Leaving tomorrow

I leave tomorrow night from Seattle for Lima, Peru, so I decided that I better get this blog thing up and running or it was never going to happen.

As most people reading this should know, my life has undergone some pretty radical changes in the past few weeks. As a result of said changes, I'm heading out alone to South America with a very, shall we say.........fluid itinerary. Right now, the plan is to get into Lima on the night of the 11th and hop the first bus I can to the city of Huaraz, which is 8 hours away. I'll be spending 2-3 days in Huaraz laying low, getting acclimated to the high elevation and setting up the first of what I hope to be many extended mountain treks. This fits into one of the two stated goals that I have for my trip. Ahh, my two goals.

My first and most important goal is to see a penguin in the wild. Why, you may ask? I don't honestly know, but not completely knowing or understanding why I do the things I do is something that I'm becoming more and more comfortable with as I travel through life. Obviously, however, seeing a live penguin means that I will have to get pretty damn far South, so one could simply view this as a means of ensuring that I get a move on into the deeper parts of the Southern Hemisphere. Rest assured that the penguin or penguins that fulfill this goal will be captured on a digital storage device and shared with all of you. My second, and perhaps loftier, goal is to spend 80% of my nights spent traveling sleeping outside. This one is a bit easier to explain, as according to some back of the envelope calculations I'll be spending approximately 98% of the rest of my life sleeping indoors, so why not shoot for 80% in a period of 1 to 3 months? Logic. Obviously there are some other objectives that I have for this trip, but they mostly pertain to my inner well being, sense of self and what not. I'm just going to have to reveal those as they come up, but I will drop some tantalizing clues along the way. Suspense.

The past week that I've spent in Seattle has been great, although most of my time has been spent getting ready for the trip and avoiding actually being in Seattle. After seeing my brother Max, my Dad and Sid, I couldn't be more ready to hop on a plane and head to a continent where I speak neither of the two primary languages. It's certainly going to be an adventure, and I know that the things I see and experience, good and bad, will stay with me for the rest of my life. So, bear with me as I tell long winded stories full of colorful, if not always tasteful, language in an effort to share my life with those that I love..............joey