When Travelling

Las Vegas to Panama

5 Years Ago…

I left home Dec 30th to meet some of my closest girlfriends in Vegas for New Years Eve. From Vegas I was to fly to Panama to meet my friend Tara and 4 of her best friends whom I didn’t know. Tara and I met the previous year travelling Thailand and clicked instantly. We kept in touch and decided we wanted to travel again. Even though we only spent a week together, it felt like I had known her my whole life. Tara, her friends and myself planned to travel for 3 – 4 weeks together, and then just the two of us were to continue on our own for another two months, making our way through Central America. The things is, you can plan all you want, but sometimes life takes a turn and a dream trip can turn into your worst nightmare in a split second.

Feeling Anxious

Leaving the Winnipeg airport the day before New Years Eve I should have been ecstatic.  I was setting off on the trip of a lifetime. But I remember not being excited at all. I had knots in my stomach, I felt sick leaving my then- boyfriend, and he didn’t even seem sad to see me go. I wrote “ I don’t even feel excited to go because I’m going to miss him so much. I wish he could come travelling with me. Hopefully I can convince him to come travel with me next time.” This was the first entry in my journal, and the first instance of me trying to convince myself that I loved him. I balled my eyes out as I said goodbye and set off on my journey.

Viva Las Vegas!

I had been to Vegas a good few times before and it is still one of my favourite places. We had a fucking blast as always and of course, ended up getting hammered before our flights on the last day. My friend Lucy ended up missing her flight home, and I woke up on the plane so hungover I thought I was actually going to die. I have a tendency to faint, and when I get this feeling I usually have to put my head between my knees or lie on the ground. I got the feeling that I was about to pass out, and started to panic so I got down on the ground and put my head against the floor and rang for a flight attendant. (Luckily I had the row of seats to myself.)  I will never, ever forget the look on her face when she saw me curled on the ground on the plane, squished between the seats with my cheek against the floor. I explained to her that I thought I was going to pass out and begged her for an oxygen mask. She literally was looking at me like I had 7 heads, refused the oxygen mask, and told me to get back in my seat. I was able to get some ice chips and eventually calmed down, but I do not know how I survived 5 more hours of that flight. 

Hungover Hot Mess

When I finally landed in Panama it was a fucking shit show. The airport wasn’t even open and I had to wait for another plane to get to Bocas Del Toro. My layover was like 10 fucking hours long and it was hotter than hell and I didn’t really know where I was so I couldn’t leave, and I was still hungover, nothing was open so I couldn’t even buy water, and yeah I actually just wanted to go home at this point. I remember hauling my ruck sack to a corner, sat down on it and started to cry. When the airport finally opened I got water and wifi and started messaging ‘sebastian’ that I missed him and all I wanted to do was go home. At this time his responses were minimal, and I only felt worse after speaking with him. After what seemed like a lifetime of waiting in one of the shittiest airports (if you could even call it that) I have ever been in, I thought I should try and find my plane. This is when I realised my 2 weeks of playing Duo Lingo did nothing except teach me how to say ‘Nosotros Bebemos Leche” which I was later told not to say because it translates into ‘We drink Cum’. The next 2 hours were basically a wild goose chase. Someone told me my plane had already left, then someone else told me it was still there, so I got on one of them and then a woman got mad and said I was in her seat, so I got kicked off of that plane, and someone else told me that my luggage left on different plane. This was all in Spanish so I actually don’t know if this is what they were telling me but it is how I interpreted it. I actually thought I was fucked, until I saw a guy laughing at me. He had obviously seen me running around like a chicken with its head cut off, motioning to people and saying God knows what in what I thought was decent Spanish. I went over to him and found out he could speak a little English and he thankfuckingly helped me find my plane which looked like it could have been a fucking toy plane it was so small. 

