Lisa Niver's Blog: We Said Go Travel, page 320

The Greatest of These is Love in Guatemala

I had a decision to make. To step off of the plane in Guatemala City, forget all the turbulence that I had just endured, shaking up my emotional state, releasing feelings of doubt and insecurity alongside memories of past failure.  My stomach was churning and my mind was racing.

 “It’s not too late.” I attempted to convince myself.  “I can buy another plane ticket and turn around now. I don’t have to do this.”

But I did have to do this. It’s my calling, my adventure, my passion.

In opposition to the surging flow of past inadequacy that was seeping deep into my being through every pore and cranny, self-reassurance was my plan to attack the negativity pulsing within.

I can do this. I am supposed to do this. I am responsible for this.  

To not be returned of love is a deep fear that resonates within my soul. It holds in the lowest, deepest nooks of my existence that are tucked away neatly for very few to see. While I know I am loved by so many, and with an even greater love by the Creator of the Universe, the devil himself hits me where I am weak. Still, the call to love others draws me in. The greatest of these is love is more than a word from the mouth of the Holiest of Holiest or a few words on a page from the scriptures of 1 Corinthians. It is a call to love strangers, enemies, and family alike. And I will testify, it is hard.

And not only is it hard, but it is a call to be brave.

The vulnerability of love is undoubted. To say “I love you” is an action of pure nakedness, the heart laid out before someone with a feeling that is so sincere, so deep, so raw. The return of this love is not promised, it is not guaranteed, and that is what makes it a glorious exchange when it is returned in full throttle with the matching “I love you” to the first offered.

So I sucked it up and stepped off of the plane, stepping foot into a steamy Guatemalan airport bombarded with beautiful brown-skinned people and a jumbled language that makes my head ache.

The next three weeks would be mine to serve, working in a village where families lived on less than $2 a day. I would work on homes and share the love of Christ with children and families through service at their school. Wherever there was a need, I was called to reach out my hand in love.

Naturally I was drawn to a beautiful teenage girl, Bianca, with glowing smile and warm heart, surprisingly left on the outskirts of her community. I often noticed her watching from afar, not engaging too deeply with anyone, just observing the actions of humanity. Too often we made eye contact that was held longer than usual, like an awkward middle school crush with too many nerves to even say hello.

The tug in my heart called me in. Despite my inadequacy in the Spanish language alongside my distinguished awkward tendencies I approached her with cookies from my lunch to share. A bribe to be my friend, aha! I’ve figured this brave thing out. So I thought.

I offered my cookies to the young girl and she took them quickly so she wouldn’t have to share. I thought nervously to myself…what now? My plan had failed. There wasn’t even a “gracias” to create a conversation from. I was cookie-less, friend-less, and courageous-less now.

“¿Cómo te llamas?” I began to mutter but still her eyes matched mine and no words were said.

My turbulent emotions from the plane flooded back and my courageous love was dwindling. Our interaction was the same plane that I just landed on a few days previous, this time crashing down with a spiraling effect.

Be brave – a quiet reminder with huge implications.

To my rescue, Bianca attempted to make a response of squawky noises and suddenly I knew – Bianca is mute.

To love without words left me feeling even more vulnerable. An extra leap would have to be made to demonstrate the words I love you with a genuine heart.

Over the next few weeks Bianca began to find me in random places. She showed up at my bus stop, construction sites, and school. Our courageous love, enacted by both, found each other — a brave calling reciprocated by two.

Guatemala makes me brave. The country brings me to a greater understanding of my inmost being; my responsibility to love is expressed through the most vulnerable love of questioned return of genuine care. A call of courage to brave rejection and awkward conversation is the beautiful exchanged of fully embracing the greatest commandment: love one another.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Gratitude Travel Writing competition and tell your story.

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Ten White Knuckles on a Passage to India

Ten White Knuckles on a Passage to India

by Simon Rowe

 

The sub-continental bus equation goes like this: for every two hours of road travelled allow 30 minutes for breakdowns, meal stops, smoke stops, pee stops and no-reason-at-all stops. This formula took effect the moment I pulled out of Kathmandu.

