October 2024

We have another overnight flight from Turkmenistan to Istanbul, Turkey. A short layover in Istanbul, and then another flight to Chisinau, Moldova. We land around 10 am, find a taxi to drive us 45 minutes outside of the city to a winery where we have reservations for lunch.

It feels like we are back to civilization, and while it’s definitely not home, there’s a sense of freedom that feels normal. We haven’t slept in an actual bed in three nights, and the exhaustion is overpowering. But…we are in Moldova, and we are not going to miss out on any of the experiences. We order some wine and dumplings, which are very traditional in Moldova, for lunch. We are in a small village, surrounded by fields, and the authenticity of Moldova is seeping through. The restaurant has a feel very different than I expected. The table cloths are colorful, clearly a symbol of their culture. The music is local, and there are cats roaming around. The ambiance is relaxed yet formal.

The kindness from the people we encounter at the airport, in the village, everywhere is powerful, and yet, I feel a sadness…a struggle filled with heaviness…from the restaurant staff and everyone we meet. I know that next door, just an hour drive from where we dine, Ukraine is fighting a war. I desperately want to understand what it must feel like for the Moldovans, to be so close to tragedy, their own country at risk, and I also feel a conflicting feeling of gratitude that I don’t have to understand those emotions. It feels selfish and I hate myself for that, wanting to take it all away and give them comfort, something I am unable to do.

Moldova is a small country, with a population of no more than 2.5 million people. It’s one of the least visited countries in Europe, and I appreciate that it’s not crowded, it’s culture still prominent. After lunch, we get back in the same taxi, who we had arranged to pick us up and drive us to the next winery.

Another 30 minutes or so and we arrived at Castel Mimi. We’re halfway across the country now, having driven just a little over an hour in total. Here, there is a castle, a hotel, and a winery. It feels so elaborate, so comforting. The staff treats us like royalty. There’s wine and chocolates in our room. The beds are covered in plush white sheets and comforters, so different than the cots in the yurt we last slept on.

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We explore the grounds in the afternoon, checking out the pool before our tour of the winery and castle. We have a wine tasting with our traditional dinner. We’re served meat and dumplings and sarmale (rice and meat wrapped in vine leaves) and mamaliga (corn flour, water, and salt – similar to polenta). We have ice cream for dessert, and by 8 pm, we are sound asleep in bed, where we stay for the next 12 ours, exhausted from Turkmenistan.

The next morning, we have breakfast and find another taxi to take us back to Chisinau. Once rested, we’re able to spend the day exploring the city, wandering the streets and stopping at cafes and bars. We people watch. We walk. We roam freely. We discuss whatever is on our minds. And we reflect on the world – Turkmenistan, Moldova, and so many other places just like ours and so different.

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October 2024

Matt, Mike, and I sat in the backseat of an early 2000’s sedan. Our driver and Andrew, our guide, were in the front two seats. We rode for about four hours, crammed in the backseat, on bumpy roads, full of potholes. Our driver did an excellent job at swerving back and forth to miss them, and we swayed along with the movement. The last hour, the road turned to dirt and we bounced around like popcorn in a kettle.

When we could, we closed our eyes and tried to sleep. We hadn’t sleep the night before, since we had an overnight flight, and spent the entire day touring Ashgabat. I was overwhelmed, in a curious and good way, and it wore me out. But I also didn’t want to miss what was next – the real reason we came to Turkmenistan.

In the middle of Turkmenistan, with nothing surrounding it, lies a gas crater that has been burning for over 50 years. It’s often referred to as The Gate to Hell. Day and night, wind or rain, it burns around the clock. It’s said that 50 some years ago, a worker was drilling for natural gas and the crater collapsed. The worker and all his equipment fell in, and since then, the gas crater has been burning. There’s nowhere else in the world with this phenomenon, and it’s a site to see.

The sun was still up when we turned around a corner and saw the crater at the bottom of a hill. We pulled as close as we could, all got out of the car, and walked towards it. The heat came pouring out at us. It felt like a large campfire as we got closer. We snapped a few photos before Andrew said, “Let’s get going. We’ll come back after dark. It’s much better than. But now, let’s get to camp and have dinner.”

We drive just a few minutes away to a yurt camp where we stayed the night. Andrew showed us our yurt – three cots, one for each us, were positioned in a U-shape. He pointed off in the distance. “Over there are the bathrooms. They are communal and open all night long.” He looked at me and I raised my eyebrows. There was a path but most of the camp was made of desert sand. “If you want, you can just go in the sand over there behind your yurt,” he said.

“Perfect,” I said, thankfully. It felt so…wrong, especially compared to the rigidness we had experienced in the city. But I was thankful that I ‘had permission’ to use the sand instead of making my way over 100 yards in the sand, which would have been virtually impossible.

The three of us each grabbed a beer from the cooler and sat near our yurt, around a card table, while Andrew finished barbequing our dinner. We had chicken and another type of meat – I’m not sure what kind. There were some roasted vegetables also, and all-in-all, it was quite a tasty meal for being in the middle of the desert.

Andrew joined us for dinner and we asked more about him. It felt more relaxed out in the desert, away from the properness of the city. He told us about his girlfriend whom he hoped would be his wife someday. The custom in Turkmenistan is for the male to ask the female’s father for permission to marry. The male then pays the father, usually around $5,000-6,000 USD. In Turkmenistan, there are two wedding events – one for each family. And they are costly. Andrew went on to explain that he couldn’t afford to pay that much for a dowry payment and two wedding events, so his girlfriend and he were hoping to go to Russia soon and marry there.

I was finally starting to experience the people…a little. Andrew, who had seemed emotionless, had a girlfriend. He wanted to have a wife. To have a family. I knew it, that deep down, he was no different than me. He wanted the same things out of life – love, and happiness, and joy.

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As soon as the sun started to set, Andrew told us that we needed to get to the crater. “It gets very crowded, so it’s best to get there early for pictures.”

We spent well over an hour walking around the entire crater, taking pictures of this magical hole in the ground that was burning on fire. There weren’t a lot of controls in place to make sure people didn’t fall in, people just respected the edge of the crater. We’d back away and feel the cool desert air, and get closer to feel like marshmallows being roasted.

When we were done with the experience, we drove back to camp. On the way, we saw a small animal in the sand. We asked Andrew what it was and he told us it was a hedgehog. The car stopped, he got out, chased after it like a young schoolboy, finally caught it, and brought it over to the car for us. He was laughing and we were laughing. It was another moment where I saw Andrew’s personality come out, and I appreciated the innocence that came with chasing a hedgehog across the desert sand.

That night, the three of us slept in our clothes and special sleeping bags to keep us warm. There wasn’t electricity in the yurts, and the desert air was cold. Matt and I slept solid, for nearly eight hours. When I woke up, Mike explained that there was a party in the yurt next door, and it went on all night long. “Those Russians really know how to party,” he said, as he explained that they were up until around 5 am.

We made the same drive back to the city that we did on the way there. Bouncy, dirty, and rough. We stopped at a horse farm near the city. The former President adored horses, and they have become a very important part of the Turkmenistan culture. We took a rest in the same hotel before dinner.

We ate at a local pizza restaurant where we each pulled out our cell phones. Maybe there’s WiFi here? we thought. About 20 different connections popped up, and within seconds, they all disappeared. We asked our waitress if there was WiFi, and the response was orchestrated, “It’s not working today.” We were back in the city, and that was evident.

Andrew took us to another memorial near a park. The sun was setting and there was music with people. Finally some people! He explained that there was a festival that night and the locals were all there to celebrate. Mothers pushing strollers, teenagers on bicycles, children running in the streets. It felt so…normal.

I wondered again how much access to other parts of the world these people had. I wondered what their homes looked like. I wondered what they talked about with their families. I wondered so much about their lives. It felt like I was on another planet, and selfishly, I couldn’t wait for my WiFi to start working, so I could know what was going on my world.

How is it possible, that on the same planet, places like this, full of marvel and natural beauty and curiosity can co-exist? We are so disconnected from each other, and yet the chasing of a hedgehog can bring a smile to all of our faces. The chance at falling in love is a dream. The connection, while perhaps the most distance of all, is still there.

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October 2024

We have a 1 am flight from Istanbul, Turkey to Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. It’s less than a four hour flight, and as we land, the sun is rising in Turkmenistan. I watch the screen on the back of the seat in front of me as we fly over Tehran, Iran, and wonder what it’s like in Iran. Someday, I tell myself, someday I will know.

The airport landing looks like no different than any other airport landing. As our wheels touch the ground, I take a deep breath. I am in Turkmenistan! I am in the place that is supposedly the most like North Korea. My heart flutters. I’m nervous. I have no idea what to expect. I flip my phone off of airplane mode. It searches and searches. Nothing. No signal. I’m not surprised. I knew there wouldn’t be access to the outside world here. I turn it back to airplane mode to save battery.

