Familia y amigos!!

I am set to take off for a tour of South America and have started this blog as a way to keep those of you posted who may be interested in my adventures and hopefully give some insight to anyone who is thinking of doing a similar trip or is interested in the culture and sights of this region of the world. I won’t have a phone or a computer with me, so I don’t know how frequent the posts will be at this point, but I’ll be sure to update this whenever I get the opportunity and am not lost chasing monkeys through the Amazon.

Allow me to quickly clarify the name of this blog. Although I certainly will be exploring some of Mother Nature’s most pristine settings, I am not embarking on some ecological research project like the name may lead you to think. Rather, the word “gringo” is a ubiquitous term used in Latin America to refer to foreigners, specifically Americans and other Westerners like myself. Naturally, gringojoe was already taken, and so here we are.

To those of you who are still wondering why I’m doing this …

On par with my steadfast belief that USC was the only school for me and equal to my affirmation that I will not be breaking the 5’ 7’’ barrier in this lifetime, I have been certain for a couple years that I wanted to do a trip of this sort now while I am young and free from life’s ever increasing restraints and responsibilities that will inhibit me from doing so in the future. Not submitting my application to study abroad is the single major regret I have in my life. Seeing the faces of friends and cousins light up whenever they talk about their extended time in different countries made it obvious that I really dropped the ball on this one. So, in some way this is me making it up to myself. (Thanks Joe!) Beyond that, like many of you, I certainly had no idea in hell what type of work I wanted to pursue after college, and after a year of working a relatively uninspired 8-5 at a private mortgage lender, I certainly have no idea now. I hope that getting away from the familiar and spending time on my own amongst new cultures and people with backgrounds much different than mine will help give me some fresh perspective. After spending almost all of my 23 years and counting on a 60 mile stretch of land I figured it was time to get out and explore different parts of the world. If nothing else, this will all be a valuable learning experience that I will always be able to draw upon throughout my life, and I will be seeing some amazing things along the way.

Some quick facts:

• I depart from LAX Tuesday December 13 and arrive in Bogota, Colombia at 10:00 p.m. the following night. My arrival will cap off 24 hours of traveling so I reckon I will be growing increasingly delirious by this point. However, I’m confident the adrenaline from stepping foot onto a foreign continent I will call home for the next few months will be plenty of fuel to make for a memorable first night with my hostel mates at Destino Nomada.
• I have no set time or place I will be returning from, but, gun-to-my-head, I’d say Buenos Aires or somewhere in Brazil next summer
• The only espanol I know is what I learned in high school, but I’ve been taking a class once a week for the past couple months to try and refresh a bit. I’m confident I’ll pick it up pretty well once I’m down there.
• I’m hoping the money I have saved this year will last me about 6 months in itself as long as I don’t go overboard on the tribal gear and trinkets along the way, which you should all know by now will be no easy task for me. I also intend on doing a couple things I’m stoked about that will help stretch my funds. One of which is to do some WWOOFing on a vineyard or animal farm in Chile and/or Argentina. The other is to find a bar tending job or something of the sorts once I get to Buenos Aires, where I plan on stationing up and renting an apartment for a couple months until it is time to come home.
• I’ll be living out of a Gregory baltoro 75 L backpack for the duration of my travels. It was a bit of a shock when I realized just how little I would be able to bring with me. However, once I narrowed down what I was actually going to take, it was pretty liberating to realize that we really don’t need that much stuff to carry on from day to day, despite what we are accustomed to thinking. If you’ve never tried to fit 6 months of your life into a backpack, I’d highly recommend it. You may find it to be an enlightening exercise.

Countries and major destinations I’m planning on visiting:

Map of motivation hanging above my alarm clock

• Colombia: Bogota > Medellin > Caribbean Coast
• Peru: Cusco > Machu Picchu > Arequipa > Lake Titicaca
• Bolivia: La Paz > Amazon > Salar de Uyuni > Oruro for Carnival
• Chile: Atacama Desert > Santiago > Valparaiso > Pucon > Torres del Paine
• Argentina: Salta > Mendoza > Bariloche > El Bolson > Patagonia > Trelew > Iguazu Falls > Buenos Aires
• Uruguay: Montevideo

And definitely much, much more..

It has been a long road getting to this point and I could not be more pumped that it is finally here. I set a goal at the beginning of the year and made a budget to try to stick by each month that would allow me to set myself free for a bit while I contemplate my next move. As you are all aware, I love going out and having fun and self-control has never been a strength of mine, so staying disciplined week after week was not at all easy. Along with living at home the last year, the most difficult hurdle was continuing to honor that 6:45 a.m. alarm every morning and reluctantly make my way to a job that was less than thrilling. However, I knew it was a means to an end. Whenever I seriously contemplated quitting early, I forced myself to reread articles and blogs about the incredible places I was headed and reminded myself why I was there, enduring the painful sounds of my co-worker’s pop-radio that laid siege upon my cubicle each and everyday. Although my feelings toward Katy Perry are forever tarnished, it was undoubtedly worth it.

I have never been out on my own quite like this and I know I will miss you all like crazy while I am gone. I hope you continue to enjoy your lives to the fullest and pursue your passions and interests in whatever forms they may take.

To those of you who are well on your way to doing what you want to do, I salute you and I envy you. I hope to come out of this with a greater understanding of what is most important to me in life and inspired to pursue personal and professional endeavors I am passionate about.

If any of you crazy kids get the travel bug and want to come down, let me know and I’ll try to reroute to make sure we check out some stuff you’d like to see. If you want to get at me, email, skype, and facebook will be your best shot. I’ll do my best to respond whenever I’m around Wi-Fi. My skype name is joeycgarcia and I’ll be able to video chat via iTouch.

I wish all of you and your families a happy holiday and bitchin’ new year.

Hasta la proxima!

Con mucho amor,

Joseph