Mark and I both agree that it hasn't sunk in yet that we're off to South America in just a few days. We've been focusing on wrapping things up at work, trying to get the July Bills paid and a few small but important, things such as figuring out who's going to cut our lawn while we're away or convincing the US Postal Service to hold our mail. We both imagine that once we're done with work and start packing the ol' backpacks full of things such as travel trousers, floppy hats and Lonely Planets books that the vagabonding feeling will wash over us once again and make us giddy. Or at least we hope it will...

Those of you who've followed the site from the beginning which I supposed you could argue started in one of two places... either at the beginning of our tenure of living in Europe (September 10, 2002) or at the beginning of our full time travel adventure (November 4, 2003) know that South America was always a high priority of ours. In fact, our initial plan was to start our full time travels in Argentina, but for various reasons that fell through and instead we ended up in Turkey,... and the rest is history.

After our time in India, we'd  planned to spend a month on the beach and learning Spanish in Honduras (we even had airplane tickets) before traveling overland for 3 months in South America but the eviction of our tenants cancelled those plans and we ended up back home prematurely with a house to fix and jobs to find and have since found ourselves back into the daily 9 to 5 routine.  However, as we hinted in the 2004 Cassidy Christmas Letter we weren't ready to give South America up all together, so we negotiated a month of leave with both of our employers and are headed back out on the road this Sunday.

This phase of our adventure will be distinctly different from our previous travels. Instead of having practically unlimited time and limited money, we find ourselves having severely limited time and a bit more cash this time around. The result is that we've booked more plane tickets and will spend less time in places. We've had to prioritize our must see sights and have tried to cram them into a month... it's going to be a whirlwind.

The plan takes us into Lima, Peru, out to the Amazon Rainforest for a few days, down to Macchu Picchu & Lake Titicaca, backpacking in Bolivia, sipping wine in Chile and a few days out in Easter Island just for kicks. We're hoping to keep the site up to date with the occasional entry from an internet cafe, but we'll see how it all works out when we're on the road!

Thanks for continuing to travel with us....

Heide & Mark