The plane deboards and I wait quietly. My brother and Mike walk passed me; I’m excited to have them on this trip, in this new country, with me. “We’ll wait for you in the jetway,” they say as they pass by. I nod my head. I watch out the window and see that my wheelchair is being brought up the steps to the jetway. I breathe a sigh of relief, and a few minutes later, the three of us are walking towards a window with a big plane of glass. On the other side is a man who takes our passports and letters of invitation. To get into Turkmenistan, you must have a letter of invitation. Our tour company arranged this for us. We handed our documents over. “It will be $80,” he says. We pay him with the cash we knew we’d need for this and proceed to the next window. Another man looks at our passports and says, “Ok, $30,” and we pay him. He hands our passports back, each with a sheet of paper that says, “COVID PCR Test – Paid.” I assume we will get a PCR test at another stop on the way out of the airport. I quietly hope that none of us have a positive test. I can’t imagine what the quarantine process is like in a country like Turkmenistan, where I had read that they have publicly told other countries ‘they never had COVID enter their country, only a unique strain of pneumonia.’

We walk to the next stop – immigration. We had our passports to the man on the other side of the counter just as a young, gangly man wearing khakis and a polo shirt approaches us. He has a lanyard around his neck with a badge of some sort. “I’m Andrew. I’ll be your tour guide,” he tells us and he communicates in the local language to the immigration officer. He tells us to take any medicine – any kind of pill – out of our bag before putting in on the scanner, which is the next stop. “They won’t take the medicine from you, but you must disclose what you have in your bags.” We each pull out our zip lock bags, hold them up as our bags go through a scanner and us through a metal detector.

Once outside the airport, never having taken the COVID test that we paid for, Andrew shows us the car and introduces us to our driver. We drive away, towards the city of Ashgabat, and I look out the window. “Guys, look, the airport is in the shape of a falcon. It even has a beak over the front door!” It was clear already that we were in an entirely different world. The airport was grand, beautiful, stunning. And there were no more than five cars there.

We drive for about 30 minutes to our hotel. We hadn’t slept much, nerves and excitement on the flight keeping us awake. At our hotel, we check into our rooms which smell strongly of cigarette smoke and look like they are from the 1980s. It feels like there are cameras watching us, although we can’t physically see any. But they’ll do, and besides, we’re not even sleeping in them. We’ll be driving outside of the city and staying in yurts for the night.

We charge our electronics, brush our teeth, and head to the common area for breakfast – eggs, toast, sausage, and coffee. We learn a little from our guide as we prepare for the day. Turkmenistan has a population of six million people and has immense wealth from its natural gas that it exports. The government only allows its people to have white cars, although some appear to be a very light gray. But there are no black, or blue, or red cars. The buildings in the city of Ashgabat are all white. Marble white, and it was all imported in from other countries. Everything is white. Literally everything!

There are five regions in the country, and as we learn during our city tour, the five regions are highlighted in everything. A star with five points, a symbol of Turkmenistan. Our guide explains to us that we are not be explore on our own, that all tourists must be accompanied by a guide at all times. This becomes evident during our time in their country. We never eat alone, we don’t roam the streets alone, and we are escorted through the airport, from the moment we cross immigration to the moment we cross back through immigration. Andrew is always with us. While it’s possible to drive over the border from neighboring countries, it is a mandate that a guide meet you and drive with you. Ironically, in these cases, you are allowed to enter with a car that is a different color than white.

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After breakfast, we begin a tour of the city. We drive through some of the most grand streets I’ve ever seen in my life. The sky is bright blue, not a cloud in sight. And tall, white buildings appear to reach to the heavens. There are perfectly pruned bushes in either side of the street, and some of the most gorgeous parks I’ve ever seen. I’m envious of the beauty the city holds. The light posts are perfectly lined along the streets, and there’s not a single piece of litter, anywhere. It feels like we are driving on a road that leads to another world, to a heave of some sort. And…there isn’t a single person in sight.

We visit a number of monuments and statues, all perfectly created, clean, and orderly. There are vast areas of park and squares so large they seem to never end. In them, it is just us, and a few pigeons. We all wonder, “Where are all the people? Where are the people that maintain this beautiful city?” We are in awe, and at the same time, it’s so vacant of human life that it becomes creepy and uncomfortable. It’s as though everyone knew we were coming, prepared the area, and then went into hiding.

We visit the world’s largest indoor ferris wheel, which is opened only for us, because, well, there are no other people. We ride around, going up to the top, one time, looking out over the city and into the mountains far off into the distance.

At one of the parks, there is a security guard with a large pile of bouquets of flowers sitting in front of him. There are probably 50 bouquets of flowers in front of him. Andrew explains that there was a festival earlier that day and that’s why there are flowers. It’s early in the morning and I wonder what time this festival was, given that there were no people or remnants of a festival. The guard approaches me with two bouquets of flowers. He says something to Andrew, who translates for me, “These are for you. They are leftover and you can have them.” They smell amazing, and are the largest bundle of flowers I’ve ever received. I feel special.

For lunch, we eat pilav, a common rice dish. It’s delicious and reminds me of my time in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. At every stop, Andrew messages someone on his phone, using a messaging platform none of us have ever seen. I assume he’s reporting to his boss, letting him or her know exactly where we are and what we are doing. The schedule is rigid and we are not to miss anything.

We ask questions about the war in Ukraine. “Turkmenistan is a neutral party,” is all Andrew comments. I wonder what their media is like. I wonder how much exposure to the outside world Andrew, and the people in Turkmenistan, have. I wonder if he’s allowed to have an opinion. His response feels so robotic, so calculated, so….watched.

I want to talk to him. I want to know about him. I want to drink a coffee or beer with a local. I want to know what it’s like to live in Turkmenistan. And I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to. His responses are rehearsed, and there’s no one else around.

What is it like, really like, to live in this vacant, white, majestic city? It doesn’t feel bad. It feels safe. It’s beautiful. And the few people – a hotel worker, a waiter at a restaurant, our driver, and Andrew – all appear kind. Is it possible that of all the places I’ve visited, this might be the one that is the most perplexing?

I want to talk to Matt and Mike about this, to discuss at depth the feelings I’m having. I want to ask them how they’re feeling. I want to know what they think of this place so different than any I’ve ever had. But we can’t be left alone, and so I write my thoughts in my phone, making a list of things so bizarre and foreign, to be discussed at a later time.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wheelstravels.substack.com

November 2024

Mom and I left our ayurvedic wellness retreat right after sunset. Our driver drove us down the mountain, round and round, and I looked down into the valley, into the city of Kathmandu. It was hard to believe we would be staying there for the next four nights, and a sudden wave of sadness overcame me. I wanted to go back to the retreat. I wanted to be massaged again. I wanted to rest in my bed where everything was calm and peaceful. How could I get attached to a place in just seven days? How could I possibly miss a place where I was angry with the doctor, limited on my food choices, and totally disconnected from the rest of the world? I couldn’t answer myself, but the feeling was familiar. Around the world, I’ve left places that I grew attached to, in such a short period of time. I can only assume that these places that are hard to leave are the ones who have left the biggest imprint on my spirit.

Since it was dark when we arrived at our hotel, we didn’t leave. We had dinner at the retreat, so we settled in and woke up early the next morning. We took a left hand turn out of the door of our hotel, shortly after the sun had risen. We walked about a hundred yards down a small road full of potholes and construction until we reached a main road. We were on a mission.

My sister had her palm read years ago when she visited Kathmandu and recommended we do the same. Now I’m not usually into having my future read…how can any of us actually know? But it seemed like something fun to do, if for nothing else, it gave us a destination.

We walked down the sidewalks in Kathmandu, going up and down giant curbs where Mom would lift the back of my chair up after I tilted my front wheels up. And then I’d turn around and we’d go backwards down on the other side. There aren’t a lot of ramps in Kathmandu.

We approached the astrology place I had pinned on the map. There was a sign on the second floor of a very old building, but we couldn’t get in. We asked the owner of a jewelry store next door if they were open. Immediately, he said, “Oh, let me call the owner. They will come for you. Just wait here, on Jacob’s corner.”

Jacob’s corner? I thought. That’s odd. Why is this corner called Jacob’s corner? There’s nothing special about this corner. No monuments or sites or, really, anything pretty to see. In fact, it was kind of dirty and run down. But we waited for about 15 minutes until the owner arrived.

While we were waiting, a young boy with Down’s Syndrome, about eight years old, walked towards us. He was wearing black slacks and a bright green sweatshirt. He smiled big, and put his hand out to shake ours. I shook his hand and within seconds, he was hugging me. A genuine, all embracing hug. He wouldn’t let go. He just kept hugging me. And then Mom. And then me. We didn’t speak any of the same language, but we didn’t need to. Minutes later, he shook our hands again and went on his way.

