A belated welcome to the trail

Welcome all.

I have been getting a little ahead of myself and offering events without introducing our group or our journey to you. Here's a primer:

The Heroes of the Story (In no particular order):

Mihal Zada

The writer of this blog. I'm the one who complains about all my injuries like that kid with asthma who tags along but always falls behind. Not much previous hiking experience and a tendency to let a large and rather expensive camera dangle precariously from my neck while climbing rocky ledges.

Aladdine Joroff

Aladdine is the practical one, and also the one with most experience. A small and tough young woman, she's been hiking in Tibet, Nepal, Switzerland and Boston. Among other places. Not your typical young rogue of a hiker, she's a lawyer who got sick of corporate life and opted for adventure instead.

Sam Perry

Sam is the puppy dog of the group. He bounds ahead of us with impatience and wonders when we'll all catch up. His energy wraps up in the evening when he whimpers and whines with all the small injuries that add up to real pain. A native of New Zealand, Sam has hiked in some pretty fascinating places and has a passion for life.

Shem Jamieson

Shem is the stoic one. He silently follows along, video camera in hand, recording what's happening. We don't really know what he's recording. Could be a struggling hiker, could be a plastic bag floating in the wind. Often wandering off on his own between hikes, Shem is a great man and an even greater mystery.

Although some supporting characters will crop up as we go, these four are the ones to follow. When folks who come across us ask where we're from we reply, "New Zealand, Australia, United States and Canada." We've even considered just calling our group The Colonies.

Food

Anything dry is easy to carry. We are eating plenty of nuts, dried fruits and muesli, jerky and oats. But it can get pretty boring to eat dry food so we often buy bags of pita and add our staple:

Skippy peanut butter (with honey!) almost made it into our group name, as all four of us carry a jar, but we soon decided that either the danger of copyright infringement or the silliness of the name itself was inappropriate. Let's say Skippy if our mascot. Not that we haven't had a lot of offers.

I have three minutes left at this cafe. I know you're all dying for photos of our journey and I promise they'll come but now we have to push on. Keep following!