(I’ve been having so much fun backpacking that I’ve almost forgotten
that I’m supposed to go sailing sometime soon. I do hope I enjoy myself as much
when I finally set out to sea.)
This past month I have been continually surprized at how many of the
people I’ve met are traveling on their own. About half of them. Which is huge. (The
other half seems equally split into couples and larger groups.)
Traveling solo definitely has some advantages. I can do, any day,
exactly what I want to. I don’t have to discuss, or negotiate, or compromise,
or come to consensus with anyone else. I can do just whatever tickles my fancy.
And, because I am on my own, I meet and talk to a lot of people. When Alexander
and I went to Denmark last summer to bike we met almost no one because we were
always with each other. Here, by myself, I chat with many other backpackers
while in hostels, always join anyone else who is by themselves at meals, and
look for the most interesting person to sit with on every bus, and,
consequently, end up having lots of good discussions. I spend far more time
with other travelers than with locals, which, perhaps, is a shame, though
understandable as I have somehow become locked into the tourist circuit and stay
always in hostels (or my tent) and as I still speak NO Spanish. Those I do talk
to, however, tend to be well-educated, well-travelled, well-read, and,
frequently, thought-provoking, enlightening, or inspiring.
Other times, however, traveling solo is almost lonely. I spend a day
with three couples who have been friends forever and are off on their annual
month-long summer trip together. This leaves me feeling both a hint of envy and
a twinge of regret that I, myself, am just too autistic to maintain a stable
relationship with one other person let alone five. And, even though I have come
to accept my lot in life, I feel just a little bit lonely and decide to do
another multi-day hike so that I will be too tired to be maudlin. But before I
can get to that I spend another day with a group of seven unrelated people who
are on a Tucan Tour who all appear very happy to be traveling together and I
think, ‘I could do that (well, if I could afford it)’. But then almost before
I’ve finished that thought, the very next day in other words, I spend a few hours
with a woman my age who is on a GAP
Tour, which she joined precisely because she didn’t want to be on her own, but
it isn’t working out for her as the group split up into 3 cliques and even
though she is welcome in all of them she doesn’t fit in to any of them and so
she, being alone in a group, is far lonelier even than me.
It is all a mess so I do do my second multi-day hike, again awesome
beyond words, exhaust myself, and then go back to traveling, more or less
happily, on my own. I meet a lovely young British doctor on a 24 hour bus ride and
we decide to share a room in a hostel together for a few days and then I go off
bird watching, of all things, with another Brit. (We might even have ended up
spending several days bird watching together if Lipsticktoo had not been a
smart ass and rivalled his 10K camera!)
Perhaps part of the attraction of crewing, for me, is that simply
through the odd social structure of life on a boat - shared proximity and
isolation - almost intimate relationships with the others are effectively
forced upon you all.
I wonder how many of the other solo travelers I have met, most of whom,
like me, are traveling for months on end, have solo lives at home. Some do not.
Theresa, who has just completed her PhD and is on a several month long
celebratory vacation, lives with a large extended family and has a fiancé back
home planning their wedding. She is definitely not lonely at home. Linda on the
other hand, the GAP woman, who also, incidentally, has a PhD, lives alone with
three cats, and may well be.
Having been ditched by the bird-watcher I stop in the revolving
restaurant at the top of the mountain and have a fantastic European-style hot
chocolate (by myself) and decide that, lonely or not, I have nothing, at all,
to complain about in life at the moment. It is, without question, all good.
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| Another condor photo taken while out with the Brit... |
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| ... and the snap shot that miffed him! |
