At any given moment I'm thinking about another corner of the world - what it would be like to see new shades of majesty in distant places and brushing shoulders with people totally different from me. Wanderlust, eh? It coats my imagination, and daily. In these times of concentrated newness it's as though the "me" that seems so resigned to live in my head is jostled out of its stubborn residence in my mind and lands in the softer shelter of my heart.
The restless wander-y feeling was the impetus for my recent last-minute trip to Perú. 2 weeks in August before I started a job that would inevitably afford me less vacation time than I would like.
I'm still untangling the jumble of memories and learning, but of the many things I came to learn was the understanding that there are 2 Perús. There is of course the polished, functional, colorful cityscapes engineered for the tourist experience. Stores designed to cater to convenience entice passersby in the areas most heavily trafficked by foreigners. This worries me - I'm forever trying to contend with the tendency toward consumption in the travel industry where everything is commodified. Still, the excess of street hawkers selling suetercitos, dulcecitos, & florecitas for a few soles (Peruvian currency) point toward a lesser-seen reality of a country choked for gainful employment. As in many parts of the world, I'm told most Peruvians, at least those lucky enough to have a job, work 9-12 hours a day, 6 days a week. Unlike their corporate neighbors, street food vendors cater to the mealtime needs of their fellow Peruvians as they shuffle to work in the southern hemisphere wintertime chill and navigate a slew of honking, braking, beeping vehicles in transit. For a moment I stand entranced by the chaos and behold the movement of the city. Many foreigners are quick to say Lima isn't worth visiting - but my own comfort aside, it's a capitol city of ~11 million people working toward greater stability for themselves and their families...a noble endeavor worthy of acknowledgement in my opinion. As a traveler the 2 Perús clash regularly - for instance, almost every taxi driver I encountered was quick to inquire about my thoughts on their country. I always responded with a polite but enthusiastic affirmation that it is a lovely/colorful/vast/diverse/exciting place. What I struggled to capture, however, was my admiration for the fortaleza of a people and place that weather great uncertainty - from incredible institutional corruption to fragile livelihoods drawn from informal work - and yet they express deep pride in their country. I found it bewildering and quite beautiful.
And to suspend my reflections to the tangle of free-spirited foreigners I met: What an extravagant gift to be surrounded by such a flurry of kindred spirits for those weeks. I remember with fondness all the characters I couldn't have imagined meeting but who each enriched my experience in their own way. Few were the moments I was wondering the streets alone like I'd expected - instead, many of my favorite moments were shared with fellow travelers in moments of spontaneous serendipity. The bittersweet counterpart to this joy is that I had to practice saying goodbye to people just as they had left their imprint on my adventure (although I hold on to the sliver of hope that our paths might cross again in the future). Until then I sit and laugh-smile, remembering the many quirky, welcoming strangers-turned-companions. In my mind's eye I can scroll through my phone's camera and think of the British couple traveling for a year who I met just moments after walking into my Lima hostel the first night - both dusty blonde, they exude contentment and unforced companionship. I remember the Israeli gal who introduced herself as being on "permanent vacation" and gave no further explanation. It makes me smile to think of the Florida couple I met on a hike who last-minute coordinated a dinner with a cachaco Colombian couple also in our same group, meaning I got to play fifth wheel translator for the night. There was the time I stumbled upon a dozen Argentinians in my hostel and heard stories from the backpacking trek they'd just finished while we sipped maté together. Or making friends with a Catalán couple while exploring Machu Picchu early in the morning and then hiking down to spontaneously have lunch together with an Italian couple they knew and - surprise! - it was one of their birthdays so we sang and ate cake and celebrated this weird, random life of abundance. I think fondly of the friend from Manchester who gave me a tender and much-needed hug. There are tender memories from meeting a smiley Austrian traveler for dinner in 2 different cities where we chatted easily about her OT degree and giggled while people-watching. I remember the goofy French-Canadian university guys I ran into in not 1, not 2, but 3 cities - and I think one might still owe me money from an ATM withdrawal I made on his behalf? The list continues: it's lovely remembering the Spanish-Peruvian psicóloga seated next to me on the bus to Paracas - we chatted for over an hour on everything from presidents to Spain to our favorite meals and she insisted I reach out to her during my trip if I had any issues. Looking at photos now I laugh recalling the group of 4 European boys I met while hiking to Laguna Humantáy - an experience of compressed cultural learning as I witnessed their Greek, German, and Italian identities grapple for dominance in our interactions.
