The Idea

I've never been big on reading. Occasionally I read non-fiction like biographies, preachy political books, and Harry Potter. To entertain myself on a long flight from BNE to LAX, I browsed the excellent airport bookstore to select a book that fulfilled three criteria: it was to be non-fiction, thick, and popular or award-winning. I found Wild Swans: Three Daughters Of China by Jung Chang. Suddenly, I was interested in Chinese history. I read about The Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao, and bid on eBay for Mao badges and Little Red Books.

Years later, I followed Wendy Wu Tours through parts of China and returned with a growing curiosity about communism, socialism and marxism. I let my newfound interest slip to a colleague who seemed to latch onto me as a rare opportunity to discuss socialism, Chomsky, The Washington Consensus, US politics, and capitalism. He lent me a few Noam Chomsky books, which led to more books about the US government, the CIA, Cuba, Che Guevara and Hugo Chavez. I was obsessed!

Meanwhile, another colleague and friend, Julie, was on a 100-day tour of South East Asia. When she returned, she started thinking about her next adventure and mentioned South America. I was on board, and the idea to travel in Latin America for a year and blog about it was born...