Baders on tour are officially BADERS BACK HOME!

So our journey is over and a new adventure begins.

We've met so many lovely people around the world: local people and people on journeys both around their own countries and abroad, many of whom we'll be keeping in touch with.  

We've been fortunate enough to experience how incredible nature is - at times harsh, fragile, adorable, deadly, vast, inspiring, awesome, frightening and beautiful.

Louis and Frankie, in particular, have been learning, not so much from a formal curriculum, but more from the experience of exploring and adapting to different places and situations along the way. They've learned things about people, about geography, about history, about language. They've been adventurous with food, both eating it, sometimes cooking it and - when it came to a fish-market in Borneo where people choose their own 'live' dinner - avoiding it. They've learned a lot about making choices and the implications of sticking to a budget (not that they've always liked the outcomes!) both our family budget, and spending their own hard-earned money. 

They've met some wonderful children in village schools in Brazil, Ecuador and Fiji and learned about what it's like for those children and their families to grow up in these places.  They've realised that children can be happy, friendly, welcoming and prepared to share, regardless of their background.  

They've picked up a whole bunch of mementos along the way, from Louis' not-so-portable sand board, a nevertheless very thoughtful gift from his instructor in Uruguay, to a boomerang from Oz, wood carvings and pottery that the boys made in Nepal and blowpipes in Borneo.

As a family, we have an abundance of memories of shared experiences that hopefully our photos, videos, journals and our blog will help us remember more vividly.

Our trip has been everything we wanted it to be, and more.  And finally, after approximately:

• 67,000 kilometres by air
• 25,000 kilometres over land and sea, (by bus, car, train, pick-up, lorry, motorbike, horse, bicycle, rickshaw, zip-line, motor-bike, sand-board and on foot, and by big boat, rowing boat, long-boat, jet-boat, surfboard, canoe, raft, rubber ring and swimming)
• 350 days away
• 119 blog entries
• 110 different locations slept in, including hostels, hotels, B and Bs, estancias, log cabins, inns, mountain lodges, buses, jungle camps, friends' houses, planes, a farm, an RV, a car and an airport lounge
• 70 km by train (A Brazilian mountain train with free alcohol, arriving nearly 3 hours late, best train journey ever!
• 35 take-offs
• 34 landings! 
• 12 countries
• 5 foreign languages
• 5 overnight bus journeys (longest was 33 hours in Argentina!)
• 3 village schools attended (excluding the Bader Travel school, the boys' least favoured option!) 
• 2 huge spiders on pillows
• 1 orang-utan adopted

Baders on tour are officially BADERS BACK HOME!

Thank you for your many comments and messages over the last 12 months, it's been really good to keep in touch and we look forward to catching up over the coming weeks. 

Leaving Heathrow Airport

Back at Heathrow 1 year later!

Top 10 activities on our trip

We've been asked about what the best activities on our trip were. There are so many memorable things that we've done together in our year away, its difficult to distil this to just ten, especially with a 'late contender' from our recent time in Borneo.

As we talked about this as a family and also started trying to rank them, we found it very hard to compare, say, the thrill of swimming with a sea-lion with the wonder of staring in awe at one of the highest mountains in the world.

So we decided to just put a list together of the things we enjoyed the most, not to worry too much about the order of them and not to feel guilty about many other things we enjoyed doing that aren't on this list too.

Skydive Taupo, New Zealand

Ready to jump.....(as if you have much choice at this stage!)

No doubt about the biggest adrenalin rush of all - Skydiving.

Whooooo-hoooo!

Snorkelling with sealions at La Loberia, Galapagos, Ecuador

Sunset at La Loberia

Amazingly, this is something you can do quite easily in the Galapagos - and it's free.  La Loberia is a deserted beach on the small island of San Cristobal, with sealions everywhere - you are very much on their beach. The younger ones in particular are very playful, they swim right up to you at high speed, inches from your face, and then arch away, or they'll swim rapidly around you in circles. There is always a large bull sealion patrolling to remind you not to get too close!

Observing amazing wildlife by boat and on horseback in the Pantanal, Brazil

Horse ride at sunset along the river bank on obedient horses!

We spent a few days in the Pantanal, and were amazed by the abundance and richness of wildlife there.  It was a fantastic experience for the boys, already fascinated by animals thanks to Steve Backshall's Deadly 60, to have so many up-close wildlife encounters. The caiman, jabiru, great black hawk (especially the one with the water cobra in its talons!) giant otter, hyacinth macaw, piranha and of course toucan are just a few we remember seeing there. 

The caimen are so still, sometimes you don't
see them even if you are really close!

