She’d only known her future husband for five days when he proposed. Here’s what happened when she said yes

(CNN) — Meryl Gage woke up wondering if she’d imagined the whole thing.

As she came to, she heard the rumble of cascading water and remembered where she was: lying in a sleeping bag, inside a tent pitched by Iguazu Falls – at the precipice of a sixteen-week camping trip across South America.

“I guess it’s all real,” Meryl thought.

The night before, Meryl had sat up all night with Tim Rivett, one of the drivers on the trip. All the other travelers had gone to bed. But Meryl and Tim had talked all evening, into the early hours, gradually shuffling closer and closer to one another.

“We’re on the campsite, there are beautiful waterfalls all around. And we’re sitting in front of the truck. We’ve just been talking all night,” Meryl tells CNN Travel today.

It was around 2 a.m. when Tim looked at Meryl and said: “Do you want to get married at the end of this trip?’”

Without missing a beat, Meryl replied: “Yeah, sure.”

She and Tim laughed, neither quite believing what they’d just agreed to. But then Tim turned serious.

“No really,” he said. “Tell me tomorrow.”

Now it was tomorrow. Meryl still couldn’t quite believe the conversation had actually happened. But she felt just as sure as she had at 2 a.m.: she wanted to marry Tim Rivett. And she felt absolutely certain she would.

So Meryl wriggled out of her sleeping bag, pulled on a jacket, peered out of her tent door and glanced around the campsite. A handful of people were walking about, grabbing breakfast, pulling on hiking boots. Meryl spotted Tim among them, and headed his way.

“I just said to him: ‘Yeah, okay, I’ll do it,’” says Meryl. In response, Tim just grinned.

That was that. It was settled. And while it had only been five days, Meryl felt certain Tim was “the right person.”

“I’d dated other people, and I just never clicked with them,” she says today. “But we instantly clicked.”

An adventure in South America

When Meryl and Tim crossed paths in September 1981, Meryl was 29. She’d graduated college in Florida in the mid-seventies and spent the last several years prioritizing travel.

Meryl had a pattern – she’d work for a bit in the US, save every cent, and then head off on adventures. One year she bought an Eurail pass and backpacked around Europe. Another time she spent months on a double-decker bus heading from London to Kathmandu. She’d also traveled solo to Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia.

While in Australia, Meryl befriended a woman from Queensland: Karen. The two stayed in touch, and then, in 1981, Karen convinced Meryl to join her on a camping adventure in South America.

Meryl agreed. She decided South America would be her final big adventure – she’d round off her twenties in style, and then settle down properly into corporate America.

“I’ll do one more trip before I find a real job,’” Meryl recalls thinking.

Meryl and Karen booked the trip with UK-based company Encounter Overland, which operated from the mid-1960s to the early 2000s and ran overland adventure expeditions for travelers, usually in ex-army trucks.

Meryl and Karen met the rest of the group in Rio de Janeiro. There were 20 travelers in total, including Meryl and Karen, as well as two drivers who operated the truck and ran the show.

Meryl had noticed on her previous travels that generally “all the drivers were pretty decent looking.” Plus, it was the kind of job that attracted natural leaders who tended to “all have personality.”

These two, Meryl felt, were no different. But one of the guys, in particular, stood out to her: “He had long hair and a beard. And he was sitting in a chair. I thought he was kind of cute.”

The driver introduced himself as Tim Rivett, 27, from England.

Tim was an art school graduate who’d worked for Encounter Overland for a few years. He’d driven travelers across Asia – often through Nepal and around India – but the 1981 trip marked his first time working in South America.

Tim loved his job. He was in charge of route planning, maintaining the vehicle, finding the camping spots and ensuring the travelers had a great time. It was hard work but always exciting.

Tim noticed Meryl right away too.

“I remember commenting to my co-driver and saying, ‘Yeah, I like that girl,’” Tim tells CNN Travel today.

But there wasn’t much time for talking that first day. So the travelers stuffed their backpacks and tents into the truck, and the group set off on the first leg of the trip.

“The first couple of days of a trip like that are pretty hectic,” says Tim. “We had to train the group in the routines of setting up camp every night, and getting them organized and working as a team.”

But even during those busy few days, Tim and Meryl gravitated towards one another.

“Whenever things settled down in the evening, Meryl and I just used to hang out and chit chat,” says Tim. “We just found ourselves getting on well – really well – together.”

Each night, the two would chat for hours – about everything and anything.

“We talked a lot about our previous travels and experiences as well as a shared interest in art,” recalls Tim. “Meryl had been at Florida State studying photography and I had a degree in fine art.”

The two also discussed their respective home countries. Meryl knew England – but not the small town in the countryside where Tim hailed from. And when she talked about growing up in Miami, she and Tim were struck by their vastly different childhood experiences.

By the time the group got to Iguazu Falls, on the border between Brazil and Argentina, Meryl already felt she was falling for Tim. It was happening both “gradually” and “quickly.” She’d known him only five days, but it felt longer.

Tim felt the same way.

“I was struck by the ease with which we were able to talk to each other,” he says.

That’s how Meryl and Tim ended up sitting together at Iguazu Falls in the early hours of the morning, agreeing to get married. Tim said he surprised himself when the words came out of his mouth.

“It really was a life-changing thing for me to say that,” he says today.

He hadn’t been aspiring to marriage, and wasn’t even sure what marriage meant to him. He just felt certain he wanted to be with Meryl.

Meryl felt that assuredness too. That’s why she said “yes” right away. Later, when she climbed back into her tent, Meryl’s friend Karen stirred. Meryl told her what had happened.

“You will not believe this,” she said. Karen was gobsmacked.

