Circumnavigating

In February, 2008, my husband of five months and I quit our comfortable professional jobs, moved out of our apartment, and put into motion the sum total of four years of planning. The dream; to travel the world before our lives put limits on how far we could go.

We never even suspected how far that could be.

The plan was to follow an equatorial path east, from Lima, Peru, through South America’s vast central nations of Bolivia and Brazil, plus a few weeks in Argentina — a couple months in Spanish-speaking nations to get us acclimatized to illiteracy.

Then to Spain, where a walk in the woods along the Way of Saint James quickly became a spiritual rendering we did not elect or expect; an experience that rocked our new marriage in a profoundly reassuring way so that by the time we met friends in France, we knew exactly how to receive them; with open arms, and a fully-stocked fridge. They would be our lifelines home at this first significant benchmark.

Our eyes were opened almost violently in the Dark Continent, a place that made up the majority of my academic background, and one I decided at once I had not even remotely understood. Starting in Kenya, we journeyed south, opting not to challenge Kilimanjaro, spending time instead in the lush jungle of the Usambara Mountains in Tanzania. In Stone Town, we picked up Livingstone’s trail, journeying overland by train to Zambia’s Victoria Falls, where we, too, had to admit our resolve was lost.

And so chance intervened in the shape of an Australian truck driver with a wicked sense of humour and an Overland truck full of other lost souls. Together we crossed the elephant realm of Botswana, diamond-rich Namibia, and the nirvana that is South Africa’s wine region, pausing long enough to bow to the meeting of the Atlantic and Indian oceans. The journey was half over, but Africa’s lessons continued in Malawi, where we spent three weeks coming face to face with familiar faces: White-run NGOs and Missions, for better or worse.

Africa tested our resolve with fire, and we emerged in India ready to brave the heat. Unfortunately the hot was short-lived, and a quick side-trip to cool northern Kashmir was too dramatic a temperature change, and we both fell ill, ending too soon our Indian exploration. We flew to Nepal recovered, and ready to see the gateway to heaven, but enjoyed equally our walk through Annapurna, where altitudes did not play as much havoc with our heads.

From there, the traveler’s promised land; South-east Asia, and a bounty of well-trodden paths to wander. Ours included a gentrified tour of Bangkok, Thailand to celebrate our joint birthdays (although I remain a good 12 hours older than my spouse), the haunted paths of long-dead Angkor in Cambodia, the dramatic karsts of Halong Bay, Vietnam, and a slow meander up the Mekong in Laos.

In between Asia’s spectacular sites, it was hard not to notice our own reflection, not to see how unfamiliar we had become to ourselves, not to count the miles in every crease and shadow. Our dream had yielded a thousand unexpected glimpses of a world we always dreamed existed, but it had also extracted a price; that of responsibility, and the heavy knowledge that we had left a life we had not appreciated — had not known how to appreciate. How now to return to that privileged life, having seen, having experienced, having felt every long mile like a small penance, since we left home so long ago?

It would be warm arms and much joy that welcomed us upon returning to Canada, though we were torn already in two by the life we were leaving, and the one we were already eagerly embracing. True understanding takes time and patience, and in these early days, it is all we can do to believe that it wasn’t all just a dream, just a wild and exhausting holiday; Disneyland on crack. But something deep inside me knows that my lifelong dream has changed me forever. I must now decide how. And Why.

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This blog is a real-time record of our circumnavigation. It is searchable by date and category, country, by photos, by Top Tens, and through the eyes of our sidekick, Motoki. Any life dreams pursued as a direct result of this record are non-refundable. But if you feel like giving me some money for it, that’d be ok, too.