Final Thoughts and Statistics

 

We did it! We made it around the world in 381 days and have come safely home. We are definitely enjoying the comfort of our own beds and pillows, as well as a pantry, some foods we missed, a washing machine and friends! The map above gives a good picture of the countries we went to, though it doesn’t include the three separate 24 hour-ish layovers in the mainland US (the cross-over lines got too confusing!)

Before I give a run-down of all the statistics, I’ll share just a few thoughts and reflections that came out of our time in Wales where we deliberately took time to review the trip and remember both the good and the bad, as well as what we have learned along the way.

Favourite Country – people have asked us this all year long and we anticipate the question coming frequently these next few weeks as well. Short answer: we don’t have one    It depends on whether you are asking about the scenery, the food, or the animals! A few of our favourites though do include New Zealand, Hawaii (which we refer to as a country!!), Guatemala, South Africa, Peru, Australia and Norway.

Most Beautiful – every country has its beauty. And often, so many places of stunning beauty. We certainly learned the magnitude, splendour and creativity of God’s magnificent creation. A few particularly beautiful countries include New Zealand, Norway, Peru, South Africa, Scotland, Iguazu Falls (we know, not a country!!) and Canada. But, I think our single most jaw-dropping moment of incredible beauty was at Moraine Lake in Alberta, Canada.

Favourite Foods – everything dulce de leche (Uruguay, Argentina), passionfruit cheesecake (Peru) and passionfruit ice cream (many South American countries), el pastor tacos (Mexico), pad Thai and pineapple fried rice (Thailand), shawarma (Israel), bubble tea (Taiwan), and Christmas Turkish delight (Turkey).

Favourite Experiences – we did so, so many excursions and interesting things, but some that stand out for us include the hot air balloon in Turkey, paragliding in Guatemala, hiking Mt. Sinai in Egypt, the safaris in Africa, seeing lava and the Napali Coast in Hawaii, taking in a concert at the Sydney Opera House in Australia, hiking the Blue Mountains in Australia, cooking class in Thailand, stencil painting in Japan and hiking around the Iguazu Falls in Argentina and Brazil.

Scariest Moments – hands down for all of us, our scariest moments occurred during transport in South America!! And there were several, including a boat!

Hardest Moments – these range from being away from family during a medical crisis, to not having space or time to ourselves, being away from friends, grocery shopping in foreign countries, having bad weather make something that we were greatly anticipating not be enjoyable, and our terrible 18 hours being cold and wet on the mountain during the Santa Cruz trek in Peru.

Major Trouble – while hundreds of things didn’t go exactly according to plan, we really only had two (maybe three) major incidents. First, the ankle injury 10 days into the trip. Still so thankful it wasn’t broken and we could keep going. That ended up being our only major medical incident or sickness of the whole trip, which is incredible.  Second, the Vietnam Visa issue.  By not submitting it early enough, we got caught in the government shutdown for the TET holiday (Chinese New Year) and ended up spending one extra week in Taiwan (with family which was awesome) but one less week in Vietnam and needing to rebook several things.  The third, was the Botswana border crossing – the one and only time that we did not have the girls’ birth certificates with us for a border crossing was the one and only time they were needed!  In the end, despite it being very stressful, we did get through.

Life Lessons Learned (mixing important with funny):

1. Don’t take the little things for granted (like toilet seats, top sheets, salt & pepper, eating fruits & vegetables, etc).
2. Deadlines can be a good thing and very motivating!!
3. Sometimes the only way out of a tough situation is to keep going (eg, the Santa Cruz trek in Peru).
4. To be hospitable.
5. Community is important.
6. Don’t walk behind a donkey – they kick!
7. How to be okay in unknown and sometimes uncomfortable situations.
8. How to do laundry in a sink and for the girls, about exchange rates, reading maps, etc.
9. So much of the world and the people in it are the same and so much of it is different. Both the similarities and the diversity are wonderful.

