San Francisco, USA

After a few long days driving we made it down to San Francisco. We got held up on the way because I left our iPod on the side of a highway, we drove back for hours to get it, only to find someone had got there before us. I wasn't too popular that day. On the way we saw two large Elk in the forest at the side of the road, waiting to cross the road. We stopped in awe and watched them cross the road and graze in the grass, with their gigantic fur covered antlers they held themselves with such pride and dignity. After eating up miles and miles on the road we finally made it to San Francisco and spent hours trying to find a reasonable motel. Crossing over the Golden Gate Bridge made for a triumphant entrance into the city. Now we are busy showing the bike, we fly out in one week, will today be the day we say goodbye to the bike?

There is a hollow kind of sadness as we face the end of the trip. We realise that we are reaching the point where nothing more can be added to the trip and nothing can be taken away from it, no new experiences can add or subtract, soon the journey will have come to an end. Thinking about returning home is confusing, you think about the incredible decadence of our lives at home and it seems that we are so lucky to be able to work and make a living, without being crushed by poverty, unemployment or boredom. You feel that it is a simple thing but also a great privilege. On the other hand it seems that our lives are so impoverished in other ways, it seems we retreat to our rich lonely castles at the end of the day and that our wealth creates a distance between us. All through central america we sat in town squares in the evenings and watched the children playing and the old people sitting together and laughing. They embraced us too in their warmth, in their community, we automatically felt at home. You can't help but wonder what it is we have lost touch with.

I'm sure these ramblings are familiar to all travelers returning home after a long journey and I guess travel teaches you time and again that there are different ways of living, that things can change and that there are more possibilities than you had previously imagined.