Sandboarding and surfing in Cabo Polonio, Uruguay

Fabry, the boys and Louis' new birthday gift!

We're sure Louis won't forget his 9th birthday.  

Staying at the tiny, remote and querky coastal village of Cabo Polonio, Louis had a sandboarding lesson in the morning and a surfing lesson in the afternoon. 

Fabry, the sandboarding teacher even gave Louis the sandboard they were practicing on as a gift, afterwards!

Frankie had a go too!

Louis getting the hang of the waves

Dolphin and whale watching at Puerto Pyramides, Valdes Peninsula, Argentina

One of the whales duly obliged with this classic pose

The Valdes peninsula is famous for the orcas that beach themselves in February to catch and feed on unsuspecting young seals.  

We were there in December so missed this (perhaps just as well...the boys might have been a little upset!) but did get to see the orcas from a distance, as well as marvelling at the majestic southern right whales passing directly under the boat.

We were leaning out over the front and this 15 metre
beauty passed by directly underneath

Buller Gorge Jetboat, South Island, New Zealand
The Shotover ride in Queenstown normally gets all the attention but this trip on Buller Gorge, also on the South Island, is longer, less busy, cheaper, just as fast and definitely very exhilarating!

High-speed thrills

Did I mention you get a bit wet?

Trekking to Poon Hill, Nepal
We did a five-day trek in the Annapurna region of the Himalayas. It was a real challenge (especially the going up part!) and gave the boys a strong sense of achievement, especially when we reached 10,000 feet and were rewarded with memorable views of some of the Top 10 highest mountains in the world.

Annapurna South, at 8,091m, 10th highest mountain in the world

With our guide, Ratna and Dhaulagiri, 8167m, in the background

Machupachare, the famous, sacred, 'Fishtail', just before sunrise

White water rafting and "cool river running" in San Rafael, Argentina
We rafted a few times on the Atuel river, and Louis and I also went down in a kind of converted inner tube, which they call "Cool River".  It kept you very close to the action! My father came over from England and celebrated his 80th by white-water rafting with us too!

Rafting on 31st December - great way to see out the old year!

Louis and Frankie loved getting wet!

Louis getting face to face with a rapid while "Cool river" running

Tropical island hopping on Ovalau, Fiji
We spent three weeks in Fiji, mainly at Bobo's Farm.  As well as introducing us to the wonderfully hospitable villagers of Rukuruku and guiding us on hikes into the jungle, Bobo took us to the the most beautiful local islands enjoying excellent snorkelling, drinking and eating fresh coconuts, and sampling the fish he'd just caught with his spear!

Approaching Mystery Island

Just moored on our very own Moloi Island, only surfaces at low tide!

Going home to Rukuruku

Amazing wildlife in the tropical rainforests of Borneo

Frankie with a crested lizard

In our month in Borneo, we stayed in jungle camps and wooden shacks to experience wildlife encounters we'll never forget.  We saw orangutans, proboscis monkeys, silver-leaf monkeys, huntsman spiders, snakes, frogs, lizards, bats (over 2 million of them) and more - it's a very long list!

Proboscis monkey having a bad day

The youth of today are so uninhibited.....

2 million bats head out of their cave each night here in Mulu, Borneo

Icebergs and glaciers in Patagonia, Argentina
We spent three weeks in Patagonia and got up close to the amazing - and advancing - Perito Moreno glacier. We saw an enormous shard the size of a house slide into the water - and our treks took us to the windiest and coldest parts of our entire trip.

Ice crashing into the water at the giant arch that heads the glacier

Real icebergs!

Not surprisingly, the ice is very cold

Travelling around Western Australia in an RV

Breakfast on the beach at Cape Range

We spent a month - and 5,000 kilometres - working our way up the west coast and returned on an inland route back to Perth. The spectacular Cape Range National Park, the beautiful, rugged gorges of the Karijini, and the endless salt flats of Lake Ballard were three of the many highlights.

The unusual statues dotted around the vast salt flats of Lake Ballard

Paragliding over Lima, Peru

A great introduction to alternative air travel, over the beaches, parks and traffic of Lima.

All good up here....

I'm loving this!

Yes I know.  There are more than 10. Sorry.

Top 10 meals of our trip

We've had many memorable meals in our year away.  The other day we were reflecting back together on some of our favourites, not just about the food, but the occasions too and here's what we came up with.....

La Golosa, Cabo Polonio, Uruguay

Seafood Delight pasta dish with heavenly sauce which made Louis' 9th birthday even more memorable.  The owner had given up his job as a corporate Italian lawyer to do what he loves the most - preparing great food in the unique little hippy hideaway that is Cabo Polonio.

