Malena loves candy. And travel. And both together. And thus, this site was born.
I leave in fifteen hours or so for South America. I’m not ready.
I don’t just mean that I haven’t packed yet, or that I’m nervous my bike won’t make it there in one piece, or that I suspect I don’t have the bank account to actually pay for 8 months of biking - although all that is true also!
I’m scared. Scared that I’ll miss my family and friends, scared that I can’t handle it in South America, scared that the biking will be too hard, the mountains too high, the weather too cold. My stomach is churning and I can’t sleep and I have a million things to do still.
You would think by this point I’d be old-hat, used to it. I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal. I think it’s the newness: the camping I’ll need to do; the long distances without towns or villages; the remote roads of South America - quite a different story than the bustling towns and friendly farmers of Vietnam or Cambodia!
Of course, I do have one thing to look forward to (besides, like, the going to Buenos Aires and traveling for eight months thing) - I’ll be flying first class! Hooray frequent flier miles!
Once I’m on the plane, blissed out in first class, relaxing… once I’ve landed, once I’ve biked a day, I’ll be in a routine and the nerves will go away. I’ll know I can do it, or at least try. But right now, all I can think about is all the reasons I shouldn’t go - all the things that could go wrong.
I suppose this is the hard part of traveling!
by 
So, the last year and a half have been one hell of an adventure. I wasn’t ready to stop just yet, so I decided to extend my trip and carry on biking, this time in South America. I’ve spent the last few months here in Louisiana with my family, relaxing, hanging out in New Orleans, traveling to visit relatives, and preparing for my next trip. One thing I’ve been thinking about a lot has been this blog, and what I want to do with it. I didn’t write in it nearly as much as I’d hoped - I want to write more in South America. To facilitate that, I’ll be treating things a little differently. First of all, entries will be shorter and more temporal - what I did that day or week, what I think of the candy, what my plans for the next week are. I’ll continue to write about sweets, of course!
I also have a second blog that focuses on my experiences as a biker. This is largely to tap into the biking community and make some of my route information available to other cyclists who are considering a similar trip. This blog is hosted on crazyguyonabike.com and you can visit it here. The setup isn’t as nice as mine, sadly! Still, if you’ve enjoyed this blog, I’d recommend adding that as well as the stories will likely be slightly different.
I leave for South America October 22nd. Before then, I have a lot more planning to do, some of which I’ll share with everyone here.
(For anyone wondering, the picture was taken on the beaches of Goa, India.)