Word Perv

It began when I spied a too-good-to-be-true advertisement for a 6 night trip to Scotland, including airfare, lodging, rental car, and breakfasts, starting at $550 per person.

Long ago I was bit by the travel bug and I’ve never been able to shake it. I always want to see and do more, to explore and travel and see the world. In fact if you click on my To Do In This Lifetime page, my version of a bucket list, it’s listed there, right at the top: See the world!

So there I was, dreaming of Scotland as I rode the metro to work one morning. My mind ran through my list of friends – I knew damn near everyone would want to go on a vacation to Scotland, I just wasn’t sure about those who actually would be able to do so. Finally, my name settled on one name – one of my closest friends, David.

Once in the office I emailed him asking, “Ever been to Scotland? Interested in going?” A bit later I got a reply, “No I have not. And yes; I like scotch and sheep stomach.” And so, with that it was decided: we were taking a trip.

Of course that “too good to be true” deal turned out to be exactly that – I couldn’t find any dates that allowed for a price even remotely close to $550 per person, in fact the only time I was able to find anything the price soared to $2k a person – a bit more than we were looking to spend.

We tossed around other ideas – I have friends who live in Germany that I want to visit and so we considered that, but my expat friends told me “…weather is cold now. June is good, but crowded, Oktoberfest is great if you can make it!” but since we’d just missed it Germany was taken off the table. We threw around other destinations – Australia? Too expensive. African safari? Again, too expensive. Somewhere in South America? Well, maybe, yes.

Turns out, David has a friend from college who recently moved back to Brazil and has settled in San Paulo. After calling him and confirming, yes, we could crash with him, we booked our flight – we were going to Brazil in February!

We picked February because I haven’t been at my job very long so I don’t have a lot of leave banked. Planning the trip a few months in advance let’s me get some leave on the books, plus, there’s a holiday in February I can take advantage of. It was only after we’d booked our flight that we realized we’d be in Brazil during Carnival. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to be in Brazil during Carnival, I simply have to get to Rio de Janero for this madhouse celebration. And if I’m in Brazil, I also have to get to Iguazu, where one of the most amazing waterfalls in the world is. So again David and I started searching and eventually settled on an itinerary: our first night is in San Paulo, then we hop a flight to Rio for two nights of Carnival madness (and I want to see the statue I refer to as the  Big Scary Jesus), then another flight to Iguazu for 2 nights before we fly back to San Paulo for the rest of our stay. Yeah, it’s going to be a crazy time, but we’re looking forward to it.  Even if we got stuck paying an exorbitant amount for our hotel in Rio. Considering it’s located here, I’m hopeful it’ll be worth the hurt I put on my credit card. And even with the flight to Brazil, the flights within Brazil, and the hotel in Rio the cost is still under the $2k that the Scotland trip was running.

So an affordable trip to an exotic location with a good friend – sounds like one helluva good time!