Three Months In

By the time this entry is posted, I should be somewhere over the Pacific Ocean, winging my way from Buenos Aires to Auckland, New Zealand. This will be only my third flight since leaving Toronto. It's the ninety-third day of my travels. I'm one quarter of the way through. I'm three months in.

(Note: I originally wrote this whilst on the bus between Arequipa and Lima, Peru – when I thought was still a possibility I'd be flying on November 21st. I was far too lazy – or negligent, maybe – to bother to rewrite the introduction. Think the "As I look out onto this magnificent vista..." cold open from the first season of The West Wing.)

In the last three months, I travelled around a large swath of South America. I visited three new countries in Brazil, Argentina and Chile. I returned (all too briefly) to Peru. I made seven border crossings. I suffered through the heat of the Amazon and revelled in the cold of Patagonia. I've ridden in or on planes, buses, boats, cars, motorcycles, and one hang-glider.

I ate beetle grubs in Brazil, alpaca in Peru and probably the equivalent of half a cow in all my time in Argentina. I can recite, in detail, the differences between empanadas in Argentina, Chile and Peru. I drank way too much wine in Mendoza, ridiculous amounts of caprihinas in Brazil; and learned to appreciate Pisco Sours – though not in Peru, but in Chile.

I haven't run or formally worked-out since I left Canada. But I've done a crapload of walking. I spent two weeks climbing up and down the slopes in Rocinha. There were the drunken walks home in Rio de Janeiro. I roamed all over the waterfalls at Iguazu and amongst the penguins at Punta Tombo. I ice-trekked on a glacier at Laguna Torre, then climbed up to the Laguna de los Tres the next day. I made the twelve-hundred metre descent and ascent in and out of the Colca Canyon. I've somehow dropped fourteen pounds (or six-point-four kilos, or one stone) in just over thirteen weeks.

I am carrying around two more pounds of stuff, for a total of fifty-seven pounds (or twenty-five-point-nine kilos, or four-point-one stone) between two packs. My packs would weigh more, but the three shirts and food containers and laundry detergent I picked up during my travels were slightly offset by losing my BlackBerry in Salvador; leaving my gloves at Camp Poincenot, two hours outside of El Chaltén; and somehow misplacing a pair of underwear somewhere in Argentina.

I miss my family and friends back home, but that's been tempered by the fact that I've met so many incredible people along my route. We've travelled together, seen the sights together, volunteered together, and shared food with each other. We've sat around playing cards, or drinking; or waxing philosophical about long-term travel, South American history, or why Brazilian people are so damn good-looking. We've gone our separate ways and met up, by design or completely at random, in different parts of the continent. My Facebook friends list has increased by over eighty-odd people in three months, and I'm carrying around e-mail addresses jotted down in my notebook, in the back-cover of my journal, on napkins and on scraps of paper. I already have standing plans to meet up with new friends for dim sum in Hong Kong, or cooking classes in Chiang Mai, or general gallivanting around New Zealand, Australia or Asia.

I'm sad to be leaving South America, but I'm looking forward to New Zealand.

I'm still five weeks behind in blogging and photo work.

I'm tired, but not tried of travelling.

I'm still having way too much fun.

Related Entries:
1. New Zealand Will Have to Wait
2. Two Months In
3. One Month In