A middle-aged man was standing nearby smoking a cigarette, watching us. He smiled as he said, “This is his corner. Jacob’s corner.” And it was so evident that the entire community rallied around this boy who welcomed everyone to his corner, with no judgement.

When the astrology shop finally opened, two men helped Mom and me up a very steep set of stairs. I crawled out of my wheelchair and scooted up backwards on my butt, tiny splinters of wood from the steps slipping into my pants and poking me in my bottom. At the top of the winding stairway, I sat on a wooden bench next to a large pile of books and papers.

“I’m so sorry,” the owner’s son said, “we are doing some construction,” which was evident from the piles of wood and dust. But we – the astrology reader, Mom, and me – crammed into the room, which was smaller than many walk-in closets. He took our information – where we were born and what time – and started creating our horoscopes. Then he took our palms, one at a time, and put together everything about our lives through his palm readings.

My future life is exactly what I need. He tells me that I will be healthy, and have no major medical issues. I ask him if I will have financial troubles. He tells me I will never be rich, but I will never be poor. I cannot ask for more.

We discuss love and he tells me about Tony, who is not there with me, and that I have found a man who supports me. He tells me that I will never have my own children, which I do not want. I can only adopt, or maybe consider IVF. But this isn’t upsetting.

Mom asks if I will ever walk again. He calmly looks at my palm, looks at both of us before taking one more look down, then tips his head up, and says calmly, “No, but I think Renee is up for the challenge she’s been given.”

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Hours later, I am at such peace because of his comments. I knew I would never walk again. I never expected any sort of an answer indicating otherwise, but his way of putting it so eloquently, as though it was a blessing, a purpose in my life, gave me such peace. He was right – I am up for the challenge. Not that I have a choice, but since I don’t, I may as well take the challenge and embrace it.

In the afternoon, we make our way to the Pashupatinath Temple complex. Here, the people of Nepal cremate the dead, in an open air crematory that sits along the Bagmati River. The Bagmati River runs south and into the Ganges River in India. For the Hindus, which is the predominant religion in Nepal, if their ashes can be placed into the Bagmati River after death and flow into the Ganges River, there is a higher chance that they will reach Nirvana, and not have to return to Earth through reincarnation.

We learned this all from a wonderful young man in his late 20s. He was studying tourism at a local university, and his name was Ganesh. He was slim, wore a plaid button down, and had long dreadlocks. We were attempting to get down a flight of stairs to get closer to the river. There were cows and bulls, which are sacred in the Hindu religion, roaming everywhere. People would step to the side so the cows could pass through the crowds, slowly waddling back and forth, as though the people didn’t exist in their space. Ganesh stopped to help us with the stairs, stood nearby us, and explained what was happening in the ceremony. He ended up spending hours with us. Later that day, we even shared a meal together.

But before that, he told us everything we wanted to know about the open air crematory. We learned from Ganesh that as soon a family member dies, their body is immediately taken to the open air crematory. On the river, there are 12 platforms made of cement, each meant for a body to be burned. In the event a couple dies at the same time, they can be burned together, on the same platform.

Once the body is brought to the river – and this happens around the clock, 24 hours a day – their feet are washed in the river. The body is then brought to the platform and decorated in beautiful marigolds. The body is covered in a type of wood that ignites easily, and when the fire is started, it is always started from the mouth. It takes about three hours total for the body to be burned before its ashes are released into the river.

Each platform costs about $150 USD for the ceremony, and a few VIP, larger platforms are available for a higher cost. Those platforms are the closest to the river, ensuring a higher chance of reaching Nirvana.

For the individuals who cannot afford a platform, there are electric incinerators available in the city. It costs about $50 but the ashes aren’t released into the river. These individuals are unlikely to reach Nirvana, or that’s how I understood it, at least. I couldn’t help but wonder how this made any sense – if someone was an outstanding human, did everything right, gave away all of their wealth, and thus couldn’t afford to be cremated along the river, they wouldn’t get to see Nirvana? But maybe that was their destiny all along, a punishment from another life.

Ganesh explained that for 13 days after the burning ceremony, the family will only eat ghee and rice. They do not touch each other – not even a hug – during the entire 13 days. In the 1920’s, if a married man died, his wife would take her own life. While that has since changed, it was not long ago that this ritual took place, leaving behind any children.

Now, after a family member’s death, any sons or the spouse of the deceased wear white for one year. And then on the anniversary of the death, they return to the river, and on the opposite side of the crematory, they sit with a priest for a series of rituals. The family returns each year on the death anniversary, to the same place along the river, for the annual rituals.

When I asked if it was considered a tragedy, a sad event, when someone died, Ganesh quickly responded, “Oh no, quite the opposite. We are happy for our loved ones when they pass. It means there is a chance that they get to be in Nirvana, and we want that for everyone. In fact, we celebrate death, not mourn it.” I knew this already about much of the world, but hearing it firsthand and experiencing the process became so thought provoking. If our loved ones truly are going to a better place after death, shouldn’t we be excited for them, and not selfish for our own loss?

While we ate, Ganesh shared stories about his family and his hopes for a wife someday. He explained to us, in a way I had never understood before, what karma is. Karma, as he explained it, wasn’t doing something good so that something good would happen to you in the future. Instead, karma was doing the right thing, making the right choices in life, so that your future would be set up in such a way that you would have a good life. Karma wasn’t hoping that someone who hurt you would have something bad happen. Or that someone who helped you would be rewarded later in life. Instead, it was a way of living. Of doing the right thing, not because you wanted something in return, but because doing it over and over made one’s life better. All of the times I have wished for karma to come back and haunt or reward someone seemed so silly now. It wasn’t my business what karma they had in their lives. Instead, I can only control my own karma, and put good back into the world, and be the person I want the rest of the world to be.

Driving through the very congested and polluted streets of Kathmandu, sometimes for an hour at a time, we’d cross busy intersections where only a traffic guard directed traffic. There were few traffic lights but tons of motorbikes. No one ever held their horn or beeped more than once. It was always one gentle beep, a polite reminder that they were coming through.

A few days later, I sat in a coffee shop in Kathmandu while Mom did some shopping. I looked out the window at the crowded street. People pushed hand carts full of goods, motorbikes beeped – just once, and people greeted each other. I thought of the hundreds of times I crossed paths with strangers, each of us putting our hands together, much like in prayer, nodding our heads forward and saying, “Namaste.” I honor the divine within you – a way of saying hello or good-bye and wishing someone well.

I thought of the dozens of women who massaged me, for hours a day, at the wellness retreat we stayed at. I wondered where they lived and what their home life was like. As I had learned, in the villages of Nepal, outside of the city, many women quit school when they begin menstruating. They spend their menstrual cycles in huts in their backyards, as it’s believed this is how to avoid bad luck or ill health for their families. Because they are living in huts, they can’t finish their education, which is now free for both men and women, or at least those who have moved to the city where the custom of banishment to huts has diminished.

I sat in this beautiful coffee shop feeling like the luckiest person in the entire world. These moments of understanding how people around the world take the same experiences we all have and mold them into what makes sense for them – some of it good and some of it bad – had me so grateful that I was able to learn from them. I wanted my karma, the things I did in my life, to set me up for everything I deserved. And I promised myself I was going to continue creating positive karma, because in whatever life I had, now or in the future, I wanted it to be as good as the one I am living right now.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wheelstravels.substack.com

November 2024

Many people go to Nepal to climb Mount Everest, or at least part of Mount Everest. Since I can’t climb mountains, I did something a little different. My mom and I spent a week at an ayurvedic wellness retreat.

Ayurvedic medicine is a holistic type of medicine that originated in India – which is right next door to Nepal – thousands of years ago. At our retreat, we spent a week doing panchakarma.

The literal translation of panchakarma is “five actions,” or five karmas. Panchakarma is basically five types of detox treatments for body. They consist of Vamana (vomiting), Virechana (cleansing of the digestive system with herbal medicines), Basti (enema), Raktamokshana (cleaning of the blood using leeches), and Nasya (cleansing through the nasal passages).

The idea of panchakarma is to create balance for the body’s three doshas. We all have them – pitta, vata, and kapha. When one is out of balance, our entire body – physical, mental, and emotional – is out of balance. Through the cleansing process, and a precise prescription of herbal medicines, the three doshas become balanced, and thus, we will be balanced.

The entire panchakarma process takes several weeks as it’s an intense cleansing process for the body. Since we could only stay for one week, we completed just one the five cleansing processes.