The Bus—a barge on bald Firestones and filled to the gunnels with world travellers whose idea of a shower was a stick of cheap roll-on—came to a grinding halt in the mist on the outskirts of the Nepalese capital. Most stayed on board and tried to sleep, some went looking for a fence to nervously relieve themselves on. I went to find a hot chai vendor. A half hour passed. Much banging and commotion came from the undercarriage as the driver and his entourage took turns at delivering lethal blows to the axle with a mallet.

Then, like an old Howitzer, the engine burst the dirty night with a roar. Fellow tea drinkers—there were many now—smashed their clay cups against the wall and clambered aboard. The Bus creaked and groaned, shuddering over every pot-holed mile like a junk cart; through dark mountain passes, round hair-pin bends, each Devil’s elbow announced with a blast from her air horn. Down in ravines lay sand-swept wrecks and rusty skeletons of less fortunate machines.

Sometime around midnight the driver halted. He lifted his large buttocks from the flattened sheep’s skin seat and edged down the aisle asking for torches. Why? The headlights had blown, he said. He needed lumens, “Lots of lumens!” For the past two hours he had been driving without any headlights. Two Kiwi girls cornered him; they demanded he wait till daylight before delivering us to India. He clicked his tongue, shook his head, then nodded it—okay, okay, he’d wait till the moon was full before resuming.

The world travellers slept, or pretended to sleep; it was their only escape from the visual horrors that flew at us: the crazed Terai taxi drivers, the freight trucks captained by mad Sikhs, the farting Enfield motorcycles with faceless riders, and the ghosts of countless others. They say courage flows on adrenalin and warm blood to carry it. I glimpsed the gorge far below, the moonlight on its mighty waters, snowmelt from the great Himalaya, and I shivered.

Time and again we stopped at tin-shed roadhouses reeking of cooking fat and nervous sweat. On sunrise, we pulled into our last one and a woman emerged from her hut to stoke a small charcoal fire. Within minutes she had produced a tray of hot tea. Drivers, travellers, beggars, dogs and dead men thawed their veins on her steaming cardamom chai. An hour passed. The sky grew light, crenellated in pink cloud and softened by the first rays. The driver gunned the engine—we were already three hours behind schedule. The lush, humid plains of northern India beckoned.

Across the Terai, smoke rose in wisps from farm hamlets. Skinny boys thrashed water buffalo straining with carts of melons and pomegranates and the barefoot stream of humanity grew denser as we closed in on the subcontinent. Thousands of people streamed in the same direction. An ocean refuses no river. India welcomed us.

Amidst dust and flies we gathered our bags and headed for the Sunauli border post. The fat passport controller sat at a wooden desk outside. Flies were target practice for his spit-balls. With one hand he offered me a ripe mandarin. With the other he held a stamp.  Like a blacksmith forging a horseshoe, he brought it down onto the last remaining blank page of my passport with god-almighty WUMPH. “Welcome to India!” he grinned.

 Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Gratitude Travel Writing competition and tell your story.

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Hiking the “O” in Torres del Paine, Chile

Being brave is not the opposite of being cowardly. Being cowardly is letting your fears paralyze you. Being courageous doesn’t mean you aren’t afraid; it simply means you take those fears in stride and keep moving forward.  

We learn from an early age that soldiers and firefighters are brave. We watch Marvel superheroes fight vice with special powers we can never attain, and with values we should aspire to have.

But can being brave mean something a bit more mundane?

— — —

Chilean Patagonia is the finest place I’ve seen to seek the answer to such metaphysical questions. Here, the vast, glacier carved plains of the last ice age roll into haphazard scree fields to create a brilliant, violent present. Gossamer cotton candy clouds are ripped to shreds by craggy granite peaks. The wind is a force that assures no moment is ever the same.

In Lago Grey’s ridiculously turquoise waters, wounded azure battleships float to their demise. Thousands of winters in the making, these icebergs melt a relatively quick and public death. I wonder, are they afraid?

Perhaps they know they are doomed, yet carry on stoically despite the consequences.

