Good times, bad times

"Dónde están los baños ?" - I ask the man under the tin shack where the toilet is. He points to the corner; behind a curtain, there's a hole in the floor. Jackpot. Diego and I fight our way through the crowd sitting around everywhere, staring at us as if we were from another planet. Normally, that doesn't bother me, but right now I'm incredibly annoyed. We're standing in front of a roadblock, in the pouring rain, in the middle of the Colombian pampas. No idea when we'll be able to continue. The people themselves don't know, even though they started the strike. Typical!

Amidst all the beautiful travelogues with even more beautiful photos, we want to write about what doesn't go so well. Every trip has its downsides—things that annoy you, push you to your limits, and ultimately leave you exhausted. Because the journey to each destination, the everyday life that has to be managed alongside the highlights and childcare, and everything else that unexpectedly comes up, all take their toll. Fortunately, these things fade away in retrospect; All that remains are memories of the "good times" and a few funny anecdotes and memories that connect us.

I'm not talking about culture shock or the lower standards compared to Europe. You get used to showers without shower heads, toilets without seats, toilet paper, and soap.

Driving does not mean getting ahead.

Driving is often a source of frustration. Of course, this is partly because we spend a relatively large amount of time on the road. We try to plan our routes as best we can, not to overschedule our days, because almost no leg of the journey goes according to Google Maps' plan. Traffic jams aren't usually the main problem (except in Guatemala, where it feels like everything is always jammed). It's more often detours or road closures that bring everything to a complete standstill. We were stuck for over three hours in pouring rain in front of one such blockade, which farmers in Colombia had set up on a bridge. We missed our goal for the day and ended up sleeping at an incredibly loud, smelly gas station.

There's always something to strike against...

Google Maps isn't always reliable; the "most economical" route sometimes leads through tiny alleys, so steep that we couldn't even drive up them without low range. No one here seems to have heard of road construction regulations regarding permissible gradients. In Peru, the navigation system sends us onto a gravel mountain pass that's probably a few kilometers shorter than the paved highway through the valley. By the time we realize it, it's far too late to turn back. After five hours on gravel roads, our brains are mush, and we desperately need a beer.

In every country on our trip (without exception!), there are speed bumps, sometimes called tumulus, sometimes topes. Unpredictable and in the most impossible places. Driving in the dark is therefore out of the question. In Uruguay, attempting to drive in the dark after the first few kilometers outside the port area cost us our rear storage box—thankfully, nothing more. It's impossible to count how many times we've had to painstakingly pry our living room drawers back into place after they've been ripped out of their guide rails despite being properly secured.

Always something to repair

The roads take their toll on the vehicle, too. Luckily, we made a good choice with our Toyota Land Cruiser. You can't get a more reliable vehicle. No damage that wasn't our fault. Repairs aren't always easy, even for trivial things. While parking at the narrow campsite on Lake Atitlán in Guatemala, I hit our rear cargo box, and the rivets on the lid broke. Easy enough to replace with screws and nuts, right? Wrong. Of course, we didn't have any with us (even though we have at least 100 kg of tools and spare parts on board). Neither other overlanders nor the campsite owner could help... I zipped from hardware store to hardware store. Apparently, it's not a common item here. We had to improvise with cable ties because we couldn't drive a single meter with the box stuck.

always something to repair

Information - No luck.

Often we have to improvise on the road; planned stops don't work out because the restaurant is closed or the supermarket doesn't even exist. Asking around is still the best solution. Sometimes not even that works. On our last leg in Guatemala, we want to fill up the tank again. Why pay 30 cents more per liter of diesel in Mexico? Of course, we don't have any cash left, but the enterprising gas station attendant assures us we can pay by card. After trying four different cards, reading cards with and without chips, two different card readers, and various Wi-Fi hotspots, we start to have our doubts. Half an hour has passed since we filled up, and I spend another hour discussing the cash options we can offer with the manager. Unfortunately, euros are completely unknown here. So Micha drives 15 minutes back to the ATM (curiously enough, at a Shell station) and pays us off after a total of 90 minutes... was it worth the €30 savings?

Don't rely on anything, or you'll be left high and dry.

You can't rely on much these days. Diego and I waited for hours by the roadside in the Colombian Caribbean heat for the bus to the city... none of them stopped. To this day, Diego waves at every bus he sees.

