Being home
Wow! It's hard to believe that we've been home for three weeks already. It's a gorgeous day here, with warm sun and brilliant blue skies. The snow is almost completely gone, after our tyically awkward month of April thankfully behind us. Here in the north we embrace the warmth and rapid onset of the longer days, but the snow still hangs on in the bush, turning icy in the morning, soft in the afternoon, creating mud holes, and making life difficult for those of us who want to get out. May is when I start to think about summer.
Amidst all the tax returns and other document renewals, yard work and catching up with friends I've been busy. I thought I'd better get this out now, while I still remember what I want to say, or before time brings with it an apathy to actually write anything.
It's been interesting being home in one location after moving about for the past five months. At first I settled in with a sense of relief. I think that's because it's always good returning to the comfort and familiarity of home to decompress from jet lag and the responsibilities of planning for our next day.
Now, I'm not so sure. I feel somewhat unsettled and restless recently. We had a lot of stimulation while we were away, experienced so many different environments and challenged ourselves in a lot of ways. I would imagine that I'm missing that. Or perhaps it has to do with the whole April thing. Hopefully that will shift once we get out on the water or the ridge tops around here this summer.
The trip was long, but divided up into very discrete chapters - which for me made the planning manageable and frankly, enjoyable. That is, until my injured foot threw a wrench into all those nice plans and forced us to fly home for a month. Somehow however, we managed to regroup, adjust our itinerary, and carry forward with a different set of expectations. I have to give a lot of credit to Babette with this. She was completely understanding of all of these disruptions, and offered good options for new travel alternatives when I was sometimes stuck.
Mt foot is much better now. I walk with little or no discomfort, although after some extended use there can be some pain. I am seeing a couple of therapists in town, to work on the recovery of the muscles and ligaments. I'm told that it often takes a year after severe trauma for the soft tissue to completely heal.
Is there a favourite place?
I'm not going to go on here at length. These are simply a few of my revelations or takeaways from our trip, in no particular order. I have been asked several times “What was your favourite country/place/experience ?” And that's a hard one, because there's so much to consider. I don't think it's actually fair to select one amongst such a vastly different range of experiences.
Nepal however, holds a special place for both Babette and I, and offers a strong pull to return to, sometime soon. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we have a strong connection to an extended family living there who we've come to know quite well - a family we hold dear. They have been so generous and gracious with us, even though they struggle to get ahead and to provide their kids with opportunities that they never had.
Nepal also offers the wonderful treks into and around the Himalaya. The combination of these dramatic mountainous landscapes amidst the culural richness of the predominantly Buddhist villages that we walk through is simply enthralling.
New Zealand is also a place that we both enjoy immensely, for various reasons. The slower place of life combined with the tyically friendly Kiwi ease for engaging in conversation meant that we met a lot of interesting people, learning about them and life in that small country.
And of course, the hut-to-hut hiking is a big draw. There isn't another country anywhere that offers that level of opportunity to travel in the backcountry and stay in a warm dry abode at the end of the day. What's great is that this is an activity that many Kiwis are fully engaged in. We were often just a few foreigners in the company of mostly New Zealanders, hanging out in a hut.
Sri Lanka deserves another chance, after our forced departure. It’s a great place. We intend to go back there as well.
What did I learn?
What have I gotten out of all this? What have I learned about myself? Not sure. I love the whole idea of travel - the physical act of moving from one place to another, whether on foot or through some other mode of transport. What I find is that there are so many opportunities for discovery along the way. These new places and people often create a curiosity that I don't experience so much back home.
The writing (of this travelogue) has helped me formulate and consolidate my thoughts and perspectives much better, and to try to recognize the emotions that I have felt during these past few months, simply because I want to be as genuine and direct as I can with my words. And that's certainly a change for me. A close friend recently called this “a widening”. That’s a metaphor that could be applied to several aspects of me and my personality. I suppose it's apt.
What does widen each time we visit a place (second time in Nepal, and third time in New Zealand for me) is our level of knowledge and understanding of it. I find this hugely gratifying, and often disheartening. The heart-rending stories around the hardships of daily life for individuals living in rural Nepal or the recognition of the dire ecological situation that most bird species are facing in New Zealand are two consequential issues that Babette and I talked about with others and between ourselves. There certainly was more.
We also had lots of fun. There was good music, intense card games and so many good conversations around communal tables. We found several idyllic hot springs to soak in and a hot tub high above the ocean, watching the sunset. There was so much good food - the slow cooked lamb in Crete, the curries in Sri Lanka and the yak mo-mos in Nepal. I can't even begin to count the number of beaches we were on - some on our hiking trails, but most destinations for the day to walk, relax and maybe go for a swim if the waves allowed. It was after all, a holiday.
I want to close with an acknowledgement to Babette - my partner in life and favourite traveling companion. We spent virtually 24 hours per day with each other over the past six months, sometimes under less than ideal circumstances. It went remarkably well. For those most part, we share common goals about travel and life in general. This makes it much easier to find the compatible rhythm for daily life on the road, but also to create some space when one of us wanted to do something different. Babette was particularly supportive during the period while I was most affected by my injury. I'm not sure I could have struggled through on my own, and for that I am most grateful.
As they say in the movies - this is a wrap. My intention (at least at this point in time) is to start posting to this site again when we restart traveling, perhaps as early as the fall. I would like to thank everyone for their comments and words of encouragement.
Incidentally, the evolution of my anxiety around posting personal stories on-line went from “Not sure that I can do this” to “Why not!? - what's the worst thing that could happen to me?” I still haven't really answered that last question well, so there is often a somewhat lengthy pause that happens before I push send. And that is about my story that these stories may not be that interesting to others. I've come to realize that I don't think that that's actually true. Thanks again.
Enjoy your summer, for those living north of the equator. Till next time …
Dave
It was always a special treat reading your interesting stories. I am not surprised that you are feeling restless now; so important to take a break to adjust to "normal" life.