Hellooooooo blogland! This is Carrie, one of the three co-conspirators behind La Aventura Project. Since my cronies, Zach and Melissa, are lagging slightly in joining this online escapade (WRITE YOUR BIOS PEOPLE!!!), I decided I’d jump on in and whip up the first blog entry!
So what is this all about?  Well, basically, we are just three friends who need an adventure.  Here’s my side of the story:

The Idea for La Aventura Project

I returned to the US in March 2010 from being a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tanzania.  That was an experience that rocked my world so much, and if anything, made my desire to “settle down and get a grown-up job” even weaker than it had been.  So my boyfriend Zach and I started brainstorming.  We knew we wanted to go somewhere for a long time in order to stay in each stop along the way for weeks and really learn as we travelled.  South America just made sense.  It’s relatively inexpensive to fly there from the US, it would give us the chance to learn Spanish, and there are a plethora of volunteer opportunities.  Not to mention the continent offers remarkable adventures in unexplored wildernesses, urban metropoli, and everywhere in between.  So the destination was set.  Next we asked our friend Melissa if she’d like to join.  She shouted (well, shouted via text message) “hell yes!” without a second thought, as we knew she would.  And our little posse of three was born!
This fall we will each pack a backpack and set off, me with my camera in hand, on our adventure.  We don’t really know what exactly we will do or discover, but we bet it’s going to be exciting.  My hope is not only to create an interesting travel documentary, but to go on a journey where we have new experiences each day, where we can let go of the pressures of American young adulthood, and truly open ourselves to unknown places, cultures, and people.
Although we want our trip to remain mostly unplanned and open-ended, there is still a lot of pre-planning involved in abandoning everything here and taking off on this excursion.  So until we get on that plane in just nine more months, this blog will document our preparation, as well as our expectations, thoughts, fears, and anything else we find interesting!  (And yes, there will be a VIDEO TRAILER coming sometime next month.)  So welcome to the ride!