Back to an England that is familiar yet seems alien to us; where there are no palm trees, no spectacular mountain range, no llamas or other exotic animals, yet there are innumerate clipped hedgerows, quaint villages, an obsession with tea and (for us at least) nipples that protrude like chapel hat pegs on account of the cold.
We've yearned for home for some weeks if we are honest, yet simultaneously dreaded the time when the trip would be over.
That time is now and it feels contradictory - warm and gooey, dull and empty.
Though we have much to sort out in order to rejoin the rat race, I feel that this blog should end definitively and draw a line under this most memorable period of our lives, hence this final posting.
The blog has been a wonderful tool with which to enable you to keep tabs on us and for me to create a literary accompaniment to the 12,000 photographs that Kerry has taken, which, by the way, you are welcome to come round and we'll take you through each one - it should only take four or five days.
As the trip and the blog developed, it became more of a challenge to describe what we were doing in an interesting and non-repetitive way.
The common threads, punctuating most, if not all posts were: bus travel, heat and/or sweatiness, my luggage, the food and our difficulties with language. That is because we endured these things on a daily basis and they were always at the forefront of our minds.
The historical snippets were intended to help paint a more revealing picture of a given place and everything else described did actually happen, however hyperbolic and facetious I may have been in conveying the information to you.
I really hope you have enjoyed reading about our experiences.
In order to round things off nicely I want to list our top 5s.
This was an exercise we conducted to alleviate the boredom on an overnight journey through Argentina and publication here may reduce the number of times we're asked "So where did you like best?" over the coming weeks.
In no particular order:
CITY
New York, Sydney, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Quito
BEACH
Isla Mujeres (off Cancun), Bondi (Sydney), Roatan (Caribbean island off Honduras), Big Corn Island (off Nicaragua), Miami South Beach
ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE
Machu Picchu, Tikal (Guatemala), Palenque (Mexico), Teotihuacan (Mexico), Nazca Lines (Peru)
JOURNEY
Route 66 in a convertible Chevvy Camaro
The open road, a 6.2 litre engined supercar, mom and pop diners and following an icon
El Rama to Bluefields (Nicaragua) en route from Managua to Big Corn Island Packed chicken buses, speedboats up river, dense jungle, tropical downpours, dreadful accommodation
Velero Amande, Panama to Colombia by boat
Fantastic shipmates, great snorkelling, brilliant crew, party central, dolphins at dawn, San Blas islands
The Inca Trail
Dreaded but ultimately rewarding yomp through Andean vistas to make you weep with joy. Machu Picchu was the icing on the cake but the sugar, butter and jam of the other inca ruins we saw en route were almost as gratifying
Guatemala City to Chichicastenango
Chicken bus hell at breakneck speed. Unforgettable climbs, precipitous twists and smoking brakes being doused with water by the conductor. A veritable white-knuckle ride with genuine doubt whether we would make it there alive.
Other contenders: Andean Explorer train from Cusco to Puno, Copper Canyon Express in Northern Mexico, jeep tour around south west Bolivia
COUNTRY
Mexico
USA
Peru
Costa Rica
Guatemala
EXPERIENCE
Paragliding over Lima
Zip-lining over a Nicaraguan volcano crater
White water rafting in Honduras
Mountain biking Death Road in Bolivia
Spending time with my daughters
OVERALL
Easter Island
New York
Sydney
Isla Mujeres (off Cancun)
Iguazu Falls (Argentina)
WOODEN SPOON (Wouldn't go there again if you paid me)
Puerto Escondido - Mexico
Surf dude town, miles to the beach, impossible to swim in the sea, super-humid, mosquito hell
Colon - Panama
Most dilapidated and stinking place I have ever seen. Needed police escort to walk to a cafe for breakfast. Lawless, redeeming feature-less, hopeless. If it were a bodily condition it would be a pus filled, festering boil on the arse of Lucifer himself
Rio Dulce - Guatemala
Manic hovel where life is played out at a frenetic pace. Filth, poverty and a general malaise reigns. Also home to the single most disgusting accommodation of the trip. I know not how we slept in something resembling a squat, only filthier.
Livingston - Guatemala
Super disappointing destination after mammoth journey by chicken bus and river boat. Litter-strewn and decaying town seemingly populated by the most lackadaisical inhabitants. Has the potential to be beautiful; is a sweaty and overpriced shambles with absolutely nothing to do there except regard the sea of discarded plastic bottles bobbing at the shoreline.
Ciudad del Este - Paraguay
Dreadful border town where Brazilians and Argentinians come to buy cheap tat. Extremely humid, noisy, gridlocked traffic and frenetic air to daily proceedings combine with packed streets and markets to render this the definitive hell-hole to the severely jaded and middle-aged backpacker.
Though we have experienced so much, the most remarkable, not to mention delightful, realisation of the past ten months is just what a fantastic match Kerry and I are.
To think that we have spent so much time in each others company with barely a crossed word is little short of miraculous and a pleasant surprise to both of us.
We obviously weren't sure how things would work out so we both had a contingency should we have found we seriously got on each others thruppeny's at any stage but, thankfully, that didn't come to pass.
So finally, a massive thank you to my wonderful boss for supporting me in this venture and allowing me to take such an extended period of leave; to you for reading this, thus ensuring that the 100+ hours spent on its composition wasn't a tragic waste of my time; to the fascinating and truly inspirational people we met along the way but especially to Kerry, for sharing the memories that will hopefully sustain us through the years.
Now, where's my globe?
I can feel my feet getting itchy.
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