Houston, we have an itinerary.

Those of you who may have cruelly suggested that there was not much news in my previous post are going to get a bit of a shock - we actually seem to have an itinerary!

So, without further ado, here are our plans for the next three months...

26th & 27th May - the shipping firm come over, pack up all our worldly goods (except a backpack's worth each) and send them on their merry way to NZ

28th/29th May - we head down to Kent to be unemployed and homeless with Sarah's mum & John, the dogs, cats, chickens, ducks & geese.

5th June - Fly to Rio de Janeiro & spend 5 days sipping caipirinhas at Copacabana & Ipanema beaches.

10th June - 22 hour bus trip to the Iguacu Falls on the border of Brazil, Argentina & Paraguay, then two days admiring the flora & fauna (and avoiding the mozzies).

13th June - 19 hour bus trip to Buenos Aires for 5 days of stuffing ourselves with the world's finest steak and tango lessons, which should be interesting seeing as Sarah can't even handle an aerobics class.

18th June - Fly to Santiago, a stone's throw from Chile's main winegrowing region, to spend 2 days sampling the local grape.

20th June - Fly to La Paz on the east of Lake Titicaca (stop sniggering at the back), the world's highest capital city, for a head-spinning couple of days coming to terms with the altitude.

22nd June - 17 hour bus trip to Cusco (there is a slightly quicker bus, but it sounded scary in the guide book). Then 7 days in Cusco enjoying the Inti Raymi festival of the sun (winter solstice) on the 24th and psyching ourselves up for our trek along the Inca Trail.

30th June - the start of our 4 day of knee-crunching trek to Macchu Picchu. Jo did suggest catching the train, but I thought it would be much more fun to walk it. Like I thought doing the marathon would be okay. Sensibly we have already booked a room for the night of our return to Cusco.

4th July - 30 hour bus trip to Lima (oh what fun) & 48 hours of mooching about. All I know about Lima is that it's dusty.

6th July - Fly to Quito, where we were hoping to get a cut price Galapagos trip, but it looks as if it might be a bit beyond our budget. So it'll be a few days of exploring the UNESCO listed colonial old town. You can take the girl out the heritage industry, but you...

8th July - fly back to Lima for an overnight stop en route to Mexico City.

9th July - arrive in Mexico City in time to celebrate Sarah's 35th birthday with a couple of margaritas. How cool is that? Might even check out a few Mayan ruins. Also, will probably regain any weight lost during the trek by eating as many burritos as possible.

13th July - fly to New Orleans for 4 days of jazz, cajun food & cocktails. Altogether now, "Jambalaya, crawfish pie, billie gumbo...". Pray god that we find a place to stay with decent air conditioning, 'cos it going to be sweaty.

16th July - fly to Los Angeles, do a tour of the stars houses, and start our great bus tour of west coast USA. Our Greyhound bus passes should take us to Las Vegas, San Francisco, up the coast to Portland (Ms Thompson's futon, micro-breweries & karaoke), Seattle and Vancouver.

1st August - decamp to Jo's cousins' place in West Vancouver for a week of fresh mountain air and family living. And a trip to Costco for bargain bulk shopping (Sarah recommends their socks).

7th August - Fly to LA, via Dallas, and catch a flight to Auckland. Scarily, this will take as long as flying to Auckland from London. Worse, American Airlines make you pay for your food on board! By the time we get on the Qantas flight we'll be starving, tired and very smelly. Nice.

9th August - fly from Auckland to Wellington. Allegedly we have a 7 hour gap between flights, but hopefully we'll look so awful (or smell so bad) the airline staff will take pity upon us and let us onto an earlier flight.

Arrive in Wellington with 2 days to recover before Jo's mum's birthday!

We do have a return leg trip booked, but we'll save that info until we have an idea when Ali & Sini are getting married.

laters gators...

Now, before you get too excited for us, we do have to have this confirmed and, fingers crossed, we will be paying for our tickets etc on Monday. But, confident as we are, we have had our hepatitus jabs, got our malaria tablets, booked yellow fever jabs and have realised we might have to stop eating chips & ice cream and get in some kind of shape for our trekking adventures.