On the morning that we arrived, a driver from the retreat met us at the airport. We had asked the wellness center that we were staying at if there was a lift and an accessible room and they confirmed that the entire center was wheelchair friendly. Woo hoo! Standing outside the airport holding a sign with our names on it was our driver, and he had an empty wheelchair sitting next to him. He didn’t speak much English, but we assumed he and the center wanted to be sure we had all of our needs met, and making sure I was able to move around was one of them. I didn’t need the wheelchair since I had my own, but seeing him welcome me and all my uniqueness into his country gave me the biggest sense of belonging, and I couldn’t wait to see more of Nepal. Plus, he wasn’t insistent on pushing me around, and allowed me to have my own independence, so I was grateful for his demeanor.

We drove for about an hour outside of the city, up windy roads and through lush forests. The roads were paved with asphalt, and for a mountainous part of the world, were in really great condition. At the top of a mountain, our driver stopped and pointed in the distance.

“There,” he said, as he pointed. It was evident that the large brick building standing alone on a mountain off in the distance was where we would be staying for the week. He turned off of the main road onto a muddy, dirt road. We went up and down, sliding sideways at every turn. I quietly wondered how the heck we were going to get to the beautiful brick building so far away, and then suddenly, we turned on a stone road, drove up a big hill, and we were there.

We were escorted to our room, given some herbal tea, told to rest before lunch, and that we would be meeting with the doctor for our initial consultation soon.

In our shared room, with two twin beds, we had a bathroom and a small patio with just enough room for two chairs. The view out of the large glass windows overlooking the Himalayan mountains was stunning and peaceful. I didn’t know at the time, but for the next week, I would spend much time staring out that window, detoxing physically and mentally. It was the perfect place to be serene.

We each met separately with our doctor that afternoon. In my consultation, the doctor asked me a series of questions:

* How have you been sleeping?

* What’s your appetite like?

* Are you having any health issues?

* How do you feel mentally?

* How have your emotions been?

He took my blood pressure and pulse, and had me lay on my back so he could lightly press against all of the organs in my abdomen.

He told me that my pitta dosha was very high and my vata dosha was slightly elevated. In basic terms, my high pitta dosha was causing some stomach upset, joint pain, anxiety, and sleeplessness. My increased vata dosha was causing my thoughts to derail, forgetfulness, and emotional withdrawal. This all made sense, and yes, I was experiencing all of these ‘ailments.’

We talked about what my treatment plan was going to look like. He advised that for the first three days, I would drink a cup of warm ghee mixed with a specialized combination of medicinal herbs. Ghee is a type of clarified butter, and is one of the most common ingredients in all foods and treatments for panchakarma.

He explained that the ghee would pull out toxins living in my cells – both physical and emotional toxins. By this point, I was becoming a bit skeptical that purging my digestive system was going to clean out any mental or emotional toxins I had, but I was already there, and I was going to drink the ghee anyway…

He went on to tell me that the first three days I would drink ghee each morning followed by multiple deep muscle massages to my body. The idea of the massages was to help my muscles release the toxins into my digestive tract. On the third day, I would be given a different type of medicine that cleans out my digestive tract completely. On this day, I would not leave my room as I would need quick and frequent access to the bathroom.

I didn’t have a lot of questions for him. Rather, I was very skeptical that this would make me feel more emotionally and mentally calm. I can understand being physically detoxed, but emotionally? Plus, several days of being massaged did sound amazing. And, I really trusted my doctor. He seemed to understand me and we laughed together as I learned about panchakarma through his consultation.

That evening, we had dinner – rice and steamed vegetables – in the shared kitchen. For the next week, we would have a combination of rice, steamed vegetables, and kitchari. Kitchari is a porridge like soup made from rice and lentils. A special blend of spices is added to help with panchakarma and it’s meant to be easy for the stomach and digestive system to process.

Before each meal, we took a shot glass size concoction of herbal medicines. There was a tray in the shared kitchen and taped to each glass was our name. Sometimes we got one glass, sometimes a few. And they were awful! Many tasted like mud, and some tasted like liquid grass.

Before bed each night, on a small shelf outside our room door, we were given a ‘bedtime’ dose of herbal medicines. And laying under each glass was our prescription plan for the next day. The prescriptions were hand written on a piece of paper about the size of my forearm.

Some days we began with an hour of yoga, or a full body massage. Sometimes we were prescribed to rest, or we received an herbal bath. There were sound baths, where half a dozen staff members circled us and played sound bowls as we laid on the massage table. Sometimes our chakras were cleaned. Most days it was a combination of treatments, and we never knew what we would have coming until the night before. But every day, we knew we would receive a full body massage.

For an entire week, we wore only bathrobes – hot pink bathrobes that went to our knees. During our massages, we stripped out of our robes and were completely naked. These deep massages were important to release our toxins. Using sesame oil, one or two masseuses would spend several hours massaging everything from the hair on our heads to our stomachs to our toes. There wasn’t a part of my body that wasn’t massaged. By day seven, my mom and I both agreed that we were quite exhausted with being covered in sesame oil and being massaged. Who would have thought we’d ever mumble those words?

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On our first morning, there was a knock on our door at around 5:30 am. A woman holding a glass of warm ghee on a silver tray was on the other side. She watched as I drank the warm, thick, awful tasting ghee before taking my cup and moving onto the next room.

As the sun rose, we drank herbal tea in our room, and shortly after the center started to wake up, we spent an hour in yoga in a large room with about ten other guests and one yoga instructor. By this time, my head was starting to hurt. I wasn’t allowed to have caffeine at the wellness center, and the withdrawal from my typical two-to-three-cups-of-coffee-a-day was starting to set in. The yoga instructor was quite insistent that I move my body in ways that it just couldn’t bend, and coupled with a belly full of ghee and a pounding headache, I felt awful. I knew then that the yoga instructor and I weren’t going to get along and the rest of the week would be difficult when I had to deal with him. And I wasn’t wrong.

On the day of my purge – when I wasn’t allowed to leave my room – he appeared several times to inquire on how many times I was using the bathroom, how I was feeling, and making sure I was drinking enough ghee. I became annoyed after several visits and finally told him that I wanted the doctor to come to my room. I had drank three cups of oil – either ghee or sesame oil – and I just couldn’t put anymore in my belly.

The doctor came to our room, asked me to drink an herbal drink instead, and reminded me that I was irritable because all of my negative emotions were detoxing. Whatever! I thought. I’m just annoyed cause the yoga instructor keeps knocking on my door!

The yoga instructor came once again, about 20 minutes after the doctor, and I finally yelled at him, “I need you to leave me alone! I am trying to detox.” I didn’t see him for the rest of the day, and only once after that when we crossed paths just briefly in the lobby.

On the day after my purge, I was able to leave the room and resume treatments and massages. My meals were limited to kitchari and warm apples, so my digestive system could return to normal. I would continue eating a mild diet for the remainder of the week.

On the last day, when I met with my doctor for my final consultation, he asked me if I felt lighter. “I really do,” I said, surprising myself at my response. I hadn’t thought about it but I was suddenly so calm. I was sleeping better than I had in months, and I no longer felt like I was carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders.

When I look back on the entire process, I wonder what really caused my serenity. Was it the quietness of the Himalayan mountains, with no sound or light pollution? Was it the total relaxation that I got every day, filled with massages? Was it the foods, specifically designed to be easy on the stomach? Or was it truly possible that my cells were holding negative emotional toxins inside of them? How would that even work?

On the day of my purge, when I would be using the bathroom frequently, I had an early morning belly massage to relax and prepare my digestive system. I persistently asked my therapist – the center’s lead therapist – over and over what the process would look and feel like. I wanted to know exactly how I was going to respond to the treatment and when. If he could have given me a minute-by-minute schedule of the next 24 hours, I would have been thrilled!

He tried to calmly answer my questions, but frustrated at my need to understand everything, eventually stopped massaging me, slowly smiled at me, and said, “We cannot know all things in life Renee.” I smiled back, stopped talking, and let him continue the treatment. He was right: we cannot know all things in life. And right then, I think I started to emotionally and mentally detox – letting go of everything – without even knowing it.

Outlined here are the treatments I received for the week I spent doing panchakarma in Nepal.