Other Lessons:

1. Our preconceived notions of developed vs developing countries were greatly challenged.  Also, our “single story” of Africa was shattered, which was a very good thing. 
2. How huge, beautiful, and diverse the world is.  It made all of us want to take care of it better.  
3. Despite the beauty everywhere, we also live in a very beautiful corner of this planet.
4. Having missed some of the seasons, we learned how much we enjoy all four of them and were surprised to learn how much they regulate us and our body clocks.

What we will miss about travelling – seeing new places, meeting new people, trying new foods, learning new things, fewer day-to-day responsibilities.

What we will not miss about travelling – finding food, no schedule, the actual “travelling” part (long plane, bus, car rides), bad beds, communication barriers, doing laundry in the sink, no pantry, always trying to figure things out.

Key words to sum up the trip – amazing, challenging, wonderful (or “Our Year of Wonder” was “Full of Wonder”  ).

And now, the statistics.  They are pretty fun to look at and almost mind-boggling to think that we did it all!

We went to                                     34 countries

and                                                     214 cities.

We took                                            57 flights

and have been                              74 airports.

We were away for                         380 nights

and slept in                                     155 different beds

in                                                         19 different time zones.

We took                                           19 different modes of transportation

and saw                                           132 different wildlife species (of significance).

We did                                              106 hikes

and                                                     147 excursions/activities

and went to                                    20 different churches.

We visited                                      24 Youth Ambassadors

and                                                    2 cousins

and                                                    6 friends.

We tried                                           198 new foods.

We watched                                   9 TV series seasons

and                                                     7 movies.

We listened to                               26 podcasts episodes.

And we read so many books!

Matt read                                       37 books.

Julia read                                       87 books.

Marika read                                  181 books (plus 3 for school).

Annika read                                  162 books (plus 17 for school).

 

All in all, an incredible adventure that we are all so thankful we got to do together.  Thank you for following along.  We hope you enjoyed the journey vicariously and that you learned something along the way!

(Almost) Half-way Stats

It’s my (Julia) turn again!  We are finally leaving the Americas after almost 6 months and we are almost at the half-way point of our journey.  I thought it would be a good time to provide a few stats of our life on the road, and also give a summary of some things that we will miss about Latin America! 

Unfortunately, there are no pictures for this post. While we were on the Big Island in Hawaii, we took a day to wash every single thing in our bags, air out all of our packing cubes, and clean out our bags of anything we haven’t used so we could send it home with family.  We were a bit astonished to see all of our clothes hanging up and wondered how we could possibly fit all of that into 4 backpacks!  But, we forgot to take a picture 

 

Here is the rundown.  So far:

We have been to                            12 countries

and                                                     73 cities.

We have taken                               21 flights

and been in                                      28 airports.

We have been away for                177 nights

and slept in                                      66 different beds

in                                                         6 different time zones.

We have taken                                12 different modes of transportation

and seen                                           64 different wildlife species sightings (of significance).

We have done                                 58 hikes

and                                                     42 excursions/activities

and gone to                                      7 different churches.

We have tried                                  76 new foods

watched                                            3 TV series

and                                                     1 movie.

 

And we have read so many books!

Matt has read                                19 books.

Julia has read                                38 books.

Marika has read                             74 books (not including for school).

Annika has read                             64 books (not including for school).

On that note, we would LOVE some book recommendations, especially for the girls.  We are running out of book ideas!  You can provide suggestions in the comments here or feel free to send me a message.  We do read books entirely on-line on our devices right now, so we will very much appreciate paper books when we get home!

 

Of our almost 6 months so far, about 5 of them have been in Latin America (the other month was split between Western Canada and Hawaii).  We really enjoyed our time in Latin America and will definitely miss some things about it including:

• Being surrounded by a different language that is still somewhat familiar and uses the same alphabet
• Very kind people
• Some foods that we have discovered and loved – dulce de leche, Mexican tacos, etc
• Green lushness of some of the jungle areas
• Being in time zones close to our own
• Walking through groves of eucalyptus trees

 

Thanks for following our journey so far and sending us notes of encouragement.  We are looking forward to exploring other parts of the world, though are maybe a little nervous about the even larger language barrier that we are about to face!

