I think posting stuff here is addictive...

I need to go to bed. But I will just observe that I'm sure the later parts of the trip, in relatively populous and not quite so 'touristy and with limited facilities' places, will require less intricate planning. I expect to be able to book a hotel in the average medium-sized town a few days beforehand, and if I can't get a room anywhere, I guess I'll just go somewhere else in the first place.

More flights booked

Amazingly enough, the Trailfinders in Canary Wharf is open on Sundays. I just went over and booked some more flights. I plan to book a few more 'privately', but I now have a connected itinerary and in principle could make the trip without buying another flight.

The dates are flexible except for Sao Paolo to Santiago, subject to 'local fees', which I suspect to be a rip-off, but fingers crossed I won't need to change them. The places and dates are pretty much what my last plan had them as; I will probably make an insanely detailed post later on, as much for my own reference as anything.

It's all e-tickets so I don't need to worry too much about losing them. Rab - why didn't you advise me about this earlier? :-)

Flights

I called Trailfinders, although not over a beer.

It seems you can get tickets which are flexible on dates but not on location. So I can get a ticket which says I will fly from A to B to C to A and change the dates on which I fly, but I can't change to fly from A to C to D to A. (You can get round the world tickets which allow that kind of thing, but the guy didn't think they would be appropriate for my trip.)

They said it's a good idea to have a flight out of a country booked when entering the country. This includes the case where, for example, I have a return ticket from the UK to Chile and have bought an additional single ticket to go from Chile to Argentina. The fact that I have a return from Chile to the UK won't necessarily convince Argentinian immigration that I intend to return to the UK - I 'need' a ticket out of Argentina to show them. (I picked those countries arbitrarily. I have no idea how strict they really are in Argentina.)

They said the next step would be to go into one of their shops with a rough itinerary in mind and have a chat with them. I am inclined to get a circular ticket with flexible dates for just a few key stops and then buy additional flights while I'm away if I have the time or inclination to visit anywhere else. I definitely need to put in some time with the guidebooks and brush up on my geography this weekend.

Vague plans

While I am still waiting to arrange another survey by a second removal company and I haven't yet visited Trailfinders to see what they can do for me in terms of flexible flights, my plans are forming a little more in my head.

I had been thinking of Chile as my primary, or at least initial, destination. My Spanish teacher has advised me, among other things, that a flight to Chile will be insanely long and that if I'm planning on visiting a few countries in Latin America during my trip, I should maybe stop off somewhere else first.

I've had the idea of visiting Oaxaca in southern Mexico in mind for a few years anyway. So I am quite tempted to fly into Mexico City, spend a few days there being mugged at gunpoint or short-term kidnapped, then go out to Oaxaca for a month (there's at least one Spanish school chain I've studied with before out there, although I don't know if they'll be able to offer the accommodation I want) and then go on to Chile from there.

The timing seems good. It will be mid-winter in Oaxaca if I follow this plan, so I'd hope it won't be insanely hot and the spiders will be relatively dormant. Then after a month there it will still be late summer in the southern hemisphere so I can enjoy a pleasant climate in southern Chile (I hope to visit Tierra del Fuego, for a start). Then after a bit of travel around Chile, it should be getting on for Southern hemisphere autumn and I can visit Buenos Aires when it isn't too insanely hot there. (Another recommendation from my Spanish teacher, both in terms of having a good time and weather - he says it gets up to 40C in summer, i.e. January.)

I'm sure none of these plans will be realised, life being what it is, but that's how I'm seeing things right now.