Itchy Feet

Two months ago, I did the redux version of my Toastmasters Icebreaker speech. Why did I redo the speech? Well, let's just say that the first one was delivered in typical moi fashion: improv with spluttering, nearly incomprehensible dramatic flair @~@ Suffice it to say, it was a disaster, so I picked a different topic and penned the following:

Do you have itchy feet? And by itchy feet, I am referring to the intense desire to travel, to be elsewhere. Last week, Ioan asked us all what we really really want. I answered that adventure is what I want most at this time. It’s always exciting to leaf through books, preparing for the next encounter with a new culture and people. But sometimes, the excitement can build up into this big balloon that’s popped by the needle of reality.

For example, a couple years back, I jumped at the chance to travel to Morocco and Spain mostly because, once I saw a picture of the red sand dunes of Erg Chebbi, I was swept into an epic adventure that involved riding camels across the vast stretch of sand, watering down at a cool oasis. Sigh…it was so perfect and I was waiting for it the whole trip. But the level of expectation sadly outdistanced reality because, in order to see red sand dunes, you have to get to the desert by sunset. That’s when the sun transforms the sand into an amazing rusty sea. We missed sunset by about 15 minutes. Teardrop. So how does this forlorn creature suddenly get stricken by another case of itchy feet? Why so eager for another possible disappointment? Well, it’s because whatever disappointments I experienced were far outweighed by the unexpected surprises and adventures along the way.

The first of these was the unexpected friendships. Despite being a crossroads for many languages, there are still many people who struggle with English there, as their national languages are Arabic and French. When you know a language, or make the effort to speak the language of the country you're in, it opens up a whole new world. The driver of our tour bus brought along his wife for our trip around Morocco. For the most part, she was this quiet little mouse, but she would open up if you spoke to her in French. So my friend and I tried speaking to her in very rough French, and used facial expressions, drawings, and hand gestures, which were apparently good enough. From these, we were able to discover that she and her husband were newly wed and that this trip was basically their honeymoon. She also taught us how to cook lovely chicken bastilla, which, if you’ve ever tasted it, is divine. Thus, traveling is a vehicle for bringing two different worlds together, even if just for a little while.

The second kind of surprise or adventure can be summarized by the following aphorism: that moments of stupidity must always surely be counterbalanced by moments of pure survival genius. Before the Morocco and Spain trip, every other trip before had been “safe”, as in, the itinerary had been prepared for me, all necessities, like money, contact info, etc. were handled by my parents, or the school, or someone experienced enough to know what they were doing. So this was my first trip going pretty much solo. But bringing only a little bit of cash with you and relying primarily on plastic creds or debit…definitely a no go in Morocco. First of all, when you need to take money out, you can’t necessarily rely on ATMs – mine was eaten and, being that it was the weekend, I couldn’t even contact the bank until Monday to help me out. Basically, what this means is that I can’t expect things to work the same way as in Canada. Was this stupid and humbling? Yes and yes (face fault), but not completely irredeemable.

In Spain, I met a young couple from Canada who took us hiking along the coast of Tarifa, but along a stretch of that coast was a military training zone – “Prohibido el paso!” As soon as we saw this sign, we heard a helicopter heading our way and I thought…oh blathering grumbleguts…what have we gotten ourselves into now…I was prepared for the helicopter to start shooting at us as we ran away from the zone. Suffice it to say, sigh of relief all around when it passed overhead and the only sounds we heard were the whirring of the helicopter blades and the beating of our hearts that indicated another stupid moment.

At Cadiz, we parted and they offered to hold our bags for us at their hostel while my friend and I explored the town, but this was only supposed to be a short pit-stop to Seville, so we decided to just leave our bags at the train station but – foiled again! They didn’t have any storage rooms there! So there we were, looking at our bags, and then at each other, and NOT looking forward to the prospect of lugging them around Cadiz for six hours of unrestrained exploration. Then suddenly -- Lightbulb! Why don’t we look for a hostel and store our bags there for a while?? We leafed through our Spain guide and found two nearby hostels we could check out, and ‘lo and behold, the second try found us knocking on the door of the exact hostel our dear Canadian friends were staying at, so fate had converged with our stroke of genius. Okay, so it was not so much genius as merely practical. You may have even thought of it yourself on your own journeys, but that’s the beauty of being in situations where you’re forced to always be thinking on your feet. You learn the most, and remember the most, when you’re in situations of perceived danger.

So here’s what traveling does…it puts people in our paths that we would never otherwise meet, it makes us feel stupid and humbled at the same time, teaches us to never take the things that we have here for granted, and it stretches our minds a little more in order to solve problems.

So fear not, fellow travelers -- I’ve been hit by the itchy feet syndrome! But doctor, I definitely don’t care for a cure! Mwa ha ha!

-- so that was my speech. It was a bit long for an icebreaker speech, but I think I did alright for a second try. Oh, and if you're interested in more photos of Morocco and Spain, check out my Flickr page.