The Lost Girls: Three Friends. Four Continents. One Unconventional Detour Around the World.: Three Friends. Four Continents. One Unconventional Detour ... of Quarter-Life Crisis and Self-Discovery - Softcover

Baggett, Jennifer

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0061689076 ISBN 13: 9780061689079

Verlag: Harper Perennial, 2011

Inhaltsangabe

With their thirtieth birthdays looming, Jen, Holly, and Amanda are feeling the pressure to hit certain milestones—score the big promotion, find a soul mate, have 2.2 kids. Instead, they make a pact to quit their jobs, leave behind everything familiar, and embark on a yearlong round-the-world search for inspiration and direction.

Traveling 60,000 miles across four continents, Jen, Holly, and Amanda push themselves far outside their comfort zones to embrace every adventure. Ultimately, theirs is a story of true friendship—a bond forged by sharing beds and backpacks, enduring exotic illnesses, trekking across mountains, and standing by one another through heartaches, whirlwind romances, and everything in the world in between.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Jennifer Baggett serves as a project manager at the Food Network and is collaborating with Holly and Amanda on a second book. After holding editorial positions at Self and Woman's Day.

Holly C. Corbett now works as a freelance writer and college professor.

Amanda Pressner is a travel and lifestyle journalist who has contributed to such publications as USA Today and Cosmopolitan and Shape magazines.

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With their thirtieth birthdays looming, Jen, Holly, and Amanda are feeling the pressure to hit certain milestones—score the big promotion, find a soul mate, have 2.2 kids. Instead, they make a pact to quit their jobs, leave behind everything familiar, and embark on a yearlong round-the-world search for inspiration and direction.

Traveling 60,000 miles across four continents, Jen, Holly, and Amanda push themselves far outside their comfort zones to embrace every adventure. Ultimately, theirs is a story of true friendship—a bond forged by sharing beds and backpacks, enduring exotic illnesses, trekking across mountains, and standing by one another through heartaches, whirlwind romances, and everything in the world in between.

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The Lost Girls

Three Friends, Four Continents, One Detour Around the WorldBy Jennifer Baggett, Holly C. Corbett, Amanda Pressner

Harper Paperbacks

Copyright © 2011 Jennifer Baggett, Holly C. Corbett, Amanda Pressner
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-06-168907-9

