Although we have those magical moments when we are gazing at the mountainous landscape contemplating our lives, we also have awkward ridiculous moments pretty much all the time. Below is a list of funny/awkward things that happen while living on the road… brought to you from first hand experience.
- When you’re camping on the beach and you’re brushing your teeth outside and the wind blows right as you go to spit and instead of landing in the dirt, your hair gets sprayed in toothpaste spit.
- When you lay a shirt out in the bushes to dry and tell your significant other: “remind me to get the shirt” and then drive away without looking back. 200 miles later, “the shirt is probably dry by now”.
- When instead of listening to music or a podcast, you drive for hours listening to the shaking, rattling, and crashing of everything in the back of your car creating a lovely musical harmony.
- When you feel like a badass driving down to the end of the world in a Toyota 4Runner, then you pass a cyclist.
- When you are cooking a lovely meal complete with rice, beans, cilantro, avocado and all the toppings and the wind blows and your entire pan flips right on to the sand (this one happened twice)
- When you pull something out of a bag from the trunk of your car and one of your panties randomly falls out of that bag on to the sidewalk just as a little old man is passing and he giggles like a school boy and walks right over it.
- When you’re doing your dishes outside of your car and someone comes up next to your car to tell you their life story and you just want to say, “Excuse me sir, you’re standing in my living room.”
- When you drive over a speed bump and everything crashes and you both instantly look at each other: “The glass french press!”
- When you do your dishes in the sink of the women’s restroom in the town’s Culture Center like a good hobo, and all of a sudden the opera show let’s out and in comes a flood of high class women in heels discussing the lovely performance and you’re elbow deep in soap and camping dishes.
- When you have a trash bag going at your campsite and the wind catches it and you’re chasing every individual item like a mad man, even though there is trash everywhere from other people, its your karma and your trash so you pick up every single piece of tissue.
- When you’re zipping around Ometepe Island on a scooter and you hear about a cool waterfall but you don’t really research it and end up walking 6 hrs round trip in flip flops to see a little drip of water fall from a cliff.
- When you visit a friend and they want to show you their city, so they take you to the nicest, most expensive place in the city and orders a couple appetizers for the table, and you just want to say, dude, ‘I’m unemployed!’ (He ended up treat us though.. score!)
- When you purchase all the flags for all the countries visited ahead of time, but you forgot a country. So you spend days looking for a sticker with the country’s flag, but it ends up being half the size as the rest of the other stickers and it looks so small in comparison, but you still have to use it. Sorry Bolivia, love ya.
- When you go for a run outside and there are a million street dogs and all of a sudden you have 15 dogs running with you and barking at you for stealing something. You turn to them and tell them in Spanish that you are “just running for fun, I swear.”
- When you ask for a menu and they laugh. ‘Here’s what we have.’ When you ask for a veggie option and they laugh. ‘Again, here’s what we have’ When you ask for the check and they laugh. ‘Here’s what you owe’
- When the side review mirror is your bedroom vanity, the rooftop tent is your upstairs bedroom, that one pull out drawer is your kitchen, the water jug on the roof is your water source, and all the outside space around you is your house. Come on over!
- When you need to trade resources with other travelers (I’ll give you water for your propane) and you feel like you are living a real live game of Settlers of Catan.
- When you drop a 2 day old PB&J sandwich on the parking lot, but you are cheap and resourceful so you decide to still eat it and you get a sore throat for days.
- When you refuse to pick up a couple of hitchhikers “Sorry, no room!”, then a few hours later they shows up at your same campsite and set up their tent right next to yours.
- When everyone asks about your license plate. “Vuelta1? But what is your real license plate number? It should be a scramble of letters and numbers…”
- When you bump into the hatchback door every day, all the time.
- When you camp in the middle of a street in a big city, then get out of your tent in the morning just as people are walking past, headed to work. “I swear I have my life together too!”
- When you are in Mexico for Dia de los Muertos and you order a Oxacan Mexican pizza called ‘Tlayudas’: thin tortilla crust, black bean spread, guac, melted cheese, and pico de gallo topping. You just say “SI, POR FAVOR.” The cocinero asked us if you want ‘Chapulines’ on top. Again, “SI, POR,FAVOR.” because its the first international country of the trip and you just say yes to everything. Then you find out “Chapulines’ are crunchy grasshoppers. You should’ve known when he said it was “Proteina”
- When you stayed at a hostel for a couple days and plan to meet travel friends at 6am to convoy together. Funny thing about hostels is they are fully of chill hippies who need jobs and end up working at said hostel so the employees are usually chill hippies trying to manage a space full of chill hippies who don’t usually leave at 5:30am. You are packed and all ready to go, but no one is at the front desk. The door is open and it’s so easy to just walk out, but ‘karma’ and ‘what goes around comes around’ and all those things stands between you and the door. You look around. No one. “Hola. Hola! Holaaaa?!?” You’re at it for 15 mins, pounding on the desk. Finally, a sleepy chill hippie zombie arrises from a couch apologizing and rubbing his eyes. You walk him through the check out process, reminded him how long you stayed, help him count the cash and figure out the change. Finally you pay and karma laughs at you on our way out.
- When you are taking that epic photo in front of the huge glacier Perito Moreno, but the other person is doing it wrong and you decided to tell them that and you just end up with an awkward photo.
And the trip isn’t over yet! Cheers to many more awkward moments that await us along the way.
Vueltamerica 