"Why the hell Latin America?"

"Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey." – Pat Conroy

It was the end of January 2010 when the plane landed in the freezing cold Irkutsk taking me away from my blistering hot 2-month-long South East Asian adventure. And since then, just like Pat said, my mind could never break off from the journey.

The dream of 'Cruzando las Americas por la Tierra' has been sitting deep inside in my little head for such a long time. Since probably I stepped for the first time back in 2008 on the great land of Estados Unidos and got to hear alive, for the first time also, this mellifluous language called Español. After returning back to Mother Russia I studied Spanish for a good 6 months and was overwhelmed by the fact that I could actually speak it. But sadly the children' rhyme about Abuela y su Camello is all I can remember now by heart. The rest is buried somewhere deep inside the left hemisphere of my brain. So that's one of the answers to a "Why Latin America?". I want to speak Spanish, not to translate it from English/Russian, but talk in it.

Have you seen pictures of a flat-top mountain Roraima in Venezuela? Or sand dunes of Lençóis Maranhenses National Park in Brazil? Or el Perito Moreno glacier in Los Glaciares National Park in Argentina? Or clouds reflected in the Salar de Uyuni lake in Bolivia? Or sunrise in Torres del Paine National Park in Chile? Of trails around Huayhuash mountains in Peru? Or trekking to Ciudad Perdida in Colombia? Not to mention Amazon jungle with its wildlife and many other breath-taking natural wonders that are out there waiting for you?! That's another answer to a "Why?" question.

Indigenous cultural diversity of Latin American population with many ethnic groups… that just says everything for itself. I want to be among those people and to see their lives. Yet another reason.

I’m not doing this trip just because I want to travel somewhere. Here it's specifically my willing to explore [and preferably conquer] the Latin American continent.

PS: oh who am I kidding?!…The one and only reason is THIS.