MattYou have not heard much from us recently. Yes this has been by design. We were quite deliberate in determining the ‘mood’ of Canadians for Travel Bloggers during the pandemic. We consciously decided not to post on our blog until the world felt ready.
The COVID pandemic has altered the world (specifically the travel world) in incalculable ways. Governments advised people not to travel, to work from home, and generally avoid all contact with people. For our blog, it felt somewhat like a death knell. We decided to do what we do best – learn and respect the world’s travel protocols – but to keep up our travel lifestyle.
April 2022 is a VERY different world than March 2020. The appetite for learning about travel exists again. We thought we would share now how two full time travellers managed their lives in the past two years.
Originally, this post was intended to be one LONG post – but it seems that we did more than we knew. So… this is part one – part two will be coming soon.
The World Shuts Down – March 2020
On March 15, 2020 we were standing on the dock of Ushuaia, Argentina having finished an incredible trip to Antarctica. We had been offline and disconnected for two glorious weeks hanging out with whales, penguins and great people.
If we haven’t said it before, we need to say it now – put Antarctica on your bucket list of travel experiences! We used Freestyle Adventure Travel to find a great last minute deal with Quark Expeditions. We highly recommend both companies.
Our first indications that something big was happening was while we were still on board the Antarctica cruise. When the trip leader announced that the Argentine Government would let us dock in Ushuaia – we said to ourselves: self…. why wouldn’t they?!
Oh to go back to those naive times!
We disembarked at 8:00am to find a town that was eerily quiet. Argentina had closed its borders and some of our shipmates were on the last flights out of the country.
We took a bus to Puerto Natales in Chile where we planed to go on a five day hike and let this all blow over. It didn’t take us long to realise that we would need a longer term plan than five days. When it was clear that the world was on an increasing trajectory of border closures and limited travel we decided to hunker down and ‘wait it out’.
Mazatlan Landing Pad
We knew that we would need to rent a place for a few months regardless of where we landed as our home is rented in Calgary. Fortunately Mexico was open to visitors and we were able to easily sublet an apartment for a couple of months.
The warm weather, and the abandoned Malecon was lovely but it was downright weird to find Mazatlan empty of tourists. It wasn’t without hardship, however. The local Governor decided to stop beer sales as a way to decrease large social gatherings leading up to Easter. But, this was Mexico – and it didn’t take us long to have a delivery of ‘bootlegged’ beer dropped off at our door! We signed up for Netflix and watched Tiger King like everyone else.
Returning Home
6 weeks later we decided we should head home to Alberta. The weather was also getting hotter in Mazatlan!
We found a great quarantine location on Facebook – thanks to a friend of a friend. We were mindful of keeping our family and friends healthy given our exposure from travelling, so we were happy to follow the rules.
Like most everyone else, we made the decision to stick close to home and explore the natural world in our backyards. We headed to Jasper and cycled south to the USA border on the Canadian portion of the Great Divide Cycling Trail.
What a spectacular location to be immersed in!
We are so lucky to have this mountain scenery in our backyard. A couple of weeks of wilderness camping and pedalling is always good for the soul!
Our close friends Rob and Anne picked us up on the side of the road one day on the trip. They loaded us and our bikes into their Westie for an evening none of us remember in Jasper. They dropped us back off where they found us the next day, but joined us in Banff at another campground about a week later. Super fun!
The bike trip ended at another friends home – affectionately known as the Franch. We drank too much, played super fun games and did our best impression of being 20 again!
We respected the rules and restrictions, but the summer of 2020 still really allowed us to revel in spending time with great friends.
Fall 2020 – The Covid Camino
Our original Plan A was to cycle SE Asia – this was clearly not an option!
Enter Plan B – hiking the Camino de Santiago. Outdoors – limited interactions with people and Spain at the time was open to Canadians.
The route we took -The French Way – is a 769km route from St Jean Pied de Port, France to Santiago, Spain. This ancient pilgrimage route has attracted pilgrims from all over the planet for over 500 years, and usually 500,000 people walk this route each year. Normally in the fall about 2,000 people would register at St Jean Pied de Port a day. In 2020 there were only about 20 people a day!
This Covid Camino (and subsequent less people) was equal parts wonderful and disappointing.
The Camino was invigorating, and we loved the routine of walking 25Km per day. The beautiul landscapes, old churches and free wine were spectacular. The fewer pilgrims on the trail meant we got to know the ones that were there a little better – and we still stay in touch all these months later!
Our favourite section was the route from Santiago to Fin del Terre (end of the world). This portion is somewhat more wilderness and passed cute towns that just don’t get the large crowds. The last couple of days on the west coast of Spain was delightful with some pubs still open and filled with resting pilgrims who, like us, had gutted out the 800+ total kilometres to get there!
We missed sitting in the squares and people watching because some estimates suggest only 40 or 50 thousand people made the trek in 2020. We had to be somewhat more resourceful than normal as about 75% of the Albergues were closed due to the pandemic.The cathedral at Santiago was under renovation for the Holy Year (2021) so it was a disappointment. The good news, however is that we are keen to have a do over of the Camino under ‘normal’ circumstances – perhaps with one of you?
As the weather got colder later into the fall, Spain and Portugal entered their second wave of infections. It felt like we barely scraped through on the trail, often with provinces closing behind us shortly after we wandered through. By December, it was clear we needed to head home.
Overall it was a great experience, and while the never ending Cathedrals can get old, I really miss the people watching in the public squares – that NEVER gets old!
For more photos and stories of our time on the camino – we recommend you head over to our Instagram profile. We shared a ‘story’ every day on the Camino and all of these are captured under our highlights.
Stay Tuned for Part II (2021 – April 2022)!
This seems like a logical place to end this portion of our look back and look forward!
Click here to read what we got up to in 2021 and the first quarter of 2022.
