Vamos!

Hello family and friends,
Welcome to my personal blog! I am going to be using this webpage as my journal while I travel around South America this year.

I'll be posting some pictures along with my writing so that you can see what I'm up to and follow along as I go. If you want to receive automatic email updates every time I post a new article on my blog, please sign up by typing your email address into the bar on the left.

As I type this, I'm sitting in the airport lounge at 5:20am on August 25, 2011 in the Halifax Stanfield Airport. I'm so excited I've hardly been able to sleep the last few nights. For those of you that don't know, I'm heading out on a tour of South America with two good friends of mine. We heard that Stephen Harper was doing something similar, so we decided to pick up the slack and visit all the countries that he missed on his trip. I'm going to miss Halifax, Dalhousie University, and all my friends here -- but I had a good send-off last night where Grant,Blair, Chace, and Dan and I reminisced on all the good times we've had in University. Hasta lluego Halifax!

So far its been a great start to the journey: the airport shuttle driver bought us all free drinks, I got through security without any hitches (there could have easily been a few based on what I've packed in carry-on), and the planes are on-time. My two good amigos and travel companions James and Jordan are already in South America, in Ecuador's capital city of Quito, so I will be linking up with them once my hodge-podge of connecting flights are finally done by 7pm tonight.

The general plan is to make our way around the Southern parts of S.A., taking time to do whatever we want, when we want. The only certainty at this point is that I'll be flying home to Calgary on December 15 from Rio de Janeiro. The goal is to find as much adventure and have as much fun as possible within that time, and of course to stay safe (that's for mom).

Since I booked my flights about a month and a half ago, I`ve been studying Spanish with an audio program. I`ve never been motivated to learn a language before, but I tell you nothing is more motivating than an impending trip to many countries that speak little to no English. One of my other goals for this trip is to become fluent in Spanish. By combining my spanish audio program with complete language immersion in the countries I`m visiting, I think this goal's not unrealistic.

I plan to post updates every 3-4 days, but it could be more or less often than that based on internet connectivity, or many other factors. Jordan also has an awesome travel blog going, which you can find through this link http://www.offexploring.com/johombre/home
The only picture I've taken so far is my gear right before I packed it. Hopefully there will be some more exciting pictures coming soon!