Category: Current Posts

After more than 2 months we will say good-bye to Guadeloupe tomorrow evening and celebrate the New Year in Barbados.

We are curious to see another quite different Caribbean Island with monkeys on it (really missed those cute fellows!), but also some sort of snakes on it (didn’t miss those at all! But luckily only non poisenous ones).

We are also so much looking forward to speak English again, our French knowledge and also Google translator is just a mess. It surely will be much easier for us to get in contact with the locals on an English speaking island. At the beginning we imagined to somehow get along here with our freaky and weird kind of English/French mix and some funny gestures and a lot of nice smiles, but unfortunately we had to accept that it’s not always that easy. I also would not recommend Guadeloupe for single female travellers as some guys here can be quite annoying 😉

Due to the language problems and as the locals enjoy being on their own here, we stayed the last two months quite on our own in our airbnb house. Good for us that we love being with and talking to each other 😛

And hopefully (especially for Andy) we get some tasty and affordable draught beer on Barbados!!!

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But we definitely enjoyed Guadeloupe’s many amazing beaches! Even though I got kind of sea sick quite often while trying to swim in the huge and very chaotic waves. We have also never seen an island where there are so many different colours of sandy beaches (nearly like the pic below).

And for sure our best swim was the one with a great rain shower out of nowhere. The sky turned suddenly black and all the people left the beach, running in panic to their cars. We had the whole lagoon on our own with enormous and heavy cold rain drops from above and great warm waves below. What an unforgetable experience and what a fun 🙂

Finally there are also some very sad news about Guadeloupe, too: It was really quite shocking for us to read a local news blog by chance- after staying here already for some weeks – about the up to date contamination of the French West Indies with chlordecone and the problems especially the locals – but also the tourists – have to face. So Guadeloupe and also Martinique are not really the idylic paradise islands one may think at the beginning … 🙁

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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50144261

…if you watch another couple making “the” perfect photo at the beach for hours?

Yeahh, you get mad

The Zoo de Guadeloupe is beautifully nestled in the rain forest, so you have always a little bit of shade while walking under the huge trees and it also offers a great 20 min walk over suspension bridges in the treeroofs. What a thrill! Don’t ask me how dizzy I felt afterwards …

But for sure best of all: watching the fluffy little racoons 😀

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As long as we have been in the Caribbean we never had any issues with insects (beside the fact that mosquitos are very annoying).

But yesterday a very large spider visited us.

As we didn’t like it in our bed we catched it and guided it out of the house.

Sleep well and sweat dreams

… for everybody, who’s missing them <3

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… at La Perle Beach in Guadeloupe. After a nice beach walk and some great TIGGER bounces in the surf of the sea we enjoy what we can do best: letting go and drift with the waves of life. Just love it 🙂

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We met so many animals during our World Drifting I thought it’s time to give them a post.

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…we started our World Drifter life. Unbelievable that one year is over. We explored so much, visited so many countries, met so many people and animals, got new ideas we never thought about before. One year afterwards we can still say: We regret nothing. It is, without any exceptions, exactly the life we wanted to live. And currently we have no plans to finish this way of living.

Let’s do some recap and summarizing:

We started our journey in southwest Asia:

While we were in this part of the world Thailand was our “home base”. So every time we went to another country we came back to Thailand and stayed a while there. Therefore most spots are in Thailand:

And one of the things we really miss from Thailand is:

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After Asia, we went back to Europe. Two new experiences here:

Our new vehicle DUMBLEBEE

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And being a house and pet sitter in the UK. A huge THANKS to the hosts for their trust and for giving us the opportunity to live part time in the UK.

With Dumblebee we visited a lot of places around UK, mostly stayed overnight in very beautiful places. We will never forget the first night in Belgium (so excited) , the morning waking up at Stonehenge (so magic) and the night with 1 million Midges near Ullapool (so horrible).

Some impressions where we staid with Dumblebee:

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After spending some time with our family and friends in Germany at the beginning of autumn we went into another new adventure, the Caribbean area. Currently we are in Guadeloupe and enjoy not being exposed to European winter temperatures.

