Six months ago, I thought that itchy feet were a genetic disorder, doomed never to go away, no matter how much I travelled.
I’ve always had itchy feet. I’ve always longed to travel.

But now, after nearly six months of being constantly on the go, living out of a suitcase, not spending more than 5 nights in one place and not knowing where I’m heading next, I can officially report: Itchy Feet Can Be Cured.

I’m ready to go home.

Yes, Real Life has a lot of admin to deal with – bills, work, shopping, washing up, cleaning, hassle. And of course I’m not excited about any of that. But Travelling also has a lot of admin, just of a different flavour – figuring out places to stay, trying to find the right kind of food (three times a day), finding out how to get from here to there with the least amount of hassle and the smallest cost, searching for an ATM that accepts international cards and will give you the amount of money you’re asking for. There’s a lot of inconvenience about travelling – you have to do things now because there’s no option to wait until later (even as I type I’m thinking that we have to go for dinner soon and I don’t have any food on me). When you run out of cash, there’s nobody to borrow from. When you need to get somewhere, there’s nobody to give you a lift.

I’m really looking forward to the ease of being at home. People speaking my language. Food that I recognise. A bit of good old-fashioned stability.

And yes, we will miss the adventure… It has been the most extraordinary adventure imagineable. But I think there are small adventures to be had in real life. I’ll keep you posted on that.

For now, I have to go and pack my suitcase (for the 1657th time), find some dinner, and go to bed early. 4.30am wake-up call tomorrow, for our 33 hours of travel till we reach Cape Town. We’ve just recorded our last video diary, so that will go up soon, and there are a few more moments to share with you.

But this is the Last Real Blog Post. After six months! Crazy…

I must admit, I’m tired.
Really tired.

We travelled from Iguassu Falls to Buenos Aires last night, an incredibly easy hop over the border from Brazil to Argentina (an absolute dream, actually – we didn’t even have to get out of the car!), a couple of hours wait in the bus station, and then a 20 hour bus ride.

20 hours.

Tiring.

It was a super comfortable bus, kind of like business class airline seats, with lots of room to spread out and some great scenery passing by before the sun went down. They even served food! Which was more problematic than you might think… Argentina is an hour earlier than Brazil, so we started getting hungry around 6.30pm (7.30pm on our body clock). For some reason, they didn’t pick up the dinner to serve us until 9.45pm (10.45pm on my body clock!) and I was hungrier than I can ever remember being. I was sitting there clenching my fists to keep from grabbing the bus attendant and shaking him. I tried telling them I was diabetic and needed food, but they didn’t seem to understand my urgency. I tell you, a hungry diabetic is a scary thing – I wasn’t low, I had supplies against low blood sugar (juice and fruit, not much good for hunger), but I felt crazy with hunger.

When it finally arrived, I ate everything in sight in about 3.5 minutes. Cheese, ham, biscuits, roll, pasta, all of it, gone!

So we pulled into Buenos Aires this morning, found our lovely spacious room, and are slowly settling in to the charming area of San Telmo. Only. We’ve just found out the sponsorship we were hoping for for our internal flights hasn’t come through, so we have to pay a small fortune to get ourselves from here back to Rio de Janeiro for our flight home; and it looks like we won’t be able to afford our one final indulgence – a trip to Patagonia, to see the Glacier Moreno, the last advancing glacier in the world.

And I’m disappointed. I think I’ve been very good and grown-up about the disappointment of having to go home early, and miss out Peru and Ecuador, I’ve swallowed it down and understood that things happen as they should. But this? This feels sad. I’ve been wanting to go to Patagonia for such a long time, it’s the one thing Mark and I have been referencing constantly.

Bleeurgh.

So now I feel tired. Perhaps this is travel weariness, perhaps it’s finally hit. I’m sure I’ll feel better tomorrow, after a good sleep and a steak, I’ll be all raring to go and discover this gorgeous city. But for now? Time for a lie down, methinks.

Any wise words of advice?

So I might think I’m a pretty savvy diabetic traveller after having tackled Malawi, Swaziland, the USA, Canada, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, but that’s nothing in comparison to Alex Williams, a type 1 diabetic from Australia who has zigzagged all over the globe, and is planning to walk across the Sahara desert next year in the Marathon des Sables. Pretty impressive stuff.

Here’s what Alex has to say about travelling with diabetes…

1. Hello! Please could you introduce yourself – name, age, how long you’ve been diabetic?

Hi. My name is Alex Williams. I’m 52 years old and have lived with type 1 diabetes for 36 years.

