Friday 21 March 2014

When Travel Goes Bad


I've been known to use the line; “a bad day travelling is still better than a good day working”.

In fact I've been known to use it a great deal, and for the most part it is certainly true. Compared to fighting peak hour traffic, trudging through a job you probably hate only to spend all of the money on bills and your mortgage, most travel problems are pretty minor. I missed my bus, I lost my debit card, this bus taking me to my next awesome location is kind of uncomfortable or I couldn't remember the name of the bar I was supposed to meet that girl I just met.

Sometimes though, travel throws some bigger problems at you. This week it happened to me.

I spent a couple of weeks in the lakeside town of San Pedro La Laguna on Guatemala's Lake Atitlan. It was a fun little town with lots of like minded people and usually the biggest problem being that you're too hungover for your Spanish class.

Street dogs are very common in this part of the world

One night though, after making the silly decision to walk home from a late bar alone, I encountered a pack of dogs. They were not happy to see me. The next few minutes (it could easily have been just 15 seconds) were the scariest of my life. Most of the dogs seemed content to just bark at me, but at least a couple of them were actively trying to take a bit of my leg with them. Luckily I was wearing jeans, so most of the times they connected I was reasonably protected. They did manage to get through a couple of times though and break my skin with a couple of gashes.

After making it back to my hostel and encountering some locals on the street who seemed less concerned with my ordeal and more with whether I had a light, I spoke to the night guard and sought his opinion on what, if anything, I should do. I was in a bit of shock, so all I could do was laugh when he told me I'd be ok, and there was nothing to worry about – and then asked if I had a light for his friends on the street.

Fortunately I was one of those people who got every jab possible before hitting the road, so I'd had the rabies pre exposure vaccinations back in Australia and therefore needed only the booster shots to ensure my antibodies were strong. I first attempted to get these in the local clinic in the tiny town I was in. The language barrier made this virtually impossible. Sure, I'd been taking some Spanish classes, but you sit down with your teacher to learn; “Hi, my name is Steve, I may have rabies” in your class. So I quickly moved to the nearby and much bigger town of Antigua and was able to get the shots sorted and a local private clinic.

Check your stamps people!

Thinking that my bad luck was behind me, I decided that four weeks in Guatemala had been great (you know, aside from the obvious....and by that I mean the food) and it was time to move on to El Salvador.

Arriving at the border I was in for a rude shock. The immigration official at the border had not stamped my passport when I entered the country and therefore I wasn't allowed to leave. I questioned the officer at the border (in perfect Spanish obviously) as to whether they could just get them to stamp me from the other side of the counter. No, it made much more sense for me to have to go back to the immigration office in Guatemala City.

With no luck coming discussing it any further with the official, I was forced to take my stuff off the shuttle bus that was taking me to El Salvador and wait for a chicken bus to take me back to the city. Chicken buses are something I knew I would have to use at some point in Central America, but I wasn't prepared for this to be that day. They're generally old American school buses that have been decorated – sometimes very elaborately – and can cover big distances throughout the region. While they're very cheap, they regularly stop every few minutes picking up and dropping off passengers (and sometimes chickens). The one that I'd gotten on had a person sized hole where the seat behind me should have been. What was a two and a half hour journey to the border ended up being almost 5 hours returning – all the time wondering what I would need to do get a stamp so I could leave the country.

Typical chicken bus

As it turned out despite locals and resident foreigners alike telling me the process could take up to two weeks, my luck started to change at the immigration office. While I had to pay two fines – one for entering the country illegally and one for being the in country illegally – due to an error another person made, the whole matter was sorted in just over an hour and I was free to leave Guatemala. In other circumstances being in a country with no proof you are there legally could get you in far more trouble than just a fine.

While it has been by far the worst week of my trip, I've now had my jabs, got my stamp and tomorrow I leave for El Salvador, again. Compared to the many backpackers that get themselves into trouble (sometimes through their own actions, but often just being in the wrong place at the wrong time) I'm coming away in good shape.

I will say, however, that I will be glad to be crossing that border tomorrow morning. 

Wednesday 12 March 2014

Travel & Politics

An Australian an Israeli and two Americans – one from New York and one from the South – walk into a bar in Guatemala. After a few drinks, the conversation turns political. This cannot end well can it?

It's a common saying that the two things you should avoid talking about when drinking are religion and politics. I'm a big believer in this generally. They're two topics that people generally have very strong views about there's almost no chance a drunken conversation is going to change them. All that tends to happen is people getting frustrated at each others lack of logic and all too often it degenerates into a heated argument about how stupid the other person is.

Having said that, when you're travelling you're meeting new people every day – whether it be fellow travellers or locals – and many of these will be unlike anyone you would normally meet at home. They'll have been brought up very different and as such have very different beliefs and attitudes than you, and it can be incredibly interesting to find out your differences.

