In 2004, we traveled to South America and visited Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Easter Island (which is technically part of Chile, but a world unto itself). It was one of the best trips we've taken as a family. Alexander was three and a half, out of the "terrible twos" and growing up to be quite the little man.
We took this trip before I started blogging, so I haven't written about it yet, and I wanted to record it for anyone interested in traveling there, and to relive a great experience for us. Like our Northern Adventure, I have notes and journals from the trip, and about 1,000 pictures to share. Since I gave up scrapbooking a while ago, this is the closest we'll come to having a complete record of our trip south.
We started planning the trip in 2003, when Frank and I decided that it was finally time to live out our mutual life-long dream of seeing the ancient Moai (stone heads) of Easter Island. That would have been enough for me, but Frank thought that it would be a good opportunity to see Iguazu Falls, since it was "in the neighborhood."
Part of my fascination with Easter Island came from a TV show I watched in the 1970's called "In Search of..." with Leonard Nimoy as the narrator. The show would go off in search of answers to ancient mysteries, and the episode on the people of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) left me particularly enthralled. How were these ancient statues built? What caused the demise of the Rapa Nui culture? Was it war? Or perhaps Visitors From Beyond? Space aliens always seemed to be a plausible explanation for the unexplained, according to this show.
Both Frank and I had also read Thor Heyerdahl's books Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft
Frank wanted to visit Iguazu Falls he had some grad school friends from Brazil who raved about the beauty of the falls. To be honest, I'd never heard of Iguazu Falls until he mentioned it, and maybe saw the falls on an episode of Amazing Race. It sounded like a nice place for a vacation, and hey, if we were in the neighborhood, why not?
Frank failed to mention at first that Iguazu Falls is about 4,000 miles from Easter Island, and that it would be like my cousins from Korea visiting New York and calling to say they were "in the neighborhood" of California and wanted to drop by. Before the trip, I started to get cold feet about the itinerary, worrying that we would miss a connection (or two or three) and be stuck in Argentina without ever making it to Easter Island. Frank reassured me, and was crestfallen that I would even consider not going to Iguazu. Eventually, I became comfortable with the plan, and decided to let the chips fall where they may.
This is a fairly common pattern with us; I worry ahead of time, and wonder if we're doing the right thing. If there is a crisis, however, I'm pretty calm and manage well under pressure. Frank and I are opposite in our travel styles in that way. He throws himself into an idea, carefully plans out the details, and expects that it all will go as planned. I worry and fret, but once we're underway, I let it all go and can handle whatever emergency comes up. I think that's probably why we travel well together.
After all the fretting and worrying and planning, we took of on our Southern Hemisphere Adventure in January, 2004, three year old and multiple red pieces of luggage in tow, for a whirlwind tour of South America. Though we covered thousands of miles on this trip, we only scratched the surface of countries we visited. Over the next week or so, I'll share my memories of this trip here.
We haven't made it back since then, but hope that in the future, we'll return. If we do, these fellows will hopefully be waiting for us.