— — —

Sometimes it takes a monotonous (and slightly masochistic) form of valor to reach the spectacular dying giants and living landscapes of Patagonia. They aren’t easily attained. By day three of the trek, my ankles are aching, my knees are sore, and my shoulders are burning from the weight of my pack. There are seven more days on the trail. I miss good food, beds, and hot showers. The Torres del Paine “O” circuit isn’t what I expected. The doubt starts to creep in like unwanted vines of darkness. Will I fail at this too?

We city dwellers are used to constant stimulation that numbs us from ourselves. But with so much space and no distractions, my rambling mind becomes unchained. A cornucopia of images and moments appear from who I once was. Am I hiking towards the next campsite, or away from the WHY?

I enter a state of strange panic. I cannot organize my thoughts. The uncomfortable nostalgic glow of regret, pain, mistakes, and heartbreak makes me sweat even more. Despair on a physical and metaphysical level. No escape!

I wonder, what comprises a person? A conglomerate of experiences, a heaping bowl of emotional pasta, and the physical space of ones’ body, I suppose. Is the mind separate from the body? And what of the soul? Is the soul synonymous with the mind?

Many before me have asked the same questions and expounded far more eloquently than I can on their version of the answers. I am no philosopher.

Just in the midst of my doubt, my confusion, a solo hiker passes in the opposite direction. He chirps, “It’s all in your head, compadre!”. How could he know what I was thinking? Could that be a coincidence? As he winds out of sight, I begin to think he was just a figment of my imagination.

I can only laugh.

What else is there to do but to keep walking? I focus on my breathing, and on every muscle in my body. I inhale deeply and exhale purposefully, as if the pure Magellanic oxygen could somehow disperse the pain in my body as well as my past. I relax. I start to control my thoughts along with my breathing. I sift through memories and realize my actions and errors are why I am here, now. I smile. I forgive myself. I drink the purest water on Earth from generous, tumbling rivers. I take strength from the barreling wind. I marvel at seemingly tenuous mountain wildflowers that fool you with their resilience. They shift in the gusts and tie-dye the forest with their audacity.

I arrive at my temporary home for the evening by late afternoon, set up my tent, and eat vigorously. The buzzing endorphins and the mental exercises of the day make me feel whole and healed. I am ready for the next day’s challenges.

Can it be heroic to just be yourself?

Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Gratitude Travel Writing competition and tell your story.

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Brave Girl in 15A over the Ocean

 

 Brave Girl in 15A over the Ocean

Seeing the bullfights in Portugal (they don’t kill the bull, mostly), dancing the tango in Argentina, diving the reefs in Australia all have one thing in common for a girl from Illinois.  First she has to get there.  If you want to head out across this big blue world, so will you.  Unless you have an outrigger crew or a ticket on the next QE2, you may find yourself buckled in beside me as we zip along great circle routes at 600 miles per hour.

On the off chance there is a newsworthy airline emergency, I will be more valuable than all your platinum frequent flyer miles.  Why?  Because I have studied those laminated safety cards in the seat pocket in front of you on every flight I have ever flown, I have looked up from my in-flight magazine to see how to pull the elastic to tighten oxygen masks, and I know that the closest exit may be behind you.

I became a serious student of airline safety when my babies started flying with me.  They became my singular focus on every trip, like a bear protecting her cubs. Every flight had me running mental non-stop disaster scenes, but I did not want my children to develop agoraphobia, so I got proactive and started educating them and myself about airplane safety. I had them count the rows to the nearest exit, point to the other exits, and find their flotation devices.  They were not unduly concerned, and I certainly become calmer about flying.  It was just what we did, our routine, like buckling your seat belt, with the fit tight and low or opening the window shade at takeoff.  With tray tables stowed and locked and our seat backs in their upright position, we cheerfully headed up into the sky.

Now my children sit in exit rows solo, which means that I have had decades of thinking about the life vest stowed in the compartment under my seat, knowing with calm assurance that if it does not inflate upon tab pulling you can just hyperventilate into the little plastic tube.  All this knowledge was gained while 99% of other passengers were preoccupied doing important things like playing computer solitaire or chatting up the blonde in 38D.