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What’s coming next? We have no idea. But we are still excited what life will be presenting us.

Stay curious, we will!

After one year of drifting that’s like the essence for me: every country has its’ pros and cons as well as every kind of living.

There is no real better or even a ‘perfect’ country, it just depends on what’s more important for you. If you prefer a green country, you have to cope with rain, if you want it hot, you will have some insects biting you at night (hopefully nothing worse ^^), if you want to have it cheap, you will have to face lower standards and often some dirt around you. Just to name a few issues.

It’s like with Scotland (one of our favorite countries): so wonderful, when the sun is shining and the heather is blooming in the Highlands, but you have to cope with the midges, some rain and in winter it’s not that funny …. same with Thailand, where you have nice beaches and good food for little money, but you have to cope with the plastic rubbish and dirt and not so funny in the really hot season 😉

When we decided to sell everything and drift through life, we also knew that we quit having an own home, having our family around us and also left the high standards of German living (safety, cleanliness a.s.o.).

This is the price for our freedom, for our different kind of living, for enjoying sunshine and beaches when otherwise we would have cold winter temperatures and cement buildings around.

That also means missing our family until we come back again (we decided to stay max 6 months abroad and even that feels like a really long time sometimes) and this means coping with the standards of the countries we are staying in.

In Guadeloupe this means lovely beaches, a lot of green, but double prices for food and drinks than in Germany. And for me right now, it also means copying with the dentist standards here, as I got a severe infection under one tooth and it has to be extracted next week … in a French speaking country, which means: no real understanding possible for me with my little French knowledge (google translater is of some help). Everything quite different from how I used to know it and I found myself longing for a dentist and nurses I could understand and a more tidy and neat practice surrounding.

But “It is as it is” (one of our favorite quotes … yes, we are getting old now ^^). Everything has its’ pros and cons and you can’t keep the penny and have that piece of cake 😉

Which doesn’t stop me from being so grateful that there are dentists here and that I am fortunate enough to get some antibiotics at the moment and also can afford a professional dentist treatment (how many people worldwide are not that lucky after all!)

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After having had too much Pastis one evening and feeling not really good the other day I decided to quit alcohol for some time and give my liver a regenerating time out. Luckily Andy joined me, even if it wasn’t that easy as Ti Punch is his favorite cocktail on Guadeloupe (green citron, cane sugar and rhum) and a Ti Punch costs as much as a coke or glas of water in a snack bar, about 3 €.

But we did it anyway and managed to stay away from any punches or other alcohol for 2 weeks now. Just drinking water and juices. Quite an interesting experience. But honestly: no dramatic changes … our bodies don’t feel any different now or much healthier (just the sleep had been better: deeper with less waking ups in the night).

Maybe the most important thing has been a more mental one: to know that we can do it, if we want to (not that difficult after all) and to drink a little bit less and more conscious now again.

When you always feel like being on holidays in the Caribbean (and why shouldn’t we feel like this?), you quite easily spend your afternoons or evenings with a nice cocktail in your hand.

So we can really understand now how alcohol problems arise for the people here with everything being quite expensive, but one liter of white Guadeloupe Rhum costing only about 6€. Comparing it with a small bottle of local (not tasty at all) beer that costs about 2€.

I think it’s like with anything else in life: all about a healthy measure – finding the golden middle way that works best for you 😉

… but what an amazing one, I could not resist making one picture after the other, while gazing in awe! So you kind of see the end first 😉

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Fou-Fou is what they call the hummingbirds here in the West Indies.

I really love watching these unbelievably beautiful small birds and looking out for them at the hibiscus bush in front of our rented house has become one of my favorites 🙂

Today in the botanical garden I even had the chance to take some pictures of them. Unfortunately very poor quality as I have only my mobile phone camera, but if you take a closer look, you may find the hummingbirds (Colibris) between the leaves. To make it a little bit more interesting: the fou-fou is green 😛

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Little hint: the wings of the fou-fou make the picture a little bit blurred.