2. Where have you traveled?

I’ve travelled all over the south east coast of Australia, from as far north as Townsville all the way down and around to Adelaide. I can put my hand on my heart and say that I’ve probably driven on every stretch of highway in the state of Victoria. I started travelling the minute I got my driver’s license at 18 and haven’t stopped since.

My international travel started 25 years ago when my soon-to-be wife took me to “meet the family” in New Zealand. I was blown away by the beauty of the North Island and caught the travel bug there and then. But how do you describe to someone who has never done it, the adventure and curiosity of seeing an airport in another country, and then the strangeness as you drive through the city for the first time?

I’ve been back to New Zealand once since then, but as we were staying with family, there wasn’t a lot of diabetes adventure involved.

Fifteen years ago I got a job in Saudi Arabia. I travelled there on my own for the first trip and shared a flat with another westerner for 12 months. Then my wife and children were able to come over to join me in Riyadh, where we lived for the next 4 years. Each year we would do an international trip somewhere. Sometimes it was back to Australia to visit with family in both Brisbane and Melbourne, and sometimes it was elsewhere. During this time we did a 4 week driving tour around Great Britain in a Kombi Campervan, driving almost as far north as John O’Groats and south to Southampton. We spent a week in London just enjoying the history, the culture and the sheer joy of being there. http://www.geocities.com/alex_of_oz/Saudi_pages/Pommy_trip.html

During this time we also did a 5 week driving trip around Western Europe, flying from Riyadh to Paris via Jeddah and then driving from Paris to Luxemburg, Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Switzerland and then back to Paris. We stayed in Paris for a couple of days, and then caught the overnight train to Rome, where we stayed for a week of walking. Many interesting things happened including nearly getting arrested in Rome. http://www.geocities.com/alex_of_oz/Saudi_pages/Europe_99.html

I also managed to squeeze in another trip from Riyadh to Glasgow, this time for business. The interesting thing about this trip was that the night that I was flying into London before swapping to the plane for Glasgow, was also the night that Princess Diana died in Paris. My whole trip to Glasgow was over-shadowed by Diana’s death. I caught the train from Glasgow to London on the day of Diana’s funeral. That was an experience that I will never forget. The flowers arranged around the gate to St James Palace were truly incredible.

Travel took a back seat for a few years until about 2005, when I travelled to Bangalore in India for four and half months. This was a business trip in which I was meant to train them up so they could take my job. I still have my job. This was also the first time I had travelled in a third world country, so the food, hygiene and medical side of things were interesting. All went well with few dramas. While there I wrote a number of stories, with one focusing pretty much on my being diabetic – http://www.geocities.com/alex_of_oz/Bangalore_stories/Missive_8.html

There is another story that talks about the time we were travelling between cities and I started to have a hypo. That can be found in the India stories here – http://www.geocities.com/alex_of_oz/Story_index.html

The last trip I did, which was 3 years ago, was a 4 week trip back to Bangalore. This time the food caused me some difficulty because I was staying in a serviced apartment where I was reliant on other people providing and cooking the food. You don’t realize how reliant we become on our “western” time schedule until you are living in a third would country where time is much more flexible.

3. What was the most difficult thing about traveling with diabetes?

For me, the most difficult thing about travelling with diabetes is keeping track of where there is a reliable source of food, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. For example, lying down on the public seating benches at Rome airport to stay until the first plane left in the morning, only to discover with 2 minutes to spare that the food shop that we can see just across the walkway is not staying open all night as expected, but is about to close and won’t open again until the plane is airborne. And guess what? I don’t have any emergency food in my bags.

Another difficulty is the effect that the jetlag, time differences and physical and emotional stress has on the sugar levels. There is an underlying constant awareness that the sugar level can plummet at any moment, which is especially stressing when travelling by yourself. This happened to me while in a hotel in transit in Bahrain; the sugar plummeted and it took me 2 or 3 or 4 hours (see what I mean) to get it back. However that was not in time to catch the airport shuttle bus!

4. How prepared were you before you left?

I believe I have experienced most things a diabetic can experience while travelling, and learned from the experience. Yes, I have woken up in intensive care in hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia after having a massive hypo. I needed to go under a general anesthetic so they could put my arm back in place. I had managed to dislocate my shoulder while having a fit in the hypo.

I have found myself without food, and learned from the experience. I have found myself with nowhere clean to have my injection, and learned from the experience. I have been challenged by the customs officers in Jeddah airport when they saw my injection kit, only to be deflated when I told them “Sucre dam”, which means “sugar blood” in Arabic, which is their way of referring to diabetes. I learned from the experience.

