The Post-Trip episode....
Hello again!
I know what you're thinking... "You wait all month for his final travelogue email and then he sends me two in a day!"
Well, yes that's right. I actually finished writing the supposed final episode last night and it was all a bit of a rush in the end - fingers-a-blur - as I frantically strived to finish my 'gloat list' before I had to go off and play 5-a-side football.
After a 12 month absence I am back playing my beloved game of football again twice a week. Infact, my first game was played 22 hours after we got back! Absolutely useless, of course, but the old skills are coming back again now and once more defenders are being left standing by my lightning pace and sublime ball skills!
Well, I thought I'd write a little epilogue; Let you know how we're doing trying to adjust back to so called "normal" life...
You know when you go away on holiday, when you come back something has always broken whilst you were gone? For instance, you went away leaving a perfectly good fridge droning away in the corner of the kitchen and when you get back you've got an inch of water on the floor and a lot of mouldy food. After a year away we found we had no internet anymore. Not only had we been disconnected for lack of use but also the wires mysteriously didn't work anymore either. The shower didn't work - thermostat bust. The toilet cistern cracked and leaked whilst we were away and Lynn's mum, Sheila came round one day to find the kitchen underneath swimming in water and a rather messy ceiling. Telephone? knackered. Garden fence panels? Pre-trip? 23 Post-trip? 7. 7 and a lawn full of firewood! The moths had decided to nibble my clothes in the wardrobe too whilst we were gone so I now have a suit even Albert Steptoe would turn his nose up at! Still, who cares, eh? When you've got 10,000 photos and a head full of memories!
That first week was all a bit strange. Everywhere you look there seems to be so much to do but it's all so overwhelming that you don't know where to start and so just wander round from room to room fiddling with things here and there but not really doing anything. Do you know how long it took me to unpack my rucksack? 4 days. It sat on the bed in the spare-bedroom for 4 days before I finally thought - "Ought to unpack that, I suppose".
Driving was a bit weird. We kept Lynn's little Fiesta whilst we were gone, a friend looked after it for her and when we got back it was there waiting for us. Other than when we had the campervan in NZ I hadn't driven a vehicle for a whole year. 22 hours after we got back wasn't just my first game of football in a year but also my first taste of driving too as I had to get there!
Lynn started work a week after we returned, securing a job about 6 weeks before we got back home. No interview, no references. Just 2 emails from somewhere in China and job's hers! I had an interview last Friday, my first job interview in nearly 11 years. It went quite well despite the fact that I wore Albert Steptoe's suit and I should hear something later this week about whether I got it or not.
As mentioned in a previous episode, we thought we'd have a year's worth of post to sort out when we got back too but Lynn's parents had been superb there and got rid of all the junk mail for us and filed away the other stuff. All we had to go through when we got back was about the last 3 weeks worth of mail.
So that's about it on the homecoming side but before I go I shall leave you with a few answers to some of the questions we've been asked about the trip...
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Countries Visited?
Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, The Galapagos Islands, New Zealand, Australia, India, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China and Russia.
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Favourite Country?
Argentina, closely followed by Cambodia. Argentina is just the most beautiful country in the world in my opinion. From the glaciers way down in the south at "the end of the world" through the Andes mountain chain to the barren deserts and salt lakes in the north. Then there's the Amazon rainforest in the north-east and the lake district and Patagonia in the middle. There's so much diversity to the country, it's just incredible. The people are some of the friendliest we met and the food... the steaks in Argentina are beyond description, they are literally out of this world! Buenos Aires, the capital, is a very European city. It wouldn't look out of place in France or Italy. The cafes, restaurants, bars and music are all different enough as to be new and interesting but still strangely similar to those back home. Lynn and I both said we could happily live in Argentina. Oh, and Argentinians LOVE their football too!
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Favourite Places?
Ok, I'll give you a top 3 here.
3rd) Cusco, Peru. This ancient Inca capital is the centre for so much in Peru from mountain treks to visiting Machu Picchu to diving down into the Amazonian rainforest. Amazing city.
2nd) Bariloche, Argentina. A little town in mid-Argentina in their Lake District. Possibly the friendliest place on the planet with oodles of stuff to do and scenery I could happily gaze over for the rest of my life. In the winter it becomes Argentina's premier ski resort and in the summer a centre for numerous trekking, biking and water activites. Oh, and it's also Argentina's chocolate shop capital. Mmmm!