Reality Check

It is finally my (Julia) turn to do a blog post.  I decided a little while ago that we should do a “Reality Check” post.  Both because of some questions that a few friends have had and also because I am  cognizant of the social media impulse to only post the great and wonderful things, not so much the normal or difficult times, leading to a skewed perspective on someone’s life.  So, I’m going to write about the more mundane and sometimes difficult parts of the past three months.  It is in no way a complaint; we are still thrilled and so grateful to be doing this trip as a family.  It is just to provide a bit of a balance and more complete picture of life on the road.  Sorry that we don’t have too many pictures for this one – we didn’t usually think to take pictures of the more mundane or less beautiful parts!

Food

While food is certainly one of the more fun parts of the trip, and has featured heavily on the blog, it is actually also one of the more time-consuming and stressful parts of our life.  Finding food for our family at least 2, often 3, times a day in foreign places is no small feat!  We are constantly not only evaluating whether or not we think we will like the taste of something, we are also always asking ourselves if we think something is going to make us violently ill or send us to the hospital!  (Between warnings before we left, the guy at the Bolivia Salt Plains who looked awful and was contemplating whether to go on a tour or to the hospital, the guy in the cabin next to us in the jungle who was throwing up all night (which we could hear every time since those cabins were about 15 feet apart with no glass windows – only screens), and tales from fellow travelers, we are very aware that this is a constant threat to our health and enjoyment of the trip.)  We are constantly asking whether fruits and vegetables and fruit juices have been washed/made in filtered or boiled water, assessing whether we believe the answer (or it is just a language barrier and they are saying “yes” to everything to appease the foreigner) and being very careful with any street foods.  In La Paz, when we asked that question at a restaurant, the owner told us that after taking so many of his foreign colleagues to the hospital after going to a restaurant, he finally decided to open a restaurant where foreigners could eat without a complimentary trip to the hospital!  We’ve also had a few terrible tasting meals!!!  We are definitely deficient in fruits and vegetables and we are all craving them (even Annika, and that is saying something!!).

Grocery shopping is also a thing.  Most Airbnbs don’t have things that we would have thought to be essential (like a can opener, paring knife, salt, oil, etc) and only two of all the Airbnbs we have stayed in have had an oven.  Trying to find ingredients for any meal beyond meat and potatoes or pasta is crazy hard!  We have realized how many ingredients we just have in our pantry or fridge at home.  It usually involves at least two trips around the whole grocery store to see what they have and what we think we can make with what provisions/utensils there are at the Airbnb.  We have also stared in bewilderment at the package of spaghetti taped to a 2 litre bottle of Coke, but couldn’t find any pasta sauce!!!

Laundry

I have discovered that I love my washing machine, dryer and clothesline and am so grateful and thankful that I have such easy access to such wonderful inventions!  I plan to hug them when I get home.  Washing clothes by hand in small hotel sinks is a very time consuming and not particularly enjoyable reality.  Socks and underwear take so long!  Trying to find places for them to dry and trying to time it so that things will dry before we pack up again, also present some challenges.  Our room often looks like it has exploded! 

The hot, humid weather with open air type accommodations also make for challenges in getting anything to dry.  During our jungle stay, Matt and I bolted to where our laundry was hanging (thanks to a nice manager who let us use a staff laundry spot) several times when it started to rain to put it under awnings and then hang it all up again 20 minutes later, since the only way it would potentially dry in that humidity was if the sun was hitting it.

Health and Safety

Being sick at home is no fun.  Being sick away from home is less fun.  Being sick on an overnight bus in the middle of nowhere surrounded by strangers is even less fun.  Thankfully, besides the ankle injury early on and the overnight bus incident, everything else has been minor.  There have been a few fainting/almost fainting spells by one of the girls as well, which is embarrassing and frustrating for her (and we wish we knew the cause).

