Safari Arie

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Grimsby, ON
Safari Arie

Just living life here in Belize � Loving life in a Belizean jungle.

10/31/2026

Rooted in Nature, Adventure Lived. Please join me on this personal journey of the adventure of living in the jungles of Belize.

10/30/2026

Something I wrote at my riverbank and to be included in my soon-to-be-published memoir: From Scrubbing Toilets to Living in the Jungles of Belize, One Kilometre at a Time.

Morning Gratitude
The morning is still in anticipation
Birds giving their morning praise
The river flows obediently
Leaves vibrate in thanksgiving
I sit in the quiet, but in the chaos of the natural world around me
Mindful of all the places and experiences that could be
That I get this moment on my riverside
Written March 29, 2026

10/26/2026

Rooted in Nature, Adventure Lived. Please join me on this personal journey of the adventure of living in the jungles of Belize.

10/22/2026

Yesterday, I created a sample wrap-around cover for the paperback version of my memoir. I think I like it.

Coming Soon! From scrubbing 🚻, to long-haul 🚛, to 💔, to cycling 🚲 26,000 km across 🇨🇦 🇺🇸 and 🇲🇽 through the 2019–2020 Canadian winter 🇨🇦❄️🥶, Covid-19, and the scorching desert 🥵 before finally arriving in the tropical 🌴 jungles of 🇧🇿 in 2021

10/21/2026

Yesterday, I spent the day writing my memoir Amazon description:
From Scrubbing Toilets to Living in the Jungles of Belize, One Kilometre at a Time

He left Newfoundland on a bicycle to see if it was possible. Twenty-six thousand kilometres later, he was alone in the Belizean jungle, only to discover that getting there was the easy part.

Arie Hoogerbrugge spent years scrubbing toilets and driving a long-haul truck. He wasn’t wealthy, and he had no idea where the journey would lead. So just before the winter of 2019–20, he set off into the unknown and kept going.

He camped through a Canadian winter, with temperatures dropping to -24°C (-11°F) on his coldest night. He crossed Mexico’s Baja in 46°C (115°F) heat. He rode through Covid-19. And along the way, strangers kept opening their doors. He was hosted 85 times in total, 55 of them in Canada, the country that took him in. Then came the United States, the beautiful, and Mexico, the generous. Every kilometre brought something new, and every day demanded something of him.

Arie lives isolated in the jungle, two miles outside his village, at the end of a dead-end dirt road so rough that vehicles can’t get down it for more than half the year. He has no vehicle, only the bicycle that got him there. Boa constrictors, crocodiles and the elusive jaguar are his closest neighbours. The dream he’d pedalled toward turned out to demand even more than the ride did; he has spent nearly five years building a life largely on his own.

From Scrubbing Toilets to Living in the Jungles of Belize, One Kilometre at a Time is an honest, unpolished memoir of sacrifice, isolation, and the hard reality of pursuing an unconventional life in the jungle.

There are no easy answers here, only one man's experiences, the lessons they taught him, and the life he chose to pursue.

Some journeys take you farther than you ever imagined. And the only way forward was one kilometre at a time.

10/19/2026

🚲🌎 A SNEAK PEEK INSIDE MY UPCOMING MEMOIR! 🌴🇨🇦🇺🇸🇲🇽🇧🇿
What does it take to go from scrubbing toilets to living in the jungles of Belize?

My upcoming memoir, From Scrubbing Toilets to Living in the Jungles of Belize, One Kilometre at a Time, tells the story of an unconventional journey that took me approximately 26,000 kilometres across Canada, the United States, and Mexico by bicycle before I finally arrived at my home in Belize.

But the journey didn't end when I stopped pedalling.
The years that followed brought new challenges, hard work, solitude, setbacks, and lessons that tested everything I had learned along the way.

This book is about more than the kilometres travelled. It's about the price of pursuing a goal, the discipline required to keep going, and the resilience needed when life doesn't turn out as expected.

🌎🚲From the challenges of a cross-continent bicycle journey to the realities of building a life in the jungle, this is the story of what happens when you commit to a goal and keep moving forward, one kilometre at a time.🌴🦂🐍🐒🐸🍃🌿

📖 HERE'S A LOOK INSIDE THE BOOK!

Address

Grimsby, ON

Website

http://www.safariarie.ca/

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