On Tintipan Island, despite having been confirmed for transport back the day before, we were forgotten by the boat. We had no diapers for another night (there are no shops there). But even in supposedly better-organized countries like Mexico, things aren't any different. While larger chains offer services like home delivery, instead of a mobile screen, I received a baseball cap at the campsite. So much for the supposed time and money savings, since I have to go to the store in person to exchange it :-)

Eventually we got a boat.

Passport please

Roadside checkpoints are everywhere... whether it's police, military, paramilitary, customs, or just kids – someone always stops you. And they all take time. If it takes longer and Diego is napping, he wakes up too early (his mood is accordingly foul for the rest of the day)... Luckily, a friendly chat in Spanish often does the trick. Sometimes they ask for papers. A policewoman in Bolivia drove me to the brink of despair, insisting on seeing the original of my driver's license, which I had hidden so well that it took me an hour to find it.

Traffic cops in Colombia stopped us (rightfully so) because of our leaking wastewater tank. After a long discussion and countless apologies, they waived the threatened $1,000 fine. Perhaps because Micha was filming everything? Was this a case of police corruption? We don't know.

Your friend and helper?

The border official in Mexico was definitely corrupt; she insisted on stamping our passports with the exit stamp only after we paid the tourist tax (USD 50 per person, including Diego). The fact that we had already paid the tax automatically upon arrival by plane was of no concern to her... and of course, we didn't receive a receipt.

At the doctor's again

Being sick is never pleasant, but it's even more inconvenient when traveling. A loose crown, a leg infection, or persistent diarrhea—and suddenly you need a doctor. Appointments are usually unavailable. You go, maybe the practice is open, maybe not, maybe the waiting room is empty, or you find yourself facing about 25 mothers with sick children.

If it's not too urgent, we often go to the pharmacy first. The advice there is usually okay, and you can get all medications without a prescription anyway (except for opium, which you have to get elsewhere). Micha, however, once received a misdiagnosis: a fungal infection on his right calf. We bought ridiculously overpriced medication (without a receipt), and it didn't get any better. So, we went to the doctor after all. The misdiagnosis rate is somewhat lower there, but by no means 100%. Micha carried his chumpachurro infection, which he probably picked up in the Bolivian Amazon, around for months and through three countries until the larva was nice and plump, and a doctor in Ecuador finally surgically removed it.

Even the doctor was amazed at how big the larva could grow....

Good night?

All of this can be quite demanding in the long run. Normally, everything is quickly forgotten after a good night's sleep. Unfortunately, there are also quite a few potential sources of disturbance. We carefully select our campsites, every negative experience is factored in, and so we've become rather selective. A lot of things are simply unpredictable. Locals who park just a few meters away from us at night on the kilometer-long, deserted beach of Puerto Malabrigo, Peru, and drink all night with loud music; teenagers who circle our camper on their quad bike in a large parking lot in Chile... unfortunately, we can't just move somewhere else in the middle of the night. And such people have absolutely no understanding that someone wants to sleep here.

Barking dogs are almost everywhere; no one seems to have attended dog training classes. If one barks, the whole neighborhood barks. But peacocks, donkeys, and roosters can also be quite annoying. At our surf beach in Colombia, where we spend about three weeks, the early-rising rooster wakes us up every morning at 4:30 a.m. We ordered chicken from the restaurant countless times – it didn't help! Then we tried to figure out the best way to kill him ourselves, but unfortunately we weren't the first and he was usually sitting in tall trees.

No place without dogs...

In many countries, there's also this sweltering heat, even at night, which is almost unbearable without air conditioning. And where there's heat, there are mosquitoes. They get into the camper through every crack. The sandflies are the worst; they're tiny and bite. In the Tatacoa Desert in Colombia, we were practically attacked and writhed for nights on end from the itching.

On the hunt for mosquitoes...

All these things take their toll on us in the long run, and because we're so close together, everyone gets caught in each other's bad moods. It amplifies itself. There's no personal space to defuse it. We're often at our limits, and the atmosphere isn't always pleasant. Questions about the meaning of life come and go. We're still traveling, but we're already certain that we wouldn't want to miss this time, neither as a couple nor as a family. That makes us all the more excited to be home and appreciate things like toilet paper in the bathroom.

Sometimes it helps to just write everything down and get it off our chests—with a smile on our faces :-)