Very special meal celebrating Louis' 9th birthday

La Waffleria, El Chalten, Patagonia, Argentina.
Chocolate Explosion; waffles with chocolate ice-cream, pieces of chocolate, hot chocolate on top and chocolate sauce, made that much better by the 20 km trek that preceded it.  At eleven hours, it still remains our longest single day's trekking of our trip, so it's fair to say we burnt enough calories to deserve this!

We started wolfing this down before we managed to get a photo!

Mike's 'Parilla' for my father's 80th Birthday, Andes Lands, San Rafael, Argentina
Mike, is an expert in preparing fabulous Argentinian beef on a parilla, a kind of Argentinian BBQ.  We had a broad range of cuts, all beautifully prepared, with the highlight being the 'mollejas' (sweetbreads); and washed down with a lovely bottle or two of Argentinian merlot.  Then Loic and Candice had very kindly made a rich chocolate birthday cake for Dad which was delicious. 

The many cuts of meat expertly arranged on Mike's parilla

Raising a glass to celebrate Dad's 80th birthday

Miconia, San Cristobal, Galapagos, Ecuador
On our last day before leaving San Cristobal, we decided to treat ourselves to a seafood extravaganza, a huge dish of every kind of fresh, locally caught seafood, including lobster, squid, crab, mussels and tiger prawns. There was a World Cup game on in the background, and when Ecuador scored, the whole town erupted in cheers!

A delicious seafood feast

Hawker stalls in Malaysia
We ate at too many of these to name one, but the food was generally high quality, very tasty and very cheap! Here's one of the boys finishing off some squid, and an entry wouldn't be complete without the second photo, as we had quite a lot of chicken satay too!

Yum!  especially love those little twirly legs!

Chicken satay......again!

Momos in Kathmandu, Nepal
We did a cookery course in Kathmandu to learn how to make 'momos' - a kind of Tibetan dumpling.   Sakunthala, our chef, made sure that we added everything in the right quantity at the right times.  The results were absolutely delicious, and we made three types - a ricotta cheese and spinach momo, a spicy chicken momo and (primarily for the boys!) a mars bar and snickers momo!

A wealth of spices to choose from

Frankie getting to grips with the dough

Delicious - especially the chocolaty ones!

Picnic on Mystery Island, Fiji
Bobo took us out on his boat from our base at his farm in Rukuruku to Mystery Island and while we were there, prepared a lovely picnic for us. He was surprisingly adept at spear-fishing, given the contraption was basically a thin metal pole he'd sharpened and a large elastic band! It was one of those occasions where the food was simple - freshly BBQed trout, breadfruit, coconut and coleslaw - but somehow tasted so much better because of where you were.  This complemented the delicious food that Karin, Bobo's wife prepared for us back at their farm while we were staying there too.

Delicious fresh fish

The boys kept an eye on the fish while
they cooked on our makeshift BBQ

Skyline Restaurant at Rotorua, New Zealand.
A quality all-you-can-eat buffet up a mountain, with huge variety, for greedy budget-conscious travellers that prepared you for the luge ride back down. (It didn't exactly seem like the obvious thing to do to us, either!) We'd just met up with the Guano family too so the kids were hugely excited to be altogether.  A notable dessert that Louis recalls was vanilla and chocolate ice-cream with jelly beans and marshmallows and chocolate fish!

Luging back down with the Guanos on a full stomach!

Breakfast at O Veleiro B and B, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

This was the very first place we stayed at on our trip.  Maybe it was the excitement of being away with a whole year ahead of us. Maybe it was the sense of adventure and togetherness that we shared in that moment.  But when we climbed the narrow, dark wooden staircase of this little guesthouse and saw the breakfast that Patricia had laid out for us, we were amazed and delighted.  Fresh fruit, pastries, cake, cereals, granola, fruit juices, toast, an assortment of jams including our first introduction to 'dulce de leche' - a really sweet caramel-like spread that we would come across frequently in Brazil. 

Choripan in El Chalten, Patagonia, Argentina

So this may seem a strange entry, but on one of our treks, Gonzalo, our host at the cabin we were staying at, told us about a gaucho called Mauricio who does the best choripan (Argentinian sausage sandwich) ever.  So as a means of giving us some energy for our trek up to a particularly pretty hanging valley, we decided to have one each.  He had his own special recipe for the sauce, barbequed it to perfection and it was absolutely wonderful.  

Mauricio with the boys ahead of the trek

The choripan gave us the energy to get to the top to see the hanging valley!

And that's the Top 10.  So many other meals that we really enjoyed, of course, all along the trip, so this is just to give a flavour.....