well, i ran through some of my expenses. although i did save most of my credit/debit card receipts, i didn’t keep very accurate records (…i still have to go through my shopping bag of balled up papers). it seems that during the 6 month trip, i spent about $15,000. about 1/3 of the total was spent on transportation:

1) shipping the car (panama to ecuador): $1500 + another couple hundred in bribes to expedite the process
2) two flights: last minute from Panama to Ecuador ($500) & Sao Paulo to San Francisco ($450 + 35k frequent flyer)
3) gasoline: $3,000 spent on 900 gallons of fuel

fuel prices were more or less stable throughout the trip, with the obvious exceptions being Ecuador and Brazil. In Ecuador, I used super (high altitude caused engine knock), which brought up the average price (even with super, it was still the cheapest). Brazil, on the other hand was very expensive: