Childhood friends embark on a trip around the world
Friday, September 12, 2008 5:41 PM PDT
Chadwick graduates put their explorer caps on and travel 32 countries in less than a year.
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| Childhood friends Allison Cahill, left, and Maureen Stubbs recently returned from an eight-month trip around the world. The Chadwick graduates visited 32 countries, including Argentina, Malaysia, Bhutan, Japan and Greece. Here they ice trek on the Perito Moreno Glacier in Patagonia, Argentina. |
By Rebecca Villaneda, Peninsula News
They set out last December for an eight-month trip of a lifetime. They experienced things straight out of National Geographic — they trekked the Himalayas, were mesmerized by the Taj Mahal, roamed with animals in an African safari, chatted with a war survivor in Sarajevo and flirted with two humpbacks in Antarctica.
It took Allison Cahill and Maureen Stubbs nine months to plan this extravagant trip, but they say it was all worth it and was one journey they won’t soon forget.
“It was kind of my dream to see the world, so I decided to pursue it,” Cahill, a 26-year-old Rancho Palos Verdes resident, said. “By deciding to go to Antarctica and the Everest region, that kind of determined the pace and length of our trip … We basically followed summer around the world, and we ended up going to 32 countries in eight months.”
It didn’t take too long for Cahill’s childhood friend to agree to go on the trip.
“From the moment we came up with the idea, which was Allison’s idea, I just kind of laughed, because you don’t really think that’s possible … From that day forward we spent hours every day [planning],” Stubbs, also 26, said. “It was the most time-consuming thing I’ve ever done, and of course it was the greatest reward. We literally planned every single day … We planned every flight and we had accommodations for every night.”
Their trip started in Costa Rica, then Panama, and they made their way south to South America, visiting cities in Ecuador, Brazil and Argentina, including the Galapagos Islands, where “Darwin formed his theory of evolution.”
Indulging in warm weather for a little more than a month, the girls did a 180 and went farther south to Antarctica for an 11-day boat ride with daily excursions. Both Stubbs and Cahill said this was by far their favorite locale.
“That was mind-blowing — It’s the last great frontier. We didn’t see any signs of human existence the entire time we were there,” Stubbs said. “It was just us with thousands of animals. The penguins are so curious they come right up to you.”
They saw chinstrap penguins, gentoo penguins and king penguins, which Stubbs said was a rare sight, but both travelers reveled in the two hours they spent with two humpback whales.
“Things like that just don’t happen, not even in the movies,” Stubbs said. “We were so close you could touch them, and at first I don’t think the staff really knew how to respond, but they clearly were not there to cause any harm. They were very aware of our boat, where it was at all times, and they would come so close — they would pop their head out and you could literally lean over and just give them a kiss. It was really unbelievable.
“That was the most amazing day of my life. They would swim right under the boat and their bodies — they were so massive … It was just these two. It kills me to know that people go out there to hunt them, because they were such gentle creatures,” Stubbs added.
Onward and upward
From Antarctica they went north to Brazil and visited Sao Paulo for a few days before traveling to Africa for about a month. Zambia, Botswana and Namibia were destinations on this leg of the tour, and mostly the ladies went on safaris and even swam with sharks in Capetown.
At a foot- and mouth-disease checkpoint, Stubbs and Cahill had a noteworthy conversation with an officer who asked where they were from. When they said California, the officer asked who their king was. Telling him that they only had a governor, the man replied, “Ah yes, the Governator.”
“He’s a rock star and people just thought it was the coolest thing that you could have the Terminator [as your governor], so that we got a real kick out of,” Stubbs said.
Next were Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Japan and back to China.
Cahill said she was impressed with the Japanese and added that they were the most welcoming.
“They were so classy, and they had so much pride in their work,” Cahill said. “They just make you feel like royalty the way that they bow at you all the time. They’re just friendly and warm people, and the place is spotless — I definitely admire the Japanese.”
Mostly their stays at each place lasted about two to four nights, except a couple of six-night stays in Hong Kong and Istanbul, Turkey.
It was inevitable that the ladies would learn a thing or two about themselves on their travels, and for Cahill it was learning how “to figure out what you want out of a situation,” she said. “We learned pretty quickly how to get through a situation by stating what we wanted out of it and being able to communicate with people who didn’t speak English very well.”
Added Stubbs, “I think I learned how to communicate better with a person, how to be a bit more patient.
“It was also how to handle two young women traveling together — we were walked all over at the beginning of the trip. People would take advantage of us left and right, but by the end of the trip we knew how to stand up for ourselves,” she continued. “I think overall, I cannot see a way that this didn’t affect me for the good, because everything that happened was a learning experience.”
Originally Tibet was on the itinerary, but due to the Olympics the Chinese government closed it to visitors. They still got their glimpses of Mount Everest, followed by Nepal, which was in monsoon season, Bhutan, Dubai, Turkey, Greece and Serbia.
“We both went with the intention of being quintessential tourists basically every single day we were gone,” Stubbs said. “We would get up and be the dorks with the guide books, and [see] how much we could fit in one day.
“The best part was being able to talk to the local people and to learn about their history from their point of view,” she added.
They learned that people in Nepal, who live 11,000 to 12,000 feet up in the Himalayas, make it a point to vote in their elections; in Bosnia, the United States is the most loved country in the world and Americans are seen as “their saviors.” Then they met a man in Serbia who hates Americans — “hates everything about the United States because he believes we came in and bombed his family,” Stubbs said. “And yet … in Sarajevo — everyone there believes that the United States saved them from the Serbians … In Cambodia, our guide, his whole family died at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, but he was able to talk about it, and give us a tour and go to the killing fields, which is a strength that I’m not so sure that I would have.
“You’ll ask one person and they think their government is corrupt; you ask another person, they think their government is next to God,” she added.
Their adventure also took them to Croatia, Hungary, Austria, Denmark, Ireland and, lastly, Iceland.
A common theme they found on their travels was that American equals money. When it was time to barter, many vendors hiked up the price. To avoid this, they began saying they were Canadians.
They also found that most everyone knew about America’s upcoming elections and who “the major players were, but they didn’t know why they hated them or liked them,” Stubbs said.
Though the brave travelers face somewhat of a debt, neither has regrets.
“I think everyone should do something like this,” Cahill said. “It takes a certain drive, because it’s a lot of work. It’s not only a lot of work planning, but with traveling, you always have to be on the ball.”
Added Stubbs, “Right now I’m still processing everything I learned and seeing how it does affect my daily life now that I’m back. The credit cards, you look at how much debt you’ve accumulated, but you can’t help but smile when you see a charge in Capetown for that giant giraffe I’ve got upstairs.”
rvillaneda@pvnews.com
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