Only three days ago I had been talking via email with my good mate Chris who was in Quito, Ecuador. He had been there for a while by now, around two or three weeks actually, which for a traveller was quite a long time.
Only minutes ago I sent off an email. I figured that he would probably still be in Quito or at the outset, would be in a neighboring country. How wrong I was. Just after I had sent off my email, I received one from him. It seems our messages crossed over in transit. It came as a bit of a shock to hear that he had, during the past three days, actually done quite a lot of travel and was now sitting back at home. In Australia.
In his words:
Well this might come as a big shock to most people, but I'm back on Australiain soil. I arrived in Miles at 10.45pm last night, 20th August having left Quito at 2pm on the 17th of August. I came home to go to Melbourne and help teach in the first bible school there, which starts on the 17th of September. As you can all imagine, it was quite a shock for mum and dad, as they nor anyone else had any idea I was coming home.
It was an adventure in itself just getting home. I flew Quito Panama, Panama LA, LA Auckland, Auckland Brisbane, then jumped a bus for Miles. I had 22 hours in LA, arriving at 12am. So I met a guy from NZ and a guy from Scotland who were in the same boat. We all went to the famous Venis beach and hung out and watched the crowed go by all day, before catching the plane to NZ at 9.30pm that night. When I got into Brisbane at 8.20am, I went straight to Roma street transit centre to catch the next bus to Miles which was at 5.30pm that night, so I had to kill another day in Brisbane before I could get home.
So here I am back to the good Australian way of life and right now mum is making me bacon and eggs for breakfast. Oh how I've missed Australia. But on the down side it is sad to be leaving Latin America, which will always have a piece of my heart and will be a place that I'll be returning to, God willing.
I was hoping to catch up with this lad in the USA for Christmas, but as we had made no set plans nor established any real points for meeting, it was only really a suggestion. It looks like I will need to travel to Australia if I am going to see him now. But that is not all bad. I already have a number of reasons for returning to my homeland at some point in time. Chris just helps to strengthen my reasons.
Good on ya mate. I certainly did not expect that from you. It was a shock. But a good one. I wish you all the best in your up and coming adventures.
Rob.