The countdown begins

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5 more sleeps till we strap on our backpacks and head east towards our first stop in South America, Buenos Aires. It's been tricker than I imagine planning a trip around South America within than 3 weeks. Lost in all the excitment I figured, 5 weeks heaps of time - pfft! We can go to Rio, BA, Chile, trek the Inca Trail, maybe squeeze in seeing some giant tortoises in the Galapagos, oh how about Patagonia. Whilst we're half way across the world we might as well see and do as much as we can right?

Lesson # 1 - South America is a Continent

How quickly I realised how naive we were to think we could see even just Argentina in a month. South America is an enormous CONTINENT. Not just A country and definitely not next to LA. Some of the countries, like Argentina and Brazil are vast and the major cities are thousands of kilometres apart. Reading about 20 - 30 hour bus trips pop up frequently on travel forums. I can't even handly the 45 min train ride into the city. Hmm, planning this trip has proven a tad more challening then expected. But hey, that's the beauty of travelling, you learn so much along the way and I love the challenging of organising. I can't wait for all the sights, sounds, I would say smells but I can't smell so let's replace that with good ole, 'experiences'.

Sharing the love

We want to share our trip with our friends and family and anyone that's planning a trip to SA and has no bloody idea what to expect. Because if you're anything like us, we're not 'travellers' in any sense of the word. We're your typical daggy tourist types used to travelling with lugguage bags packed to the max and carrying 5 pairs of shoes to many. And don't forget to make sure there's enough space left for all the shopping.

Now, backpacking for 5 weeks has very different rules. Backpacks that are more than half your size. Light weight, quick dry, stink free, layers, if there's more than 4 of anything that's 2 too many. No pretty heels in this trip baby.

We're not doing it rough and tough in any way. After all, we are city folk. We've done lots of research and think we've managed to find some really great hostels for reasonable prices. We'll find out soon enough whether all that internet time has paid off.

So with some simple rules (ensuites please) we set off on figuring out where the heck in South America we're going and what we're going to do for 5 weeks.

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