There have been a few questions about how we are going to finish this trip we are on. Here is the background on the current plan and the best guess as what the future holds:
The family has made it back to Lima, Peru. We sold the camper in Santiago, Chile. Michelle found a great price on one-way tickets to La Paz, Bolivia from Santiago, Chile that routed through Lima, Peru with a 17 hour layover. It was much more expensive for tickets just to Lima. Go figure. So we bought them. This was because a month and a half ago, Michelle found an unbelievable one way fair from Lima, Peru to Fairbanks that flew on May 22nd. We bought six of them because that was all there were. At least most of us were guaranteed a way out. So we had to get back to Lima.
We had intended to drive back to Peru and sell the camper, but one day in the parking lot of a gas station about 10 miles south of Santiago I started talking to a guy driving by on his way to work. He was asking me questions about the trip, Alaska, etc. and I told him how we were going to sell the camper in Lima. The family didn’t really want to drive back to Lima. It’s 2200 miles of the most barren desert I have ever seen. Let me say, that is pretty barren. Nothing living at all. Nothing. At all.
Long story short, the camper is in Santiago forever. We figured out we could freight the van back out of Valparaiso for a pretty good price ($3000) with a schedule that we thought could make work. The van leaves Valpo on May 2nd and is available for pick up on May 22nd. Since it takes 20 days for the van to get to LA, we would be without a car (or home) for that time, and that time had to end with us in Lima for Michelle and the 5 kids (not Ryan and I, yet) to get on the plane.
Michelle (again) found a great place for us to rent about 25 miles south of Lima, so we took it for the final three weeks while the van is on the boat. After this, Michelle, Ryan and Jack decided to fly all the way to La Paz, Bolivia on the tickets we bought. The rest of us were happy to stay in Lima at the beach house. So now Michelle, Ryan and Jack needed to get back from La Paz to Lima. Are you following? Isn’t this fun?
So the plan now (up for change at any given moment of any given day) is for the La Paz crew to take a bus from La Paz back to the old stomping grounds of Puno, Peru and meet up with some (new) old friends. Then head to Huliaca (where the Puno airport is) and catch a fight back to Lima, where we are all reunited. THEN we create the IQUITOS plan, where we all fly to the largest city in the world (1mil) accessible only by boat or plane. And it is on the Amazon. Because if you go to SA, you better see the Amazon , am I right?
So after the Amazon, we all return to Lima, and six of us head out to the US, hopefully getting off the plane in Dallas instead of flying all the way to Fairbanks. Ryan and I fly to LAX (tickets yet to be determined) with the dogs to get the van out of customs, etc. and then drive to ???? (Dallas, Houston, Yuma, who knows?) and pick up the crew. We also buy a new camper (aka Camper 2.0) along the way and then head North to Alaska!
SO! That is the plan(ish). Wish us luck, and if you haven’t noticed yet, there is a link to buy us dinner on the right side of our page. Really, at this point, it would buy us a drink. So, thanks, if that is where your inspiration leads you. We (well really, I) could use it.
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