Oct 03, 2010 11:36
it's slightly alarming to think that i've spent nearly £4k on this trip before i've even started it. but i suppose it makes sense, given that many of the things we'll be doing have to be booked/sorted in advance, such as the inca trail, being stabbed repeatedly akin to a pin-cushion, and PILLS (for malaria). it's nevertheless still daunting to know that by far the most money i've ever saved will be spent in one fell (albeit decidedly enjoyable) swoop. sort of like a condor snatching a pile of erstwhile protected eggs from an online account.
i have appointed orwell's '1984' as my further-reading material for the first leg. i had bought a book on fidel and che (called 'fidel and che'), which i would have enjoyed reading up to and during my time in cuba, but decided that trying to take such an item through US customs may be deemed inappropriate/illegal. i did call the US embassy to enquire as to whether i was being paranoid about this, but i took their unnavigable, labyrinthine phone menu as a coded message for 'yes, that would be inappropriate, english'. also, the book was too big for my bag.
sally and i have been combining our brains to conceive some ideas for our workshops in guatemala. we're hoping we can perform some pieces for both tap (-dance) and djembe, and with this in mind, we've come up with an idea based on the rhythms, motions and general sounds of a train and its environs. to be continued.
my spanish has come along in leaps, bounds, sudden pauses, a full dismount, followed by an undignified, half-hearted crawl. i can, however, conjugate all regular verbs in the present indicative, and i can inform you as to the whereabouts of the spoon in relation to that of the dirty dog or the purple cat. i don't foresee the latter coming up much on my travels, but then i did say that about new zealand too.