Road is calling and we must cycle – but slowly

The road is calling us louder and louder. Since the wedding and saying goodbye to our loved ones, we are really itchy to get moving. We keep checking Bikepacking website for route suggestions off the beaten path, watching beautiful videos from  Let’s go cariño, ordering stuff we’ll need, looking at new bikepacking bags from Acepac and new trailer from Croozer that will carry our precious furry kids like on a cloud thanks to the suspensions from Odpruzeni.cz, making mosquito net from tulle decoration fabric (bought it with purpose of this), dying our white clothes in darker colours so they don’t get dirty so easily…

The time at Mis Casas is coming to an end. Katarina, the owner will arrive next week and we’ll start transitioning to the willingly homeless life again. First by going on a road trip to Oaxaca and Chiapas that we missed on the way here and then leaving beautiful Mis Casas for good. On the bikes towards Guatemala.

What is so tempting about the road calling? It’s the unknown waiting for you when you wake up in the morning. It’s the unknown where you will sleep and who you meet. It might be close to the drug addiction. You know it will bring you to tears sometimes and make your heart pounding in fear but mostly there will be sweet feeling in your body when you discover this beautiful wild camping spot.

There are so many emotions pouring out of me every day on this journey. When life is stripped off unnecessary luxury and what stays are basic needs and craving for natural beauty and being together. I can’t tell you how many times my eyes filled with tears when we crossed a mountain pass and saw what’s behind. How many times I laughed with joy when Lolo and Phoebe played wildly and freely around the camp. How many times I cried when I saw suffering of the animals on the streets and on the farms, unable to do much or anything. How I sang songs from our playlist when panting uphill even though singing is the last thing I can do well.

I’m so grateful we stopped for these six months. Before there were many times when we had a feeling we couldn’t possibly take it all in. We felt overwhelmed with beauty, meetings, outdoors, changes every day. It was difficult to be able to work through all we experienced in 10,5 months of cycling. We got used to this lifestyle and maybe didn’t value it enough to appreciate everything that was meeting us. Now we do again. After spending 6 months in one place, our feet are itchy and minds open. The usual life is not for us four. We want to travel but slowly to have a chance to feel it all.

Last week Tom got an email from his grandfather where he (apart from calling our wedding very weird :-D) urged us to leave the romantic jungle and get moving. One of the most frequent questions from the people we meet or from the media is when we’re expecting to get to Ushuaia. People want to see numbers and estimates. That’s a classic view of things. Quickly, quickly get on with it, so you have all these experiences intense and immediate and when your vacation is over, get back to the normality. That’s not how it works with this journey, sorry everybody.

There’s no end date. This journey is our life. Even if sometimes in the future we find a place where we want to live longer, this journey will be within us. The art of slowing down. The art of appreciating the simple things. Being together, seeing the nature changing, enjoying all kind of weather, letting yourself drown in feelings, putting the handwork into things, cooking, creating rather than buying pre-made.

I keep thinking about one thing and I know that Tom does too. Even if we don’t make it to Ushuaia, even if we don’t make it at all because something happens (as it recently happened to cyclists in Mexico and Tajikistan), we’re the happiest. Appreciating what we’ve got from life already. We don’t have to wait for the retirement to appreciate it :). Do you?

PS: The pictures in this article are from a beautiful island in Mexico Holbox that we visited in August as part of short road trip in Yucatán). So no, we don’t cycle normally on these bikes :-D.