As I mentioned at the closing of my last blog, one of the greatest joys of traveling is meeting other people and hearing their stories. There are so many interesting people in the world and a good proportion of them seem to be traveling.
For example, a couple of weeks ago when in Paraty I met a lovely young Swiss man (we will call him Mr Swiss to protect the innocent) who had been in South America for around nine months. That in itself is pretty interesting but the stories didn’t stop there. Mr Swiss wasn’t much of a gut-spiller but when I managed to pry stories out of him, I was simply agog.
For example, with his 21 year old female friend, Mr Swiss got from Santiago Chile to Buenos Aires Argentina on $150. That’s around 1,500 kilometres. So (conveniently) that means they had around 10 cents per kilometres to spend on transport, accommodation and food. One presumes the challenge of achieving this along with the journey itself would have been entertainment a-plenty and thus entertainment becomes a redundant budget line. He was quite nonchalant about telling this tale. So much so, he hadn’t actually told his friend who by their own definition was “closer than a brother”. Funny what some people think is worthy of sharing. Anyway, back to the story. Imagine that achievement. So how did they do it? Hitchhiking, obviously. There were kindly drivers who took them many miles and then fed them and accommodated them at their own homes. There were villages or towns they arrived in where they just knocked on doors and asked for food and accommodation. There were times when they had no transport, no accommodation and slept rough on the side of the road. Maybe being able to achieve that comes with a level of youth, when you still think you are invincible. It still seems pretty impressive to me when I think about this extraordinary feat. I told him his tale was worthy of a book. He couldn’t see what all the fuss was about.
Another cool thing Mr Swiss did was spend a month living on a farm outside Teresopolis in Brazil. Even though that sounds Greek, I assure you, it is a town in the State of Rio de Janeiro (for those also following Stephen Wills’ blog, you can add that bit of info to your knowledge bank and say you do know at least one State of Brazil). He was volunteering, growing vegetation that was used to help stabilise hillsides and prevent the landslides that are so common here. He lived with no running hot water and no electricity for a month. On one hand that is just torture, but imagine what it would do to your body and spirit to spend a whole month living in natural rhythm. The idea of being without running hot water distresses me but the feeling of rising and sleeping with the sun and watching time through the natural rhythms of the Earth would be quite lovely, I think. And also worthy of a book. Well, I would read it even if he doesn’t want to write it.
Now on to jolly tales from gorgeous women met on Favela tours. Again, to protect the innocent, we will just refer to them collectively as Miss America. Now there I sat with the two lovely and generous women who asked me to join them for lunch feeling pretty proud of myself. I’m a young(ish), single female, traveling the world, doing interesting things like dancing in Rio. I’m feeling quite smug, truth be told. Then Miss America told her tales and the smugness went right out of me.
Miss America had many tales, not all of which are suitable for the young or tender of sensibilities, but one of my favourites was when she arrived in Copenhagen after a long journey from Norway. Since she had been back-packing, she did not enjoy the luxury of a sleeper and bathroom on the train so after a week of uncomfortable travel, she was tired and very ready for a bath. Alas, she had only a few hours before her flight and, being a back-packer, not enough funds for a hotel anyway. Plus she had important business to attend to, such as souvenir shopping. Having spent the trip collecting toilet squares as souvenirs, she decided that she would splurge on a sweater. Except that it was Sunday and everything was closed. Then she spied the Hilton in the distance and cleverly thought that if anyone was going to have a souvenir shop that was open, it would be the Hilton. As is often the case with mirages, the Hilton appeared closer than it actually was but eventually, after wearing out many camels, she made it to the gift shop. Unfortunately, being the Hilton, everything was a gazillion dollars and she was but a mere backpacker. Understandably dejected, she stood in the lobby feeling very festy and sans sweater when she had an inspired thought. Surely there would be a recently-vacated room she could duck into and at least get a bath? She decided, if Barbara Striesand could do it, she could. And thus she did. Courtesy of the old custom of leaving doors open when checking out, she found an empty room, put out the ‘do not disturb’ sign and luxuriated in the most heavenly bath she had ever had. I didn’t ask but I assume she also filched a toilet paper square to complete her collection. And one presumes, this sort of thing is also why doors now auto-close behind people. Logistically this kind of activity would now be tricky in most major hotels, nevertheless, I admire her pluck.
It would never have occurred to me to do any of the three things I mention others doing. Clearly I am lacking both boldness and inspiration as a traveller. So, that said, I have been on the look out for bold steps I can take. So far I have kept it to braving public transport (yes, including the informal busses!) in Rio but since it all went off without a hitch, sadly there’s no story in it. Clearly I must branch out....ideas anyone?
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