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Eight Weeks Till Departure Time

Sunday, November 16th, 2008

The long, slow windup begins: around January 7th, I plan to be flying to Lima, Peru, and the beginning of my next travel adventure – this time, backpacking alone around the South American continent  I haven’t bought my ticket yet, but have pretty much decided on a round-trip in and out of Lima, separated by around four months, returning in mid-May, 2009.  This seems to make more sense than trying to schedule a string of air tickets to the various South American countries in advance.  I’ll work it out for myself, once I get there.

I believe I explained in an earlier post that, for now, I’ve curtailed the idea of doing another around-the-worlder because the topography of the Southern Hemisphere doesn’t allow as much overland hopping from spot to spot.  The cost in both time and money to make a circle of the lower half of the globe wouldn’t allow for extensive exploration along the way… at least, not with my present timeframe.  So, gambling on the belief that I will live long and prosper for enough years ahead, I’m going to take my time and devote several future trips to wandering each continent rather thoroughly. 

I now have a new REI, 65-litre women’s, professionally-fitted backpack and a few good pieces of clothing to go in it.  While I visited my daughter and her family in Denver, we visited the flagship REI store, where they surprised me with an early Christmas present – my new backpack.  I also took advantage of some great sales to pick up stuff sacks containing a rain jacket and pants, and other goodies such as silk longjohns, hats, shirts, a neck gaitor and gloves.  Though it will be summer, the Andes and the public, long-distance buses will still be cold.  I’m pretty much good to go in the packing department.

If any of you have been watching Amazon.com for the appearance of my new book, Hey Boomers, Dust Off Your Backpacks, (I wish!) I have recently learned that it could be around the end of the year before it shows up there.  Seems as if I failed to fill out a vital form or two and only discovered that when my book didn’t show up online.  So now, I must wait another four to six weeks and that’s almost when I leave the country.  Anyway…someday, I’ll have a bunch of my books show up there, so what does it matter in the overall scheme of things? 

I just bought a little teeny-tiny video camera to take along, so if it works….or more to the point, if I can figure it out…then I’ll be able to litter these posts with some moving photography of this future adventure.