!! Juliano is reading it to me in bed as I type this post. I was so excited to get it today but I couldn't even open it until he got home.

Traveler's Tool Kit: Mexico and Central America

Goal 1 - To inspire you to travel revealing the rich rewards that can change your life forever.

Goal 2 - To address all the inhibitions that some people use to persuade themselves they can't travel.

Goal 3 - To empower you to visit places of your dreams

Goal 4- To guide you through one of the most fascinating regions of the world.

Those are some mighty big goals...life changing, empowering, letting go of inhibitions?. Who would have thought a little ol' book could do all for you...who needs a therapist?

This actually sounds like a very useful book. I plan on reading all 549 pages, when Juliano isn't reading it to me or hogging it all to himself. He is driving all 7,000 miles so he needs all the help he can get. He laughed out loud when he read that last line...

Off we go....