25th April 2026
We thought the biggest challenge in Oman would be the heat. But apparently life had some very different challenges in store for us. The past few months felt like chaos was in charge.
A sick cat. Then another sick cat.
Overheating axles. No clear cause. More overheating. Brakes failing. Still no clear cause.
A war breaking out. Borders closing.
Shipping suddenly impossible (or priced like we’re transporting gold).
Thunderstorms. Floods.
Questioning if grandma would make it to us. Which she did, only to get sick.
Our truck in the garage for weeks.
A kid knocking out his front teeth.
And during all of this, we’re trying to figure out which mechanic, which vet and which news platform to follow.
Because that’s overlanding. There is no “our garage”. No “our doctor”. No network to fall back on. No familiar shortcuts like we used to have at home. Every single problem, we start from scratch. New country, new language, new systems.
Normally, that’s part of the fun (what can we say, we are crazy people). We figure it out. We adapt. We get better at it. It makes small wins feel like big victories. In moments like this, we are reminded of how strong we are together, as a team.
But this time it was one problem after the other, sometimes back to back, sometimes all at once. We kept going. Because what else?
Switching. Solving. Googling. Asking. Refreshing the news like it was a fulltime job.
Leaning on people we’d just met, messages sent into the void.
Until we hit the point where everything just felt… too much. And that’s where we changed gears. We stopped trying to fix everything at once. We stopped looking too far ahead. We stopped refreshing every five minutes.
Sleep. Eat. Get outside. Fix what we can.
Let the rest unfold. Turns out that works too. Some problems we solved. Some passed while we were busy doing something else.
What’s left is recovery. We’re tired. It felt like weeks of being “on” non-stop. Like top sport, but without the medals (yet).
But we’re back on the road. Out of the city, into nature. Slowing down. Breathing again.
Getting ready for what’s next.
The only thing we’re dealing with now is the heat. Turns out that one really is a challenge.
