I write this from a Latam flight somewhere over the Atlantic about halfway between Rome and São Paulo. By some cruel twist of fate (read: “bumbled the seat numbers when checking in”) I have the distinct pleasure of a middle seat and I swear they are getting smaller. Either that or I’m just getting older and less tolerant.
We’ve been on the road for nearly two months through Southern Africa and Europe. It’s been a study in contrasts. In Botswana, a month with a 4x4 and a tent—hippos charging, river crossings with water up to the bonnet. In Italy, an equally demanding challenge: a pasta habit that’s expanded both the Italian GDP and our waistlines. One extreme to the next.
But this year is not about moderation. In travelling for 7 months we (being my wife and I) are hoping to jolt our systems out of the chaotic concrete jungle of London. To see the world anew and pay credence to our creativity and passions without distractions. To slow down, pay attention and reconnect to the things around us (and to embrace these kinds of embarrassing cliches with the straight faced conviction of the temporarily unemployed!).
Dispatches from the Road is meant as a record—notes, photographs, stories from wherever we find ourselves. It isn’t a travel blog, or a guide. Think of it more as a notebook, sometimes a field journal, sometimes a photo essay but hopefully something different, informative and interesting. Some entries will be brief, others will linger. The hope is weekly, though the spirit is unplanned. Like the year itself, we’ll see where it leads.
What sort of traveling are we after? The untamed kind. Scarlet macaws wheeling over the Amazon. Snow peaks in the Andes and the Himalayas. Anteaters and jaguars in the Pantanal. Tigers in the forests of India. These places have always felt close to me, though I’ve set foot in none of them. I first arrived by other means—through Kipling, Willard Price, Isabel Allende—writers who lit a lasting curiosity to see the world they conjured.
What our journey isn’t is traditional backpacking. But it’s not high end travel either. It sits somewhere in-between. Think mid range airbnbs with the odd hostel thrown in for good measure. Tents, overnight buses, and Nepalese tea houses. And who knows, perhaps something a little fancier when the opportunity arises.
We spend the next two nights in Sao Paolo before we fly to Cuiaba, the largest city in the sparse cowboy state of Mato Grosso. From there we hire a car and drive the infamous Transpantaneira highway, an arrow straight 145km dirt road which stabs right into the heart of the Jaguar capital of the world. The remote northern Pantanel.
Lets see what awaits! Until next time.