Day 1:

* Arrive at wellness center and meet with doctor for initial consultation

* Dinner in the evening

Day 2:

Morning Treatment:

* Drink 1st dose of ghee

* Eye exercises and eye wash

* Mouth gargle

* Whole body cleansing massage

* Picu (a type of massage that involves placing strips of thick cloth in warm oil and resting them on the back and extremities of the body to help release toxins)

Afternoon Treatment:

* Facial Massage

Day 3:

Morning Treatment:

* Drink 2nd dose of ghee

* Whole body relaxation massage

* Picu

* Pinda Sveda (a type of massage that involves placing large bags of heated herbs on the body to relax the skin and release toxins)

* Yoga

* Neti pot (the process of cleaning out the nasal cavity)

Afternoon Treatment:

* Rest in room

Day 4:

Morning Treatment:

* Drink 3rd dose of ghee

* Yoga

* Neti pot

* Spinal Abhyanga (a specific type of massage focused on the spine and back)

* Chakra Basti (a process where the chakras are balanced using dough to create a bowl like receptacle filled with oil on a specific part of the body, either the belly button, heart, or eyes)

* Siro Dhara (a treatment where warm oil is dripped on the forehead for an extended period of time to help induce calmness and sleep)

Afternoon Treatment:

* Citz bath (a treatment that involves sitting in an herbal bath to help cleanse the perineum)

* Ubatan Abhyanga (an herbal powder scrub and massage to improve the complexion of the body)

* Herbal steam bath (removes toxins by laying in a wooden box that is filled with steam)

Day 5:

* Virecana (day of purging)

Day 6:

Morning Treatment:

* Head and foot massage

* Karna purana (a treatment that involves pouring warm, medicated oil into the ears)

* Siro Dhara

Afternoon Treatment:

* Spinal Abhyanga

* Chakra Basti

Day 7:

Morning Treatment:

* Whole body cleansing

* Karna purana

* Picu

* Facial massage

* Herbal tub bath (soaking in herbal tub for around 30 minutes)

Afternoon Treatment:

* Final consultation with doctor

For more information on our wellness center, please click here.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wheelstravels.substack.com

November 2024

We – Mom and I – arrived into Bhutan after 48 hours of travel. We flew from the US to Delhi, India where we had a 24-hour layer. In Delhi, we met a driver at the airport who drove us for three hours to the Taj Mahal. We spent the afternoon in Agra visiting the Taj Mahal and learning about its history. And then another three hour drive back to our hotel in Delhi. It was Diwali, the celebration of lights, in India, and I woke up around 1 am to the sounds of fireworks. I peered out our hotel window, incredibly groggy, and saw a sky full of fireworks. Around 10 am, we were back at the airport for our flight to Bhutan.

Bhutan sits in the Himalaya mountains, surrounded by Nepal, India, and China. They have a population of roughly 750,000 – in the entire country! The population is currently declining and the government is paying families to reproduce. It’s a predominantly Buddhist country, and until 1984, they didn’t have an airport. The only way to connect with the people in Bhutan, prior to 1984, was to walk….over the mountains. So, as you can imagine, there was little connection to the outside world.

Things like TV and the Internet and phone lines didn’t exist in Bhutan until around 1990. It was a very isolated country, tucked away into the mountains where no one else really cared to explore and the people in Bhutan knew no different.

The airport in Paro, Bhutan is one of the most dangerous in the world. High in the Himalayas, our pilots circled a number of mountains until suddenly a runway appeared below us. In Bhutan, there isn’t a radar system to help pilots land, so the pilots are completely on their own. In fact, there are only 50 pilots – in the entire world – trained to fly in and out of Bhutan. Roughly two to three flights go in out of Bhutan a day, and it’s an event that the population often watches for entertainment.

When we landed in Bhutan, I climbed down the flight of stairs from the aircraft to my wheelchair which sat on the runway. There are no jetways in Bhutan. And there wasn’t an ambulatory lift. I didn’t mind though, as our flight attendant was super understanding and attentive. He made up for any inconvenience and I quietly hoped everyone in Bhutan was as nice as he was.

As we navigated towards the airport, a small building, I noticed that this was unlike any airport I’d ever seen. It wasn’t bland and official looking, instead it was full of colors, and architecture, and character. It was a beautifully decorated building that looked like it could be some sort of religious building or museum.

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A young man was escorting us, as they often do when they see my wheelchair, and helped us through immigration. We found our way outside and located a taxi.

“How much to Thimphu?” I asked. Thimphu is the capital of Bhutan and about an hour drive from the airport.

“$50,” he said, with a smile.

“Ok,” I told him, knowing that his price was comparable to what I had read online.

We got into his very small car, crammed our two bags between us, put the wheelchair in the trunk, and rode mostly in silence for the next hour.

It was a stunning drive. Winding roads, a cool breeze blowing through the open windows, green covered mountainsides, and tranquility. We passed a few cars but never heard an engine roar or a car beep. It was just calm. Bhutan is one of the only carbon positive countries in the world, meaning they use less carbon than what they are putting back into the atmosphere. And it felt that way too.

I had messaged the hotel we were staying at a few days before we arrived and asked if their building was wheelchair friendly. They assured me that there was a lift to the room and that there were only a few stairs going in and out of the building, but not to worry, they would help me up and down.

As we pulled into the parking lot, three men came outside to greet us. From this moment on, we didn’t so much as lift a bag, struggle with a step, carry a coffee cup to our room, or call a taxi. Every detail and task we had to do in Bhutan, for our entire 4-day stay, was taken care of by the people in Bhutan. We weren’t just catered to, we were treated like royalty.

The hotel wasn’t full, so the owner gave us a free upgraded room. Two of the walls were made of glass panels, with doors that opened to a balcony overlooking the city. In the morning, we would sit in bed and drink coffee, looking out the panes of glass at the world’s largest sitting Buddha on the mountain in front of us. This room, by the way, was only $54 a night.

Our guide and driver picked us up the next morning, but on that first night, Mom and I explored Thimphu on our own. We asked our hotel owner for suggestions on restaurants, and without even questioning it, he arranged for a taxi to bring us to one of the few restaurants that didn’t have steps.

“Thank you,” we would say, to him and so many others.

And the Bhutanese people would nod their head to the side, putting their ear towards their shoulder, signaling to us in their own body language ‘you’re welcome,’ and often in response to a question, ‘yes.’

In Bhutan, there are no stop lights. There is a traffic guard who directs traffic if there are a few too many cars, but even then, there’s hardly ever too much traffic. The people never use their horns. “We would feel guilty if we did that. The other driver would feel like we are angry, and that is not what we want,” our guide would tell us. “Only in an emergency would we ever use our horn.” Instead, drivers flash their lights to alert other drivers, and then only if they need to.

The next morning, our driver and guide picked us up at our hotel. We drove to the top of the mountain to see the Buddha we had been admiring from our beds. As we drove up and through the mountains, we noticed colorful flags with writing on them hanging on the sides of the streets. We learned that they were prayer flags, strategically placed during specific times and in specific places, so the spiritual energy would read them and the wind would carry the messages on the flags to the gods. There are flags for love, and happiness, and peace. There are big flags and small flags. Faded flags and brand new, brightly colored flags. They are considered holy and sacred, an important part of the Tibetan culture.

At each stop in our tour, our driver or guide would alternate between pushing me. I love my independence and being able to move my body, but Bhutan is not an accessible place, so I appreciated the help (most of the time). Since we wouldn’t be able to climb the mountains to some of the most famous monasteries in Bhutan, our guide got creative.

“You like beer, yes?” he asked.

“Of course,” we both smiled.

“Ok, so today, since we had six hours planned for hiking and visiting the monastery, instead, we are going to bring you to a Bhutanese brewery.”

We both smiled big!

“And, it’s overlooking the airport, so you can watch the next two flights land!”

It was perfect. And we had the opportunity to chat with our driver and guide, and learn more about them and their culture – my favorite part of traveling!

We learned that students attend school for eight hours a day, all year round. Math, English, and the local language are the only compulsory subjects. (My brother-in-law’s Dad actually created the Bhutanese math curriculum back in the 1970s, which is a fun fact for me!)

We talked extensively about what it is like in Bhutan now that they have access to the outside world. Being only 20-something, they admitted that they didn’t know what it was like before the airport, and thus technology, entered the country. But, our guide told me, his parents tell him frequently, “Life is better now that we aren’t isolated.”

I am fascinated by his comments and reflection. In the 1970’s, the king of Bhutan announced that they were going to measure Gross National Happiness instead of Gross Domestic Product. He wanted to measure overall well-being and happiness in the country, instead of focusing on financial well-being. Having come from a culture where consumerism overpowers ideas around well-being, mental health, and general satisfaction with life, I’ve been curious about Bhutan’s mindset for a long, long time, and our conversation gave me some perspective on it. There was a definite focus on one’s happiness in Bhutan, and it was sensed with every encounter we had.

The next stop was the oldest monastery in Bhutan. While we couldn’t get to the monasteries high in the mountains, our driver and guide insisted that they at least bring me to the oldest monastery. “You have to visit at least one monastery while you are here!” they demanded.

The path leading to the monastery was an old stone path. They picked up the front and back of my wheelchair and carried me like a chariot for about ten minutes. I could tell they were getting worn out and I was aware that I was using all of my ‘pushing capital’ for this monastery. It was unlikely they would have much energy left after this visit for another site that was inaccessible, so I tried to take in as much as I could.

