And so it begins...

In just under two weeks, I will be winging my way across the Atlantic Ocean to embark upon my very own South American adventure. This is a big part of the reason why I quit my job and left London in July. Ah, back then, the skies were blue, the leaves on the trees were green and the sunlight warmed everything it touched. That is, everything, apart from my soul, which was rapidly withering and dying inside. Turns out pharmaceutical marketing does not fulfil me in, well, any way.

Since then I have been trying to regain that which I have lost... such as the will to live; the awareness that there is more to life than slaving away for The Man (What man, who's the man, when's a man a man, why's it so hard to be a man...) and slogging your guts out, day upon endless day, doing something you see no value or interest in, which eats up all your time and energy and self-esteem with the appetite of a tapeworm-infested, Prader-Willi-syndromed parasite, and which suffocates any intellectual or creative impulses until they are purpley blue in the face and moments away from utter annihilation.

And what better way to do that than touring round Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil? I figure, if I want some joie de vivre, then South America is probably a good place to start looking. Already my soul is salivating at the sights, sounds and smells that await me. Sultry tango, milongas in the street, steaks as big as my head, dancing all through the night, grooving and swaying to bossa nova and samba rhythms, crisp cool cervezas, and caipirinhas on the beach... And think of all the photos I can take! I am so excited. Caps-lock levels of excited. Maybe even caps-lock-and-exclamation-points levels of excited. ---> EEH!!! See?

I have no intention of being one of those perennially unemployed, waccy-baccy-smoking layabouts who travels round the world in my flip flops with suspect-looking dreadlocks and a slightly foosty aftersmell (shudder). But goddammit, I've worked hard, and I've earned enough to actually do something I want to do for a bit, until I can figure what exactly that oh-so-elusive Thing is which will allow me to live comfortably and which doesn't scoop out all the goodness inside and leave me a cold, numb, dead-eyed husk. I don't want to be a husk!

To that end, in what I shall call Stage 1 of Operation: Don't Wanna Be No Husk Nomore (catchy eh? :P), I'll be away for about 4 weeks. I'll be doing a small group tour with a bunch of like-minded, hopefully lovely 18-30 yr olds, travelling from Buenos Aires to Rio via the mighty Iguassu Falls:

This'll be sandwiched by 5 days on either side in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro, which should allow me plenty of time to eat those steaks and drink that cachaca!!

I need to get myself sorted though cos two weeks is not a long time at all... (EEH!!!)