Wonderful afternoon in a lovely botanical garden 🙂

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Booking our new home until the end of the year was a little bit like playing lottery. We decided to book this house very spontaneously and as it was listed completely new on airbnb, it had no ratings and only poor descriptions. So today was the great day! How would the surroundings be? There was no fridge on any of the pictures … hopefully the bed is ok … as we planned to stay here for 37 days all this stuff is what really makes a difference 😉 Many thoughts running through our minds until we finally arrived. And then …

Wow! What a great surprise! Lovely surroundings, nice exteriors and interiors, AC in the bed room, clean new linens and finally: Good Wifi!!! And then seeing that the owners took so much care to give us a warm welcome: a huge basket full of fruits, coffee, tamarind jam and 2 bottles of water in the fridge. Everything very clean and some things even completely new. You maybe can’t imagine what a surprise it is, having traveled nearly for a year now to feel so positively overwhelmed of a location (we had the opposite quite a few times, pictures that did not match reality at all). And especially as this is one of the cheapest locations we have booked till now: approx. 25 €/night for a complete house, due to all the discounts they have offered as airbnb starters. And again we feel so thankful for what life offers us <3

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Having played this GAME for a long time, you may suddenly realize, there is only one real quest left: God-Mode.

As you have already finished so many levels in the Human-Mode, your Avatar got better and better, earned credits, skills, level-ups, raided, cheated … all to become more, to get better, to get on a higher level. Sometimes you also lost, had a bad time. Got frustrated and angry. Or you got bored, fighting the same enemies all the time. But then you won again. So the GAME has been kept interesting. New surroundings, new enemies, new co-players to play with. But always the same gameplay: getting to the next level, more mana, more gold, better skills, nicer outfits. The gameplay of the Human-Mode, the Ego-Mode.

Suddenly you get a glimpse at a totally different mode in the GAME: God-Mode!

Maybe your frustration opened the door to this vision of a new gameplay or simple boredom of the Human-Mode.

Now you have a new goal and your Avatar will try to figure out how to reach this new and promising mode. Surely there will be new features waiting for you, new items to earn, new skills and a better armor. Cool! Sounds like a great adventure! Let‘s try to get there!

But the problem with God-Mode is: your Avatar may take no riches or honours with it. Nothing you earned in the Human-Mode may be taken to God-Mode. Here it is even a hindrance to have a lot of great skills and cleverness, a lot of gold or gadgets, to have a strong Avatar.

As you are not willing to sacrifice all of your great Avatar skills just for a new kind of gameplay, you forget this mode again, ignore it and play the Human-Mode further on. No problem, as there are always new features, new levels. The GAME is always challenging you with new kinds of enemies and goals to be reached.

But you cannot forget that you had this glimpse, this vision, this small teaser of God-Mode once and that this would be totally different from your present gameplay. You cannot forget, but you cannot quit either. So you feel somehow torn apart, no longer playing the Human-Mode with all your heart, no longer being satisfied by the gifts and level-ups you achieve. But you are also not willing to give this all up just to enter another somehow completely unknown mode. You even don’t know what is waiting there for you after all! You just cannot help being drawn to this and you know: it will be the final. But ‘Final‘ sounds for your Avatar like ‘Game over‘ and that’s nothing it wants. That is even something your Avatar hates and fights against. The deadly end of the GAME!

But, no worries! The GAME is not over when you enter God-Mode. Only for your actual Avatar it looks like this, as it has to give up all its great achievements. All the things you have been fighting for for such a long time in Human-Mode! In God-Mode nothing of this matters. There are no more tasks, no more quests, no more fights, no more earnings. You are no longer playing with a time limit. This mode only operates in this very moment. The only time you play in is: NOW.

