After such an emotionally draining day we anticipated a little more press coming our way and found ourselves a campsite for the first time in SOOOOOO long that we felt a little weird asking if we could stay there! We had wifi access and even a shower and a toilet! We got stuck into some work for a little while, went for long chilly strolls around the quiet blustery beach town and got back on track with believing in ourselves. As we packed up to leave our camp a few days later we bumped into another camper! The couple were from New Zealand and had just been shipped to Montevideo and were about to embark on a journey similar to ours in reverse. We chatted a while, finally not feeling so alone in the travelling world and exchanged emails. It had been months since we had met travellers and even a 10 minute conversation brightened our spirits further.

We drove along the empty roads soaking up the very European scenery. Dry grasses and farmland hugged the rugged coastline and we could almost see the curve of the earth it was so flat. We were shocked when we had a call on the mobile and had to pull over to find it beneath all the usual debris of pans, books and blankets on the bed and caught the call just in time…it was only The Ellen Degeneres show asking us if we would like to appear on the show! Probably one of the most surreal moments of our lives! We got off the phone and laughed and then sat in silence for a while and then once it had sunk in we were discussing it when the phone rang again and it was Inside Edition asking us if we would like to appear on there…and then the Jeff Probst show called and then the Today show…this was over a couple of days. It was overwhelming and we were absolutely stumped as to what to do.

Everyone was screaming exclusivity at us and sending emails saying we wouldn’t talk to anyone else before talking with them and all of the mayhem that (now apparently) revolves around media! While all of this was going on we said goodbye to tiny Uruguay and said hello to HUMONGOUS Brazil! We felt completely isolated the second we crossed the border. Our Spanish was useless, as was our English. Brazilians speak Portuguese! We struggled by and felt absolutely useless and wondered how on earth we had managed when we first got to Mexico!

We continued up along the coast stopping at random gas stations along the way to pick up on our ever increasingly demanding inboxes. We finally got to our first designated stop in Florianopolis. A gorgeous little island town attached to the mainland by a road that braves the waters surrounding it to take you to this little paradise. Sadly the continuous torrential rain meant we were pretty much ‘house’ bound for a few days but we didn’t mind so much. We cooked up delicious stews, met another traveller Nick who had taken a similar route to us but on a motorbike with a tent…completely alone!

We had a great few days chatting with him and sharing food, wine and stories of life on the road. While trapped due to the rain we took the time to be realistic about the TV shows that had approached us. we had no idea what we were doing so we had to ask for help. We both had the same person in mind and bit the bullet and asked the question. AJ is our representative with Zankyou and is a wizard of all of the things surrounding media and we were relieved when he said he would be happy to represent us in all things press and TV (and everything else we would inevitably struggle to deal with as we have absolutely no experience in anything along these lines!). What a relief!

We happily felt a huge weight disappear as we passed all of the contacts to AJ to deal with accordingly. We were still a little raw after the response to our story in the online articles and this made us dubious to continue to do press. Were we becoming the “media-whores” we had been described as? No definitely not. AJ approached us with things we had never considered such as sponsors, advertising potential and the ability to ask for things in return for the story. We had no idea we had that ‘power’ and considered it for a while. As with everything we talked it through. We asked ourselves all of the hypothetical questions, all of our own questions about what we want, what would we ask for and what would us asking for us things mean? We had another emotional rollercoaster of a day and wrote down what we wanted to achieve from this new found ‘power’ of the press wanting our story.

We know that overall and of utmost importance, we want to keep the trip REAL. We are doing this for us, for our enlightenment and to help us make a decision on the location of our final wedding. We share that with others because they MIGHT be interested…it appears that they are but we don’t want to ‘sell out’. If we sell out, we change, the trip changes and our followers change. Our followers are die hard romantics, travellers, adventure junkies, wedding lovers, dodge drivers, Men, women and teens of all colours and persuasions that believe, like us, that love, taking a risk and following your dreams is an option, that these things really exist… With branding/advertising/sponsors who would our followers be? I think that people would begin to maybe believe that money can buy you happiness and that is what we believed…which is so far from the truth. We know we want to utilise the press interest to generate following for the vendors and people that help us on our adventure. We want to be able to offer everyone that helps us some kind of local or international exposure in return for helping us out. The press coverage will also open doors for us with regards to help for future weddings and options may become available that we never dreamed of achieving. This way the trip can evolve without being taken control of whereas with sponsors to answer to we might loose hold of the reigns which is the last thing we want!

We approached AJ with this information and its fair to say he was taken aback. He had given us a lot of options to make money, to book fabulous places for our final wedding, to ask for corporate sponsors and we just said no thank you! Once it had sunk in that we were not going to change our minds he sent us a high 5 email, confirmed we were all on the same page and happily got to working on helping us decide whose TV show we would go on! All at once we were happy again with our decisions about the trip, the press and ourselves and it was like the island felt it. The sun came out, the rain dried up and we got outside to enjoy Florianopolis. We walked along the clear turquoise waters into the town, sat on the street side and drank (the most amazing) coffee, people watched as we ate our breakfast and felt free again. We were happy that everything that had happened had resulted in us sitting down and really THINKING about what we want from this trip and of course what we don’t want!