Nope, I am not afraid of flying.  Even though I know that smoke is the number one killer in crashes, I have visions of staying calm in those nasty smoke-filled scenarios helping other people’s babies, besides those in-pocket safety card scenes are so reassuring.  All the little passengers are so well-groomed.  There are no flames, it is broad daylight, and the passengers, with enviable posture, are in perfect alignment with arms crossed as they jump onto the bright yellow slide.  No panic in sight, which is a good thing, because I can’t imagine how instructions with a real crash scene would go over. The cards should say in caps, YOUR CHANCES ARE NIL, but I would be laughing at my own joke, because as we know, nobody looks at those things anyway.

I am brave, but as an added bonus of protection I pray.  Sometimes during routine take off s and landings, or if I awaken, say, at 2 A.M. realizing that we are on a flight plan directly over the Amazon, and I start to think of the piranha there waiting in the dark.  Well, that is just long-haul dehydration playing mind tricks, but in a true emergency you can bet I will be praying hard for help from a higher being, which would be pretty high, since we are already at 41,000 ft.

I got the prayer idea from my parents.  Once during a night flight home they got an upgrade to first class which was marred by the worst turbulence of their lives.  Everyone was clutching their armrests or each other’s arms, putting their palms over hearts to keep from crying or over wine glasses to keep their cabernet from sloshing out. A curious sound was heard between the instructions coming from the cockpit and the claps of thunder.  A passenger was snoring.  A man of  God, a visiting Cardinal flying from DCA to STL.  Totally at peace.  My parents, and presumably, most of the other passengers learned a few lessons on that white-knuckle flight.  Lesson.  Be ready to meet your Maker.  Lesson.  Request white wine.

Yes, I have prayer and preparation on my side.  I am prepared to put my oxygen mask on first, then attend to others, remembering that the mask might not become fully inflated, but oxygen will still be flowing.  I plan on getting out of any smoke-filled cabin pronto, so relax, leave your personal belongings behind, and take my hand. You will not have to follow the escape path lighting alone.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Gratitude Travel Writing competition and tell your story.

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Hopscotch to Christiania

Hopscotch to Christiania

Christiania made me feel brave because I came there cowed and disillusioned and the experience of it brought me to a more courageous state.

 

I hadn’t even wanted to be in Copenhagen. My boss had announced he had tickets for a “weekend trip” and couldn’t go so I said I’d take them off his hands. Before I had even thought about what a weekend trip to a country halfway across Europe entails, my name was on the bus tickets. That’s right. Bus. From Scotland to Copenhagen.

 

The reason I had the kind of boss who booked weekend trips by bus to Copenhagen was that we worked in a sustainability office and Copenhagen is a Mecca of eco-sustainability. Bikes, mainly. But I didn’t need sustainability – that cold, unyielding goal, to warm my struggling and weary sense of purpose that winter time. Some bright spark of hope, rather.

 

Copenhagen itself struck me as dull and classic. It used to thrill me to be in a new European city; the old town, the civic buildings, the history. Entering another door into the great hall of European history. Now the truth seemed all too clear to me: they’re all the same.  So I left the cobbled main square (does it have cobbles? Probably, they normally do) and went wandering.

 

I sort of knew of Christiania before but I had not intended to find it. In my memory the bridge I crossed to get there was miniscule, more like a half jump, a hopscotch, into a better world. And I stayed in that better world for the rest of my trip

Christiania seemed constructed from sheer magic within the real, brickstock city of Copenhagen. It was winter but there was a political discussion event that weekend. Speakers and questions on home-made stages. Open smoky fires and bright tents and people sat out talking, planning, debating. I met a man named Erik who had lived there for the last few decades, claiming not to have left the tiny island. He had met a beautiful woman and „made three babies there“. He grinned, nodding at one of them, dirty blond haired like himself, fast asleep in the wheelbarrow which Erik pushed him round his hometown on.

 

Far from slick, professional Copenhagen people handed out soup on a donation basis, shared along with political banter and discussion on all themes but with a strength of common sense behind them: nobody here was theorising from their townhouse bedroom. Every issue they discussed was real – dealing with the hard drifters – drunks, aggressives and those poor souls with serious mental problems which are always drawn to alternative sites. Dealing with the police and the impossibility of a town which makes its own rules, based on its own values. And dealing with toilet waste.

