When we decided to do this adventure, we had very little expectations. When we traveled before kids, our style was to live in the moment and make it up as we go. Though the situation was a little different this time, we have kids and we have a little more responsibility back home, we stuck to our "live in the moment" mentality.
At the beginning, we knew we wanted to go to Peru. So we started there. We bought a one way ticket to Lima, booked a hotel room for when we arrived in the middle of the night, and booked a flight to Cusco for the next day. That's it. Done. Trip planned. We didn't know if we'd stay a week, 3 weeks, a month, 3 months? We were determined to just go with the flow.
Would we travel to Chile and Argentina or go north to Ecuador? We didn't know. Could our kids handle long distance buses? Would we have to fly places? Would we find a place that we would just want to stay? How expensive are these countries really? Are we having fun? Team T just had find out by doing.
Early on in our trip, we kept meeting people who raved about Colombia. That seemed to be the direction to go. How did the rest fall into place? We took buses, stayed in hotels, hostels, homestays, tents, and hammocks. We tried night buses. In Ecuador, we stayed in a town we loved and rented a house. But we found ourselves itching to get back on the road after a month. We loved the Andes, but after a week or two we wanted to head to the beach. The rainforest just had to be explored! So we bused ourselves over the Andes and into the Amazon basin. Then traveled down river several hours to experience our earth's lungs! When we couldn't take the heat, bugs, and humidity we headed back up the Andes again. Then to the beach. We just made it up as we went. At some point in the trip we started thinking about going home. That's when we pulled out the map and decided what we still wanted to see and bought a ticket home.
Team T toured a corner of South America for 5 months. It was a wonderful adventure. We learned a lot about ourselves, each other, and about South America. We have a multitude of shared experiences. Our stories make us grin and laugh. The inside jokes are endless! We are very grateful to have taken this opportunity to spend 24/7 (and I mean it) with our 2 small children and explore some new territory together as a family. The question is where will we go next and when?????
Team T will be stateside for a while.... We will not be posting anymore photos or notes at this blog site. If you would like to continue to follow us check out our home blog at...
TeamTSeasonal.blogspot.com
Some general notes about our travels...
Countries visited 4 Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela
Total Hotels/hostels/homestays/campgrounds: 49
Buses (an hour and a half or longer) 41
Meals out 400+ (restaurants w/ a toddler)
Hours on buses (an hour and a half or longer) 210 hours
Flights 3 (Lima, Cuzco, LA/VT)
Currencies 3 (Ecuador uses US dollars)
Books Read 12 (including 4 Lonely planet guides)