As we approached the steps to the monastery, a monk came out and the three of them chatted for some time in their own language. To enter a monastery, everyone takes their shoes off, so as not to dirty the floor, and I quietly wondered if the monk didn’t want me to enter because my wheels might have dirt on them. I’ll never know, and I suppose that’s better. In the end, he helped to bring me up the stairs, sans shoes but with some wheels.

We have lunch at an old farmhouse, where we eat on the floor. “All of the locals eat on the floor in their homes,” we’re told.

Because it’s cold in Bhutan, especially in winter months, the locals have creatively found ways to keep warm. One of the traditions in Bhutan is called a ‘hot stone bath.’ Large stones from the main river are collected, warmed on a fire for three or more hours, and then placed in a wooden tub filled with water. The stones heat the water, releasing minerals, and individuals soak in the tubs for hours on end. The minerals are said to heal most aches and pains, and it’s ‘good for the body.’ We experienced this first hand, two wooden tubs next to each other, a small opening to the outside where hot stones could be added to our tubs to heat our water.

And on the same day, after a brewery, monastery, lunch, and a hot stone bath, we drive back to Paro. There’s not much in Paro, but our guides want to be sure we see the city. They insist on pushing me around – again – from shop to shop, and while I’m grateful, I’m also beginning to feel trapped. I am finally in a part of the country that I am able to move on my own but they won’t allow me to. Their culture raises them to be hospitable, and to them, that means that I mustn’t do anything on my own that would cause overexertion. I quietly mumble under my breath, frustrated that I feel so controlled, angry that if it wasn’t for this wheelchair, I wouldn’t have someone insisting on taking care of me, and disappointed that I can’t accept their overwhelming kindness. “Please let me go. I just want my freedom,” I whisper so quietly that no one can hear me.

Once at the airport, Mom and I chat about the overabundance of kindness. In just a few days, we became exasperated with how kind and welcoming everyone was. It felt so natural for them…and so unnatural for us. I could hardly handle it, and before we boarded our flight, I told Mom, with a little bit of an eyeroll, “I just want someone to be mean to me, like I’m used to.”

On our flight, I sat next to a local man. We chatted for a bit before he told me that he worked for the Ministry of Health in Bhutan. He had seen me in the airport and wanted to stress that they – his country – were making big improvements towards disability access in Bhutan. “Ten or 15 years ago, there was nothing. Now hospitals have ramps!” he commented, excitedly. “We’re working on making schools accessible and putting in strips for the visually impaired. Come back in five years and everything will be better.”

I had a hard understanding how such rapid change could happen but hoped he was right. And like so many places around the world, I knew that even without ramps and tactile strips and regulation, the people would always be there to help. Soon enough, someone would be mean to me again, and I’d wish I was back in Bhutan, being uncomfortably overwhelmed with kindness.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wheelstravels.substack.com

A few weeks ago I was driving away from the house I grew up in Maria Stein, OH. I had visited my Dad for the afternoon, to celebrate the holidays. As I turned down Kremer Road, the street I lived on for 18 years, I told Tony, my life partner, “I can’t believe I used to live here.”

He responded, factually, “You’ve come a long way. You’ve done so many things with your life.”

For the days after my visit, I kept thinking about the little girl that grew up in Maria Stein, OH. It felt like I knew her well, but it didn’t feel like me. I didn’t and still don’t feel like that girl that grew up in that farmhouse all those years ago. It’s like I read about this girl in a book and finally got to visit her home.

I wonder how many lifetimes one person can live in a life, ‘cause it sure feels like I’ve got a few under my belt.

For the past two years, as I’ve admittedly abandoned my writings, or at least what I’m sharing with the world, a similar transition has taken place. I’ve experienced so much, in such a short period of time, that it’s hard to capture the essence of who I feel I am today. Two and a half years ago, when I first wrote about leaving my corporate job and taking my first solo trip to Bali, I was so afraid. I still remember sitting on the flight telling the older gentleman next to me how scared I was to be going to the other side of the world all by myself. He had a graying beard and wore a light blue striped button down shirt. I felt safe with him and quietly wanted him to accompany me, to keep me safe. He was so calm and told me I would be just fine, that I would have the time of my life. Of course he wasn’t wrong, and I did have the time of my life.

I look back on that first trip, to Bali, where I really, truly was, in all of my years, so incredibly afraid, and I wonder how the thing that scared me the most – flying across the world and entering a new country all by myself – has become the thing that lights me up more than almost anything else, the thing that I long for. I suppose it’s proof that with enough practice, all of the things that scare us to death can become the things that feed our souls and begin to feel natural. Maybe we don’t really need to be afraid of anything.

In the past few years, I’ve woken up more times than all of my prior years combined, wondering where I am. What bed am I in? Who is here with me, or am I alone? What country am I in? Home has become an interesting concept for me. I’ve been to some of the poorest places in the world and experienced some of the most corrupt political systems, and yet when I ask about the local people who have left, they all want to go back. When I ask why, it’s simple. “Because it is their home.”

I have the same longing to be ‘home.’ Back in the USA, where I know the language, the regulations, my rights, the comfort of my own foods. And yet, every time I arrive back ‘home,’ it feels like a part of my soul is left in the place or places I just came from. I feel like parts of my soul have been scattered around the globe, different people who have changed my life holding a part of it in their hearts. And somehow I trust them all with it.

I’ve never felt like I belonged in this world, always having been different, and it’s a novice feeling for me to feel like this entire world is finally my home. I wonder if I would have found that sense of belonging without connecting to strangers so different yet so alike me.

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So while, two and a half years ago I set out to see the world, I’ve now gotten so much more out of it. With every post I’ve shared before, I was able to articulate and formulate my own thoughts with others, and I always learned something about myself by putting my experiences into words. Right now, I’ve got a hodged podged list of thoughts from the many places I’ve visited since my last post…many, many months ago. And it’s my own promise to myself to put them into some semblance of order. Not a chronological timeline of my travels, but my experiences as they shaped me and gave me perspective. Because believe me, watching spiders the size of your hand crawl on the ceiling above you and geckos run across the wall near your feet, as you attempt to sleep in the middle of an African village will give you perspective. Because driving through the Namibian desert with your sister, not a soul or building for hundreds of miles, hoping the water you have in your backseat is enough, will give you perspective. Because floating on the Amazon river watching caimans twice the size of your body hunt for food will give you perspective. Hearing strangers talk about their families, tell you about their food, teach you how to eat with your hands. Watching mothers with their children, teachers in schools with their students, hosts so proudly entertain. All of it, it’s all given me perspective. And it’s changed me. So here goes Season 2 of this journey that has turned into so much more than just a year long trip around the world.

I think I’ll finish where I left off last. In Bolivia.

We – my Mom, my youngest sister, Natalie, our driver and guide, and me – were driving across a plane of salt. It looked like we were driving across the world’s largest flat of compacted snow. It reminded me of rural Ohio. But it was over 70 degrees Fahrenheit outside.

The Uyuni Salt Flats, a legacy of a prehistoric lake, sit in rural Bolivia, at nearly 12,000 feet in altitude. They occupy over 4,000 square miles of land. And there’s nothing on them except an occasional car, and even then, that’s a rarity.

At some point in our drive, let’s say 30 minutes in, our driver stops and we all pile out of the car. “You have as much time as you want,” our guide tells us with a smile. When you are ready, we will have a lunch set up for you over here, and he points to an area next to the car. So we wander, snapping photos of everything, yet, there is really nothing but white. Everywhere. Just white…and a clear blue sky.

The salt flats provide a perfect opportunity to get perspective photos, meaning we take pictures of each standing just a few feet apart and appear that there are miles between us. We have fun with this for a while and then retreat to lunch.

In Bolivia, the driver’s wife always makes lunch for the group he will be driving that day. He presents us with a multi-course meal: bread, roasted chicken, steamed vegetables, fresh fruit. It’s delicious, and obviously so meticulously thought out. I quietly wonder how many meals she – our driver’s wife – makes for tourists. And, knowing that Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in South America, wonder what the meals for her family consist of.

We spend the afternoon driving around the salt flats, laughing at the goofy pictures we are making. Shortly before the sun sets, we pull over. “I want to watch the sun set with you,” our guide says. I think this has to be one of the most surreal moments – watching the sunset in Bolivia, not a soul around, on a plane of salt that is thousands of years old. He gets out and opens our door for us. We climb out and stare into the distant, watching the perfectly round, yellow sun against the horizon. We can’t get enough pictures.

I turn around to get my jacket out of the car; it’s getting cold as the sun sets. I see a table with five chairs set up. The table is covered in a red patterned cloth, something very traditional. On the table sits a bottle of red wine, four wine glasses (none for our driver), and a charcuterie board.