It's laughable to think back on my expectations for this trip when I imagined a solo travel trip that was indeed solo. Where did I get the idea that Perú was off the beaten path?? I suppose you don't know what you don't know. Regardless, they were social days with no shortage of adventure and laughter and if I was ever alone it was fleeting. In addition to the responsibility of coordinating my own logistics and planning for safety a little more closely, the essence of a solo trip was most evident in the sense that no other person shares my same kaleidoscope of memories. It brings to mind memories of my first solo trip to Iceland in 2018 when I stocked up on English books before leaving Barcelona so I could spend whole afternoons reading in cafés between visiting waterfalls and thermal baths - in the haze of the midnight sun it was cozy and ethereal and indeed fairly lonely. It was my first experience suspended in a foreign place, unaccompanied, collecting memories not knowing if anyone else would quite understand all I'd experienced. In short, I practiced tenderness that week trying to learn to befriend myself in a faraway place halfway between familiar worlds - and the same could be said for how I sought to treat myself on this most recent trip. Today I'm still discovering for myself what solo travel can look like and how it best suits me...but I don't question that every time I venture into the bigness of the world I come home both braver and softer. Tired, sweaty, and bruised, too.
ft. Good eats - Undying commitment to the long-armed selfie - New pals and new memories
Of course luck would have it that the random last-minute travel memoir I downloaded on my Kindle before leaving O'Hare airport turned out to be a totally delightful companion. As the author writes about her vagabond experiences in different cities abroad, she comes to muse on the theme of un/certainty (a familiar one for me, too). In one moment she writes, "To be in suspense...is to be alive. To dwell in uncertainty, as Keats put it, without an irritable reaching for certainty" (Layne Mosler). Isn't that the most succinct summary yet of my love for travel? Playful, unpredictable, seat-of-your-pants exploration in an unfamiliar place where certainty (and control) are so far from grasp that you make no effort to center their false assurances, much less with demanding impatience. In this certainty-less-ness, nothing is expected and everything instead converts to a precious miracle. Rather than feeling owed anything by my surroundings or the people I interact with, I begin to feel as though everything is a gift to be received and marveled at. The fresh morning air, clean sheets, el menu del día, an uninterrupted view of the mountains - all gifts beyond measure. Could it be that there is a connection between certainty & scarcity and uncertainty & gratitude?
I'm home now and struggling to resist the incredible irritable reaching for certainty...material, professional, relational certainty. The voice of consumerism drones on as a dull roar in my ear even as I write this. In fact I often wrestle with a strange temptation to plan away all my time so I know I won't miss out on "the fun" but in doing so crowd out opportunity for more spontaneous, organic excitement that would more closely resemble my treasured travel antics. This side of ordinary, the risks of uncertainty can blind me from the reward. But if Keats is to be believed, doesn't real living demand the risk of uncertainty? The adventure continues when I resist the plan-able and practice living in the dis/comfort of suspense. It's natural for me to feel exhilarated by the possibilities of newness when I'm sleeping somewhere different each night but I continue to question how I can hold onto a sense of invigorating newness when my day-to-day demands a degree of stillness and sameness. This quintessential enneagram 7 dilemma rings truer now more than ever. How, then, to honor my pocket of time in Perú? Surely meeting new people with an eagerness to see what imprint they might leave. Salsa dancing on weekends and seeking out opportunity to live a bilingual life. And perhaps it will look like practicing stillness and sameness - and counting it all as a miracle, too.
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