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The Final Countdown - Flights Are Booked!

Here we go!  This is the first blog post of many to come, documenting the trip of my friend Russ and I to South America.  After many months of planning, saving, and speculating, we've finally committed to a departure date, first destination, and booked the flights.  

After hearing from our friend Alaina, who recently returned from a 6 month trip through Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia, we settled on Colombia as our first country, and Cartagena (by way of Bogota) as our  first destination.  

A few reasons for this: 

• Cartagena sits on the southern coast of the Carribean.  It is beautiful, historic, and more of a vacation spot than most of the other places we will visit.  We figured it would be easier to adapt to the new challenges of language and culture while sitting on an epic beach.
• Cheap flights.  We were able to book a flight on Southwest from Portland to Orlando for $99, and a flight on JetBlue from Orlando to Bogota for $99.  Total with tax: $242.30.
• Colombia is a great place to travel right now.  It isn't overrun with tourists, it is a friendly and exciting country, and particularly in Cartagena, we've heard that there are more English speakers, which will make our transition to Spanish less stressful.

We'll be leaving Portland on April 7th, staying overnight in Orlando,

 and then arriving in Bogota at 8:45pm on April 8th.  We would have preferred to arrive in the daylight, but JetBlue only has one flight a day from Orlando, so we didn't have a choice.

Now it is on to the final preparations:  getting shots, choosing what to pack, cramming on our Spanish skills using Rosetta Stone, and trying to save as much money for the next month as possible to bolster our savings.

Stay tuned as we get ready for the trip, and once away, for updates on our experiences with photos... 

We'll be here in a little over a month...