Family visit Malaga on 17-year world tour

2017-04-09 09:00:00

When Herman and Candelaria Zapp began their journey in Buenos Aires on 25 January 2000 with just 4,000 euros in their pocket, they had planned to travel for just six months, with their final destination being Alaska. They also didn’t expect to get very far in their 1928 Graham-Piage car which they had bought three months earlier.

However, 17 years later, the Zapps have notched up more than 300,000 thousand miles on the clock and conceived four children along the way. Last week the family added Malaga to their lengthy list of visited destinations.

Herman and Candelaria, and their children, Pampa, Tehue, Paloma and Wallaby, first arrived in the province last Wednesday, where they were hosted by friends in Coín. The following day they visited the city’s car museum, (Museo Automovílistico), after discovering the museum also had a Graham-Piage from a different year.

 
The museum’s staff were thrilled to have the Zapps there. After photos with the assistants, the family gave a talk on how they have survived on the road all these years, describing their car as “a tiny home with a huge garden.”

Painting pays for epic trip

Herman added that it was thanks to his wife, who has painted and sold canvases along the way to fund the journey, that the family have been able to reach their target of 70 countries. It was revealed that Candelaria had never previously tried to sell any of her paintings before travelling, but when the couple found themselves struggling for money in Ecuador, with not even enough funds to fly home, they had no choice but to get creative in order to survive.

The family then signed copies of their hugely successful book, ‘Atrapa un sueño’, (Catch a Dream), which is already on its eighth edition, and has also been a huge help in covering the costs of the adventure.

The Zapps are currently travelling around Europe in what is supposedly the final stages of their 17- year trip, before they return home to begin a new adventure.

Children on the way

Herman and Candelaria began their adventure just after they married in 2000, and rather than waiting until they returned home, they had their four children during their epic journey.

Each of the children was named after the place in which they were born. Pampa was born in North California in June 2002, Tehue in Buenos Aires in March 2005, Paloma in Vancouver in November 2007 and Wallaby in Australia in March 2009.

Despite the fact the children have never attended school, they have still received an education and have been examined via an Argentinian online long-distance-learning programme. In fact, Pampa, the eldest, explained that travelling has been the best way to learn about geography, having visited the Himalayas, North Cape in Norway, and the Atacama desert in Chile.

After their trip to Malaga, the children will tour the rest of Spain with their parents, including the Canary Islands. They will then move on to the rest of Europe, before finally heading back to Buenos Aires.source surinenglish