Logistics

So excluding airfare to and from the north, i've set aside roughly R$7000 for the trip (according to my most recent calculations); somewhere between US$3k-4k, toward the lower end of the spectrum.

given that i'm going to be travelling during the high season, new years in a party town, and carnival at a party, the question is of course: will dave's money last?

i might end up finding that i need to pick up a job on the road. if i'm lucky, maybe i'll run into some rich tourists going somwehre cool and i could offer up my services as a guide/translator. with my superior local guidebooks and language proficiency i could totally pull it off. i heard about a friend of a friend who lives in europe doing nothing but getting free rides to travel to the coolest area of brazil as a guide. so he also gets to travel europe.

hopefully it won't come to any of that. I think the money is going to last, according to calculations i've made and people i've talked to. i'm going to pad-crash as much as possible through my mom's and my own connections (including couchsurfing.com). the parties are certainly going to hurt a bit though.

still, tonight my uncle had a sit-down with me and told me he was worried about how i was handling myself with respect to the trip. it felt like an intervention. he was really addressing how i've been putting shit off lately more than anything, but he used that as a platform to tell me that he felt the trip would cost more than i'd thought. my most recent calculation turned out to be more than i'd estimated for him and airfare is looking like less than he'd predicted, so all's well so far. still, he did spook me a little.

i'm a versatile kid. i've traveled a ton in my life, solo too. everything always wokrs out. this trip isn't going to be any different.

i might have to fast for a week or two towards the end though.