In this first column of ishouldlogoff’s The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, we aim to answer what our best and worst days of the trip were….We’ve made plenty of memories and these are just some of the ones that standout the most in our heads. We will do our best to “The Good, The Bad & The Ugly” a weekly column. but our creative juices are bound to stop flowing sometime.
The Good – Bolivia’s Death Road. This day was just plan fun, nothing else to describe it. We started the morning in La Paz, one of the world’s highest capital cities. Next up we we strapped ourselves into some pretty impressive gear, hopped on some nice bikes and rode down that mountain all the way to the Amazon just as fast as we wanted. At first we shared the paved road with traffic and then we turned off and onto the older, unpaved, dirt road for the rest of the trip to sea level. We were fed good food, taken care of by a support vehicle, and literally not allowed to worry about a thing…which is probably what made it so fun Runner Up: Taking the boogie board down the class V rapids of Uganda’s Nile River.
The Bad – We had just come down from Kilimanjaro. Our bodies were sore and achy. Our bowel movements weren’t quite right…and we went online. We quickly learned two things we would have rather not known about. The first was that the rather hefty amount of money we had to send to Uganda in order to visit with the Gorillas was being held in limbo by the money transfer people (aka banks) and that our visitation permits had not yet been purchased. The second was that our box that we’d sent home of all the beautiful Zimbabwean statues had arrived home in a very damaged state. The Zimbabwe box was the straw that broke the camel’s back and we felt completely beaten by travel, and by Africa. Of all bad things to happen, in hindsight these weren’t so awful….but we just couldn’t handle it anymore.
The Ugly – That would be the day I almost died in Ethiopia. Nobody ever said e.coli was a nice illness, did they? We didn’t realize it was that bad at the time, hence it wasn’t quite as scary as the 7.2 earthquake from Belize, but it was pretty darn awful. If you didn’t read the original post, you probably want to….and if you did already read it, well then you know why I’m not repeating any of that here!
This column of ishouldlogoff.com aims to answer those questions that we always get asked. What was your favorite this, or your worst that. Every week we aim to highlight a new topic and will do so until we run out of ideas. If you have an idea for a Good-Bad-Ugly post, feel free to tell us in the comment section below or send us an email. To read all of them, click here.
So refreshing to hear some of your bad tales! I know that sounds awful, but too often we hear all about how great RTW trips are.. and they are… but shiz happens, too!
Glad you recovered from your e-coli bout. Ick!
its funny how some of the bad stuff that happens whilst traveling end up making the best stories. e-coli might be pushing the boundaries on that though. glad youre ok!
This columns is a great ide: I’m with Kelly, I want to hear about the not sooo good too. I doesn’t have to get as bad as e.coli, though. Glad you are ok.
Glad to hear such positive feedback regarding this column. Granted the topic of best or worst day offers up a greater variety of subjects from which to choose but the idea is simple…..most of travel, most of the memories, don’t make it to the blog because they are either too little or too bad or too personal. Just trying to change things up a bit….
Tragedy + Time = Comedy (or at least great blog entries).
Love this idea as well, since travel is not all glamorous all the time. E-coli? That’s terrible. Hope you are better now. My worst travel experience was getting deported, but looking back on it now, also one of my most memorable.
Getting deported? Woah…that brings things to a whole new level!
Thanks for sharing all the juicy stuff! It is nice to be reminded that we aren’t the only ones who encounter bad stuff when travelling…and it’s fun to share the good too. We’re planning a round-up after each country or area as we travel as well.