Arriving as guests leaving as friends! We have been traveling a lot over the past few years but hardly ever met hosts like Eline and Julian. Just to give some examples: They picked us up from the airport and dropped us off at the airport (even though our flights was late at night and early in the morning), Eline planned our whole three weeks stay in French Polynesia with us, helped us booking the flights, translated for us, gave us a lot of very useful information and drove us to the city, the travel agency and Carrefour. Every night we had a lovely dinner together and a lot of fun. They are originally from France but moved to French Polynesia only a few month ago. Thanks to Eline and Julian we had an unforgettable time in French Polynesia.

Fiji is a small place. For the first time we met Maëve and Matt on Wayalailai. As it turned out they nearly had the same itinerary or were following us (which Niels is still very convinced about 😉 Being in the 20ties both are working travelers. Maëva is abroad for nearly one year and Matt even for more than 2 years. They met while fruit picking in Australia. Their “relationship” seems to be based on pure hate, but somehow it works out very well. On Mantaray Island Niels and Maëva became dive buddies for life. Even though Maëve tried to kill Niels several times by diving far deeper than they were supposed to, following turtles or sharks without paying any attention to the Dive instructors signs or by simply making him laugh and therefore losing his regulator.

Oxford Dictionary: Multicultural Couple = Mus and Roman. Being from the Republic of SingaCzech (defined by a staff member at the Barefoot Resort as a mix of Singapore and The Czech-Republic) they are living in Sydney, Australia at the moment. Without any doubt Mus is the most valuable person to Niels who we met during our trip – she is a real doctor. Unlike Niels she can actually heal people! Roman “The Engine” is in charge of the propulsion power especially while kayaking. He is the logical brain while Mus is the heart behind project “Team International”. We spend a great time with them and hopefully will meet them again in Sydney!

Emma is the daughter of Andy, who is the stereotype of a Cowboy (John Wayne must have had him as a role model). He has a rough voice, wearing boots, jeans, a shirt and of course a cowboy hat at all time. Eva was treated like a member of the family and felt at home straight away. Both of them are practicing “Natural Horsemanship”. Natural Horsemanship is a special way of working with horses based on their natural instincts and methods of communication. Horses are herd animals and they interact with each other through body language.

The horses they use for the treks are all standard breads (either trotter or pacer). Most of them would have ended as meat without Andy or Emma. They managed to get them all well balanced so that even people without any experience can ride them! This especially amazing, if you think of the horses previous job as racing horses. They like to share their knowledge and taught Eva some very useful basics, which she will definitely use back home. Thank you guys for the amazing time. I wish I could have stayed longer!!!

Meet our new G-Family

Niels and I decided to join a tour (G-Adventure) for travelling Central America. Luckily we are only 6 passengers, one trainee and the tour guide. This way it feels more like travelling with friends than in a tour.

Queen Lara of Britain: She was born and raised in London, where she lives at the moment. As the picture tells she loves cows. She even gets out of a hammock to see a cow herd. After working for the British Fashion Council, she is taking a time-off to discover central America with us. Even in rural areas she always maintains her British class.

Wai Ying “the exterminator”: Wai Ying was born and raised in Hong Kong. When she was 11 years old she went to Toronto for 12 years, only “recently” moving back to Hong Kong. She started the trip with one huge suitcase, a sports bag and a daypack (appr. 30 kg “that’s what she says”) with goods for survival purposes. The suit case was 95% filled with bug spray, food, kettle that can cook food, 5 packs of antibacterial wipes, 1000 plastic bags, mosquito net, etc. As you might can tell she is afraid of bugs but still took the challenge of this trip. In the beginning she only went out without a whole body cover, sometimes even two layers of cloth for bug protection purposes. But we recognizes some changes lately: short sleeves have been spotted. Before going to sleep she follows a ritual: pest control, covering the whole room in bug spray. On top of that she wears a longsleeve pyjama and a of cause uses a mosquito net.

Allie the crazy tour guide: She is always well-organized, flexible and has a good sense of humour. Her recommendations are always very good no matter if its locations for lunch, dinner, coffee or having a drink. She works for G Adventures for 4 years already. Her backpack is her office and the local hostel is her bed for the night. She lives the life most people dream of travelling all year long with cool and young people. She makes sure that all of us have a fun and safe time.

Rob “The Faust” Robert: A real Aussi! A man without fear, in fact the concept of fears seems to be unknown to him. Whereas being cool was invented by him. He is a text book surfer dude. Living next to the beach in Newcastle, he spends most of his time in the water. He is my favorite yoga chick, even though he is not mastering the handstand position yet.

Hernand “The Facilitator” Hasselhoff. A man with many names. A workout junkie – going for a run no matter what: daytime heat, tropical rain or bad hang over – Hernand is on his feet. Despite his epic age he is still youthful in his mind and body. Making girls happy is his goal in life.

“Doc” Raffi is our youngest. A New York gangster from Bangladesh. Future savior of worlds, he took a final time off before starting his medicine studies. He is well prepared for his time at university, because of his mad Beer Pong skills. Even though he is not a yoga professional he masters to sleep in every position. Trusting the world by not having a lock screen on his new iPhone.

The cute austrian couple called Christiane and Tobias. They were part of the people we went on a diving trip with and after the exhausting dive it was time for lunch and some drinks. Therefore we decided to squeeze in their small rented car something like a Fiat Punto with 6 people to get to an All-inclusive restaurant 8 km away with an beautiful natural pool. Some diving competitions, chatting and chilling together made it an awsome day.

Sometimes the world is really small and while checking the internet in a hotel in Havanna 3 days later we ran into Christiane and Tobias again. They had 3 hours left before leaving for the airport so we spent a few more hours together in Havanna (mainly in an austrian brewery 😉