September 15, 2016

Resupply and Scaling Back

We'd been very comfortably living out of our Prius for 2 months.

There was a slight worry in the back of my mind about just how much *stuff* is in storage and how stressful it may be to transition from this life of relative minimalism back to a home-based life with so many *things* at the end of the year.

Turns out, long before I have to confront that demon, I'm going to have to pare my accessible belongings by another 50-65%.

Oooops.  Somehow, I didn't really think about this step in advance.

After spending a ton of money to ship replacement items to E's parents and fill out our rain gear and hiking supplies at REI yesterday,  E and I now have to figure out what exactly is necessary for the next 2 months in South America, and we need to keep it to only those bags we can wear on our body at the same time.

Uneven Gait? Wore through the tread and into the soft bit on my left shoe.

It's not *quite* as demanding as true back-packing, as we won't actually be carrying our own weight for any long stretches (the 7-day hike we are doing in the Andes is pack-assisted by alpaca) and we won't be sleeping outdoors, but, realistically speaking, we still will need to keep the packs at something *close* to backpacking weight -- likely no more than 30 pounds each.

A subset of this needs to fit in the two bags on the left by the hiking poles.
Off to do a couple days of sorting, packing, and rearranging.

Update:  additional details as requested -- we fly to Lima, acclimatize to altitude for a few days, hike the Salkantay trail to Machu Pichu, and then, in mid-November we fly back to the US from Santiago, Chile.  In the middle of those two stops, we have an idea of what we'd like to do, but it's all still quite rough.  We're currently hoping to hit up Ecuador (Galapagos), Panama, Columbia (Cartagena, maybe Medellin and Bogota), Bolivia, Argentina (northern portion only), and Chile.  I'd be shocked if we executed exactly on that plan.  If there's one thing we learned from the road trip, it's that things will be unexpectedly hard at times (enough to cause you to change the plan) and along the way you will learn of other wonderful things worth modifying the plan to experience.

4 comments:

Arvay said...

Alpaca bag for you!

So cool!

Angela Knotts said...

Where are you going in S. America & what are you doing, MOAR DETAILS PLZTHNX!!!

Jen said...

Have so much fun! I hope you still post from S.A. - I want to live vicariously through you!

bt said...

@All -- Thanks for the well wishes! I'm hoping to keep up the daily photos at http://instagram.com/10nolan but they may be delayed and bursty due to wi-fi access. Same thing for blogging. I'll try to do a weekly wrap up, but posting will likely be subject to wi-fi availability.