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In El Salvador I had been both surprised and impressed with the excellent network of roads and I found the Nicaraguan roads to be nearly as good (especially the Pan-Pacific highway but even in the capitol and beyond). I had also been surprised to find Salvadorans to be so very friendly and much more educated that I would have expected. Although by no means ultra-modern San Salvador felt much more developed and European than many other Latin American cities and there was an underlying sophistication in the place that I found quite interesting.

Realizing that I will have 12 days off over the Holiday breeak I had started to consider interesting destinations that were within a 5 or 6 hour flight. For a while now I had decided to make Costa Rica my destination since I had not been there before and since I have heard from countless people what a wonderful and beuatiful country it is. Starting a month or so before I started to price flights and was of course shocked into reality at the far extreme price gouging by the airlines for this destination. I was further humbled when I learned that all the frequent flier tickets for the dates I was considering were sold out. In the past I have had luck scoring last minute fares at the holidays and even last minute frequent flier flights so I kept my hopes up at finding something closer to the actual date. I continued to monitor the fares and did not see any improvement up to the start of the week before my planned departure. That week I was gone on a business trip to London, Ontario (2 hours from Toronto) and managed to come down with a serious knock-down flu that had me in bed for 3 days over the weekend. I considered buying some of the better fares I noticed at that time but held off to ensure I would be over my debilitiating sickness by then.

With a mere 12 days of vacation per year now (American companies are so ruthless), I have to save my balance through multiple years to earn a longer trip and so I have already begun to think of an extended vacation in 2008. Recently I thought I would do some research on African travel so I have a target trip to strive for and during that research I came across a brochure for an African adventure travel agnecy that had been recommended by STA Travel. Browsing the photos and reading about the company I became eager to learn more and the brochure led me to their website where I came across this amazing 6 week adventure trip overland from South Africa to Kenya/Uganda.

I have been wanting to travel to Africa for some time, but have been deterred a few times since a trip there requires quite a bit more time for research and planning (including prearranged visa requirements for several of the countries I would like to visit). After finding this trip for the first time I have a good sense for places to visit and a timeline

I hit another new milestone this week since I finally had some of my travel photos licensed and published. That is exciting for me since I would eventually like to find a way to license addition photo and travel journal content (I sometimes fantasize that I could some day afford to continuously travel, take photos and write, living off the proceeds of the content I generate).

In this case I was approached back in March of this year by my friend Andy Davidson who owns a history book publishing company in Chicago. They were editing and publishing a new 2-volume series on world history and ancient civilizations and were seeking photos to use on the cover and as chapter illustrations.