Travelships: Relationships while Traveling.
When I embarked upon my solo backpacking adventure in at 23, I honestly didn’t know what to expect socially. When you have a companion, things seem a little easier, a little less pressured, a little more fun. Having the ability to bounce ideas off the other person in terms of whether or not you want to do that horseback riding tour or just sit at a cafe in town and people watch is, ideal. Knowing that you will be in transport via buses, trains, and planes for the next seventeen hours seem more tolerable when you are with someone else. Essentially, being solo for a week, let alone six months can be frightening to most people. I would be lying if I said I hadn't seriously worried about that singular aspect. Then, my entire mindset changed.
I arrived at Vivo Escondido in early November without knowing a soul, aside from about five emailed exchanges with the owner of the hostel. I assumed a month in one place would be tough because I wouldn't be able to make many friends since guests would simply be passing through the town; not staying long enough to create a friendship or anything beyond that. I was wrong wrong wrong! I was one of three volunteers and the only female, so it was initially a bit isolating. I got into countless conversations with guests and found out, surprisingly, that they met on the road. They embarked on their journeys individually, knowing they would meet quality, like-minded people along the way. This was...fascinating and confusing. As I was realizing all this, I’d met Ella and Paloma.
Ella and me hitched a ride to Mazunte, MX.
Ella was an Aussie, traveling solo, that happened upon Puerto when she slept through her bus stop. When she did wake up, she decided to get off and check out where she was [unbeknownst to her that she was in one of the top surfing destinations in the world]. Go figure. Not only that, she had no real plan, didn't know when she was leaving and she wasn’t even 20! I found it entirely crazy and entirely righteous and I wanted to be like her. Thus, we became such fast friends that she ended up asking the owner if she too could volunteer there. And we spent the next several weeks attached at the hip.
Paloma is an Argentinan beauty that Ella and I both meshed with almost immediately and we became a little trifecta of excitement. Even guests knew that if they saw one of us, the others were close by. Paloma only graced our lives for about two weeks, but time never seemed to matter. I started to understand that time was simply a category that the mind conjures up in order to make sense of things. Then it dawned on me, some things just don't make that sense. LOL, who knew.
Through those weeks, I kept thinking to myself that it was so odd to be able to connect so quickly with another person in such a short amount of time. This was before I even knew the words twin flame or soul mate could all be a word cloud. I chocked the trifecta up to randomly dope circumstance, not the kismet that it was. Until I moved on to my next volunteer position in San Cristobal de las Casas in Mexico and the same thing happened; with three people. Sidenote: I'd only been there for six days by the time kismet hit again! My mind was getting swirly.
I arrived at Puerta Vieja only a day or two after Anne, a German lass who was also volunteering for a month in exchange for bed and board. A day after that came Liana from Massachusetts and then a young guy from Denmark. I don't know how to put it accurately into words; words which can truly express what happens when you connect viscerally with people, seemingly only most seamlessly while traveling. It is an amalgam of wonder, joy, magic, and whimsy. At least, in my opinion. Coming from a place where the depth of your relationship is judged by how long you have known each other or been together, it has been difficult for me to grasp that such a meaningful travelship can form in only a few days. It had be rethinking and writing fervently about time and our attachment to all things longevity. When traveling, you rely more upon your intuition than when you're safe at home, bopping around in the monotony of routine. You become more open and aware of gut feelings while on the road, inclinations that dictate to you whether a person is good, bad, indifferent, long lasting, etc. It's amazing what can happen when you simply allow life to unravel. When you allow your true self, to lead the way.
Anne and I already had inside jokes by day five, were known in the hostel to be constantly together and had planned the next several months of travel together. Liana and I had four days of intense conversation, understanding, and companionship that you often only find in friends that have known each other since grade two. It got to be so much that I even asked her flat out if we were just spilling our guts a little too much, and as I thought, she felt we were simply doing what felt natural. Like we'd known each other for a lifetime, or more?
Puerta Vieja Hostel Work Awayers | Anne is far right
And then there's the Scandinavian...let us just say there should be a word that describes the feeling of completely knowing another's soul and finding ultimate comfort in that knowingness. Love feels too simple a descriptor and feeling like I've known them forever is just too small. It was something I had really only ever felt with one other person, and I ended up dating that person and falling in love and yada yada yada. You get my drift here. If not, read the book Aleph, by Paulo Coelho.
Travelships may or may not last, but regardless, they leave an imprint on your soul. You learn about your own social capacities, you learn to communicate better and may even learn to appreciate who you are even more. I still care deeply for each of these people and we may not have even exchanged words in a decade. Again, time is immaterial.
A few words from my homies on creating relationships when on the road:
"For me, it's about knowing you'll leave soon. When you meet someone you do connect with, you know that in a day or two, that connection may be over and you may never see them again. So there's a tendency to bond and connect on a deeper, more human level. However, the caveat is that there are many crazies out there that will spill their entire life stories, filled with the debasement and traumas that come with real life, within the first fifteen minutes of knowing them. That's questionable and yet, is a common occurrence when traveling." Flaco, UK, Chef, Musician, Social Worker, The Man
"When you're traveling, you're more willing to create relationships. You have these strange and rare experiences with relative strangers that would otherwise never occur. If you met those same people in your routine life, you might not even give them a second glance let alone consider creating a whole new friendship." Whereas when you're traveling, it's almost a given. Keith, Cali, Biking from LA to Panama!
“I think it's knowing that there's an end date on the "ship". You feel a need to live every minute to the fullest, skip the games and cut right to the chase because you'll be somewhere else the next day/week/month." Naomi L., USA, English teacher in Chile
"When you're traveling by yourself, you have the capacity to be whatever version of you that you want to be, expose what you want to expose. Everybody you encounter is experiencing the same thing...that's the best part of traveling by yourself in a way, you find that you still have the ability to surprise yourself. Things you try abroad are things you may have never done at home, not just for lack of opportunity, but for lack of confidence that the role you fill at home isn't the kind of person who would do that." Naomi K., USA
"A lot of travelers have this special thing in their characters which make it impossible to forget them. And no matter who you meet on your travels, you know that at least you have one thing in common: wanderlust." Anne, Germany, Lover of History
Hitchhiking together along the Pan American Highway