Jannis & Martine

We are back in Holland again, staying with our parents untill we are able to go back again into our appartment.

This gives us some time to do things like read our mail, do the laundry, unpack, etc. And of course looking back on our trip. Strange to think the trip is over and now just a memory… 

In the meanwhile while we were enjoying our travel, things were happening back at home: some of our friends got pregnant, a couple of baby’s were born, some friends moved to a new place, some friends moved in together and even some ‘die hard single’ friends found a partner. Unfortunately also some bad news reached us. 

Besides that we couldn’t believe all the things happening back home. First of all, after being away for just a few weeks, I found out the department I used to work for was being sacked. So the (pretty hard) decision to give up my beloved job to go travelling, turned out to be the right one!
And while being away the recession also hit Holland fully, so the  job situation changed around completely from since we had left (a good reason to stay away a bit longer). Another worry while travelling was that our real estate agent, through who we had rented our flat, was going bankrupt.

But after 8 months of travelling all of this doesn’t seem to have mattered: all my colleges have new fun jobs, our broker was part of a bigger company so it has been rescued by its mother company, and even the resession doesn’t seem to be a worry as there are still plenty of vacancies to apply for.

We feel happy to be back home especially since we were being welcomed on arrival at Schiphol by our family and some good friends (including one of the ‘new’ baby’s). We are also enjoying things like clean clothes (in South-America the washing machines are not that good) and of course stroopwafels, drop, a glass of cassis, bolussen, etc.

Or actually, just the fact that you can eat and drink anything. Or take every bus (without having to worry if the busdriver has driven to many hours) and take any taxi without the fear of being hijacked and robbed. So we appreciate the things you take in Holland for granted again.

After more than 8 months of travelling, having exciting new experiences and changing everything constantly, we now still have things to explore, being back at home: we are looking forward to see the new houses of our friends, meet their new partners, their ‘new’ baby’s or see how other babys meanwhile have grown into little kids.
And after our amazing trip, travelling to Tokyo, Australia, Argentinia, Chili, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Lima and Madrid, we now have come to the most scary part;

going back to ‘the real world’……. 

Love, Martine

P.S.
This blog and our foto’s on Flickr were our way to stay in touch and let you know how and what we were doing. Besides if there was an exceptional reason, we have not sent any mail. So don’t take it personal if you didn’t get a postcard……… 😉

P.P.S.
The coming days we will be posting loads of new pictures on our our Flickr-webpage since we are still 3 weeks behind, so keep checking! We even are posting more pictures from Salar de Uyuni so now there are almost 100 (Hundred!) Salar de Uyuni pictures to see.

This is just a short post as we arrived in Madrid yesterday, and we have only have two days untill we fly to Amsterdam this Sunday-afternoon.

So we have to hurry a bit to see some things and we are a little tired from yesterday´s flight. We flew directly out of Lima, Peru, on a a very tiring 11-hour flight, and, as we flew with the worst airline I have ever flown with, Iberia (where they give you only 2 (TWO !!) drinks in 11 hours) we are now recovering a little in the sun…

Jannis.

P.S.

The last days we also have managed to publish some very nice Bolivian pictures on our Flickr-webpage, so check them out.

We are now in Lima, Peru, staying a couple of days here with Martine’s Peruvian relatives, Ricardo and his family.

Ricardo is a cousin of Martine’s Australian cousin Michelle. She’s the one who got married eight months ago, and since our eight-month trip started in Australia with Michelle’s wedding, it’s very special to end our trip with a visit to her Peruvian family.

As we had been sick a week ago, we’ve not done very much in the city here. But we still have gotten a pretty good impression of Lima as Ricardo has guided us around the nice boulevards and neighbourhoods along the Pacific ocean, and Flor, Ricardo’s mother, has made us some fabulous Perivan food, including delicious ‘arroz con leche’ dessert (rice with milk) and ‘chita morrada’ (made from black corn) drink.

In about an hour we are going to have our goodbye-lunch as we fly out of Lima tonight. For lunch Flor is making another famous Peruvian dish: ‘ceviche’. I have been told that it is raw fish marinated with lemon and onion, and since I grew up along the Dutch coast and like fish very much, I am very curious about this ‘ceviche’ dish.

This will also be our last South-American meal…

Jannis.

Because we have been sort of stuck in La Paz last week, as we have been pretty sick, but not as sick as our jungle-travel-buddies Brad and Caren who even took antibiotics to get better (see the link at the top right ´Sites from people we know´ for a link to their blogsite).

So we had the ´pleasure´ of enjoying La Paz a little longer. Not really the best city to be stuck for more than a week, but luckily we had CNN in our room. So we are completely up to date with everything that has happened the past 8 months, including Holland beating England with cricket…

Since we have run out of time now, we had to change our plans for the last weeks. Instead of making our way through Peru to fly out of Lima, we now will fly directly to Lima this evening. In Lima we will stay a couple of days with Martine´s Peruvian relatives.

From there we will fly directly to Madrid to spend our last couple of days in Spanish-speaking territory.

Jannis en Martine.

During our stay in the jungle we must have eaten something wrong, as not only we, but also Caren and Bradley (the couple we travelled through the rainforest with), are having some problems.

As a dietician I of course feel more like just eating well and let your body fight the problem. But as we had a 20-hours busride ahead of us, in a bus without toilet, I put myself on a diet of eating nothing and taking Loperamide tablets. Luckily Jannis wasn´t too bad and could manage the busride with just being careful. This is how we managed to arrive back here in La Paz without any ´accidents’.

Unfortunatly by this time also Jannis seems to get worse as well, so we will stay here a couple of more days to recover. This has given us somr time to arrange our flight back home (Sunday June 14) and publishing our pictures of Paraguay on our Flickr-webpage). So by now we’re ‘only’ still a month behind with publishing our pictures 😉 That’s the positive site of having stomach problems.

It seems that having problems is, even though we’ve been very careful, something every traveller going to Bolivia has to go through….

Love Martine.