I dated an American boy (in my previous life) whose family took the same holiday every year. They had even ended up buying a house there. Which they visited each time. Despite getting employee discounts on a well-known airline. They had never been outside of the US, he told me. When I showed him my crude album of a backpacking trip I did at 17 alone through Europe, I swelled with pride. I took the time to tell him all the stories and share all the private jokes. When I was done, he said, simply ”Thank you for doing that. Now I never need to go there”. I thought this was about as vanilla as you can get. And I felt like I was watching a reality show.
Something’s happened in my generation that is a 360 degree turn from my parents’ era. My mom was already well into her thirties when she took her first overseas trip and because of the cost and distance, my parents went for 6 weeks. They sent us small children postcards. It was a huge journey for them in those days. The olden days. Now South Africans, like those from many other commonwealth countries are compelled to travel like diseased animals if we are to get any contact with the rest of the world. Twitter aside.
Even so, African blood runs thick through my veins and they say that once you’ve been bitten by that bug you can never go back. Not literally, of course. I mean..well, you know what I mean. I have spent the good part of 5 years sharing my love and intrigue of the continent with Alan. I drag him there at least once a year where I point and wave at things I love and want him to love, too. I have an ongoing love affair with the place. The continent too many Americans call a country. He has come a long way, although I must admit, he was a fast learner. Which is why I married him. The whole travel thing is like breathing for me.
I always ask Americans where they’re going and Africa is almost never on the list. They say it is too far. Too expensive. Too dangerous. I never correct them because quite frankly I’d rather we didn’t have our own Phuket or Bali over there. But I smile inside when they talk of a world tour that excludes the mother continent.
When Alan and I took a 3 month window and escaped the 9-5 weekday rut to travel together for our babymoon, it was Asia we picked. I was as surprised by my own passing up of Africa as you are. I mean, Uganda, Egypt, Zimbabwe…all places I am dying to see myself for the first time, or locations worthy of a show and tell with Alan. I’ll confess that some part of my decision was swayed like the palm trees I imagined I’d be under, by the idea of toasting my shoulders and gorging on mangoes in Asia. However, the over-commercialisation by each and every American, European and Australian traveller in that part of the world turned my stomach. I like to get off the beaten track. I have been known to swear at tourists and coin phrases of ill repute about them.
But throughout our courtship and the early part of our marriage, Alan talked up his timeas a bachelor traveling through Asia. It was a part of the world I could not share with him and a story at cocktail parties I was excluded from.
I was jealous of his Asia.
“Why India?” my brother asked, upon hearing of our itinerary. “You’ll hate it. I’ve heard it’s awful,” he warned me with that sober, older sibling voice.
He was wrong. So were many others about just about everything. That’s the thing about travelling. You never know what will climb into your heart and what you’ll despise. I firmly believe it is more than anything about the company you keep.
I still daydream over another 3 month window somewhere down the road in my life. Would I take it to disappear to unexplored reaches of Turkey, Morocco and Croatia, or would I use the time to return to the coffeeshops, townsquares, and coves of past holidays that haunt my memories?
Now friends write to me - short, curt emails or they Facebook me, for advice on decisions such as Asia or Australia. Asia or Mexico. It is is question that deserves more than a short, curt answer. How can I get them into that remote beach bar built into a tree in the little coastal town of Kata with me? Or to stand with the melting sun on your brow and the long grass tickling your knees on that vacant plot of land we wanted to buy in Indonesia? Or sway them in believing that the devastating thirdworldness of Jaipur roughened street urchins have the charm and charisma to steal your heart and your wallet?
Perhaps I cannot because it is possible that our trip across 11 countries in 95 days was less about crossing cities off a list and all about falling in love with somewhere new, and each other.