And now it is LIFE acting through you, through your Avatar. That‘s why you had to leave all your stuff at the Human-, the Ego-Mode. Only one player can play in God-Mode and that‘s LIFE. You still attend and take part in this GAME, but you are no longer the player. No more: live, die, repeat. Your Avatar still acts, but with totally new skills and a new level of understanding

Now you can play all modes and all levels and at the same time YOU are not playing at all …

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Ok, let’s be honest, we started our Vulcano tour yesterday at 900m and probably quit at 1000m 😀

The remaining 500m would have been too difficult for us lazy guys anyway. Too slippery for us to walk in flip-flops … but nevertheless a beautiful and very peaceful walk for about 1 hour. Totally different to walk through a jungle where you don’t have to take care what’s hanging from a tree behind your neck … no snakes here 😉

We have also seen a beautiful hummingbird, but as already before, no chance of getting a picture …

And when jumping into the ocean for a refreshment after our walk we were granted an amazing double rainbow that lasted for about 20 min. Great day again!

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That was the question we asked ourselves while thinking what to do or book next. The answer was easy for both of us: definitely stay!!!

As we are still in the EU in Guadeloupe, we did not book any ongoing flights yet (usually a must when you want to visit any country outside the EU).

And lucky fellows we are, we found a house not far away from ‘THE beach’ (see our last post) via airbnb which was listed yesterday brandnew and thus offered a longstay discount of 49% and a starter discount of another 20%. And here we are, booked it right away until the end of the year and now we can enjoy even more our time on the left wing of beautiful Guadeloupe 🙂

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Really one of the best beaches we have been until now: Grande Anse near Deshaies. Cristall clear water, no rubbish or sea grass, a lot of shady spots under trees, some decent snack bars in the background, no music being played, no buildings at the beach, perfect water temperature, wonderful caramel sand … and a great mixture of olds & youngs, blacks & whites, thins & fats, Europeans & Guadeloups. Oh yeah, what a day!!!

One of the many freaky & weird thoughts we had today was:

If this was not our live, we would definitely envy the one having it 😉

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After 2 weeks on the right wing of Guadeloupe we decided to go to the left part of the island and it is like in another world. Because of the 1500 meter high vulcano the vegetation is completely different. It‘s a real rain forest with huge tree leaves. It‘s much more wet here so even greener than on the right side. Some beaches are black, either with big rocks laying at the shore or with fine sand. On the other hand, it’s the Caribbean side (not the Atlantic one), so much smoother flow and not so intensive waves. That makes swimming more relaxing 🙂

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As Guadeloupe looks like a butterfly, we could say we visited only the right wing till now (low land and many beaches), on Saturday we will change to the left side for the next two weeks (at least), which is the mountain and rainforest side.

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Guadeloupe is not such a typical touristic island and has so much to offer:

• perfect water temperature, a little bit refreshing, not too cold, not too hot, so you could stay in the water for hours
• a lot of great beaches, some with really unbelievable white and soft sand and very clean, the touristic ones, where they sell things; the local ones are more dirty, but only leaves, gras and algaes, we didn’t see any plastics on the beaches until now
• always a refreshing breeze to cool you down a little bit
• no snakes or other poisonous animals, sooo relaxing 😉
• it’s very clean everywhere, no rubbish on the streets or at the beaches (European standards)
• tab water has drinking quality
• no big buildings here or hotel chains (but we didn’t see all of Guadeloupe yet)

The only thing that’s not so great is the price for food (and we love food ^^). As we have rented a studio, we are able to cook for ourselves fortunately. But even if you buy your food in the supermarket it’s quite expensive. Fruit and vegetables are nearly all about 4€/kg (also local), meat at the butcher about 20€/kg. If you buy it frozen and in big quantities it is much cheaper, so we bought a package of 10 frozen pork steaks for dinner 😉 But these are simply island prizes, as nearly everything is imported.

What is not expensive is: Caribbean Rhum. So we stay with the old Bavarian lifestyle of drinking what you need for living and cocktails defenitely have a lot of important vitamins! ;D

So it’ s really easy to enjoy your time here, especially as it’s not high season yet. Only 20% of the studios in the condomium are occupied, so we sometimes feel like being completely on our own here. Nearly no human noises (or in French, which we luckily don’t understand), just the waves crashing at the beach and the birds chirping … yes, we love it!