And I’m sure I will learn more when I travel to Morocco and walk across the Sahara desert.

5. Do you have any hints or tips for diabetics who want to travel?

• Always carry a doctor’s letter
• Always carry extra insulin and equipment
• Always have emergency food with you that is robust
• Always know where food can be obtained
• Write lots of lists, to reduce the stress level and therefore the hit on sugar levels
• Always pack your medical kit and emergency food in your carry on luggage
• Maintain 2 medical kits; one for your carry on luggage and one for your suitcase
• So long as you plan properly, there is no reason why you can’t travel
• Finally, NEVER rely on airline food

I’m just trying to be web savvy while we have free internet!
So this little code is for Technorati:
unbr3iq2md

A lot of people have been asking me, in the past few days, if I’m feeling nervous about the trip.

Surprisingly, the answer is no.

This is surprising because I’m a homebody who is most comfortable in her little nest, because I’m something of a worrier and because, as we all know by now, I have some control issues. So you would think, now that I’m leaving my nest into a world of unknown with very little control, I’d be feeling a tad anxious. Not so. Here’s why:

* Mainly, because I’m going with Mark. He’s the perfect travel companion, not only because we know each other inside out, but because he’s so familiar with diabetes, and particularly with my diabetes. He’s also not easily flustered, has a great sense of geography and direction (which I most certainly do not!) and makes me feel like I’m home. What a winning combination!

* Also, because we’re not going to be rushing. Thank goodness we’re not doing a new country every two weeks! With a month to explore each country, there’s really no need to be rushing anywhere, and I have a theory that as long as you’re not in a rush, things are less likely to get overwhelming. Being lost turns from being a panic situation to being an adventure. A three-day journey is just that – three days of journeying. Take out the stress and everything is an adventure.

* And finally, because I have enough books to read. This might sound silly, but reading is one of my all-time-favourite things to do, and if I run out of books I get panicky. True! So I am hugely relieved that I bought a Kindle when I went to America, and that I’ve stocked it with 19 books – two a month and one extra. I can add more to it as we go along, but this is enough reading material to keep me from having to ration words. And as long as I have a book to curl up with, I know I’ll be happy. And feel safe…

What makes you feel safe? Do you know?

So we’re now a mere week-and-a-day away from our Big Adventure, and it’s time to call in the big guns… AKA everyone we know.

Do you have any travel tips for us? Please?

What’s the one thing we mustn’t leave behind?
What’s the best tip you got about travelling?
What do you wish you’d known last time you set off into the great blue yonder?

We’re going to Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Argentina and Brazil.

Have you been to any of these countries?
Where should we go?
What should we do?
What shouldn’t we do?

We’re away for 9 months, in mostly autumn weather. And we’re packing this week.

What should we pack?
What should we leave behind?

Any and all advice greatly appreciated!

I said that last week was our most exciting week (so far), but I might have to correct myself.

While this week didn’t include any wild animals, trains, or luxury hotels, it did include a 10 year US visa for Mark (hooray!), a terrible dentist visit for me (not hooray) and the best news of all – a truly inspiring sponsor.

We found out on Monday that Travelstart – who just so happen to be my first point of call whenever I’m booking a flight online – want to partner with us on our Travelling with Diabetes journey. What great news!
Travelstart South Africa has only been around for about 2 years, but the company itself (started in Sweden) is celebrating their 10th birthday this year – next month, in fact. They’re going to be running some crazy cool competitions, but I’ll keep you posted about those when they happen.

What I love about Travelstart is that they’re unlike any other flight booking website (you can read my ode to them on my personal blog here). For starters, they’re easy to navigate, and even easier to change the details of your booking (date, departure city, arrival city etc) to see when would be cheapest. They also consistently have the best deals, and they give you the whole price (including tax) so they’re not just making it look like it’s a good deal – it actually is a good deal! Best of all, though, they’re human. If you have any problems with your booking, you can call them and speak to a real live human being. And we all know how rare that is these days…

All of this adds up to a one in a million company, with heart. We’re so excited to be working with them! They totally get what we’re trying to do with this journey – to spread positive diabetes awareness around the world. And they’ve made it possible for us to do it…

Find out more about them by reading their very diverse (and fascinating) blog at http://blog.travelstart.co.za/

Or book yourself a holiday at www.travelstart.co.za!

… on our Mini Trip (2 weeks instead of 9 months!)

1. You don’t always have to eat everything that’s put in front of you. Diabetically speaking, it’s much kinder to yourself (and your diabetes) if you just taste everything when you’re being served three course meals twice a day!

