“Let the dream devour your life so that the life does not devour your dream.”
Though it’s taken awhile for Kevin and I to actually realize this phenomenon, while traveling as we are, we have noticed that we need a “break” every two months or so in order to reboot and keep enjoying life on the road. We haven’t really noticed it before because we have been pressing pause naturally in a variety of ways. Between my time in long term home stays in India and working at a children’s home in Nepal, to working multiple weeks in Georgia, and backpacking with my brother and friend in Turkey (mind you a month off the bike there was a wee bit too long), Kevin and I usually end up taking some sort of non-cycling week/month every so often just because something falls into our lap. Now though, it’s been two months and two thousand kilometers of non stop action and though we both feel that we are ready for a reboot, it’s easier said than done down here as we haven’t found anywhere to work, and at forty bucks a night, we can’t exactly just find a town to live in for a few weeks either.
It’s sort of hard to explain, the need for a sort of vacation in what most people think of as a lifestyle of vacation, but I also think it’s extremely important for anyone trying to travel long term to understand because at some point or another you simply get burned out. Once the beautiful mountain in front of you turns into just another peak, and once the idea of pedaling tomorrow morning begins to loose its appeal, it’s definitely worth it to take a step back and find yourself some sort of home or project for a week or a month, or until you feel like being out on the road again is actually where you most want to be. For Kevin and I it’s difficult weeks – be it for any reason but in this case because of the incessant rain – which trigger this sort of travellogged (like waterlogged, basically drenched in travel) feeling after about two months of constant movement, and since we haven’t found anywhere to settle in for a bit and reset, we have been indulging in small comforts along the way in order to keep our spirits up and keep seeing Patagonia through new and excited eyes.
For instance a few nights ago we ended up getting a hotel room (which meant lots of Netflix and cookies in bed) and then after cycling all day in the pouring rain, we stayed at a “camping” which we deemed worth the money as the owner allowed us to escape the rain – which didn’t stop for a single second all evening or night – by sleeping indoors on the floor. By avoiding the rain at night we have been able to enjoy the ride even through the pouring rain as we knew that being soaked was not a permanent condition. Even nearly two years in we are still trying to figure out how to make this lifestyle more sustainable, and it seems like, at least for the moment as we can’t find work or a good place to take a week or two off, the key to our current happiness may be simply staying dry.
Rain and mud can actually be a lot of fun as long as you have somewhere dry and warm to go at night.
