Travel Week

Things in Venezuela didn´t exactly work out as planned, as often happens.  To make a long story short, we decided to come home in August so that Sofia could start school at home and for Julio and I to get back to work.  That day in August is coming fast.  Tomorrow, in fact, we begin the journey home.  It will be several long days of travel, with each leg needing to go just right, until we arrive at home on Wednesday, August 15.

Tomorrow, August 10, the four of us will leave Maturin at 5 pm on a bus headed for Barinas.  If all goes well, we should arrive there at about 9 in the morning.  This may seem long, but to us it seems short.  When we came, we took a bus that left at 10 am, arriving in Maturin at noon the next day.  With two kids.  In Barinas, we will take a smaller bus that will bring us to Merida in a trip that should take four hours.  Fingers crossed.  We should have Saturday night, Sunday, and Monday to rest, pack, and prepare for the rest of the trip.  We´re giving ourselves an extra day just in case.  Bright and early Tuesday morning, a man Julio´s sister knows will drive us to Cucuta, Colombia, stopping on both sides of the border to stamp our passports.  If all goes well, we should be at the airport by late afternoon.  There we will wait until the plane leaves at 8 pm (fingers crossed again).  We should land in Bogota, at before 10 pm.  Our plane will then leave from Bogota  at midnight, landing in Miami at 5 am.  We then fly to Charlotte, NC, and with any luck at all, finally land in Chicago at 1 pm.  With two kids under five years old.  We must be crazy.  Hopefully, my parents will be there to pick us up and take us home, another four hour ride, three of which I plan to be asleep.  Then, when we wake up, Sofia will be FIVE YEARS OLD.   If things don´t go as planned, we´ll be travelling on her birthday.  Gosh, I hope not.

It has been wonderful to be able to spend so much time with los abuelos, being part of the household for so long.  We are so lucky to have such loving families in both of our countries.  It was a trip we had to make, and I´m glad that we did it.  I am so ready to be home, though.  Ready for our routines, our comfy bed, our lives.

Ready, set, here we go!