{"id":4,"date":"2014-10-28T23:46:28","date_gmt":"2014-10-28T23:46:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimily.org\/?p=4"},"modified":"2014-11-10T02:54:16","modified_gmt":"2014-11-10T02:54:16","slug":"on-the-blog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimily.org\/?p=4","title":{"rendered":"On the Blog"},"content":{"rendered":"
Le blog has arrived! We\u2019re a bit late, we\u2019ve been quite busy.
\nWe only decided 5 weeks ago to come travelling. And over that five weeks we have discovered:<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
    \n
  1. 5 weeks isn\u2019t enough unless one of you is not working<\/li>\n
  2. Google becomes your closest confidante and advisor, it (well a cacophony of travel bloggers) can tell you what the best sleeping bag liners are, what visas you need, what to do about bed bugs, that thrush cream should be purchased \u201cjust in case”, typical itineraries.. or simply mire you in confusion about whether you\u2019ll need a sleeping bag, trainers vs hiking boots for Machu Picchu, how important malaria tablets are, whether you need a mosquito net\u2026\u00a0 the tributary comments roar in a torrent of debate for a while then\u00a0meander through estuaries and out into the big blue sea of no resolution. To be honest, I\u2019m looking forward to actually talking to people, or simply finding out, whilst on the move… rather than begin a new job as an internet researcher trying to understand the big blue.<\/li>\n
  3. You\u2019ll spend approximately 5x your boyf\u2019s budget on gear<\/li>\n
  4. You\u2019ll be totes emosh saying \u201cgoodbye\u201d to family (along with your sentimental trinkets) and friends<\/li>\n
  5. The closer leaving gets, the more vivid & strange your dreams will be – and yet frankly dull at the same time (\u201cthat backpacker nicked my sarong!\u201d, \u201cMy storage doesn\u2019t let me store frozen goods?! Are you kidding?\u201d etc)<\/li>\n
  6. You basically have no idea what you\u2019re doing.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \n
    <\/div>\n

    And look, this blog is probably not going to conjure up any inspiration to travel in whoever reads it, it won\u2019t contain any insights that haven\u2019t been documented by thousands of internet voices\u00a0before us, but that\u2019s not the point of the journey or the blog. Although, in an effort to afford trite nonsense I have ordered Jim to serve up one funny morcel each day. Its one man\u2019s quest against the banal.<\/p>\n

    <\/div>\n

    So, on our first day travelling, I had two immediate and stark reminders of why this is important to me and what I\u2019m hoping to gain from this experience.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    The first reminder was a massive attachment to my stuff in storage. Well, not exactly to my stuff – I woke up at 4.30am in a panic about what I\u2019d left in my boxes that might explode (pressurised gas canisters etc) – but not because it might ruin my things, rather it might ruin others\u2019 belongings and my insurance would be invalidated, plunging me into massive personal liability debt. I could not detach from my contrivance. Thankfully a flight to another country gives you some perspective i.e. you stop thinking about it. Que sera.<\/p>\n

    <\/div>\n

    And therein lies the first point, perspective. Living life from just what\u2019s on your back, I expect, is quite liberating in terms of properly assigning importance to things.<\/p>\n

    \n
    \"Me<\/a>
    Me and the Pack<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
    <\/div>\n

    And when we arrived into Cancun it was total amateur night.<\/p>\n

      \n
    • Missed the bus we booked a ticket for because we couldn\u2019t find the departure platform >><\/li>\n
    • Got soaked in a massive downpour >><\/li>\n
    • Paid a taxi to go about 50 meters >><\/li>\n
    • Asked hotel (Hotel el Rey del Caribe) for a food recommendation (OK, it was nice but far too expensive for backpackers)>><\/li>\n
    • Succumbed to a mariachi band (“Mexicanismo 2000”, no less) >><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
      .. with no espanol (yet) its basically confusing and bewildering. And so to the second point\u2026 isn\u2019t that amazing? The not knowing if you\u2019re in the right place, on the right bus, walking in the right direction, tipping the waiter the right money, massively insulting people\u2026 how can that not make you less insular, more open, more free to take a chance and “see what happens\u201d (a philosophy that\u2019s anathema to my product manager self in London)?<\/div>\n
      \n
      <\/div>\n

      We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Le blog has arrived! We\u2019re a bit late, we\u2019ve been quite busy. We only decided 5 weeks ago to come travelling. And over that five weeks we have discovered: 5 weeks isn\u2019t enough unless one of you is not working Google becomes your closest confidante and advisor, it (well a cacophony of travel bloggers) can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-merida-mexico","category-mexico"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimily.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimily.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimily.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimily.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimily.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/jimily.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115,"href":"https:\/\/jimily.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4\/revisions\/115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimily.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimily.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimily.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}