The trip home was long! There’s a reason that they say book your plane tickets well in advance and I found out why. Unfortunately I didn’t really have a choice in the matter and had to book my ticket last minute because I had no idea when the trip would be over and there were a ton of variables.

So before we even made it to Campache the car broke down. (the last day of driving for the trip) We got it quickly fixed and I booked a ticket home once in Campache. I took a bus to Cancun, from there I took another bus to the airport where I waited eight hours for my flight to leave. I then flew to Atlanta, got all my baggage and went through customs. Then waited two and a half hours for my flight to New Jersey. I got all my baggage again there and waited for 10 hours before my next flight left. Basically I tried to find a nice, safe corner to sleep in, flipped over my kayak, set up my backpack like a pillow and went to sleep by a squeaky escalator. When I say “went to sleep” I more mean lied down, got extremely frustrated from the squeaking and really paranoid that someone was going to take something from the weird kid sleeping in the corner with all the stuff.(Me) Also I hadn’t eaten all day except for a few granola bars and a Halloween size bag of chips that I got on the plane, so I tried to get some food. The problem with that was I had no American money and couldn’t get any. The currency exchange wouldn’t change my Pesos because I only had 100 ($10) and needed 150 ($150). The frustrating part about that was that I did have 150 but 50 was change and they don’t take change. So, I tried to get money out of a bank machine, no problem right? Wrong! It was a swipe your card deal and wouldn’t work no matter what direction I swiped my card. Dam, I was hungry! I searched all my bags and found enough left over American money to buy six chicken nuggets at McDonalds…didn’t really hit the spot but it was food. When I went to check in the next morning with Delta Airlines (the company I was flying with) they told me I was actually flying with Continental and had to go to conquest C or something. Well to get their I had to take three flights of stairs, an elevator, a train, another elevator three more flights of stairs and then a ten minute walk to the check in counter where they told me I wasn’t with Continental I was with Delta. (the last thing you want to hear after making this trek with two paddles, a hiking backpack, a small backpack, a laptop, a kayak packed with stuff weighing in at 74lbs and no cart to put any of it on) Anyway I got it sorted and made it home tired and extremely hungry after 38 hours of travel which should of taken 8 stops.

A pretty sweet trip all in all: three countries, twenty one rivers, nine beaches, four close calls with Mexican Authorities and over 24 thousand kilometres in the car. Well that’s that for now but stay tuned to Atlantic Kayaker for news on what’s up with me for the next few months. I’ve got a few first descent’s lined up and am heading off to Africa for the winter so there’s bound to be something good happen!