Flying South for the Winter

It's been 1 year and 350 days plus some random hours (as of March 13th) since I returned from 3 months studying abroad in Quito, Ecuador.  I'm so excited and scared to announce that I have purchased a one-way plane ticket to Lima, Peru for June 30th.  I'm going back!

I'll be traveling for a yet-undetermined amount of time in South America and maybe Central America, the first while with my friend Shay from college.  We'll be flying into Peru and then working our way up through Ecuador and Columbia.  I have friends to go see in Ecuador from my study abroad, and three of the gals on my trip two years ago are teaching English in Bogota, so we will have contacts there too.  Both Shay and I have Machu Picchu on our bucket lists, so Peru made the cut also. We plan to do what's called WOOFing, working on organic farms in exchange for room and board, making travel a lot cheaper than a hostel each night, though there will be some of that too.

That will take us through September until she has to return for school in the fall, and then I'll take off on my own, hopefully working my way up through Panama, Nicaragua, Costa Rica etc. in Central America.  I might have other friends meeting me for the second half of the trip, details yet to be worked out.

Basically I'm going to go see the world for a bit, live in other countries and cultures, and maybe discover something about myself along the way, since that's supposed to happen on trips like this.  I am beyond excited, kind of scared, and flip-flopping between 'I"ve got so much time to plan more details'  and 'HOLY COW I LEAVE LIKE TOMORROW WHY DON'T I HAVE ANYTHING PLANNED'.  Hopefully I'll settle on a happy medium sometime before the end of June.

I'm going to keep a blog again while I'm down there so folks can stay updated on my adventures and misadventures.  I decided to keep using this one made for my study-abroad two years ago so 1. I don't have to figure out making a whole new blog and 2. Those of you I didn't know two years ago can read all about my last adventure if the mood strikes you.

This will probably be all the posting until I leave, so stay tuned.

Now I've got to go get my yellow fever vaccine and buy some travel underwear and a lot of sunscreen.

Here's a llama picture since pictures improve blogs.  Soon that'll be me in the picture.

Wait, no guys.  This one is way better.