"Life is what happens to you whilst you are making other plans." (John Lennon)
For us, life goes on even when you are trying to cycle the Americas.
Dave and I have recently received a double dose of bad news from back home. As a result we have had to discuss whether it would feel right to carry on cycling or whether we should return back to the UK for an extended period of time.
Over the last 11 months, as we have cycled through Latin America, the importance of family has been a re-occurring theme for us. We have realised this both in our absence and distance from our own family but also through the observation of the family values that the people of South and Central America have shown us.
Thus, in light of our news, to continue cycling would seem like a frivolous activity, one that we would not feel happy with as we would like to offer our support back home. As I sit here writing this, our flight is already booked and this evening (2nd Oct) we will be departing from Mexico City back to the UK.
As it stands at the moment, we are not too sure what the immediate future will hold, however we have arranged to be back in the UK for the next six months. After that who knows? With a one year open return ticket we would like to think that we will be able to return to Mexico to finish off what we have started in order to achieve our dream of cycling to Alaska. However, as the quote at the top of the page suggests, we will just have to wait and see what happens nearer the time.
You maybe wondering how we are feeling? Here, I would like to share Casey Lambert's sentiments whom we met in Peru, whose journey was later cut short due to a collision with a stray sheep...
Our ending here is perhaps less than perfect, but the journey itself was everything and more that we could have ever hoped that it would be. To date, Dave and I have rode over 14,500 kms through Latin America and nearly all of those days have a special place within our heart. Even on the most difficult of days, once we had snuggled down for the night we would always be able to recount and marvel about something that happened during the day that would inspire us. The journey indeed became more important to us than our overall destination for that particular day.
Before we started this adventure, I didn't have any doubts that Dave would love the challenge of the cycling, but for me, when I started I really wasn't sure whether I would be able to do it. Little by little, I learnt that indeed, the journey was just as simple as riding a bike, all I had to do was get up each morning and pedal. Instead of looking at our journey in its whole, we would just focus on the day ahead, setting ourselves little goals every few hours. Riding a little bit each day soon found us managing to get from town to town and eventually country to country. Looking back at the map, after eleven months on the road, we couldn't quite believe that we had cycled the whole of South and Central America - it still seems a little surreal!
We are trying to look at things positively, six months back home will enable us to be with friends, allow us time to play with our nieces and nephews and to spend time with our friends. So as our bodies adjust to life off the bike, it will give us time to reflect and make sense of our journey so far through Latin America.
This isn't the last blog. We have spent some time in Mexico City which we would like to write about and after that, once we have settled back into the UK we will write up some of our reflections of our time spent on the road. So don't forget to come back soon!
