Blog check up.

Okay okay so you may have noticed that the blog is over two months behind. Between the crap internet of Bolivia and us now rushing to get through Chile and Argentina without going broke, it's been hard to catch up.

But I'm going to try something to fix that. From now on, I'm going to update one old post (continuing) and one new post. This is going to be totally disorienting for a while (like two months more than likely) but I'm hoping it will help close the gap sooner rather than later.

I still can't get the rss feed to work (no clue what happened there) so please sign up for the email subscriptions to follow along. And please forgive the old/new post mixture. But I'm doing it for you.

Housekeeping

Hello out there... out there... out there... out there. Just testing the echo.

We're in Antigua Guatemala and have access to regular internet - notice I didn't use the word fast. I've just changed the dates on all the posts to reflect the dates they were written on. I don't know if these means they'll be re-sent to email subscribers or re-posted to the rss feed. Apologies if this happens. You'll also now be able to tell exactly how far behind I actually am. Gulp. I hope to fix this over the next week. Feel free to harass me. Or leave any sort of comment. If I know people are reading this, it will help get my motivation up. 

But enough of that. Just wanted to let you know we are alive and well and that new posts are coming.

(Apologies for all the spelling and grammar errors and typos. I'm going for quantity not quality at the moment.) 

what do you mean there´s no internet in the jungle?

Sorry for the lack of posts. We´re currently in Palenque and staying about 15 minutes outside of town in the jungle near the Palenque ruins. I´ve got lots of updates but they´ll have to wait until we get hooked up on the wireless internet again or until there´s internet access in a place that´s not a bazillion degrees.

Tonight we´re headed to Tulum so it should be cooler and the internet should be better. Never fear all is well. We´ll soon return to our regularly scheduled blogging.

Doing nothing is hard work

Since I have no photos from this lazy day please enjoy this pic of a typical front page of a Mexican newspaper. As you can tell, Adrian enjoyed it.

Just as we promised ourselves, we spent the day in the hostal doing nothing, well nothing that involved leaving the hostal. Instead, Adrian caught up on his favourite tv programs and I spent the entire day uploading photos and a little bit of time updating the blog. Sure there’s wireless everywhere but it’s slow especially when there are ten people with laptops using it. Yup, that’s the new backpacker fully equipped with laptop, digital camera, psp, skype headgear spending more time looped in with people back home than the person next to them at the hostal. And we're just as guilty although trying not to be.

But all the peace and quiet meant we could make plans for the next leg of our journey to Oaxaca about 6 hours south east of Mexico City. Good thing because checking the bus company websites revealed a limited number of buses contrary to everything we’d read. Panicked I reached out to the Lonely Planet Bulletin Board where a couple of fellow travelers told me the websites were on the fritz. We could indeed show up the next morning without a ticket and get on the next bus.

After a cheap dinner around the corner from the hotel, we repacked our bags a feat that is still just as hard as when we did it back and Toronto and went to sleep. Well I tried to get to sleep. An hour later I woke up scratching furiously at my arm. I turned on the light to discover it covered in welts, some two inches across. I immediately assumed the worst. Bedbugs! But no when I heard buzzing and saw something flying through the air, I was actually relieved to discover it was a mosquito or three that had been feasting on the one part of my body not under the covers while Adrian slept shirtless, snoring and untouched right next to me. My pasty glow-in-the-dark skin was irresistible to not just the sun but all bloodsuckers too.

I went back to bed pulling the sheets around everything but my nose, half expecting to wake up with 50 bites on the tip of it. But alas, at 7am it was only the usual sirens, horns and car alarms that woke us up. The noise is one thing we were definitely not going to miss. Loaded up we headed into the Metro for the last time getting off at TAPO – the eastern bust station which was tiny compared to the Terminal Norte and got on the next bus to Oaxaca.

1-800-how's-my-blogging

adjusting my mirror, checking my blind spot, signal and pull out...

I've never blogged before. I've never kept a diary. But I do write. A lot. Because I'm a writer. But hopefully by November 2008, I'll be unemployed. That's right I hope to be unemployed. 

Adrian and I are saving fast and furiously to take off and travel the world.

Of course certain things keep getting in the way. Like Adrian needing a job. Going to Cuba for a much needed vacation. Using up vacation time to visit friends in London and Amsterdam. But I've still got the eyes on the prize. But more on that later. 

Perhaps you're wondering why we're going. The short answer is why not. Both of us love travelling. We love the chaos of trying to figure out bus routes and meals and accommodation when you can't read the alphabet let alone speak the language. And our meagre vacation time has made it difficult to see as much of the world as we've hoped - although many would disagree. 

We've been to Ireland, Buenos Aires, Tunisia, Gambia, Moscow, India, Bangkok, Shanghai, Cambodia, Ho Chi Minh City, Paris, Cuba, many places in the US, and of course the UK and Canada. And every time we have to come back we get depressed and spend weeks talking about how great it would be to just keep travelling. Finally we actually stopped just talking about it and just started doing something about it.

So in June 2007, we did some calculations and by we I mean me (although adrian is an accountant, he hates doing our finances). And quickly discovered that leaving in January 2008 was not going to happen. The dreaded albatrosses known as student loans were just too big. in the words of Pepe le Pew, le sigh. But those same calculations also showed us that by January 2008 we could pay off our student loans - all $35,000 of them, 7 years ahead of schedule. And we still managed to sock away a bit of cash for the big trip. We're pretty chuffed too. 

Now with 9 months to go, I've started this blog to write a little a bit about our planning and preparations but also to get used to this whole blogging thing. And this is the place where we'll be writing about our adventures. That should be easy right? I'm a writer. Unfortunately, coming home to write this blog after writing all day is sometimes hard, hopefully it will be a lot easier once we're on the road. And this whole html blogging stuff is new to me. Hence the title of this post. So be patient. I'm learning. But I'm almost ready to take the "L" off the back windscreen.

And where are we now? 

location: Toronto

savings: $8500

ETD: November 15, 2008