Here comes the Big One...

We’re still enjoying some rest, as well as doing quite a lot of fairly boring admin, in the beautiful city of Chefchaouen. We are also considering our next move(s), which includes one big decision about our general trajectory. In some form, we are always planning our next move. This can be as small as where we plan to eat or pitch our tent, or as big as what continent we are aiming for next. This is the latter!

We will soon make our way to Tanger Med port, to get a ferry back to Europe. OK, so that’s the next continent…it’s the one after Europe that’s giving us pause for thought. We are toying with the idea of heading to South America. This feels like a big decision. At least as big as when we decided we would cycle down to The Gambia from Spain. That worked out pretty well, so maybe we both just need to chill out.

If we do decide to go for it, our next few weeks will look something like this:

• Meet with Beck’s brother in France and get some bike maintenance done (we ordered some parts for him to—kindly—bring down…)
• Chip off on a bus to Munich to visit some of my family
• Return to ride across France to visit my brother and his family
• Ride from there to Barcelona, where we might see Beck’s family
• Leave Barcelona for Argentina on a repositioning cruise

There are a few things causing us stress where this decision is concerned. Firstly, it feels like our first really major leap. Somehow, Africa still felt connected to where we had set off from, geographically speaking. Secondly, Africa has been a bit tough in some ways and the idea of cycling east across Europe, with its familiarity and infrastructure, held some appeal. Lastly, a cruise?! Hmmm. This one is causing me, especially, some stress.

The problem is that heading east poses other issues, given the current geopolitical situation. It seems most people doing so at the moment are having to compromise a lot in terms of the continuous cycle travel we prefer. Be that flights, long public transport / hitching sections, or risking cycling in places we’re not that comfortable cycling through. Plus, we did always like the plan of cycling across South America, so why not head west and then up to Japan, rather than the more common easterly route…?

So, the cruise. The main reason this is stressing me out is the environmental impact. Yes, I will no doubt also struggle with the ‘being trapped on a big ship with loads of people’ thing, but that’s nothing my headphones and an e-reader won’t cope with. It’s more the emissions and wider environmental impact of these huge ships I’m worried about. I used to own a well-thumbed copy of How Bad Are Bananas? so I know how bad we are talking. The reason I am able to countenance it at all is that this is a repositioning cruise. This means a few things. First and foremost, unlike other cruises and flights, this journey will be made whether or not any tickets sell. Aside from the tiny marginal impact of us being on the ship, the environmental damage will occur either way. It is baked in. People sometimes say this of standard cruises and flights, but it’s not the case that they would run without the demand, as was illustrated during Covid. Secondly, a repositioning cruise doesn’t run as packed an itinerary as a standard cruise. Fewer port stops, less elaborate onboard facilities etc. And because we will continue the next phase of our travel from where we land, instead of just flying back, I can happily frame it as a transit crossing. I am still a little uneasy about the whole thing as I don’t generally like to support industries that I don’t much approve of, but even on that front it’s not so bad, as repositioning cruises are very heavily discounted. We still need to give it some thought but it certainly could happen…

One other option we have looked into is trying to hitch with a sailing boat. In fact, we met a lovely couple in a café not so long ago that reignited this possibility for us. As ever, we’ve not ruled anything out (until we have) but, candidly speaking, we are pretty scared of such a long trip on the open seas. This is a fear Beck and I both share, though Beck has an added ‘sick phobia’ which certainly doesn’t help, so we have an idea we might cut our teeth on the sailing thing with a shorter trip in future. But we’ll see.

For now, we are going to do what we excel at: procrastinate. I’ll stroke my beard and Beck will twiddle her hair, and eventually something will happen. One thing I do know is that researching cycling in South America has very much excited us, however we get there.