Machu Picchu - How it all started

This whole trip was thought up as an off the cuff remark.
The way I like to do stuff. I didn't know if I was serious at the time or not. When I came home from Australia at the age of 27 I knew I had to get away from England again. I had the travel bug that so many people are affected by. Seeing the world is fantastic and once you realise that there is a hell of a lot more of it than the boundaries of the country you live in, in fact there are many folk out there ( and this is a conversation Gini and I had the other day) who are happy in the country they live. Australians may be the worst for this, they feel theirs is the best country in the world and many don't feel the need to go anywhere else. Now after staying there for a year I can see there point of view to a degree, it is a fuckin gorgeous place, why the hell we decided to send the convicts there I'll never know, surely it would have been better to let the criminals stay in England whilst the rest of us fecked of to sunny climes and fantastic beaches?! Right?
I suppose it doesn't change, scallys and the little shites of today's adolescent criminal underworld get sent off to foreign countries to go canoeing and stuff don't they? Is that the governments attempt at trying to rehabilitate? shit I'm thinking of armed robbery to fund my next trip, even when I get caught I get the holiday! Oh wait, think I'm a bit old for that now, I'd just get Strangeways probably with my luck with a roomy called Janice who looks like a small building.
The point I was getting at about a paragraph ago is that you really need to see the world to appreciate what you have or haven't got. Don't get me wrong I like the fact in England I don't have to chuck toilet paper into a bin after I use it, and if I want a burger in the middle of the night I can probably find somewhere to get it and I only work about 40 or so hours a week (which compared to some places I've been is nowt really) and get paid a healthy amount of cash to live on.
What I don't like is the majority of the rest of the people I have to share the country with. Cunts mostly who will stab you for a cigarette, kick ya to death if you ask them not to climb on your car or beat your brains in if you object to them throwing things at you, your girlfriend, mum or sister. Really, it takes the piss.

Sometimes one needs to utilise fundamental expletives to highlight ones feelings to the highest degree. And I haven't sworn as much as I like to on this blog so have decided to go all out on this bit of the entry!

So yeah, I returned from 7 months in South East Asia and a year in Australia and I knew I had to go again. Like most freshly home travellers the plan was to pay the debt, save some cash and get away as quick as possible. Now I wasn't too naive at this, I thought I could pay off the 2grand debt in like 5 months and then would spend a couple of years saving so I could make it in time to apply for a 12 month New Zealand visa before I hit 30 (the cut off age). This was the big 2 year plan. How could it possibly go wrong?

I'm a bit shit at saving money. It helps when I have a girl to help and encourage me otherwise it tends to go on booze.......I was hoping for a list of stuff but in reality I have no idea where it goes, it just goes. I spend month after month watching my account balance disappear slowly.

4 and a half years. That's how long it took to save enough for another trip. New Zealand was a pipe dream, I had asked one day if Gini wanted to come to South America instead. I know for a fact the only reason I chose it as a destination was because I knew it was another of the cheapest places in the world and had heard some people say they had been, and who doesn't want to check out Brazilian chicks on the beach? (Fact is we are now pretty much at the end of the trip, still catching up on the blog but haven't made it to Brazil anyway, it's irony or something). I don't even remember if Gini had moved in with me yet or not at the time.

"Whats in South America?"
Probably a question I should have asked a little earlier, like before we had decided we would go but hey spontaneity baby!

Funny actually, the original plan was devised as a 3 year expedition! We were to spend a year in Canada with our friend Meg, working in a bar and just hanging out in Vancouver, like good old times in Darwin where we met and worked and lived together. Then would follow 6 to 12 months in South America, finishing off with a flight to China where we would teach little kids English, how to say dog and cat, that type of stuff.

There are a number of reasons why this didn't pan out.
ONE, CANADA - Meg got pregnant a year before we were due to arrive and therefore had a 3 month old baby when we were there. This puts a right kibosh on the planned year of partying with her. We stayed 2 weeks, when the options are 3 month old babies or backpacking around South America there's not much choice.
Don't take that wrong, Meg has a fabulous little girl, Isabella. The 2 weeks there actually gave me an invaluably insight to babies as it was pretty much 24/7. I don't want my own just yet but I loved that 2 weeks to bits and fell in love with little Bella.  I think Meg really appreciated the help too, so it was good all round. Got hell drunk when the kid was in bed each night though.

TWO, CHINA - Gini was listening to some news or other that was saying something about the Internet being blocked or something because of the communists. Also we had heard lots of stuff about the thousands of unwanted babies pretty much just littering the streets. The whole place sounds pretty sketchy and we decided we didn't want to contribute to their communist ways (or not be able to facebook when we want!) - The decision was made to teach in Chile instead, still 12 months so the trip would be 18 months now, no worries.

THREE, BEING SKINT - So working as a teacher in Chile or pretty much anywhere in South America means that you earn just enough money to get by with nothing left over. Well we came to the realisation, I don't know if it was Gini or me, that living somewhere with no money would be a bit crap, we wouldn't be able to afford to see anything or do anything. And we would have to be working all the time. Well we may as well just go home when the money runs out and get real jobs again that pay a decent wage, right?

Also the flight from Canada to South America went through Mexico and I wanted to eat hot Mexican chilli in Mexico.
That's how the 3 year trip to 3 continents became a 7 month jaunt through Central and South America, because if we were going to Mexico we may as well go overland to South America!

I think I started this post out trying to make you understand the significance of Machu Picchu in this trip. I realise I haven't done that yet and have banged on about lots of other stuff instead but you know in a roundabout way it all gets back on track in the end.

"Whats in South America?" I asked myself. And I swear until even after we were well half way through Central America the only answer I had come up with was "Machu Picchu"