AND WE’RE OFF

Leaving Friday, February 2, from Mexico City (MEX) to Rio de Janeiro (GIG) by way of San Paulo  (GRU).  It’s an overnight flight and I’m hoping for several hours of good sleeping.  This is the beginning of our two-week adventure in South America.

We like to travel, evidenced by 20+ years to a variety of places in all kinds of conveyances, seeing new and different places, people and cultures.  No sampans or kayaks.  I don’t consider us wise, world travelers but we are fortunate to have gone where we have and to keep traveling while we can.  After years as part of the RV subculture, we sold our 8^th and last one, a Leisure Travel Van, Unity MB. SUGAR 8 took us on two, summer expeditions to the eastern Canadian Provinces from our home base in Arizona.  One of those was all the way to Newfoundland.  We also traveled to many different U.S. destinations including national and state parks in our other eight land yachts of differing sizes and layouts.

We took several trips to the UK and lived there for two years, also enjoyed trips to Ireland, Spain, Italy, and France, touching bits of Switzerland and Greece over these 20+ years. We have visited Mexico 8-10 times and we are now ex-pats living in Mexico. Having just moved here this past June, we are still adapting and adjusting. Living in a place is a different experience from visiting, just as eating is different from tasting.  There’s a lot to digest!

I am not a fan of big cruises and although we have taken a few, each for a different reason, living on board a big ship with 1500 people is not my idea of an ideal trip. Different strokes for different folks. One left from Sydney, Australia, and stopped at a few of the South Pacific Islands including Fiji. It was the “Vollendam” of the Holland America Line.  Another, more to be preferred, was on a small ship, “Le Ponant” with 50 people and a crew of 25 French men and women. The food was like being in France.  We traversed the Panama Canal, learned about its. history and had time in both Panama and Costa Rica. We revisited Costa Rica by ourselves a couple of years ago. Think Rain Forest and volcano!   We chartered sailboats for cruising in the Caribbean, and a beautiful 66’ Moody named “Mustique” to cruise the Croatian islands.

Thia is background to set the stage for this current trip.  I plan to post some details beyond the itinerary where I can share a few observations and experiences along the way. We have come a long way from the days of 35mm cameras that took slides that went into a Kodak Carousel for projecting onto a screen.  I found those to be sufficiently boring that I fell asleep more than once. Maybe your family had an 8 mm camera that recorded home movies that went on trips.  Now we have Smart Phones with cameras, Instagram, social media and YouTube, plus podcasts. I thought of trying something new like a podcast complete with interviews but at this point, I plan to stick with a travel blog.  Maybe I’ll do postcards , something similar to Charles Kuralt’s  series “On The Road” that was featured on CBS Sunday Morning.  If that materializes, look for a Postcard from Rio.