The Final Count Down

And we’re off! Well almost.  With t-minus 24 hours until we hop on a jet for Rio, Lesley and I are picking up the last minute essentials and trying to cram them into our already bulging backpacks.  We’re both filled with a mix of excitement, trepidation, and the “oh shit, we’re actually doing this” feeling.  It’s amazing that this all started with an idea last December to take some time off from work and travel for a little bit.  Somehow that “little bit” turned into 10 months and most of the southern hemisphere.  When we originally played around with the idea of traveling, it didn’t take us long before we were both hooked on the idea of purchasing an around the world ticket.  Through Star Alliance, you can book a fare that takes you around the world on any Star Alliance airline.  They have a program online that let’s you build your itinerary by selecting pretty much any city in the world (http://www.staralliance.com/en/booking/book-and-fly/#).  I felt like a kid in a candy store.  It was too easy to start clicking the map and adding cities to our itinerary that we both dreamed about visiting.   Our conversation went something like this:

Zach:  Hey, want to go to South Africa?

Lesley:  Yea, looks amazing.  And what about Thailand?

Zach:  Definitely.  Okay, they’ve both been added. 

After putting together our most wanted list of destinations, our map ended up looking like the one below.  

After spending a month in Rio and the surrounding areas, we’ll head to Santiago for a couple weeks.  From Santiago, we take the lonnnng flight to Johannesburg.  There, we spend a couple days at a lion reserve outside of Johannesburg, before taking our time exploring the southern coast of South Africa.  We give ourselves about 3 weeks to get to Cape Town, traveling by bus, train, or elephant.  Along the way we’ll hike the Otter Trail, a 5 day hike often ranked among the best in the world.  Once we reach Cape Town, we’ll catch a flight back to Joburg and move right along to Nairobi.  In Nairobi, we’re going to meet up with my sister and spend 3 days volunteering at an orphanage (http://www.tumainiministries.org/) which was started by some local Denverites.  After our time with the kids, we’ll cross the border into Tanzania and hop on a jeep for a safari in the Serengeti.  After 4 days of snapping pictures of giraffes and running from lions, we’ll drop Jess at the airport and make our way to Moshi where we’ll meet our Kilimanjaro guides.  Just a quick 7 day hike up and down Africa’s tallest mountain and we’re off to South East Asia.  But more on that and the rest of the trip later, we’re not going anywhere until I finish packing my bag!