Chapter One

We were surrounded on all sides by an immense curtain
of white water. The cascades heaved over a sheer cliff,
carving jade green pools in the jungle floor of Iguazú National
Park, and drowned out every sound save one: the pounding of
our hiking boots as they tore across the metal viewing platform
at the base of the falls.
Holly, our resident sprinter, led the charge toward the exit,
with Amanda and me sliding right after her. As updrafts of mist
swirled around our feet, we skidded across the final footbridge
and shot up a steep staircase, our labored breathing and laughter
echoing against the basalt rock walls. Slowing slightly to wipe
the spray from my face, I glanced down at my watch. We had
less than ten minutes to make it to the top, or we might be
stranded in Brazil all night.
According to the ranger (who?d raced over seconds earlier to
see why on earth the three crazy American girls were still casually
snapping photos when the park was about to close), there
was only one more shuttle bus leaving that evening. So unless
we?d brought camping gear or a wad of extra cash to bribe the
Brazilian border officials, we?d better be on it. Sure, it would?ve
been helpful if our taxi driver had mentioned the one hour
time difference between the Argentinean and Brazilian sides of
Iguazú (or Iguaçu) when he semi-illegally transported us across
the border, but hey, where?s the fun in that?
We probably should have taken this impending travel
disaster a little more seriously. But considering that we?d all but
signed over our firstborn kids to our bosses in order to take this
little adventure in the first place, we weren?t going to let a little
thing like a potential immigration scandal bring us down.
In fact, our escape from New York City a week earlier had
felt like nothing short of a prison break. When Amanda and
I had first told our friends and coworkers that we were planning
to take ten days off?in a row?in order to backpack
around Argentina, we were met with some seriously arched
eyebrows.
?Wow, I didn?t even take more than a week off when I got
married,? one acquaintance remarked. ?Better hope they don?t
fill your jobs before you get back.?
Only Holly, another assistant editor who worked with
Amanda at a women?s magazine, seemed to share our enthusiastic
attitude about escaping the freezing winter and the endless
projects tethering us to our desks. Even though Holly and I had
met just a few times and couldn?t be sure that we?d get along
for a single day on the road, let alone ten, she?d asked only two
questions before anteing up the money for a ticket: ?Which
airline are we flying, and when do we leave?? For my part, I was
thrilled to have a new coconspirator in my quest to find a more
authentic ?real world? than the one we were about to leave
behind in Manhattan.
After moving to the city nearly four years earlier to take a
job at a national television network, I had been dropped into a
world of claustrophobic apartments, exorbitant rents, fourteen-
hour workdays, mandatory media events, and gospel preachers
Jen Iguazú Falls, Argentina/Brazil Nearly Two Years Earlier
predicting doomsday on the subways. I quickly learned that the
city had spawned a new kind of Darwinian struggle: only the
most career-driven and socially adaptable would survive. In order
to cope with the pressure, people generally took one of two
paths: the first lined with Xanax, therapists, and cigarettes, and
the second with Bikram yoga, feng shui, and green tea.
My personal survival method? Escape. Even now, dripping
with sweat and frantically racing to make it across country lines,
I felt that familiar burst of exhilaration that flooded me every
time I booked an international flight or added a new stamp to
my passport.
And though it had been a challenge to get on the road in the
first place, Holly, Amanda, and I had done our best to squeeze
every ounce of life from our holiday. We?d arrived a week earlier
in the ?Big Apple? of South America, cosmopolitan Buenos
Aires, and filled our time wandering its cobblestone alleys,
savoring sumptuous lomo steak dinners, stuffing our bags with
street market finds, and exhausting ourselves at late-night tango
dancing sessions that lasted until the night sky was slivered with
pink.
Although our love affair with the passionate culture and
sultry vibe of B.A. had only just begun, the three of us were ready
to drop even farther away from city life. It was time to head
for the jungle. After a two-hour flight on LAN Peru, our small
plane touched down in the frontier town of Puerto Iguazú and
it was good-bye strappy tango sandals, hello hiking boots.
Glancing down at my own shoes, now filthy from the day?s
trek, I was amazed that I was still able to run, much less sprint
up the final flight of stairs. As we finally broke out of the deep
shade of the rain forest and onto the main road, we spotted the
bus fifty yards ahead, packed to the brim with passengers. In a
scene befitting a screwball silver screen comedy, the bus started
to pull away at the exact moment we arrived. Holly, who by now
I?d learned ran marathons for fun, fired up her legs and dashed
even faster, waving a tanned arm above her head as Amanda
and I screamed for the bus to stop. Thank the jungle gods that
we?d popped out into the open when we had, because the driver
somehow noticed us in the rearview mirror and chugged to a
stop. Gasping for breath and dripping wet, we stumbled aboard
and were met by a busload of cheering tourists, all clapping
for our frenetic victory. Collapsing into the only empty seats,
Amanda, Holly, and I passed around the one bottle of water we
had left between us, laughing and congratulating ourselves on
yet another skin-of-our-teeth arrival.
As I chugged another gulp of water and caught my breath,
I realized that I felt happier and more grounded than I had in
months. Suddenly the thought of returning home in a few days
sent a ripple of dread through my body. Unlike Amanda and
Holly, who?d been desperate for a reprieve from their chaotic,
cutthroat magazine jobs, I had recently scored an exciting new
position as a marketing coordinator for a music television channel
that I was eager to resume.
For once in my adult life, my career and living situation were
actually on track, humming right along?but things with my
relationship weren?t going so smoothly. In fact, I was bracing
myself for a potential train wreck.
After I had dated my boyfriend, Brian, for almost three
years, the confidence to shout off the rooftops ?Hallelujah! He?s
the One!? still eluded me. Though many empathetic souls re-
minded me that I was still young, a growing number of onlookers
had begun to pounce on my uncertainty. ?Shit or get off
the pot,? they?d say, invoking the single phrase I loathed more
than any other. I mean, maybe I was just comfortable staying...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Harper Perennial
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2011
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0061689076
• ISBN 13: 9780061689079
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 560
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Product Safety Manager; enquiries@harpercollins.ie; ; HarperCollins, Macken House, 39/40 Mayor Street Upper; Dublin 1; D01 C9W8; Irland