Hi RLJ
please post a review on your return, i'm doing the Travelsphere version later in year going from birmingham alone and are resigned to the fact that i shall be all alone till i get to peru and even then i may have to wait for the heathrow travellers to arrive the following morning as thats who the majority arrive from but on the plus side i do get an extra night in Lima, i may be lucky and find another birmingham traveller, i had thoughts of going from manchester but on the return they only had a 55 min turn around in Amsterday to change flight,but from birmingham over 6 hours, enough time to get the train into amsterdam for a couple of hours
hope you have a good time and it is daunting on your own having to do all the work yourself but you will have plenty of company on your way out it seems
all the best
Dave