Chänge of pläns

It was a strange day. We started very early in the morning in a tree house in Leticia in the rain forrest in Colombia, then we flew to Bogota, where we enjoyed yet another crepes y waffles session. In Bogota we boarded another plane to…. Madrid….and I know this needs some explanation…

First of all: Yes we flew back to Europe and this is not just a visit back home. We end our trip to South America and also our trip to the Americas in general.

Rosi is in a container back to Hamburg, where we will pick her up. Nothing bad happened, we did not fight, we did not get ill, Rosi was not damaged. We just took the decision to return to Europe, based on multiple reasons:

1. We were driving a lot. In South America we often only made 200km a day even if we spent the full day in the car and we did not want that any more. If our goal would have continued to be Alaska we would have to commit to basically drive every day a long distance and this is not how we wanted to spent our sabbatical. Yes, we knew before, that this trip would involve a lot of driving, but knowing and experiencing is still something different. 

2. The safety situation. We really loved to camp free in Patagonia, to be able to just stop at a road and camp for the night. Since Peru the population density became higher and it was more and more difficult to find free camping spots, at the same time the news about robbed campers and more dangerous areas became more and more. So, we mainly camped in guarded and fenced camping spots, where it was impossible to leave after dark. This was not a problem, we just liked the feeling we had in Patagonia better.

3. We missed a routine. Living in the van and driving all day made it really hard to built up a routine. Especially a routine that is connected to sport. Back in Berlin he have our routines and although we did not have any strict commitment it was really hard for us to built a routine.

4. We missed family and friends. Yes, you meet fellow travellers and it always feels good, but it is just different to be around your best friends and your family back at home. 

5. To continue to Central America we would have to ship Rosi over the Darien gap and than ship her back to Europe as well. By shipping directly to Europe we could safe costs and time.

6. The heat if the carribiean was already too much for Linda 😉

All these are reasons why we both Linda and me wanted to come back to Europe together with Rosi. The idea was not new. Linda pitched it to me in a cafe in Lima. She has been quiet for a few days and I asked her if everything is fine. She asked me back what I would do, If I have 6 moths free and enough money to travel and I instantly answered: „Not drive all day and night to reach Alaska“ We both felt exactly the same and checked in on each other every day after that conversation. We both continued to feel the same way, so therefor we decided to come back to Europe. We did not have a strict plan, but we had a few ideas. We wanted to spent time with family and friends in Germany, still be able to ski and snowboard a little bit, if there still is snow and than travel Spain and Portugal to surf. 

The flights back were fine, with the exception that someone was farting all the time and the smell was so disgusting that the stewardess started to spray room scent during the flight. We landed in Frankfurt and took a train to Münster. The trip itself from a treehouse in the amazon to the train station in Münster was surreal. My sister picked us up with a little „welcome back“ sign and I was so happy about that. After a few drinks we fell into a sleep of happiness and satisfaction that we followed our feeling and not a strict plan that only we would have set ourself. This intense feeling of happiness when we arrived showed us directly that it was once again the right decision to follow our gut feeling.

I want to mention again that it was not a decision we took sitting in that cafe in Lima. It developed in our heads and even after we talked about it the first time, it developed further and we talked about it on a daily base. Pretty much everyone we told about the decision supported us and to the question if we feel like we „failed“ to travel the Panamerican highway, we could not even answer, because it was not even a thought in our head. We did what felt right and best for us and therefore we knew it was the right thing to do. 

Here are some driving statistics of our trip in South America: All in all we drove 21089 km, with a total driving time of 432h which leads to an average speed of 48km/h. Rosi drank on average 11.7 l Diesel/100km which lead to a total consumption of 2467 litres of Diesel. The Diesel for heating is included there. It feels bad to see the Diesel consumption, but at the same time we knew that before and it was clear that Diesel (production and incineration) will be the main emissions driver of this trip….