Friends and Family

We miss them.  We try to keep up with as many as we can in different ways, but there is no doubt we miss the people we love.  Also, both Matt and I have had a parent in the hospital for a few days since we’ve left, a close friend who had a stroke and another who has been re-diagnosed with cancer.  It is really hard to be so far away when people you love are in crisis.

We spend a lot of time together   We are doing pretty good together as a family 24/7.  We all love each other, but recognize that space and breaks are important too, which can be hard to find. 

Poverty and Garbage

Driving through big cities and some remote areas of South America for three months, we have seen a lot of poverty.  We try not to take pictures of it (and almost any picture from a moving vehicle doesn’t turn out), but certainly it is something we see.  Also, so much garbage.  Some countries are worse than others, but in some places, it does seem that the side of the road is considered to be a legitimate garbage dump and it is everywhere.  In Santa Cruz, it seemed a bit ironic to us that we saw all sorts of store owners cleaning their windows to be spotless, while there were copious amounts of garbage on the sidewalks in front of the stores.  We had it for some of our beautiful scenery shots as well.  We put the ones on the blog that showed the nice scenery, not the foreground, which was strewn with garbage. 

 

Interestingly, in Bolivia especially, we also saw so many houses and buildings that were only half finished.  The first floor looked done-ish and inhabited, and then there would be no second floor but rebar coming up through the roof in all the corners and other various places.  Apparently it has to do with taxes.  The rebar is there in case they ever want to build, but you pay less taxes if you don’t and also if you don’t paint it, so almost all the houses there stay the red colour of the bricks.

Transportation

Matt has written a few times about the crazy mountain passes that we have been on and how terrifying that can be.  Traffic in the cities can be equally nerve-wracking (though perhaps not quite as deadly if anything were to happen).  Basically, traffic in South America is one big game of chicken.  If you think you can beat someone else to where you want to go, or you can stick your nose out one inch further than someone else to merge into traffic, go for it.  If there are two lanes painted on the road, then at least 3 and maybe four cars/trucks/motorcycles can actually fit in that space, and they will!  Stop signs and traffic lights are rare and in many places ignored.  Many cities use speed bumps to maintain some sort of control on the speed. 

Lanes don’t really mean anything on the highways either.  They drive wherever they think best depending on where the potholes are.  In Puerto Maldonado, as we were driving from one jungle lodge to another, going about 110 km/h on the correct side of the highway (this particular vehicle actually had a speedometer!), a very large truck with a big sign saying “Combustible” on the front was driving straight towards us on our side of the highway!!  At the very last second, it swerved back into its lane.  Our particular side of the highway had less potholes at that moment.

We’ve been centimetres away from so many cars at high speeds, we’ve lost count, but my poor heart feels like it has had many almost heart attacks, especially as the girls and I are usually bouncing around in the backseat because there are no seatbelts.

And we really do spend hours and hours on buses, in taxis, in airports and on airplanes.  

Language

Of course, the language barrier is always a thing.  We are very thankful for Google Translate, but certainly even that sometimes can’t make up for both the language and cultural barriers combined (or doesn’t work if we also don’t have internet at that moment).  We’ve had a few incidents, which are funny in retrospect, but not so much in the moment when you think you might miss your scheduled bus to an expensive tour because you can’t communicate with someone properly to order a taxi.  And sometimes we will order something at a restaurant (we think) and then shrug our shoulders and say to each other, I guess we’ll see what happens 

School/Blog/Booking

The girls are doing fine with their schooling, but they definitely miss their classmates and the interactions in a school environment.  The combination of homeschooling, researching/planning/ booking the upcoming parts of the trip, doing the blog, paying bills, finding food, doing laundry, spending long hours on buses/taxis/airplanes, and all the wonderful things you see on the blog, means that there has actually not been as much “down-time” as we thought we would have to contemplate life!

Prepping - Part 2

That first post in 2020 was definitely a trial post and a very sanitized version of “prepping”.  This is a more accurate portrayal of what preparing for a trip around the world with one backpack each actually looks like.  Julia also thinks that this is an accurate portrayal of the chaos in her brain