With our departure date looming ever closer most of my time since the New Year has been spent either planning our trip or sorting loose ends so I'm not missed.
Thanks to various blogs, friends who have been there before, Trip Advisor and Lonely Planet a vague itinerary has been agreed and key bookings made - the flight obviously, which leaves Manchester early on the 14th March and returns on 6th August. First month or so in Chile then by bus to Bolivia. Originally we intended to go via Argentina but as our border crossing will coincide with the Malvinas referendum so this may not wise. We will probably now go via the Atacama straight into Bolivia. Several weeks in Bolivia including visits to Florindas family and work with Jo in Cochabamba building compost toilets. By June we hope to be well acclimatised to the height as we then go into Peru and have booked onto a 4-day trek to Machu Picchu. Our first attempt got knocked back as we were considered too old but we found someone less fussy. 4 weeks in Peru brings us to Lima where we fly out to Atlanta on July 1st. Not sure how but from there we meander up to Canada, probably by train, before flying out of Toronto on 6th August.
I'll be continuing this blog if you want to follow our adventures and may even use Twitter and Facebook if I can get my head around either of them. Not to mention Skype. Details will follow before we go.
So, apart from learning to cope with social networking, other tasks include tidying up my 'office, winding up my Lifelong Learning, sorting York Greenways, helping Jim with his new house and letting out our house.
We thought we had a lodger through until September but this has hit complications so we may not get anyone at all. Jim will be staying here until his new house is ready - which may mean he is still here when we get back. We were planning to make a start on the alterations he wanted doing - new kitchen and bathroom etc. - but as completion was delayed the window for doing this has shrunk and we may just do the demolition and fly off leaving him to put it all back together.
As we were leaving half way through the term I didn't enrol in any new courses at the Uni but a few of the Philosophy group from last year are meeting once a week to discuss selected texts and I will go along to that until we leave. I also joined the local Humanist Reading Group . Their reading list looked just what mine would have been and I enjoyed the one meeting I have attended so far, discussing Primo Levi's "Is this a Man?". I read some years ago and it had left a strong impression. Next is Simon Baron Cohen's "Zero Degrees of Empathy". Not exactly a bundle of laughs but very interesting and they seem to be a good group. I might do worse than work my way back through the books they have read previously. For now I just need to finish Sven Lindquvist's "The Myth of Wu Tao-tzu" and then I'll get stuck into Spanish - movies, on-line courses and a book of Qechuan folktales.