 

Christiania’s bars made me feel brave in that they were dirty and scummy but real chat happened there. I didn’t mind the feeling that a lot of the people were stoned off their heads because it wasn’t the same as at home where you had to ignore them, shut off their presence to continue your good time. Here, as ever, it was awkward to be interrupted by slurry speech and mad chat. But because it was allowed I had the feeling that I could use my words and questions to talk softly, inquisitively with people who would normally scare me. If something went wrong the consequences wouldn’t be police and shame on me for mixing with the wrong types and putting myself in danger, irresponsibly. The community here has been struggling with the treatment of society’s outsiders for all its existence, indeed has in large part defined itself in this struggle.

 

Walking through Christiania made me feel brave because the buildings were oddly real, crafted by inspiration and inventiveness, not a planning manual. The houses and constructions were functional and humorous, the working of their compost toilets and recycled glass facades open for all to see. The residents, also open and humorous, would eye you eyeing their ramshackle masterpieces amusedly, not from smugness or pride but betraying the big secret that that’s all there is to it: build it, love it, live in it. Their ease and rootedness seemed a gently mocking prod at us gaping wanderers, asking why we made it all so difficult where we were from.

 

I was lucky to spend only three days in Christiania and I didn’t have time to let the bad sides arise and become wearying, saddening, like anywhere. But returning home to a very abstract fight for ”sustainability, I  was given courage, for many months after by people who fight for what is already all around them, a place they return to each night, and to their kids sleeping peacefully in wheelbarrows in it.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Gratitude Travel Writing competition and tell your story.

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Bravery on the Beach in Costa Rica

Bravery on the Beach in Costa Rica

When I think about a place that really inspired me to be brave, the first place that pops into my mind is Playa Camaronal, in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. The reason I chose this place is not because of the massive waves that challenge even the most advanced surfers, but rather because of the creatures that inhabit the beach. These creatures are baby sea turtles, and I was fortunate to have watched as they took their first steps in this world, each step fraught with danger as they struggled into the waves.

I traveled through Central America for 3 months with a group of students through a program called Carpe Diem Education. We traveled through Guatemala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Honduras, all the while learning new lessons and meeting new people.

We drove down to Costa Rica from Nicaragua on a public bus, finally ending up in Guanacaste, at Playa Camaronal. The beach was quite large (3 kilometers total), and was held by a small river on the West side and a large cliff to the East. The waves were incredible for surfing, as many locals and foreigners drove out to the reserve to challenge the breakwater.

We met our director, Massimo, right when we stepped off the bus. He informed us that we would be working that first night with the tortugas (turtles).

Each night consisted of several groups combing the beach for signs of the turtles coming ashore to lay their eggs. In the event that we found a turtle digging a hole in which to lay its eggs, we would quietly go up to it, put gloves on, and pick up the eggs and put them in a bag to bury later.

We were fortunate to be able to release the tortuguitas (baby turtles) into the waves on the third day. There were roughly 70 baby turtles to release, and Massimo carefully emptied the turtles onto the beach, where they made their way into the waves. It took them several tries before they were caught by the waves and dragged into the ocean. What an amazing species!

The turtle eggs faced many challenges when they were buried without our assistance. The local crabs would consume them as part of their diet, as did raccoons. Poachers were also quite common, as the eggs buried on the beach were often stolen in the middle of the night.

The reason I’m inspired by these animals to be brave is because of the odds that stand against them –  only 1 in 1000 baby sea turtles survive into adulthood. These turtles have inspired me to beat the odds as well. Of the nearly 500,000 high school baseball players in the United States, only 11.5% go on to play at the next level. As a Division III recruit, I have made it farther than 95% of high school baseball players. I am proud that my work ethic and commitment to improvement helped me get to where I am today.

When I was traveling in Central America, I saw exotic animals everywhere I went. One in particular stood out: the turtles of Playa Camaronal, Costa Rica. The turtles face many obstacles and threats, just as I overcame many obstacles to become a college baseball player. As I look back at my experiences in Central America, I’m thankful to have encountered the turtles, as they inspired me to overcome the odds and flourish, not only as a future college baseball player, but also as a person.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Gratitude Travel Writing competition and tell your story.

