Hola de Bogota - The First Step on the Great Adventure

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So I’m finally here! After a hectic final week sorting out all those things I left to the last minute, I had my last meal in Australia for a year at the airport on Monday morning (breakfast of smashed avocado - so typical), which I suspect will also be the most expensive meal I have for a year! I then jumped on the 14hr flight to LA which was as awful as it sounds (my seat included nearby crying baby for the true long distance flight experience). I wasn’t able to get any sleep from Melbourne to LA, but was completely comatose from LA - Miama, and then Miama - Bogata.

My friend Nat and her mum picked me up from the airport at 1AM this morning. I’m staying with her in her apartment in Bogota for a month to train with the local underwater rugby team. Nat and I spent the day checking out the area around the apartment and looking for a gym to start our training. Found an excellent one around the corner and will probably start tomorrow!

Bogota seems like a really cool city. Nat, Martha (her mum) and I were driven around by their driver Alfonzo, and they were pointing out all the nice areas for eating and shopping. There’s a mountain looming over the city, which makes it easy to get your bearings, no matter where you are. Unfortunately I didn’t take and photos - I’ll have to get better at that! I’m practising my Spanish a lot and will start at Spanish school next Monday.

It’s still hard to believe that this will be my life for the next year. I keep thinking that I’m going to have to go back to reality in a month or so, but if all goes according to plan, I’ll living this carefree life until June 2016! So the plan goes something like this:

June/July - Underwater Rugby World Cup!!! (Colombia)

I’m staying in Bogota for a month with Nat, another teammate on the Australian UWR team. We’ll be training with the local team, to help us get up to scratch for the world championship. The team trains 6 days a week, and Bogota is at a height of 2.6km - so we’ll essentially be doing a month of intensive altitude training! I’ll also be having spanish classes on the weekdays, so the plan is that by the end of this month, I’ll be playing UWR like a champion and chatting like a local.

The rest of the team comes to Bogota mid-July, and we are doing a tour of a few cities (Medellin - Pereira - Cali) to play against the local teams. Then we have the competition from 26th July to 1st Aug - we’ll try to make you proud (AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE, OI OI OI!!!). The games will be streamed online, so I’ll be sure to put up links so you guys can watch us dominate.

Check out the UWR promo video that I made with my GoPro below - thanks to the Victoria Seadragons for starring!

August - Colombia

After worlds, I’ll be in Colombia for the rest of August - a few teammates will also be hanging around for a while, and we’ll probably head up to the Caribbean for some diving and other tropical paradise related activities. After they leave, I’ll travel to a few other places around Colombia, and then fly to meet Jason in Peru (skipping Ecuador for now) in September.

September/October - Peru, Bolivia, Chile

So I’ll be meeting Jase in Lima and we’ll head towards Cusco to see Machu Pichu, and then into Bolivia via Lake Titicaca, and finally into the North of Chile, heading towards Santiago, where Jase will fly out at the end of October.

And so on...

After that the plan becomes a little hazier. I want to be in Patagonia (southern Chile and Argentina) for the good weather in January or February. At some point I’ll return to Ecuador, and I also want to spend a month volunteering at the Comunidad Inti Wara Yassi, which cares for animals like jaguars and monkeys who are unable to return to the wild. The northern part of Argentina will also need to fit in, as well as Paraguay, Uruguay and, of course, Brazil. I’ve heard that Brazil is the highlight of many people’s travels, so I’m hoping to spend a couple of months there.

Finally, if time and money permit, I’ll head to Mexico and potentially Cuba and/or Guatemala.

I’m sure that the plan will change many times, but the idea was always to keep things flexible. I want to be able to go wherever the moment takes me, and not get stuck in a rigid plan. I’m so excited about the next year - it’s going to be an amazing adventure!!



Hasta luego!

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Photos

One Way Ticket
Adios Amigos!