“Have a seat,” our guide says. And the five us gather around the table, peering into the distant, as the day sets. He pours us each a glass of wine and I grab a slice of summer sausage and cheese from the deli tray.

“What kind of meat is it?” Natalie inquires.

“I’m not sure but it’s really good,” I tell her, as I go in for another slice.

She grabs a few, tastes them, and tells me the same. “That’s really good.”

As soon as the sun is set, we head back to Uyuni, the nearest city. “It’s too cold to be out here for long,” our guide explains. And he drops us off at a hotel made entirely of salt. The walls are salt, the tables are salt, the bed frames are salt. Everything, outside of the mattress and toilet, is made of salt.

There is little heat as we all crawl into bed in a room with three separate beds, wearing leggings and long sleeve shirts. “Mmm, this is nice,” I mumble as I drift off to sleep.

A few hours later, around 1 am, Natalie taps my arm. “Renee, I’m not feeling very well,” she whispers, the bathroom light shining into the room.

I stumble awake. Knowing we are at 12,000 feet, I am convinced she must have altitude sickness. “Are your lips blue? What about your hands?” I know that if we need to get her some oxygen, since it’s so low at high altitudes, we can go to the front desk and have them get some for her.

“No,” she says. “I don’t have blue lips or fingers.”

We decided that it’s a combination of too much travel and the altitude, but nothing to be concerned about.

The next morning, we all piled back into the same car for an eight hour drive to San Pedro, Chile. Natalie hugged herself and slept in the backseat the entire time, unaware of what was going on.

On the other side of the border, finally in Chile, we settled into our room. It was a small room with three single beds lined up, like a children’s camp. We had pizza and a beer – well, my Mom and I did – across the street from our hotel.

Six hours later, in the middle of the night, it became apparent that Natalie wasn’t suffering from altitude sickness. As I tossed and turned, got up and down, Natalie and I came to the conclusion that the ‘very good’ meat we had the day before was not ‘so good.’

The sickness would last for the next three to four days, never impacting my Mom as she didn’t eat any of the meat.

In between the real lows of not feeling well, though, we managed to drive into the Atacama Desert – the driest desert in the world – and see the Milky Way galaxy in the pitch black of night, clear as a picture, with no clouds or light pollution.

It’s these moments, so far away from home, from the little girl I barely know anymore, that I find myself wondering how I got to be so lucky. How did I get to be the one living this fantastically beautiful life? A mere speck of dust floating around on one of millions of spheres in this galaxy, in the entire universe, and I am the one who gets to have these amazingly touching, indescribable moments. I looked up one last time to the yellow, blue, and purple colors making up our galaxy. Wow! There were no other words. Just Wow!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wheelstravels.substack.com

This story took place in October 2023…

We – my mom, my sister, and I – arrived at the La Paz, Bolivia airport around 2 am.  We flew from Columbus, OH to New York to Bogota, Colombia, and finally to La Paz, Bolivia.  We fumbled through the immigration process as immigration officers took our pictures and payments for our 30 day tourist visas.

We stepped out the door of the airport and found a taxi who drove us into the city.  I had arranged for a two bedroom apartment in the heart of La Paz and advised the host that we would be arriving late.  He confirmed that it was no problem and that a key would be inside a lockbox which would be locked securely on the fence near the building.  He sent pictures of the lockbox with a video on how to open it, and directions on how to get into the apartment.

Our driver was young and friendly.  He found the high rise building that we were staying in and patiently waited as we searched for the lockbox.  I sat in the backseat of the car, not wanting him to drive away until we were securely inside.  La Paz, Bolivia is certainly not the safest city in Latin America, and I didn’t want to be standing outside in a neighborhood I as unfamiliar with at 3 am.

My mom and Natalie searched and searched, looking at all of the fences near the building.  They could not find it.  They searched in bushes and around the corner.  Nothing.

I messaged our host on WhatsApp but got no response.  Our driver was getting impatient, naturally, because his meter had no way to charge us now that were at a standstill.  He eventually insisted that he needed to leave and started to unpack our luggage from the car.  I paid him and gave him a generous tip for his patience.  But now we were standing on the sidewalk, in the pitch black of the night, three American woman with luggage and valuables and nowhere to go. 

I tried to call our host but there was no answer.  Of course there’s not.  It’s 3 am! I thought to myself.

We stood near the entrance to the building and I pulled up Google Maps.  There was a hotel around the corner and we decided this was our best option.  We’d squeeze into a small bed if we had to.  At this point, we just wanted to be inside where we knew it was safe.  Plus, it was only about 40 degrees Fahrenheit and we were not dressed for the weather.

We walked just a few minutes and turned the corner.  The street was lined with lamp posts, many which were not working.  There was a hotel but it’s lobby was dark and it’s door was locked.  The other stores and restaurants were all closed too.  There were few people and it was incredibly eerie.

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I remembered the name of a hotel I almost booked before I found the apartment.  Hotel Europa.  It was a very nice hotel and, according to Google, it was still open.  We didn’t know what else to do, so as soon as a taxi drove by, we flagged it down and I told him, using my limited Spanish, where we were going.  We piled in the backseat, holding our bags as my wheelchair had taken up most of the trunk space.

I followed the map as we moved away from the city and saw that we were driving into the countryside.  I started to wonder why we weren’t turning left at every intersection.  My map clearly indicated that we needed to go left.  And we needed to go left several blocks earlier.

I asked the driver, again in Spanish that I had only been learning for four months, why we weren’t going towards the hotel.  I pointed this time at the map and he nodded, shaking his head with a bit of a smile.  He mumbled something under his breath and turned around.  Whew!  I thought.  Where were we even going?

About 15 minutes later, he pulled up to a very nice building, probably the nicest building in La Paz.  He turned the corner towards the main entrance and I saw a dark lobby.  Crap!  I thought.  What are we going to do?  We have nowhere to stay, not even for a few hours until the sun comes up.  And just as I was about to ask the taxi driver if we could stay at his house, my phone rang.  It was our host.

He immediately apologized and told me that he was out at a birthday party.  “If we can make it back to the apartment, he will help us in,” he promised.

“Ok, we have no other choice.”  I explained to the taxi driver that we needed to go back to our apartment and we would pay whatever the cost was.  He was content with this and we made the journey back.

We drove through what appeared to be the most dense part of La Paz, Bolivia.  There was an immense amount of commotion.  At the busiest intersection, we stopped at a stoplight as police on motorcycles flew around us, and I wondered where they were going.  I was seated in the middle seat and I hoped that my mom and sister on either side of me were safe.  Three women riding around in a taxi in La Paz, Bolivia at, now 4 am, just didn’t feel like the best place to be.

But alas, we arrived back to our apartment.  Our host was standing outside with his sister and they were incredibly kind.  He told us he arrived a few minutes before us and searched at the exact spot where the lockbox and key were placed.  “They must have been stolen,” he told us.  And I thought to myself, What a world….

“Don’t worry,” he said, “I will call my mother and she will send the spare key in a taxi to us.  Can you wait ten minutes for it to come?”

I chuckled and joked, “Sure, we have nowhere else to go,” but also knew that it was the truth.  We really didn’t have anywhere else to go.  Every hotel was closed and it was getting really cold!

We huddled up near the front door of the building and chatted with our host, small talk, who was about my age, and his younger sister.  I practiced my Spanish and they practiced their English.  Thirty minutes later – not ten minutes as he suggested – a taxi pulled up and handed a box wrapped tightly in duct tape to our host.  Inside was the key to our apartment.

We didn’t shower or even bother taking off most of our clothes.  We’d been traveling for almost 24 hours.  Instead, I crawled into bed with Natalie and fell asleep for five hours.

The next morning, around noon, we all awoke and wondered how the heck we ended up in a city in Latin America, without a place to stay and no one to call, but grateful that we were safe and that our host was so kind…and in this case, actually awake!

