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We found ourselves in a Colombian Convoy for twelve days. We traveled from Salento all the way down to the Ecuadorian border with Jesse and Jessica from Toronto, Canada, and Melanie and Lukas from Zurich, Switzerland. Both couples are in their late 20s/early 30s. Our “Convoy” traveled over 750 miles from the coffee region south - up and down multiple mountains chains, into the wide open spaces of the Tatacoa Desert, over to the Archeological tombs of Tierraadrento, down to th

Our drive to the heart of the coffee zone, also called the Eje Cafetero (Coffee Axis), from Bogota to the town of Salento was ‘mostly’ uneventful - at least for the first 4 hours. It’s a long drive without a doubt, but the first 4 hours to Iguape were a breeze on four lane roads with not much traffic. Then came the mountains. We’ve driven plenty of difficult mountain passes and this wasn’t much different except for the fact that we were driving on the only route East to West

More than half of the country is not covered in the Lonely Planet guide for Colombia because of security issues. The guide says the security situation is unstable in those areas, and in many places tourist infrastructure simply does not exist. Violence has plagued this country for five decades, one of the word’s longest-running insurgencies. The reasons for the fighting are complicated. The guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as FARC, claim to be f

Our departure from Baranquilla was delayed by a few days. John got hit with some strange flu bug. Or what we thought was some strange flu bug. He had body aches, fever, and was really weak. He rode it out in the Sheraton Hotel (our oasis hotel chain on this trip) in the fetal position. Two days later, after we set up camp in the mountains on the Caribbean Coast, I went down too. We think that we both got hit with the Zika virus that's been spreading through Latin America with

Gazing out of the plane's window on our descent into Bogotá, I saw the high mountain peaks of the Andes. I could see tiny ribbons of road occasionally cutting through the green peaks. The realization that we would be driving through those mountains soon gave me a jolt. Fear? Excitement? A little of both, I think. There might be some transition time once we are back in the rig. Before we would see LoJo again though, we had 5 days in Bogotá. We decided to explore this city now,

Gratitude. My attitude about gratitude is different now. It’s for different things and in different degrees of magnitude. I used to think I was grateful before, but I seem to reflect on it more now. Or maybe I just feel it more intrinsically. Not just for the amazing opportunity we have to not work for a while, but our life on the road this past year gave us simple pleasures that brought me joy. On many an evening we swam in oceans and rivers and lakes until dark. We practice

The only break in the 29,000-mile stretch of road known as the Pan-American Highway is the 100-mile section of impassible jungle between Central & South America called the Darien Gap. The only way to get our rig across the gap is to ship it. It’s a complicated process. On the Panama side it requires a shipping agent in Panama City, a police inspection to clear us through Interpol (to make sure the vehicle isn’t stolen), and of course lots and lots of paperwork. Only way to ge