Nobody Expects the Spanish Appendectomy!

Updated on Sunday, November 21, 2010 at 1:26PM by Dustin Frazier

We interrupt this already irregularly scheduled program for an even more irregular update. As you might be able to guess from the title of this entry, I had the distinct “pleasure” of having my appendix removed while Laura and I were traveling in southern Spain. It was a painful, stressful, frustrating, confusing, and at times downright scary experience, especially given that we don’t speak a lick of Spanish. As it turns out, though, it was also one of the most real experiences we’ve had while traveling this year, and it reminded us a thing or two about the unpredictability of life and importance of going with the flow, about the benefits of having an amazing travel companion, and most importantly, about the universal kindness of strangers. It was quite the detour on our year-long adventure.

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Into Thin Air (Finally!)

After a rough start to our precious two weeks in Bhutan, Laura and I were finally feeling better and were eager to get out and do some trekking in the Himalayas. Geographic Expeditions and Yangphel (their local partner in Bhutan) had worked a minor miracle and lined up a completely separate, somewhat abbreviated trek for the two of us that would still get us up to the Chomolhari base camp and back to Paro in the seven days we had to work with.

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The Land of the Thunder Dragon

The first thought you have after your plane lands in Bhutan is: I’m never flying here again. No one prepared us for the approach and landing at the Paro airport (the one and only commercial airport in the country), which is probably a good thing because I’m not sure I would have gotten on the plane had I known what was in store for us at the end of our hour-long flight from Kathmandu.

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The First 100(ish) Days – DF Edition

Now that Laura and I have been traveling for almost four months (which is hard for us to believe!), we thought it might be interesting to write a bit about how we’re doing living life on the road — the joys, the challenges, the surprises, and what we may have learned about ourselves and each other. We each have a somewhat different perspective on the trip so far (obviously), so we decided it would be best to subject you to not one, but two “state of the traveling union” blog posts. We flipped a coin, and I won (or lost, I can’t remember), so I’m first up.

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Trekking to Chisapani and Nagarkot

Even with our somewhat overwhelming introduction to Kathmandu (re-introduction for me), we were still excited to spend a couple of days doing some light trekking northeast of the Kathmandu Valley. We’d hired a guide and porter through Himalayan Holidays — the same company that Room to Read was working with for their anniversary trek — and they met us that Monday morning to start our trek. Laxman (our guide) and Jhalak (our porter) introduced themselves as cousin-brothers: their fathers are brothers (making them first cousins), their mothers are sisters (again, first cousins), and as it turns out, their wives are also sisters (making them brothers-in-law)! Pretty funny. They both spoke English well enough, and after a short drive out of the Kathmandu Valley, we started our trek up to Chisapani.

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Travel Blues

Lest you, our gentle readers, think that our Vanuatu travels were full of nothing but erupting volcanos, amazing shipwreck dives, rainforest cave spelunking, and crazy land-diving locals, we thought we should mention the other side of our time on the islands. This is the side of our travel adventures that rarely gets documented on our blog because, well, it’s kinda boring. It’s when the glamour of international travel gives way to monotony, routine, and the daily annoyances of being on the road. It’s when we start fantasizing about being back in our own home, eating a Mission burrito, and not having to worry about drinking out of the tap or where our passport currently is. It’s when we want to be anywhere but where we currently are.

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Love in the Time of a Head Cold, the Frayzhe Edition

We’re wrapping up our month-plus in New Zealand by spending our last full day here online (two computers at once!) at a computer lab in Christchurch. This is all well and good, except for the fact that outside these dreary lab walls, Christchurch is experiencing its sunniest, warmest day of the summer. If we weren’t subject to the NO COMPLAINING EVER rule, I might whine a little about this, but instead I will go about blogging and emailing with a smile on my face. :) (—-> See, that’s me smiling!)

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A Series of Unfortunate Events

Itʼs funny how a series of seemingly small and insignificant events can change the flow of things. Laura started to feel a cold/flu coming on as we made our way up from Auckland to Paihia on the first day of our Stray bus experience (which was otherwise really fun and social). Our plan was to wake up early the following morning (Monday) and join a separate tour (included in the Stray pass weʼd purchased) that went to the far north end of New Zealand to Cape Reinga, where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean.

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Love in the Time of a Head Cold

So, when I said we’d write about the “good, the bad, and the ugly” aspects of a long trip around the world, I wasn’t expecting that the “ugly” part would make an appearance quite so soon. But my immune system seemed to have other plans.

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