We walked through some of the main streets in La Paz, mostly in search of coffee, and found a café for lunch that was full of cute antiques.  Bolivia is one of the poorest countries in South America and the infrastructure and upkeep of the city is representative of this.  The city itself was not accessible.  The streets were hilly and the sidewalks were questionably functional for a wheelchair.  But we weren’t in Bolivia to see La Paz.  La Paz was just a stopping point.  The next morning we would fly out to Uyuni to see the infamous Bolivian Salt Flats, or salar de Uyunai, as they call them locally.  But man, what a journey we were on already!

~~~

In my last blog post, I introduced my new role as Ambassador for Free Wheelchair Mission.  For more information, please click here. And for the month of March, please know that all donations are doubled.  With one $96 donation, your generosity provides two wheelchairs to people in developing countries who don’t have access to mobility devices.  There is a very special place in my heart for these people and I thank you in advance for the difference we are making together.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wheelstravels.substack.com

In two days, I will turn 40.  I sit in Mendoza, Argentina and wonder if this was how my life was supposed to turn out, or did I so strongly will for something different that I landed myself on a path moving so rapidly and intensely that I can’t get off.  I can’t even remember what I thought my future looked like a year ago, or two years ago.  I suppose if I’ve learned nothing else in my 40 years, it’s that it never turns out the way we think it will.  But man, this is a great life!

I think back to 654 days ago – my last day working in corporate America.  It was one of the absolute most scary days of my life.  I had no idea what I was going to do after I was done traveling, and I didn’t know if things would ‘work out.’  Months after leaving, I talked to mentors and peers, searching for some solid plan to move me forward.  Of course, no one could tell me exactly what to do.  The advice I always got was, “It will work out.  If you had the guts to leave your job, you can do anything.”

I still frequently wonder if they are right.  Maybe it won’t work out, but I have to believe that the strong pull I’ve been having to do good in this world will turn into something wonderful and grand.  So I will keep going, because I am so fortunate to be able to.  And because I have done some really cool things this past year.  And I’m not just talking about becoming a Guinness World Record Holder (which is pretty bad ass)!

This past week I took Spanish language placement test.  I passed into the C1 level, which is the ‘Fluent Speaker’ level.  There’s only one level higher, and that’s the ‘Native Speaker’ level.  When I landed in Argentina 10 months ago, I spent most of my nights researching how to learn a language faster.  It turns out the best way to learn it is to just do it. 

I cried with my professors and there were days when I told Tony I just wanted to ‘go home.’  It was really, really hard.  But…I can actually call myself bilingual, and for this farmgirl from rural Ohio, that feels really cool. 

I have no idea what I’m going to do with this new skill.  I’ve thought about teaching English to Spanish speakers when I get back to the US, or leading a Spanish-language meetup.  But what I do know is that I am better because of this experience, my mind is stronger, and I understand an entire part of our world that I could have never fully experienced or known had I not dropped myself into a strange place where no one was like me.

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What I haven’t written about publicly is something new to me since I left my job all those months ago.  I was six months into my travels when I had this sudden desire to know what my medical diagnosis is.  My family and I have always been told it’s some sort of skeletal dysplasia, and most commonly we were told that I have diastrophic dwarfism.  This diagnosis never fit, mostly because I am at least five foot tall and people with diastrophic dwarfism are much shorter.

My family and I have done genetic testing many times.  When I was a child (several times) and again when 23andme.com became a commodity.  The results were always inconclusive.  There was never a genetic (DNA) diagnosis for me.  I started to accept that science was just not advanced enough, and I may never know what this thing – this disability – that has caused me so much joy and so much heartache is.  I started to live with the uncertainty and it became a comfortable thing for me.  I suppose that could have led me to leave my job and enter into the uncertain.  I was just used to not knowing how things would turn out.

But on a random day in October 2022, while visiting some islands in the South Pacific, I had a strong desire to know what my diagnosis was.  There must be some irony in the fact that I was in a place with little WiFi when I had this urge to research, extensively, everything about the status of the human genome project.  But when I was able to get in front of my computer, I found loads and loads of information.  I ordered a more advanced, at-home DNA kit that specifically screened for 1,200 rare diseases.  This was it – I knew that in no more than 3 months, I would finally have a diagnosis.

I waited for the results, and almost a year ago to this day, I received a report in my email telling me that I didn’t have any of the rare diseases they scanned for.  And I didn’t have diastrophic dwarfism.  I was crushed.  How could I not have ‘something?’  I can’t walk!  And the one thing that I kind of thought I might have had is no longer on the table.

I spent weeks researching geneticists around the country, reaching out to a few who could offer no solution.  I finally reached a team at Johns Hopkins who wanted to see me.  “We have a long wait list,” they said, “but if you can get here in May, we will squeeze you in.”

I waited for my appointment, knowing that they would be unlikely to offer an explanation without more DNA testing.  In May 2023, I swabbed my mouth yet again and had my saliva sent in for additional DNA testing.  And I waited, uncertain that there was even an answer.

My initial results came back without a diagnosis.  There was one variant, though, that the lab wanted to see if anyone else in my family had.  I waited for several more weeks as each of my family members submitted their DNA.

In August 2023, I received a diagnosis.  Recessive Autosomal Multiple Epiphyseal Dysplasia, also known as rMED.  I know, that’s a mouthful!

“We’d like to have you come in and meet with our entire team of specialists,” they told me.  I couldn’t wait to learn more about rMED and my treatment options.

Just two weeks ago, I got to meet my new team of medical professionals.  I haven’t had a team of doctors in years.  The doctors I saw as a child have since retired and I haven’t needed care related to my disorder for over 10 years.

I spent two days in Baltimore, MD meeting with neurologists, orthopedists, geneticists, and audiologists.  I learned that one of the genetic variants I received has never been seen before in any genetic or DNA database and has never been published in literature.  Quite simply, no medical professional or researcher has ever seen this variant.  (That’s not to say that it doesn’t exist elsewhere, it’s just never been seen in a DNA sample before).

I challenged my geneticist on this.  “How can I have rMED if this is a brand-new, never-been-seen-before variant?  Isn’t this an entirely new disorder then?”  We spent over an hour talking about the different skeletal dysplasias that exist, and how they all lay on a spectrum.  She tells me that I’m “somewhere between rMED and diastrophic dysplasia, and maybe a little of both.”

I feel like I’m back to square one.  I’m closer to a diagnosis, but what the heck is this brand new variant?  And what does that mean for me?

And so I go back to being a little uncertain.  But that’s comfortable for me.  I like it here, in the unknown.

It has been an emotional journey – an unexpected journey – to learn more about this disability that consumes so much of my life.  But it feels good, to have an entire team of medical professionals supporting me.  God knows I wouldn’t have ever expected to find that when I sought out on a soul-searching journey.

I still can’t tell you exactly what my future holds.  I don’t think any of us can actually do that, no matter how well our plans are laid out.  But I’m so excited for what I am doing now.

I’m deep into work on the book I started a year ago about my travel and medical journeys, with the ending completely unknown at the time, and having changed several times since I started it.  I want so badly for it to be published in 2024, and I think it will actually happen.  It’s a hell of a story!

I’ve been invited to speak at Extraordinary Travel Festival in November of this year in Bangkok, Thailand.  And I’ll be doing my very first TEDx Talk in Tullahoma, TN in April.  I’m also spoken at and will be speaking at several schools, which are my absolute favorite places to speak!

During my last visit to Johns Hopkins, we talked a lot about how my bones are holding up.  I’ve already undergone a double hip replacement, and it’s been life changing.  I know I need to take care of my body, and as my knees have started to hurt in recent months, they recommended I undergo a few months of physical therapy.

I don’t know if it was a sign that I needed to be back in the US for a few months or if life just happens and we have to do things we don’t always want to, but in two weeks Tony and I will be back in the US for an indefinite period of time so I can take care of myself. 

For a week after making the decision, I was super sad that this chapter was coming to an end, but I know that the efforts I put in now will allow me to get back on the road in a few months and see more of the world while I still can.

And while I’m doing that, I’m going to deep dive into finishing my doctorate, which I started about two years ago and have made tiny strides towards completing.  My research is focused on positive psychology in the workplace, and like so many other things, I don’t know where that will take me.  Maybe it’s another book, or an opportunity to teach at a university, or who the heck knows.  But I’m having fun with it and I know it can turn into something good.

I have a ton of travel content and stories from around the world that I will finally be able to get into words and share with you, and I cannot wait to do that!

I am involved with two incredible non-profit organizations.  Journeyable is a non-profit organization dedicated to making travel accessible for everyone through empowerment and stories.  And boy, do I have stories!

And finally, I have become an Ambassador for Free Wheelchair Mission, a non-profit organization focused on providing wheelchairs to people in need around the world.  One donation of $96 provides a wheelchair to a person in need in a developing country.

For months, I have been grappling with how to give back to the world.  I didn’t know how to do that, but when I was introduced to this organization, it all made sense.  I have experienced firsthand the poverty and struggle that so many people in our world are experiencing every day, and I’ve also experienced firsthand the great fortune of always having a wheelchair that allows me to go to the bathroom, or the supermarket, or to school.  I want everyone in the world to have the gift of mobility.

If you are in a position to donate, you can click here.

So, I can’t tell you when my next trip will be, but I have given myself the gift of two trips before November, when I know I will be in Asia.  I have also given myself the most important thing I can give myself, and that is taking care of me.  And while I do that, I’ll live in the space I’m most comfortable with.  Uncertainty.  But this time, I know that uncertainty is going to bring me to great places.  I’m so glad I made that scary jump 654 days ago.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wheelstravels.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wheelstravels.substack.com