Now we wait

Dustin Welch                              Porter Jenkins                          Justin Ashby                             Derek Sloan   
THE TEAM

We finally got together today to go over plans and discuss where we're going, when and how. Lets just say its lots of buses, taxis, hiking and couch surfing. I (Justin) just got off the phone with El Templo Mormón in Bogotá, Colombia, which is the 5th temple built in South America for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We have 4 beds booked at the hostel for the night of May 2nd and will attend a session that next morning. It was refreshing talking to whoever it was that answered the phone, I could tell he was ready to speak english if I needed him to, but I held my own and we got the reservation all taken care of. It turned out that we served a mission for the church in the same place, Uruguay, and so we got to chat a little bit about the mission and I honestly can't wait to meet him in person. 

We have just under two weeks left 'til we take off on our adventure. We hope everyone will enjoy following us all through South America. To put everything into perspective, I mentioned that I had booked a room for when we get to Columbia, that is the first and only room we have booked for our entire stay so far. My mom always told me to "just go with the flow," she's probably biting her tongue right now just thinking about how trip. However, this is not a rebellious trek, we each have our parents' blessings as they await each check-in to make sure we are alright.

Bus rides will be our main place for sleeping, but occasionally a hostel here or there, and maybe some college kid's couch who's trying to learn english. The journey will be more than half the adventure and we can't wait to see what is in store. Our estimate is at least 5,000 miles over 40 days... not including flights back and forth from the United States. 

Although we are only taking backpacks and carrying everything, we simply had to bring some nice cameras to take video and pictures to help document everything we run into. Hopefully our amateur skills won't hold us back, but we hope anyone reading or watching can feel a little taste of adventure and remember that there really is...El Mundo Más Allá (The World Beyond) 

-Justin Ashby