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Return to India

Never in my wildest nightmares did I think I would return to India. Not after last time and the following months of therapy, depression medication refills, and reoccurring dreams of a man’s face melting off in an open fire. Yet here I am, sitting by a different window wearing my old saffron salware kameez, listening to the honking traffic and an ethereal woman’s voice singing in a language I still don’t understand on a radio at a idly food stall below.

India is not the same and neither am I. It has been three years, after all. Coming here was almost unavoidable in my year-long trip around the world, but why a whole two months? In one of my novel writing classes before I graduated we talked about characters, and how the characters we love and trust are the ones who face the one thing they fear the most. I am not a fictional character. My experiences were more than letters on a page. But I wondered as I boarded the plane from Thailand and filled out the Indian immigration card if I too can recreate myself. Maybe I can reincarnate bravery and healing from the ashes of old fears and trauma.

I am hopeful, but some discomforts and annoyances are familiar and remind me of the past. I still don’t care for sensory overload, darting across the road almost sure I will be hit by a rickshaw one day, or the unidentifiable pungent liquids snaking through the broken up sidewalks. I have given up on being comfortable with blatant inequality and poverty thrust in my face and the never-ending war in my heart and head when a beggar approaches me with a pan. But this time I’m trying to pull that back and look deeper for something I missed.

There were good things, I admit, as I look out this window and remember flickers of what I forgot to appreciate. They have flooded back to me, even though I have only been back a week. There are the obvious answers: the food, the music, the ancient cultural heritage, and the people. But there are also the sounds—the faint jingling of gold jewelry, the monk’s reverberating mantras—and the colors.

I can’t ignore the colors, especially the indigo saris, the emerald jewels, the red walls lined with cracking textures, and the bright yellow lettering on buildings. I can’t dismiss these any more than the chalk art standing guard in front of doorways, the marigolds paving the way for a wedding, or the overwhelming hospitality of the people I meet here.

And then there are the smells beyond the sewage—sweet smelling cinnamon, whiffs of masala and peppermint tea, and savory wafts that come from the tandoori oven. I especially love the smell of hot dahl I squish together with my fingers before eating with my hand. I admit to myself that these are some of the best smells I’ve encountered in my travels around the world.

Looking out the window I know I have choices. I can note the steel bars lining the glass and see this as a kind of prison, a tribute to the past and testament to my stubbornness, hopelessness, and fears. I can also see past the bars to admire the orange blossoms on the Paras Pipal tree standing nearby, signaling second chances. Even better, I can take the pieces and see a whole. And if I am feeling brave and look even closer, I can see my own reflection in the hidden glass looking back at me, framing everything.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Gratitude Travel Writing competition and tell your story.

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Left on the Road in Iceland

Left On The Road in Iceland

 

            I’d never hitchhiked before. I emptied my bank account so I could leave Manhattan and find raw nature–a place where the land was more alive than the people. My aunt’s 10-page letter from Iceland, with tiny sentences squashed in and around printed photographs of Icelandic horses, turf houses, and glaciers, became my beacon for adventure at 23. My landing point was the Reykjavík city hostel, where I worked for my stay. That idea disintegrated after a week, the moment I became ill. It wasn’t only New York, I was becoming sick in every city. A young hut warden from the highlands saw me in our shared 6-bunk room and strongly urged me to hitchhike. I didn’t want to. All I thought of were horror stories of murder… I just couldn’t do it, and there was nothing I wanted to return to in America either. Certainly to venture into the complete mercy of a land and its people had to be more fulfilling than shriveling up in a lifestyle I was already miserable with. Some form of death was eminent in the decision to stay or hitch around the countryside. I could feel the pressure of the pioneering heartbeat of Iceland at my back, and beating through the words of my hostel bunkmate. “Oh, Icelanders are very curious people,” she said. “They’ll want to pick you up just to talk to someone new. Don’t be surprised if they want to give you phone numbers of friends.” She laughed and thought my fear was part of an American upbringing. “Trust some people you’ve never met before!”

 

            I lay awake the night before I hitched out of Reykjavík, picturing the events of the next day and practicing putting my thumb up and out.

