Hi all!
The departure date for my South America trip is aproaching fast, only 5 more weeks to finish planning. I bought a KLR 650 from a guy on this forum. It's currently stationed at Foz de Iguaçu in the south of Brazil, I'm flying to Sao Paulo so I just have to take a bus there and the adventure begins

It's the first time I'll travel on a motorcycle on my own, not counting France, which was obviously not very challenging, but still great fun. I especially loved the wild camping, of which I hope I'll be able to do a lot in South America. I'm still wondering if I'll bring a stove and cooking pots with me or try to find it there. I'm thinking if I alternate between camping and hostels it doesn't matter if I eat cold food for a day. Although cooking your own meal is a fantastic part of camping. I was thinking about buying a petrol stove but it's a bit above my budget for the moment.

I'm also really looking forward to driving in the Andes. I've got hot weather clothing as standard attire with a lot of thermal clothing layers, thicker gloves and water- and windproof overpants as an addon when temperatures plummet. Hopefully this will be enough. I hope it gets really cold in Belgium just before I leave so I can do a proper cold stresstest.

I bought a one way ticket and I have about 4500 euro to spend. I want to stretch it as long as possible by couchsurfing, working for room and board, and camping of course. Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru are definitely on my list, I hope my money lasts long enough. No sense in racing through the countries, I want to take my time. I'm estimating a budget of a 1000 $ a month if I'm frugal, so this should give me some time to explore in each country.

Apart from neccesary stuff like vaccins, malaria precautions and things like that I'm not planning too much yet. The idea is that I'll see what to do when I get there. Not overplanning is one thing, but I don't want to forget something important either, so if any of you can come up with something I have overlooked, please don't hesitate to remind me

Emiel