I've been fortunate enough over the last ten years to make some great friends from all over the world spanning the full spectrum of political and religious beliefs. Before my travelling I liked to think I was very open to other ideas and concepts out there, but I probably wasn't. I'd largely just been talking to people who had the same (or very similar) views to myself. Like with anything, you're unlikely to think about other points of view if you've got nobody to present them to you.

I remember meeting an American many years ago in Europe who had vastly different views on a wide range of topics from myself. We had some good conversations and I learnt a lot about her views and how she to them – even if I wasn't going to be agreeing with her any time soon.

On one occasion, an Icelandic man who noticed my friend's accent started to shout abuse at her for the political wrongs of her country – both real and imagined – without knowing a thing about her as a person. It's this kind of pre judgement and intolerance to other ideas that make many political conversations turn ugly. Since that meeting, Iceland suffered a catastrophic financial meltdown with it's share of political corruption, while I now consider the American a very good friend.

Decisions made in this building are often the subject of conversations among travellers

In some countries, it's talking with locals about politics that can be dangerous. While the people of Burma are among the friendliest in the world, their government has far from a friendly reputation. While they're starting to open up a lot more these days – and start to embrace a measure of democracy – many of the local groups there still fear the government and do not want to discuss anything to do with politics. I think as a general rule when travelling, if the locals don't bring it up, neither should you.

As for my group sitting around a table in a bar in San Pedro, Guatemala, I was quite proud of the way we listened to each other's views – and boy did they differ – and things never got out of hand. Nobody changed anyone else’s opinion on anything, but that wasn't the point. We were just four people from four different backgrounds trying to understand where each other was coming from.

Travelling has given me a lot; I've met some of my closest friends and seen some of the greatest sights in the world, but I think the ability listen to and appreciate other points of view has been one of the biggest things I've gotten out of it.


It may still be a work in progress, but hey, it's not like I'm going to stop travelling any time soon.

Tuesday 4 March 2014

10 Years a Traveller

I received a text message ten years ago (almost to the day) that changed my life forever.

At the time my life was pretty normal. I was 23 years old, working a steady bank job while finishing off my business degree at nights, while hanging out with friends and going to football and basketball games on the weekends.

It was on a regular Friday night out with friends that I got the text. It was from my sister, who had been on a working holiday in the UK for the previous couple of years.

It simply read; Getting married April 2. Call Mum.

Now, aside from my initial reaction (I'd read it that she wanted me to be the one to tell our parents, when in fact it was just that mum had more details) I was starting to think that it was time to get my passport.

My first international trip 10 years ago

It wasn't that I'd never thought about travel before, but I was very much the kind of person who needed a bit of a kick along to get pretty much anything done. It took a knee operation and some horrible blood pressure figures in my early 20s before I finally started looking after my health, and now I finally had the kick I needed to get me out of the country.

The next month was pretty hectic, trying to organise my passport for the first time, which I received only days before we flew out for London.

I remember being on the plane wondering why people always talked about how hard it is to fly long haul. You get to sit on your butt, eat & drink, while watching TV. Those are some of my favourite things in the world to do. Even arriving in London 24 hours after leaving Melbourne and getting to a basic airport hotel, the joy of travelling was still only beginning.

Over the next couple of weeks, myself and my parents met my sister's new husband as well as all of this family, and also travelled through some of England’s castles and many of it's pubs. And there was a wedding in there somewhere too.

While travelling around England with your parents is hardly the definition of adventure, it started something for me that since then has basically taken over who I am and dictates so many of the decisions I make. People talk about the travel bug – for me it is a full blown infection.

Playing international tourist for the first time at Warrick Castle in 2004

On returning home from England I dedicated myself to finishing my degree, saving as much money as possible and getting out of the country as soon as possible. A little over a year later I was ready to go, and since then I've had a tough time answering the question, “So what do you do?”

Since that first trip I've done a lot of things. I've spent the best part of six years outside of Australia, visiting 37 different countries in all kinds of styles ranging from solo backpacking, to organised tour groups and short trips with friends. I've done travel cliches like work in an English pub, and also travelled to Las Vegas for my 30th birthday. I went to the 2010 Winter Olympics and Vancouver and soon I'll be going to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

I've worked in five different countries in around 25 jobs as varied as finance, bartending, security, storeman, call centre agent and warehouse worker. Oh yeah, I was also a box salesman. My dating history looks just as transient.

I've made life long friends and had experiences I could never have had at home. What do I do? I do this.


View from the chairlift on my way to work at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver

While sometimes I look at my friends who have good jobs, great relationships and plenty of normality in their lives and wish I could have that, it doesn't last long. For, while it would be great to have, I wouldn't trade what I've done in the last ten years away to get it.

I know this has been possibly the most narcissistic blog I've ever posted (and for a travel blog, that is certainly saying something) but I think it's good to look back at important moments and realise everything you've done. Some people get to do that with wedding anniversaries or work milestones. I get to do it with my travelversary.

These days my passport is my favourite possession and it all started ten years ago with one little text message.