I've lost weight, and not long to wait!

 

It's not long until school finishes -- 6 more school days. In preparation for the next part of my trip, I took everything I want to take on the road from Guatemala to Panama and put it all in my shiny summit pack. This is a 36L backpack that is very comfy to carry. 

Since I'm not having to take all my winter, hiking, and climbing gear with me on this part of the trip, I can shed all that weight and volume. This smaller backpack should feel very nice carrying around -- first measure is that it's only 10kg and will easily fit in an overhead locker or probably even at my feet on a plane.

I don't need hiking poles, sleeping bags, jackets, gloves, etc. all of that stuff is remaining in my big backpack. And all of that weighs a lot, so now I'll have less weight on my back. How much? Of course I had to measure, so I used the trick of standing on the scales with and without my backpack. 10kg, not bad, but I also noted that my personal weight is now down to 100kg. Wow!

I'm leaving my big backpack with a teacher from the school -- he's my 1:1 class teacher for the afternoons and we've gotten to know each other pretty well. 

I looked at availability for a storage locker and it was really hard to find anything less than container sized -- can you imagine a single backpack sitting in the middle of a shipping container? I eventually found a couple of places that were a bit out of the way, but said they'd rent me a small storage shed (fun fact, around here they're called "mini bodegas", which means "mini wineries"), and looked at the cost. I then talked to the teacher and offered him that money instead to look after my bag for 2 months. Seemed like a good idea, he's onboard, and so that's what I'm doing. (Mum: I won't have a locker in yet another country after all!)

Oh, speaking of what I'm doing, what is the plan now? 

• Saturday 24th Feb -- Checkout of homestay -- many tears expected.
• Sunday 25th Feb -- Flight to Antigua, Guatemala
• Monday 26th Feb -- Start Central America Discovery (17 days) trip, starting in Guatemala, then Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and finishing back in San Jose Costa Rica on the 13th of March.
• 13th to 16th March -- I'm taking some time in San Jose, probably just chilling.
• Saturday 16th March -- I start on the Panama Discovery (12 days). This trip is a bit more basic than the previous, a bunch of public transport, and long days.
• Wednesday 27th of March I find myself in Panama City, having traveled to multiple beaches on both coasts over the previous week and a half.

All of the above is booked and paid for, but at this point I've not made any further bookings, but here's my tentative plan -- it's changed a bit from the last plan.

• Shortly after I finish in Panama City, take a flight to Aruba -- remember that lovely woman from Aruba who helped me with my flights in Madrid and Bogota? She's invited me to meet her family, so it would be rude of me not to. 
• Spend a few days to maybe a week in Aruba, I've not priced things yet, but I imagine a beautiful island country like that isn't the cheapest place in the world.
• Then fly to San Jose, Costa Rica, to retrieve my large backpack -- now I'll be lugging around that damn heavy thing again, but the next part of my trip will utilise the sleeping bag and mat, as well as possibly an additional layer on the hiking trail.
• The next idea  is the "Ultimate Peru, Argentina & Brazil" trip, but that won't be until April 14th, so I will have at least a week, probably more, to fill before that trip.
• April 14th is when that trip starts, from Lima Peru with Intrepid again. This one is a very long 30 day, but does tick off a bunch of things I want to do: Peru, Machu Picchu, hiking the Inca Trail (or parallel one), Amazon jungle visit, lake Titicaca (I dunno, the name sounds funny), then down to Buenos Aires and finishing in Rio de Janeiro 30 days later.

Mid may, I will be finding myself in Rio de Janeiro wondering what to do with myself. My next definite is the Galapagos Islands science adventure in July.... so... I dunno, climb a mountain in Bolivia I guess?