 

            Three-fourths of the way around Iceland I’d discovered that over half of the main road, The Ring Road, was made of rubble, and a car would only pass every hour or so. On one particular day in the east of Iceland, a mail woman drove me two hours to her last stop. She dropped me past a mailbox, far from any farmhouse, and next to a running river. I was one-and-a-half hours from the nearest town…in both directions. The afternoon fog had started rolling in, so I couldn’t tell if I was near the ocean or the mountains. As the fog grew thicker, it became a cloud of silence, drowning out any noise in the distance. I jogged in place to keep warm for the first two hours, and in that time I’d heard three cars pass.

 

            The weather was unlike the late spring snowstorm, which had blanketed the expanse of lava fields straight to the horizon on the morning I landed in Keflavík. The sheer white light of Iceland’s sun had then stunned the rapid pace of my New York City brain, when my mind had seen itself as hazy and dirty. The land was pure. However, in the fog, the reverse conditions were becoming true. I stood waiting on the side of the road with bags at my feet, straining to see the rubble of a path out in front.

 

            The billowing clouds of fog started to look like giants emerging from dusty shadows. I stood still. Would a giant or elf instantly appear, as they did to the many Icelanders I’d met? My senses still didn’t seem to be in communication with nature and the invisible world, like the country dwellers of Iceland. I kicked at the hard, cold dirt under my feet, as if I could make it feel my frustration. I should be able to wield a magnetic psychic power too, I thought. I should be able to make a car pick me up! Tears started melting my cheeks. I was more scared than ever and what was it worth? I’d hitchhiked solo around Iceland with a strong sense of faith I’d be fine, even embracing the chance that something bad could happen. Faith was the only guidance I’d had to hold onto. And it was supported by the overpowering beauty of a trusting, independent people–my drivers and friendly acquaintances. My eyes dried as my thoughts came to a halt. But oh, the landscape! Purple, black, orange, gray, tremendous, and bewitching, through which something inside me remembered that there was so much more power in the forces which cannot be seen. My senses widened as my doubt was left on the road. And there I stood, emptying doubt to the bottom of my gut. I started to see my inner landscape, that I was full, vast, and a possibility for greater creation. It was genuine bravery. Whether a car came or not, I knew I had everything I needed. I looked out as a car slowed to a stop.

 

 Thank you for reading and commenting. Please enter the Gratitude Travel Writing competition and tell your story.

 

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Sukran, Saudi Arabia!

‘Sukran’, Arabia!

The searing sun basks its golden sunrays, piercing through chunks of cumulus clouds. The silhouettes of camels, embellish the undulating terrain of ups and downs. The oblique cresses adorn these orange waves of sand, like God’s epitaphs. You can hear the susurrus murmurs of traditional Arabian music, creating an ethereal aura, of the ‘sahara’ experience. You can feel the swathes of sunbaked sand, hit your iridescent eyes, as they lethargically stare at the sleeping mountains, swooned by their pulchritude. One could say the carnicular days are perpetual here, not a single trickle of rain, farmer’s hell, should we call it?

The desert ostentatiously stands silent and resilient and I, with my feet cuddled amongst its abysmal expanse of sand grains, am stupefied by picturesque panorama that is bounded before me. It’s formidable. It’s evocative. It’s unimaginable. But deep inside this perplexed pretense of mine, I laid despondent and frantic of it, but my neurosis stood ephemeral, it was time to conquer the desert, once and for all. There was a sudden intrepid urge, followed by a plucky adrenaline flow, well that’s all you need to create a stimulus of fearful excitation! Who knew a camel was going to become my constant companion? Shemaar, the camel. It snorted and his nostrils flared at the first sight of me, not the best first impression, you would say. Its hump looked ready to carry all seventy kilograms with the additional five for the buffet breakfast we had devoured. As it pretentiously lifted us up, after we were comfortably saddled on, it’s voluptuous body started jerking us slowly deeper and deeper into the Arabian Desert…

