Dork Reports

The way I saw it, I had a pretty small window of opportunity to backpack around South America and return to the States to become a real person again i.e. find a job and a place to live once my parents move to Taiwan. Magdalena told me the best time to visit Chile was probably spring, so in the back of my mind, I thought about going from October to November. But then an opportunity to go to South Africa and Botswana came up in late-September to early October, so off I went for a few weeks. When I came back from Africa, the idea of going to South America still lingered – apparently flying 33 hours to Cape Town was not enough to kill my desire to travel, even when the woman next to me kept spitting loogies into a plastic bag and coughing swine flu into my face.

I looked up plane tickets to Santiago – they were upwards of $1100. I toggled the dates and nothing helped. After traveling exclusively on miles for the past year and one road trip in my gas-saving Prius, the idea of actually paying for a ticket was almost enough to deter me from going. At least for the time being. Then my lifelong friend, Shannon (our moms have been friends since junior high school in Taiwan), sent out an email that basically said, “Yo, I´m going to South America for six months, starting in Rio de Janeiro and ending in Bogota.” Well, if SHANNON is going, then I have to go, was my thinking.

The plane ticket prices hadn´t changed at all, in fact, they were getting higher and higher. After probably annoying Abe and my mom about it I checked my Thank You points and got depressed that even using Expedia through them would cost me more points than I had. Plus, I couldn´t even buy enough extra points to supplement the total, since they cap the amount one can buy each year. Once again, I thought i wasn´t going to make it. Then I plugged in some other potential itineraries and discovered that if I flew to another country first, it would be cheaper than flying into Santiago. On top of that, I had just enough Thank You points to fly into Rio, meaning once again, I was traveling for free. And so, with some hurried emails to Shannon, who was in the middle of a cross-country road trip, I informed her that I was flying into Rio, and she agreed to meet me. Whee!