It has been quite some time since we’ve lead our normal life…nearly a year now. We used fill our weekends with time on the river or working our way through an adventure or orienteering race, but since traveling that lifestyle has largely been forfeited. This weekend, we got it all in.
Friday was our first time on the river, in whitewater, since Chile. Ecuador was before that which was awful for my confidence as I swam and swam and swam down the river. In Chile we were looking for an easy day to practice some of our skills and instead we got flood stage class IV waves that left us scared and wide-eyed. Friday though we got a nice opportunity to …

In honor of a very special birthday (that would be my own) today we woke up to a wonderful breakfast of milk tart pie made special for us by our CS hosts (the same ones with which we started our South African adventure). It is a South African Milk Tart and it made for a perfect breakfast (and will make a perfect un-birthday dessert) so we thought we’d steal the recipe to share!
The filling:
4 (6) cups of milk
2 (3) T butter
1 (1 ½) cups sugar
3 (4) eggs
2 (3) T flour
2 (3) T maizena (corn flour)
1 (1 ½) t vanilla
Cinnamon (as much as you’d like)
Boil the milk and butter. Beat the sugar, eggs, flour and maizena. When boiling …

Before I say anything else I think it is of the utmost importance to recognize the fact that someone here turned 26 (not me, I’m already 27) on Friday when we arrived in San Gil, the self-proclaimed adventure capital of Colombia. To commemorate the occasion in style we celebrated with juicy steak, delicious cake, and exquisite Chilean wine. This was of course AFTER we set up our whitewater excursion for the next day. Priorities.
The water level was, as seems to be the case with us 100% of the time, low. As we prepared for our first river trip without a kayaking guide, just following after a raft, and without any staff that could speak English, we noticed …

I’m not sure which milestone is the bigger milestone. Today marks the 27th year of my life, of my past. Today also marks four weeks before our departure, before the start of our very exciting future. Only four weeks are left until we leave on the trip we’ve spent the last 5 years planning and preparing for. I’m not sure how I feel. Mostly anxious, I think. I feel nervous and excited, worried yet exuberant. Are we making the right choice? Will we land on our feet? Perhaps we’ll strike gold importing hammocks from Guatemala, or maybe we’ll become so disenchanted with poverty and indifference we’ll return home early…worse for the …