The sand of the desert was like a disintegrated, diaphanous fabric powdered to coarse particles. The plods of the camels formed a byzantine pattern, on the dunes, but shortly started to dissipate due to the sweltering wind, which seemed to sway the sand away with it. We experienced the Bedouins or the inhabitants of the desert, and were astonished with their living conditions. They lived in antiquated huts in small communities, and the camels served their mode of transport, hence the name ‘Ship of the Desert’. The normal, plebeian people today, would never be able to adjust to what these Bedouins have to face, its really intriguing to see to what extent these people go, to preserve their culture and tradition. It’s unbelievable! If only we gave that much reverence to our own cultures…

The desert is like a metaphorical reference to life. The desert reminds me of how harsh this ambivalent world can be, we face different impediments during the course of our lives, the desert poses the most unforgiving conditions, but we must persevere and bear through in as the ups and downs of life, are like the sand dunes scrambling through the desert. You can see your goal at the horizon line, you still have a long way to go, but as long as you keep going, you will reach it. The desert inspires me to keep my fortitude and composure during the tough times. And I’ve made a scientific analogy to go with this, “We’re all pieces of carbon and those who handle pressure well, become diamonds.” You see, every place you go to will instill you with something you can never forget, travel isn’t just seeing the world, it’s seeing the world from different perspectives and understanding them. And in this way, the desert inspires me to be brave, to be courageous, to break the metallic shackles of cowardice and run free to a universe of possibilities.

It’s scintillating to see how experiencing new things can broaden our horizons and aggrandize our attitude towards life. So what are you waiting for? Go travel the world out there, it awaits you. Do not fear it. Be brave.

 (sahara-desert (Arabic))

(sukran-thank you (Arabic))

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They Kiss Thrice in Switzerland

The sweet scent of freshly baked bread rode a crisp wind to greet me, gently pulling me from my intended path to the train station. Nowhere to be in a hurry, I let the comforting aroma lead me to a nearby bakery. Perfectly uniform pastries lined the inside of the snow-framed window, their appearance as enticing as their scent had suggested. Beyond the pane, an elegantly dressed woman directed a shop assistant’s hands towards various loaves of bread, her French only carrying so far as my ears, before falling asleep in the empty, snow-covered street.

I was attempting to convert the cost of an almond croissant from francs to dollars, when I heard the crunching of snow underfoot.

‘Bonjour’.

Startled, I turned to the person to whom the voice belonged. Ski Boy. I’d forgotten his name, so had unimaginatively nicknamed him according to the type of equipment he’d rented me earlier that week. He was handsome, for sure- his complexion was warm, indicating a winter surely spent on ski slopes, and he was not so tall that I couldn’t tell his eyes were of the palest blue. His thick, brown hair was sprinkled with snowflakes, and he was dressed stylishly in black; it occurred to me then that everyone I’d encountered had been too, and glanced woefully at my borrowed faux fur-trimmed, white hoodie. Then I remembered he’d greeted me.

I’d avoided speaking to anyone in the week or so since I’d arrived in town; reserved according to my sheltered upbringing, and inhibited by a fear of speaking to strangers. Now I was to speak to this perfect stranger, in another language no less. He looked at me expectantly, and I swallowed my nerves.

‘Bon-jour?’, I unconvincingly responded, cringing at the way my Australian accent desecrated the word. Before I could dwell on my embarassment for too long though, he’d leaned towards me and kissed my left cheek, then my right. Not wanting to be the last leaning toward the other, I straightened away from him. He smiled and gestured to his left cheek.

‘In Switzerland, we kiss three times’, he explained in halting English.

I kissed him where he’d gestured. From the way he smiled, my blushing was as apparent to him as it was to me; no matter where you’re from, when a handsome boy kisses you on the cheek, that’s what you will do. The female customer emerged from inside the bakery, loaves of bread peeking out from inside brown paper bags.

We stood there for a few more minutes, he stretching his limited knowledge of English to its limits, and I simplifying my vocabulary as best I could. Finally, after finding a way to communicate the length of our stays in Montreux, Ski Boy ran out of phrases he’d memorised in English.

‘Adieu’, he said, kissing me thrice again, bringing colour instantly back to my cheeks.

 

‘Adieu’, I replied, waving as I walked away. I’ve forgotten my croissant, I realised too late. I turned my head towards the bakery, just in case he was already out of sight, and my eyes met with his. He hastily turned around, because no matter where you come from, when a girl catches you looking after her, that’s what you will do.

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