It seems even the best of things must evenually come to an end…

Sadly the end of our journey looms; we’ll be leaving Mombasa soon and heading back to Aus to resume “regular” life. This, therefore, will be our final blog entry…. for a little while anyway – no doubt the wander-lust will rear its head again at some stage in the near future and compel us to seek out more adventures. For now, though, the security and stability of jobs, regular income and sleeping in the same bed for more than 3 nights in a row, beckon….

Kwaheri for now blog fans – the beach beckons!

People say travel changes you; certainly the travelling we’ve done so far has shown us a lot and changed our perspective on a few things. For example, it’s helped us appreciate how easy and liberating it is to live with very little. For most of the trip we’ve had less than 20kg of possessions each, which basically amounts to 3 t-shirts, 1 jumper, 1 pair of shorts, 1 pair of jeans, 1 pair of shoes, some underwear and the barest of life’s essentials. Initially we were woriied about how we would cope, having so little; we very quickly realised, however, that the less stuff you have, the more freedom you have. And freedom, we’ve decided, is worth more than anything else. We’ve seen so many people close to us become so entrenched in the cult of stuff that grips most of the Western world that they lose the freedom to enjoy their life; the freedom to be the best them they could be. This trip has shown us that we don’t need lots of stuff to be happy – quite the opposite in fact. What we need to be happy is the freedom to experience life, not just live it. 

It’s a cliche, but we’ve also learnt that, as much as people around the world are different, they are also the same; and as different as the world it is, underneath it is fundamentally the same. We’ve seen how much of human history revolves around the same patterns – how the same desires and passions seem to repeatedly shape and reshape the world. We’ve seen how opulently people live (or have lived), whilst others live with next to nothing; and yet how happiness can exist independently of possessions and wealth. And we’ve come to appreciate that there is good and bad – wonder and tragedy – everywhere. We’ve had an amazing 7 months on the road and are soooooo grateful to have been able to visit so many great places, see so many cool sights, meet so many wonderful people and eat such awesome (and sometimes not so awesome) things. We’ve been left in awe by the wonder of nature in some of the places we’ve been to; in other places it was the wonders created by human beings in the name of art, religion and beauty that took our breath away.

Knowing our trip is coming to an end is achingly bitter-sweet: the sweetness of knowing we’ll be seeing our families and closest friends again soon, tempered by the bitterness of knowing we’ll be soon be re-entrenched in the mundane concerns of day-to-day life. It’s been so much fun having somewhere new to explore every day; having new foods to try, new people to meet, new languages and cultural nuances to adapt to; and most of all having something new to learn every day. For us the challenges of travelling have always far out-weighed the benefits – we just love the incomparable joy of being out in the big wide world. And whilst the routine of work, peak hour traffic, paying the bills and all the trappings of domesticity, can never really compare to travelling, we know that life in Aus is good and there will be plenty more opportunities to travel in the future. 

Thank you to all the fans who’ve been following us throughout the trip so far, and to those who joined us along the way. Your blog comments and emails have been great – knowing we had friends and family keeping up with our adventures helped us feel connected and somehow less disconnected from the rest of the world. We promise to keep blogging so tune in again to see where our wandering soles take us next…

The sun sets on another amazing day. This travel thing sure is AWESOME!