Famous Last Words: I’m never drinking again

I swore to myself that there was no way in hell that I was going to drink that day. I had barely slept in 48 hours, I hadn’t eaten, I was sweaty and smelly and missed Sebastian and was just not in a good way… but sure enough, I arrived in the villa, and like true Canadians… Tara and her friends were all drinking… so I really had no choice. I quickly changed my clothes (no I did not shower, yes I’m disgusting) and continued to get pissed for the next 3 days.  Besides getting hammered every day we also did this stupid fucking activity called deep sea boarding. Basically you have to hold on to a rope attached to the back of a boat and hang on for dear life while you get pulled behind. You wear googles and a snorkel and are somehow supposed to be able to dive up and down, looking at coral and shit while not sucking the ocean into your lungs. Everyone thought it was amazing. I thought it was fucking awful. Not only was I savagely hungover, my bathing suit bottoms kept falling off so I had to try and hold them up with one hand while also holding onto the rope attached to the back of the boat, while also trying to hold my breath, but then also breathe at the right time. Eventually I said fuck it and let my bottoms hang around my ankles, it was either that or drown. 

Bocas Del Toros was amazing. Very cool bars… from what I can remember. Awesome beaches. But the best part was meeting Tara’s friends. There were the two guys Frank and John and the couple Elisa and Carl. Elisa and Carl were 2 of the funniest, genuine people I have met. They were so in love  you could feel it. It made me jealous because their relationship was what I wanted but didn’t think I could have. Seeing them together made me question again my own relationship. When I told my new friends about my boyfriend back home they didn’t understand why I was still with him. 

Laurel the Shit Show

All of Tara’s friends made me feel so welcome; they had all been friends for years, but not once did they make me feel out of place. They were all amazing and didn’t even judge me for being an absolute shit show. The first night I hit on both John and Frank even though I was still in a relationship,  (What does that show you) and the second night I peed on the floor. Awesome first impression. From what I was told, I got up in the middle of the night and tried to squat at the end of the bed. Tara tried to guide me to the bathroom but I wouldn’t follow her so she said fuck it and left me to my buisness. Apparently I then wrapped myself in the sheet, walked into the living room and squatted beside the couch. I didn’t believe her but I went to the living room the next morning and sure enough… puddle of pee. The floor of the Villa was kind of like a deck – wood slats with little spaces in between them over the ocean. So I just poured some water over the puddle to wash it away. Classy. The fact that everyone laughed and didn’t make me feel like more of an imbecile than I already did made me wonder what the hell I was doing with someone who made me feel inadequate every single day.

New Friendships

Everyone included me in the conversation and always asked me questions. I felt more myself around these people I had only just met than the person I had been sharing a life with for almost 3 years. It’s crazy how close you get to people in such a short period of time when you are travelling and spending 24 hours a day with them. In less than a week, it felt like I had known them for a lifetime. 

After Bocas we made our way to the Palmer Tent Lodge… no one could have predicted what would to happen next.

When Travelling…

When travelling, whatever identity you have built of yourself, and whatever people think of you at home dissapears. You have the opportunity to let go and be completely yourself. People will love you for who you are; and if they don’t you move on.

When travelling, no one is worse or better off than anyone else. It doesn’t matter what school you went to, where you live, what your job is, or how much money you make, because all anyone has is a bag on their backs and the dirt on their feet and the mindset that life is too short to stay in one place.

When travelling you tend to meet like minded people, because everyone is doing the same thing; shedding the labels, being themselves, and learning more of who they are and how much awesomeness is actually in this world. 

When travelling there are less distractions because there is usually no wifi and if there is it is shit, so you are forced to be in the moment, really take in your surroundings, and have meaningful conversations with the people you meet.

Travelling is hard, because you get close to people so quickly, and you have to say goodbye just as fast, knowing there is a very good chance you will never see them again. 

But the best thing about travelling, is that the people you do meet will leave a print on your heart and your soul – because they played a part – however small – in the person you are becoming. Some people you encounter are like a mirror, showing you the things you needed to see, but couldn’t find for yourself, and these people will never, ever be forgotten.