South America - The genesis for the Year Full of Saturdays

South America - where it began

SAnguine repose

'Well, I learned a lot...I went down to Latin America to find out from them and (learn) their views. You'd be surprised. They're all individual countries'

Ronald Reagan (40th American President)

The South American dream? Where did this decision come from and why am I breaking with my Lao story? Well, I just want to get it down at this point in time so I can remember where and why I pulled the trigger on a potentially life changing experience. So here goes...

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A few weeks ago now I was sitting outside the UTS library with a friend of mine from work who’s also studying law, albeit through another university. Also, when I say friend please read (girl that I tried to asking out but who in turn graciously shot me down),it’s cool, don’t cry for me, there’s meaning and purpose everywhere in this world, you just need to look hard enough. Anyway, we're chatting away she commences telling me about her escape plan for next year and how she intends on leaving work in order to travel though the Middle East for 3-4 months. Great idea obviously, and then comes the weird request of;
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‘You should travel with me if you’re going to be in Spain, we’ll run amok, it’ll be fantastic’

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and my head has switched to high alert with the internal monologue going something like ‘You realise that you turned me down two weeks ago and now you're asking me if I'd like to go travelling with you? That’s stylishly weird lady, but OK, interesting concept’.
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In any case after the conversation I walked away into the night, giving it slight thought but not much more than that, until IT happened.I started to ask myself questions that I'd never before seriously contemplated. Why couldn't I take three months off? In fact, why couldn't I take 6-9 months off? Where are the stop signs in my life right at this point? So what if I postpone the completion of my law degree by six months and I ditch work in order to do something that I have always wanted to do!

Now I have a subtle mental shift as the questions come at me thick and fact, I then ask myself, ‘if I had six months where would I actually like to go?’, and the obvious answer to me, the place that had captured my imagination ever since that atlas table had made its way into my room for the purposes of study had been the mysterious continent of South America. Once the idea crystallised and I mentally challenged all those elements that were suppose to barriers to me achieving ,(living the dream), is when I realised that they were  all just excuses and were no real barriers at all.

Aside from these logical components however I can’t find any more reasoning to pin my thought processes on, well other than the fact that for me, right at this moment, the decision feels right and I guess more than anything else, more so than any other time in my life, I’m being a little selfish and allowing myself to act upon that. Something of an anomaly for me but its simply that feeling that has allowed me to make up my mind in such an unequivocal fashion.
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So, how’s this going to logically work out then? Well, I’ve had Spain & Morocco on my agenda ever since the South African World Cup deal fell through. I guess after copious amounts of sangria and dodging mobile phone thieves to commence this trip during July 2010 I’ll pull up in Belgrade for 4-6 weeks in order to spend time with my family before moving on and setting my sights and bearings south-west, after that, I don’t really know, or really want to plan for actually. I have ideas of where I might go and what I’d like to learn whilst I’m away but this is no Contiki tour and if the wind blows in a certain direction then I might just follow. So for now, I have one eye on the countdown lock for July 2010 and I’ll be pushing for a redundancy at work to back me up. As for the 6-9 months? Well, I really have no schedule or deadline for completion, it could very well be less but it could also be longer than that, we’ll qualify that result on the other side of... here.