A simple plan

 

The plan is to travel somewhere for a decent amount of time where I’ll be completely lost, outside of my comfort zone away from everything I know and all that is familiar, which is not all that hard seeing as how I live in New Zealand, beautiful, under populated and safe. Great place to live and I’m sure a great place to visit, however I’ve spent 28 years here with the exception of holidays in fact I now live about 40 minutes from where I was born and that’s as far as I have got, the word homesick has no meaning to me what I am is sick of home. So I have decided to take the plunge and head off, all I have to do is decide when and where, over the two years my plans have changed back and forth from various locations and routes, but it has to be said the one place that my mind keeps coming back to is South America. Now before you start I don’t have some kind of romantic view of the continent produced by watching Motorcycle Dairies over and over again and I don’t own a Che T-Shirt. I know it’s a fuckin dangerous place even the mosquitoes can kill, BUT as with everything without the bad there can be no good, and good there is they have it by the bucket full, from the people to the music the food the culture the Senoritas (of course).

I have been to Peru but only for a short time, I was there for three weeks but in that time I did fall in love, with what I can’t say exactly, I guess the whole experience got me hooked, from walking through the country side on the way to Machu Picchu, descending upon small villages high in the hills and valleys, the ninos running to meet us as we approached, to the stunning towns along the way Arequipa, Nazca, Cusco..

So back I go, this time to do it the way it should be done “slowly” I have 12 months to get from Santiago, Chile to San Francisco, California. The way is not yet clear in fact it’s anything but, I’m not sure how this approach would wash with some but for me it’s the only way, for two reasons I am extremely disorganised and also very lazy so I’ll just float on, see where the wind takes me, if I feel like moving on I will..

So my plan is a simple one, and so far it is to get off the plane and find somewhere to sleep.. Then find a drink..