The Journey Begins

After three short weeks of planning, Dan and I are now only 30 minutes away from landing in Rio. The preparation up to this point was time-consuming, but not terrible. It involved: getting a visa for Brazil, creating (albeit loosely) an itinerary, gathering paperwork together, and, of course, packing.

Dan and I decided early on that if we were going to "backpack" through South America, we were going to do it properly. That meant I needed to condense my belongings into a shoulders-worth of weight. By my family's standards, one extra large suitcase for one week of travel, and two giant duffles for two months of camp is normal. Luckily for me, overpacking is a learned, rather than innate, trait. Therefore,  whittling my possessions down to one large backpack was not as impossible as I had initially imagined.

All-in-all, I was pretty proud of my packing job: 

Just to give a sense of quantity, I have about 12 tops, 10 bottoms, undergarments, a toiletry bag, 4 pairs of shoes, and some other odds and ends. A blow dryer did not make the packing list (although I kind of cheated by getting the keratin treatment a few days before we left). I was shocked to see that I had a little space left over after I finished packing, so naturally I threw in a couple of extra tops for good measure. I'm sure it will only be a matter of time before I discover what I left out, but for now I will just enjoy the ride...