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Not always easy: writing a travel blog

Between The Oceans 2011-2012 (Central America),Guatemala,Mexico,News | February 19, 2012 / by: Anna Alboth

Running our blog brings us a lot of fun and great energy from our readers. But everybody is complaining why the posts appear so seldom. Let me tell the story why.

So imagine you sit in this Maya mountain village or between this super-interesting Zapatistas community or just on the beach with a drummer from Belize and you talk. Thanks to our blond, and very exotic for locals, girls – we are “in the group” very easily and very fast. So we sit and talk. And we try to notice, hear, smell – as much as we can.

Not alone

But imagine that at the same time you have with you: 2,5-year-old Hanna, who is not able to sit even for a minute and 1-year-old Mila, who tries to walk around everywhere and who tries to eat everything she finds. And what you (hopefully) notice is that your kid doesn’t jump into the river in too deep place and that you baby doesn’t eat a spider walking by. And what you hear is: “mummy, look, monkey!! mummy, look, a boy with a ball!! mummy, why this? mummy, why that?”. Or what you hear is: “mamamamam, mniam mniam mniam”. And what you smell is.. I mean, every parent knows what you can smell with kids around.

So you want to be a nice parent, who explains the world to his kids and who changes nappies when it’s needed. And at the same time you want to be a journalist, a reporter, a photographer. You want to lead the discussion, ask fast questions, make pictures in a right time. And when the people finally feel relaxed, when they are open and trust you, when the sun light is just perfect… your Hanna has to pee. Or your Mila would like to walk after this dog, which left the garden some minutes ago.

Yeah. What I want to tell you is that already collecting material for the blog – is not always easy. You need to have at least one hand free to make notes or to make a picture. That was a bit easier during our first trip: around the Black Sea, only with Hanna (because Mila was still not with us). We could change a bit, Hanna was sleeping a bit. Two babies are… not a one baby!

Not during a day

And when you already have your notes and your pictures downloaded – next step is to find time to prepare everything for being published. Time for that we have only in the late evenings, when our girls are sleeping. Evenings here come quite early:  between five or six it is dark outside and we have a place to stay for a night. At some river or in the mountains. But it doesn’t mean that our girls are going to bed. Usually all the evening games, reading books, cooking together and eating takes some hours. And after those very intensive days in Central America – when the girls are finally sleeping, we… basically could sleep too.

But no no no, blog is fun and not only parents are waiting for new posts! So if we are still a bit alive and if we remembered to load the laptops’ batteries – at night there is our blogging time. Coffee and chocolate are needed, good if it’s not raining (not so comfy to sit on our bed in the car) and nice if there are not too many mosquitoes. We try every evening at least to make a selection of pictures and delete those which are not needed. If we wouldn’t do that regularly, we would get totally lost in all the files. After the selection – depending on the energy we have – we go to bed or work further:

Because one our laptop broke – only one person can do something at the same time (me-writing or Tom-editing pics). And then I write, put all the information together: about how are we, how are the girls, where were we, who did we meet, what is the story behind, where the person comes from, when, why… (And I never know how much of what you – readers want to read.)

Ok: the post is written, pictures are edited, ordered, subtitled and ready for being published. Then only internet is needed. Easy, isn’t it?

Not online

But this can take a while – to find an internet cafe with something more than cafe. Sometimes takes some hours, sometimes takes some days. When we found a place – one of us has to play with kids and second one is uploading. And uploading. And uploading. And if all luckily works – we are done. Then just an sms to grandparents – that they can watch new pictures of girls online.

And then? And then we just like every of your ”likes” : – )))

Text by: Anna Alboth
Tags: / baby, blog, internet, Kids, post, traveling