1st) The Galapagos Islands. Purely and simply, heaven on earth. Go there if you ever get the chance. Please.
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Worst places?
3rd) Swindon, England. Ooh, putting my hometown in the worst three places of the year! If I knew I was only here a couple of days I might not have mentioned it but if I go through each place in turn and say "Would I prefer to live there or Swindon?" Only 2 places come out as being worse than Swindon and they're mentioned below.
2nd) Uyuni, Bolivia. Not only was it the place where my camera was stolen but we hated the place before even that happened! With the exception of one hotel "Hotel Tonito" and one restaurant "Minuteman Pizza" it is just a shit hole.
1st) My worst place on the planet award has to go to the Island of Chiloe off the coast of Chile. Michael Palin raved about it. Everyone in Chile raves about it. Everyone we met raved about it. I would sooner stick a rusty axe through my head than ever set foot in the place again. Urgh, ghastly place.
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Number of photos taken?
Me - just under 10,000. Lynn - just under 8,000. So between us about 17,500. I've printed 60 so far so we're well on the way to having them all done!
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Most expensive hotel room?
We had 3 nights at the 5 star Marriott Hotel in Sydney paid for as Lynn's leaving present from work. Not sure of the price but probably about US$300 a night, I would say.
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Cheapest hotel room?
US$4 a night. 'Hostel Moon Night' in Piura, northern Peru. Horrid.
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Best food?
Top three time again, I think.
3rd) India - Curry heaven and no Delhi-belly either. Well, not for me at any rate, eh Lynn?
2nd) Thailand - Tom Yum Soup - food of the Gods. Say no more!
1st) Argentina. One word: STEAK. And like you have never tasted it before and all at ridiculously low prices.
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Best beer?
Probably Argentina again or maybe Peru. Definitely not New Zealand, even Aussie beer tastes nice after New Zealand's beer!
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Number of hours spent on buses in South America?
258 hours. That's a solid, 10 days 18 hours spent listening to full-volume horror movies on bumpy roads in 40 year old death-traps!
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Number of days in Campervan in New Zealand?
23 days. And we did 3,253 km.
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Number of hours on trains in India?
65 hours in 6 weeks.
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Number of hours on Trans-Mongolian train from Beijing to Moscow?
128 hours. That's 5 days and 8 hours non-stop. Were we bored? Surprisingly not.
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How much did it all cost?
We pre-paid for all the flights before we left and it cost about £1,500 each for all of them. That's London to Rio; Buenos Aires to El Calafate (southern Argentina); Guayaquil (Ecuador) to Santiago (Chile); Santiago to Auckland (NZ); Christchurch (NZ) to Sydney; Sydney to Mumbai (India); Kolkata (India) to Bangkok and finally St. Petersburg to London. 8 flights.
Our budget for the year was £10,000 which gave us £200 a week or about £28.00 a day each. That's for everything: Food, hotel room, travel, souvenirs, site entries... the lot. We stuck with the budget until we had to pay for the Galapagos Islands trip. A week first-class on a yacht in the Galapagos Islands was nearly a grand each including the flights there and back but it was worth every last penny though. And then the budget all went a bit pear-shaped after that. We eventually spent about £14,000 each for a year. We weren't exactly on a strictly enforced budget though. It was more just a guideline to stop us going mad. The important thing was to do everything we wanted to do. And we did and it was worth every penny so I don't give a hoot if we overspent to be honest!
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So, am I glad to be back?
Being glad to be back lasted for as long as it took me to change into some decent clothes and upload all our photos onto the computer and finally see them all again. About a day, basically.
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Have I still got the travel bug?
Yep. I've seen 15 countries in this last year, so that means there's still another 180-odd out there. I don't think I'll be setting off again anytime soon though, unfortunately. Next year's holiday will probably be somewhat shorter and closer to home... now where did I put that Butlins brochure.
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So, that's it. The End. T.H.E. E.N.D. - I hope you enjoyed reading about it all. If not, you can take my name out of the 'Junk Email' folder again now, the travel reports are over!
Rich
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