1. Introduction

The account of a trip made by a brother and sister

from Madrid to Capetown overland in 1982 and 1983

Approximate route

Introduction

The idea for this trip can be traced to a seat on a Greyhound bus in 1977.  Dan was a senior in high school traveling from Kansas to Indiana to spend Thanksgiving with his parents who were taking postgraduate courses at the University of Indiana. On that trip he sat across from a woman whose name he never knew but whom he has never forgotten.  She was probably 30 years old and spent her life traveling.  She had just finished traveling around the world working as a cook on yachts and merchant ships. Now Dan did not intend to spend the rest of his life traveling and cooking with no greater purpose in life, but the hours of conversation through the night opened infinite possibilities of living some of life’s dreams, including visiting blank places on maps.

Thanks in part to that conversation Dan signed up for a summer AFS exchange program in Thailand, and upon completion returned to Bolivia to spend a year traveling and volunteering in that country before starting university. When we say “returned” to Bolivia, this is because our parents had been United Methodist missionaries in Bolivia since 1948 and that was where both Helena and Dan were born and raised.  We came by our wanderlust honestly as our parents traveled to Bolivia as single individuals without initially knowing the language and were quite happy living in remote places and under challenging conditions.

Helena had returned to Bolivia after university and was teaching music in a high school when the invitation came to spend a year hitchhiking across Africa. She did not hesitate.  In the meantime Dan had completed three years of University during which time he had begun the planning for this trip.  At this point it is important to point out that this was before the time of internet and ATMs, and neither of us had a credit card,  so communications and logistics were infinitely more difficult.  We planned to visit 20 countries, each of which required a prior visa, which not always could be obtained in neighboring countries.  On top of that, we wanted to visit South Africa which was still in the throes of full apartheid, which meant that virtually no other African country would grant us visas if there was a South African visa in our passport, yet we had to obtain this visa before leaving the US.  This required us to obtain a separate passport just for visiting South Africa, and these parallel passports had to be hidden well from view because they were a sure source of trouble. 

In those pre- internet days practical information was difficult to come by and usually out of date.  Our only source of practical information was a first edition “Africa on the Cheap” from Lonely Planet, by a bearded hippy Geoff Crowther acquired as an afterthought.  This became our bible and is referred to as our friend Geoff throughout. Our intention was to do the trip with 5$us/day or less all included, and stay healthy at the same time.  We carried a tent and rudimentary cooking and camping equipment, which added to our total weight but became essential before the trip was over.

We started the trip in Spain for several reasons.  First, we are bilingual in Spanish and hoped to get our “sea legs” in a transitional situation.  Second, as Bolivians we wanted to visit the colonial power that figures in so much Bolivian history.  Third, Dan´s childhood friend and hiking companion, Hugo Montes, was studying in Madrid and it was as good a point as any to start the trip.

The first days in Spain we were accompanied by our maternal Grandmother, Edna Carttar, who was 82 at the time but totally game for a bit of hostelling and rough traveling. She is Gm from here forward.

Finally, this diary was written out longhand as often as we could, alternating between us to write up our experiences.  These were mailed back to our parents, by then retired in Kansas. Our mother, and at times brother Price, typed up and circulated carbon copies to our closest friends and relatives. Periodically there will be a comment from “Ed.” This is our mother as she is typing the journal up.   It has taken all this time to get a digital version ready to share. At present Dan´s Scottish wife Sheila is acting as our editor before sharing the information in blog space.  The idea is to release the more interesting excerpts over the next year, approximately as the days pass on our trip, only 30 years later.  We appreciate any questions or input and and have left an area for comments and suggestions.

Dan Robison  and  Helena Robison Peacock

Rurrenabaque, Bolivia and Denton, TX, USA October 4, 2012.

Helena and Dan, starting out Oct. 1982.