My body gave in four days after arriving in France. I went to bed feverish, attempted to get up in the morning, promptly gave up and slept through until 7 p.m.

It hadn’t happened to me since Mark’s daycare days when every single bug was likely to knock me out for a few days.

I guess I was tired.

That’s the thing with backpacking. It’s exhilarating. Freedom is very addictive. However, it’s also draining. I’m not taking an all-inclusive holiday, I’m roaming around without a safety net. I’m still working, cooking, mothering and constantly trying to figure things out in languages I didn’t grow up speaking. It’s a lot of fun, and I’m learning a lot. But yeah, it’s exhausting.

I’m not done exploring but by the end of March, I was okay-ish with the winter trip ending. Four months on the road is a lot.

The last couple of days in Salvador were awkward, as usual. It’s just impossible to picture yourself thousands of kilometres away in another life so I didn’t really try. Instead, I focused on the practical aspects of flying across the ocean—Salvador to Lisboa, Lisboa to Paris, and then Paris to Nantes.

“When are you arriving in Nantes, exactly?”

“Just before midnight,” I told Feng.

He laughed. “Take it easy, that’s a long trip.”

I called an Uber at 6 p.m., got to Salvador Airport at 7 p.m. and killed time until boarding at midnight. It was freezing at the gate with the air-con—a trick to help tropical Brazil get used to chilly European spring?

I flew with TAP again. I like Air Portugal—zero nonsense, good service, cheap tickets and comfortable planes.

Less than eight hours later, we were landing in Lisboa. The airport was packed with travellers from all over Europe—my first time in months hearing so many different languages. The three-hour wait was somewhat pleasant, Lisboa’s airport is big enough to explore.

I arrived in Paris at 6:55 p.m. Unlike last year, I didn’t rush to catch the last train to Nantes because I had almost three hours to make it to Montparnasse station. I discovered the subway goes all the way to Orly Airport now, a new addition for the 2024 Paris Olympics!

Waiting for the train at Montparnasse was tiring. There’s almost nowhere to sit and I couldn’t exactly go for a walk with my backpack, plus the station is full of crazy people who have nowhere else to go at 10 p.m. At least, the train was on time, and at midnight, my mum was waiting for me at Nantes’ train station.

It’s spring in France. The weather is much, much warmer than what I expected.

Now if my body could cooperate…