As for Tim, he confided in his co-driver, Mike. But otherwise, Meryl and Tim kept the news quiet.

But as the truck made its way across South America, the two continued to spend every moment they could together, staying up late, chatting and disclosing stories about their lives and goals.

Adventures and escapades

As they fell in love with one another, Meryl and Tim also fell in love with the landscapes of South America. It was special to experience new countries and new places together, and Tim was grateful it was his first time driving this route.

“We liked the wildlife in Patagonia, crossing the Andes, the beauty of Colombia and the Ecuadorian rainforest,” he recalls.

Not everything went to plan. When Tim drove the truck across the Argentinian border, the group was unexpectedly arrested and taken to a detention center on the Paraná River, where they were held for two days.

“It was all because of the tensions between England and Argentina at that time,” says Tim, adding he was driving “something that looks like an army truck with a big Union Jack on the front.”

It was 1981, mere months before the Falklands War.

“Eventually, after about a week of negotiation in Buenos Aires, they let us proceed, and we were able to drive all the way down to Tierra del Fuego.”

When the tour party reached Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, Tim and Meryl purchased an emerald engagement ring.

At that point, “the cat was let out of the bag” as Tim puts it – everyone on the trip knew of Meryl and Tim’s intention to marry. As the tour party reached Chile and everyone went their own way, the fellow travelers wished Tim and Meryl the best for their life together.

A new chapter together

A day or two after the conversation at Iguazu Falls, Meryl had written to her parents to share the news that she was engaged.

“At that time, of course, there’s no way to call anybody – we’re in the middle of nowhere,” says Meryl.

But unbeknownst to Meryl, this letter never made it to the US. She eventually got hold of her parents via a payphone in Chile.

“I’m coming home, and then I’m going to get married,” Meryl told them.

Meryl’s parents were surprised, but excited for her. Meryl told them how she and Tim had fallen in love over the course of the trip, explaining they were intending their upcoming wedding to be small, low-key – just a handful of guests.

Coincidentally, Meryl’s sister Lisa was also engaged, with a wedding organized for early 1982. Meryl’s mother had taken the lead with that planning, and so she told Meryl she’d handle this wedding, too.

“Meryl’s mother just sort of ran with the thing, and doubled up,” recalls Tim. “She double booked everybody – same florist, same hotel, same band, same officiant, just repeated everything a couple of months after Lisa got married.”

This meant Meryl and Tim’s wedding day in April 1982 “turned out to be a really pretty big wedding in a pretty fancy hotel on Miami Beach,” as Tim recalls.

Meryl and Tim didn’t mind that the celebration was more elaborate than they’d envisioned – it was a wonderful day, and fantastic to celebrate with all their loved ones. Tim’s best man, Paul, was a friend he’d made on the South America camping trip, who’d been there when Tim was falling for Meryl. And Tim’s parents were also there, enjoying getting to know their new American family.

As for Meryl – who took Tim’s name that day, becoming Meryl Rivett – she recalls an overwhelmingly feeling of excitement on her wedding day. She felt ready for her and Tim to transition from enjoying vacation romance “to real life.”

Initially, Meryl and Tim weren’t sure whether they’d live in the US or the UK, but a stint in England post-wedding made up their minds.

“I just went nuts with the rain and the gloom,” says Meryl, laughing. “I said, ‘I can’t live here.’”

As for Tim, he was happy to move to the US – his years of traveling meant he could get accustomed to anywhere pretty quickly.

Meryl and Tim had known each other less than a year when they got married, but they didn’t encounter any difficulties as they adapted to life together and put down roots in Florida.

Meryl puts this down to the fact they were both pretty mature. They were still young, but not super young – and they’d both traveled a lot, had lots of different experiences.

And, she adds, they were just compatible. The ease they’d felt those first few days in South America never left, only cemented as the years rolled on.

“It was really easy to work things out,” she says. “We never seemed to have any kind of issues.”

The couple settled into new jobs and routines, but still made time for travel – from annual trips back to the UK to see Tim’s family to adventures in Central America and Australia.

Four decades together

In April 2024, Meryl and Tim celebrated their 42nd wedding anniversary. Their four decades together have been defined by “being with each other, sharing goals and open dialogue,” as Tim puts it.

They still spend their evenings talking for hours, often about their many shared interests – Tim and Meryl share a passion for getting outdoors, and love going hiking, boating and cycling. They’re also are enthusiastic amateur photographers. And they’re big dog-lovers.

Meryl and Tim remain good friends with Meryl’s Aussie friend Karen, who they’ve visited in Australia and met up with in the US. And Tim went to the wedding of his Encounter Overland co-driver Mike, who – coincidentally – also married one of his passengers.

Four decades on, Meryl and Tim still enjoy telling the tale of how they met.

“I like to share the story,” says Meryl, “I think it’s so different.”

People always love hearing it too, adds Tim – especially when they learn Tim and Meryl got engaged after only five days.

“It just sounds like a movie script or something – they just almost don’t believe it,” Tim says. “It’s only from talking to us more that they realize that it all just did happen like that.”

Looking back, the couple struggle to remember exactly what was going through their heads when they decided to get married so quickly. But they’ve never once regretted their decision. Tim and Meryl still feel just as certain in their choices all these years later.

“I think sometimes people wait too long to make a decision,” says Meryl. “You hear the stories about people who’ve been engaged for so many years. They’ve been dating for so many years. Why did you wait years?”

Five days is the other end of the spectrum, admits Meryl, laughing. But looking back, she thinks it was truly “love at first sight.”

And while Meryl and Tim aren’t sure, exactly, what marriage meant to them in the early 1980s, today they feel certain. It is, says Tim, simply “the comfort of having a lifelong companion.”

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