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Yes, it is possible. Working in another surrounding. No neon light, no central heating, no casino food.

Indeed, it is not that easy to focus on your work if the sea is calling , the sweat is running over your body and you know, there is always a Pina Colada or Caipirinha next door.

But I did it:

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As be booked low cost flights for 150 € per person, we didn’t expect much, like flying with kind of Ryan Air, but our 8 1/2 h flight with LEVEL went really good. Nice films, nice flight attendants, not too narrow seats. And no waiting at the immigration as there was no passport control, we are still in France and can pay with Euros, so easy-peasy!

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Today in the morning we saw the beach in front of our studio which didn’t smell that nice (kind of cloaca) and there were a lot of algae in the water and at the beach. But as our studio owner told us, the beaches in the Caribbean now very often have severe algae problems due to the climate change and what is being swept here from South America.

So it feels already a little bit like paradise getting lost here same as in Thailand or Bali. The ocean also being hotter than usual, about 30° C. But it’s our first day and we will see how the beaches on Guadeloupe and in the other Caribbean countries will look like and we’ll stay optimistic 😉

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Great weather, great city, great day 😀

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After 6 months South East Asia and 3 months Great Britain we are now on our way to Paris. Our flight to Guadeloupe will be on Sunday.

Again it was not easy to say good bye to family and friends. Especially to lovely and generous Doris, who not only gave us a home for the last weeks, but who will also take care that DumbleBee will have a home until we return. Words cannot describe how thankful we are!

We also enjoyed being with our Ohana the last weeks. The boys having grown up that much and being such great characters, each one quite different but that’s even more fascinating. Luckily WhatsApp will keep us all in touch 😉

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So, we say bye bye to everyone we have met the last weeks and also to those we couldn’t meet unfortunately and hope that you will all accompany us on our next adventure! Rocking the Caribbean with freaky & weird vibes 😀

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We are looking forward to your comments and guestbook entries <3

After 3 weeks being back in Germany, we somehow got used to it again … somehow 😉

After 3 months in GB it felt quite rude at the beginning to be bumped into by unattentive passers-by and only very seldom hearing a kind of ‘sorry’ (never realized that before), also understanding nearly all the conversations from the people on the streets felt quite weird (so much easier to listen to gossip in foreign languages ^^) and buying some food turned out to be more stressful than we remembered (putting all your goods as fast as possible onto the band and then into your shopping bag as the cashier immediately serves the next customer .. OMG what a hurry!). I still believe that I walk maximum half the speed of every one else here on the street 😉

We have enjoyed all the food we dreamt of when being abroad, went to our favorite restaurants again with family and friends. So we are ready and looking forward to experience new cuisine the next months in the Caribbean.

Andy is now officially a ‘digital nomad’ and the officials here had to deal with the fact that someone is willing to pay his taxes, but does not have a home, whether in Germany nor abroad. Quite a strange situation for the bureaucracy here 😀

So we somehow got used to this kind of living again and somehow still feel like not really belonging to this (but that’s how it felt before, too). We again know for sure – even better than before – that the nomadic lifestyle fits us best. Drifting is still the most wonderful and surprising kind of living for both of us and life shows us every day how amazing it is to trust and let go.

So, our backpacks are washed and ready to be packed again next week. This time for sure even easier than 10 months ago, as we now know better how little one really needs. And as we fly with a cheap airline to Guadeloupe, we saved the costs for checked-in luggage, means it will be hand luggage only, max. 10 kg. Should be enough for some swimwear and T-Shirts 😀

… the Caribbean 🙂

We will start on 25th Oct. from Karlsruhe by train to Paris, enjoy the Parisian flair for 2 nights and fly to Guadeloupe on 27th Oct. We booked our first location for a week, but the further journey is completely open, so many different Islands to be explored. Plans are to soak in the Caribbean sun for the Winter months and then come back to Europe in Spring and have some DumbleBee journeys … but as always life will decide 😉