The End

First, I would like to thank everyone who read the blog. Writing and formatting the blog took more time and energy than one might think (even with my laptop), and I appreciate everyone that took the time to read it, and also like to thank everyone for the nice comments that I have received whilst I have been travelling, some people more than others took great interest in my endeavours and to you I thank you.

This blog became a release valve for me as travelling for this amount of time may sound glamorous to some and looking back at the photos it certainly seems that way but I can assure you that it was not all plain sailing as anyone who travelled with me can certainly confirm.

Before I left on my trip, as I told people of my plans to take 12+ months off and travel, I received the following questions and comments:

1. Early Mid-life crisis?
2. That's amazing! Where can I come visit you?
3. Chris, you are not progressing; you are regressing.
4. I hope that you find whatever it is that you are searching for.

If they didn’t think one of the above then they didn’t believe that I would go through with it much like the people who always say they are going to quit their job but never have the guts to do it. Of course it started out as an idea but like every serial killer who already knew, dreaming of it would never cut it so until I booked that first flight to India I doubt anyone believed me.

I would like to say: I, too, once thought that progress meant concentrating on ones career and achieving the three Ms; Mortgage, Matrimony and Maternity. However, as I ventured down this path, something seemed to be missing. I realised that my life, up to this point, has been about jumping through hoops. As new hoops arrived, I would eagerly jump through them, sometimes not because I wanted to, but just because I could. Somewhere along the way, though, the hoops became nooses, and the farther I went, the more I felt strangled. I learned that sometimes the best thing to do is to not jump through the next hoop but change direction.

I have been asked several times, "What did you learn on your trip?" That question would take a long time to answer, and I don't know if I could even articulate everything that I have learned, as much of it is on a purely experiential level. I am afraid that anything that I say here about the meaning of life would sound like a cliché. I do know that the only constant in life is change, and that we are all caterpillars. Some caterpillars emerge from their cocoons as beautiful butterflies, while others emerge as dull moths. Don’t be a moth

Being gone so long gives you plenty of time for reflection so sometimes when I am sitting by an ocean, lake or mountain I wonder how it may have been if I hadn’t had booked that flight. All I could see were grey office walls, the monotony of routine, the crushingness of boredom and an ache to experience something different. I didn’t take that path like so many instead I have been to the driest dessert in the world, dived the biggest reef, swam with the biggest fish in the ocean, washed under waterfalls, swung on a jungle vines, trekked a glacier, climbed a volcano, been to the largest island in the world (also the smallest continent) sky dived over a glacier, galloped on horseback through badlands, seen mass graves and torture centres, seen coffee fields, swam with sharks, won and lost in Vegas, trekked Inca and Mayan ruins, chowed down guinea pig, cycled down the most dangerous road in the world, played with perception on salt lakes, been to deserted islands, seen the moon and stars like never before, made a wish on a shooting star, dressed in drag (several times), driven around Australia, touched a wild monkey, been to the highest city in the world, one of the southern most cities in the world, seen turtles, rays, kangaroos, crocodiles, llamas, condors, toucans, learned a new language, suffered altitude sickness, partied all over the world and much much more. I can never make someone understand what I have experienced or how I felt unless you were there with me for that moment and for those people there will always be a bond a shared experience that we can never quite communicate to our friends or family.

I have loved, lost and found an amazing world that is vast with cultures, places and people but also it to be isolating, cruel and overwhelming but its these contrasts that makes travelling such an unpredictable force that you think you may be prepared for but never underestimate what could, should and shouldn’t happen.

Travel is funny, not always, of course and you can be sure that any trip will have moments of unadulterated hilarity usually at your expense but then again that is just the way of the road. So pack your humour with your sun cream and you won’t get burned!
You may not think it but as mentioned above there is a negative side to travelling, In many ways it is an idyllic scene, but to be honest, after a while you become tired and jaded about travel. When you’re on the road too long the spark of newness fades, meeting people becomes a chore and travel can feel like a long, pointless slog, a detour from loved ones and from life. it’s a passage that forces you to become friends with total strangers leave all that if familiar behind but its these bonds formed that produces numerous heartaches, you have to leave them telling each other you can not wait to see them again but in all reality you will likely never see them again. The constant movement never having anywhere to call home with every two days spending it in another dorm with another 8+ strangers sharing the same conversations again and again then re-packing your bag for the thousandth time to move on to the next place and repeating the process. At some points you feel as if you are going to have a ‘Falling Down’ moment when you realise that you have been ripped off again or have been given misinformation, so you think your own country does not run smoothly then visit some of the places I’ve been. Looking back in retrospect some moments of elevated stress now seem trivial but I can assure you that travelling can be stressful, it can be painful and its always emotional, so pack your Kleenex and calms before undertaking any trip, take life with a pinch of salt and most of all enjoy it.
Travelling to me is a path peppered with real adventure self-determination and self-motivation, it is often risky which forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world and its individuals, the world the way it is, not the way you imagine it or seen through the eyes of other people or the TV, I’ve born witness to the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and realised that I could be capable of both. Travel will change you. Nothing will ever be black and white to me again.

One question I ask myself, quitting my job, my house, my car, my friends, my family, MY LIFE….was it worth it?

You decide.


INDEX

Number of countries visited: 27 India, Malaysia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico and America.

Miles travelled: 63,000 give or take

Days on the road - 571

Flights taken -14

Friends before – 120

Friends after - 389

Strangest place someone was from – Faroe Islands

Friendliest country - Guatemala

Cheapest/Expensive India/Brazil

Digital photos accumulated – 22,000+

Different beers tasted – 80+

Money spent – a lot

Favourite country - Bolivia

Monkeys seen – Howler, spider, red face mercat, black face mercat, little one in Brazil?

Weirdest thing seen - guy who drank his own urine in Goa India.