OurBiggerPicture

We’ve been back in the U.S for over 2 months now. Finding the discipline to finish this blog has been difficult. Taking myself back in time to our road life requires putting myself in a different headspace from where I am now. It requires writing about the past while the present clouds my thoughts. I’m still catching up so it won’t be until the next blog post that I explore our reentry. Time is catching up to me faster now, that’s for certain. As I reflect on our last few wee

Part of my Uruguayan fantasy life included time in gaucho country. Time spent on gentle green hills along rocky peaks, among trees offering shade to grazing cattle. All in a soft leather saddle. So before we could leave these parts, I had to find an estancia (ranch) and go horseback riding. We have loved being on horses on this trip. It's much more free and much less regulated than in the States. However, the treatment of tourist horses down here – from malnourishment to down

We left the Iguazu Falls and headed straight south. We planned to stay in the northeast province of Corrientes for a little while longer to visit the Iberá Provincial Reserve—a 3.2 million-acre protected wetland area within the vast Esteros del Iberá. Iberá is one of the most important fresh water wetlands on the continent and the second-largest wetland in the world after the Pantanal in Brazil. These wetlands are difficult to get to - access is either by private plane (the p

Touching down at Schipol Airport, I mentally prepared myself for a whole new existence out of the camper. I was looking forward to living in a house, seeing the familiar faces of my family and the comforts of “home”. What struck me right away was the order of things. It looks so clean and nice. Everything seems to work here, and the order not only creates a more quiet place in my mind, but it also feels quiet. And peaceful after the chaos of the Peruvian roads. The order of

It was mid March before we ventured beyond a three hour radius of Quito. We hovered around the capital city waiting for a couple of small parts to be FedEx’d to the Toyota Dealership there. We killed time hiking in the mountains a few hours north, just above Otovalo, and then ventured down to Cotopaxi National Park. We’ve been to Ecuador before and we covered all the highlights then. The Galapagos, Amazon jungle, Otavalo market, and Quito. Now we are here after 15 months on t

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

John has a friend, Sam, who owns a home down here on the central coast of Costa Rica, close to Uvita. Before we left the States we had lunch with Sam in L.A., and told him it would be great to meet down here if the timing worked. Once we got close to crossing the border, we emailed Sam and told him we would probaby be here in October. Sam said October is the ONE month he never comes to Costa Rica. October is the hottest and most humid month, with the most rain. And here we ar

The coast north and south of San Juan del Sur is undeveloped, wild and beautiful. Tiny villages spread out from the beaches, with cattle, pigs and chickens roaming the dirt roads. The town of San Juan del Sur has grown up from a small fishing village to ground zero for Nicaraguan surfing. It is has Victorian clapboard houses, a few decent restaurants and a steady stream of young international visitors. A cruise port is getting built on the edge of the crescent beach here so w

We made our way back down to the border of Belize as fast as possible. Camping once again in Chetumal before our border crossing. Everything felt familiar. A couple stops at Walmart and Auto Zone, and we were ready to exit Mexico once and for all. We crossed the border in about 40 minutes and drove down familiar roads toward the town of San Ignacio, away from the coast this time and into the mountains. On the way, we made a detour to drive through the Mennonite community of S