The kickoff

There were years and years to get our first vacations. This is a common problem that must be faced by a couple that works in different places with different policy. Fortunately we could arrange ourselves and schedule our 30 day vacations to January 29, 2011. However the main thing was up to come and it was a huge dilemma: Where to go?

There are a lot of places to visit around the world and we would have time for it. However, international trips, as the one we would like to have, usually are so expensive and so we had to find a solution with a great cost/benefit. Our first choice would be a traditional backpacking through Europe, but the season (winter there) and the cash transactions in Euro gave us food for thought and soon we decided to forget about the “Old Continent”. My wife Emanuella always wanted to try a wild vacation, but I was afraid of that idea because is something very different from our lifestyle, nevertheless I decided to look for locations which could offer that kind of attraction. Then we figured out that many of the most beautiful places in the world were there, so close to Brazil. So it was how we decided to have a trip in South America.

After a bunch of researches just two options remained: 1. Atacama Desert, “Salar de Uyuni” and Machu Pichu:

Machu Pichu, Salar de Uyuni and Atacama

or 2. Andes Lakes with Chilean and Argentinean Patagonia:

Patagonia

It was not easy decide, both paths were captivating and inspiring, but the Patagonia pictures and landscapes seduced us so much that we could not resist to them. Then me and Emanuella left the fears behind and decided to put the backpack on the back and go to an adventure full of expectations straight to Patagonia.

We didn’t realize how much effort this choice would demand from us. We spent around 5 months reading forums, blogs and magazines, searching through the internet, researching maps of Chile and Argentina, looking for the best locations, tracking viable routes, choosing the best way for transportation from a place to another, lodgings, excursions and the cost of each stuff related to the trip in order to have our itinerary complete, with all the dates and time scheduled. We wanted all planned, with no gaps which could harm the rest of the trip. For all of this we recommend everybody that come to plan a big vacation in the backpacker stile, to do it with priority, because there are many points to take into account and an incomplete planning could ruin your itinerary, bringing stress and also making you lose money, since there is a great chance to spend much more than the expected.