Planning, researching and deciding where to go on our adventure has been, and continues to be, a difficult process. Deciding what places to cut from the itinerary has been the biggest challenge of all!
With the internet, Skype and "globalization" a part of modern life for many people on this earth, the world can sometimes seem very small and interconnected. However, the world's still a very big place, especially when you are flying, walking, bus-ing, train-ing around it. Brazil is only slightly smaller than the USA! This is the main reason that we have decided that Brazil will be it's own "leg" on our journey. There is so much there that we want to see (the Amazon River is near the very top of the bucket list!), and we want to really take our time to experience it.
Since we are basing ourselves in Panama for at least the first 8 months of the adventure, all of our journeys will radiate out of our new home in El Valle de Anton, Cocle, Republic of Panama. As of November 1st, 2011, the basic itinerary for "Leg One" looks like this:
January - March: Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua
February 28- March12 -Suriname
March 13 - April 15 - Panama -San Blas Islands
April 15 -30 - Colombia (Cartagena and Medellin)
May 1 - 20 -Ecuador, Quito, Cuenca and including Galapagos
May 21 -June 30 Peru and Bolivia, including Machu Picchu, Cusco during Inti Raymi, Lake Titicaca.
July 1-30th -Panama and Belize
July 31st -Back to USA to see kids off to a new year of college!
Leg Two will be Brazil...including an Amazon cruise.
For Leg Three, we plan to cover Chile, Uruguay and Argentina, including Ushuaia (Tierra del Fuego). We are not even going to think about this one yet! During preliminary research, there are just too many places we want to go...also, Chile and Argentina are 2 of the most expensive countries is South America to visit so this leg will be heavily influenced by our finances by the time we undertake it. Argentina will only get more expensive, given the re-election of President Cristina and the sweeping changes she is making at present.