2. When you’re moving around a lot, you have to make a concerted effort to do some exercise. Or you’ll feel stressed and tired (who knew?)

3. Never pack a suitcase more than half full, because mysteriously, in the night, all your stuff will expand. And trying to close an over-full suitcase when you’re running late is no fun. I promise!

4. Any time you have to fly out of Joburg (not my favourite place) to a local destination – fly from Lanseria (Kulula’s ‘new’ airport). It’s a slightly longer drive, but SO worth it once you get there. Not only are the surroundings more pleasant (almost country-like), but the check-in and boarding are a treat. It’s a small, personal airport without any of that frenetic energy that Joburg International has.

5. Something to consider if you’re diabetic and holidaying at a game farm: Sitting on game drives for 6 to 8 hours a day might feel tiring, but it’s actually just sitting – bear it in mind when you’re deciding how much insulin to take for your next meal. (Another thing to bear in mind is that championship eating is not a sport!)

Who knows how many lessons I’ll learn on the real adventure?!

So one of the most important things (diabetically speaking) for me on this trip has got to be equipment…

Which was why I was very excited to get my new blood glucose meter – the Accu-Chek Performa Nano. I’ve been really happy with my old blood glucose meter, the Accu-Check Performa, but it had a couple of traits I didn’t love. Just little things, but little things that if they were improved would make a big difference to my life.

Enter the new generation Performa Nano. Not only is it much smaller and waaay cooler looking, but it has a large, backlit display. What does this mean? It means that if I need to test my blood sugar in a movie (which I somehow often do) or in the middle of the night, I can do it without having to switch on a light or use my cell phone as a torch. Because it’s backlit, the numbers are easy to see but not so bright that they’ll cause a disturbance. It also has nifty pre- and post-meal markers, which makes it a lot easier to interpret my numbers at the end of the day or week, because I can see if a certain reading was before or after a meal. And it’s the same family as my old meter, so I don’t have to learn any new tricks, really, it’s still just as easy and quick to use.

All in all, one happy diabetic!

(Here’s the old meter – on the left – and the new one – on the right. Which one would YOU choose?)

I’ve been waiting a lot, lately. Waiting to hear back from sponsors about our journey, waiting to hear about a trip to Durban and Joburg for publicity stuff before we leave, waiting to plan the last six weeks of normal life.

I’m not very good at waiting.

In fact, I’m pretty terrible at it. My impatient nature combined with my control-freak tendencies means I’m always wanting to sink my teeth into things, without waiting for other people to do their part. This is not a very good part of my character, I can accept that. And I’m working on it.

But I am also learning to accept other things. In fact, I’m working on the gentle art of acceptance.

We found out this morning that one of the major sponsors we were hoping would come on board doesn’t have the necessary budget to help us out. A lot of this journey towards the journey has been knocking on doors and understanding that some open and some remain stubbornly shut… But I must admit I was really disappointed when this one didn’t fly open. There’s still a chance that they’ll be able to help us out on a smaller level (sponsoring our air tickets and an iPhone so we can record our daily video snippets), but it looks like we’ll now be choosing Plan B.

Plan B is still extremely exciting, just in a different way. Instead of 16 countries for 2 to 3 weeks each, we’ll do 9 countries for a month each – and stick to South-East Asia and South America (the countries where our savings will last us longer!) We’ll be roughing it more, but more open to adventure and new experiences (as there won’t be any time constraints). We’ll get to fully experience two beautiful parts of the world. And if a major sponsor decides to climb on board while we’re away, we can always add in some of the other countries we’re going to be missing. Or that can be Journey 2. Or Journey 3. The plan is to keep doing this as long as we can!

The overriding feeling I have from this, though, is that it’s time for me to walk the talk. I keep saying that life always gives you exactly what you need, and that in retrospect everything always turns out for the best, and sometimes we just can’t see what is best for us from our limited present outlook. Now it’s time to trust in that, to trust in the flow of life. I need to learn to stop micro-managing everything, to trust that if you have the best intentions (and I really do, this cause is something I deeply believe in) that life will give you just what you need.
Only sometimes what that is will look a little different to what you expected it to be.

I’m excited about this journey! Literally and figuratively. I’m excited to challenge myself, to discover new things about life, and love, to explore this crazy world of ours. I’m excited for whatever lies ahead, down the river, around the bend, whatever it is I can’t quite see from here…

PS – Should anyone have any contacts with airlines or big companies who like diabetics or iPhone people, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!