El camino menos transitado

The Road Less Travelled

What does one do when you are in the middle of an unknown place, a culture as distinctly removed from yours as possible, and a language you couldn’t understand and pronounce even if you tried to learn from the best of mobile apps?

A chance trip – to Europe! That too, an official one. Nothing great in that, say you? What if I were to tell you that it was just the gateway to a backpacking trip in Portugal and Spain. A backpacking trip taken by me. Alone. For 15 days, most days even without a calling card!

Here I was, an Indian girl, gathering my wits about whether I could travel around Europe for 15 days by myself. And there it all happened, in the blink of an eye, and I had to gather all my courage to see the calendar date showing it was the last day of the most exciting adventure of my life. The single, most exciting and adventurous thing I have done – in my 26 years of existence!

I reckon few people can boast about having travelled to Europe twice before they turned 30! My first Europe trip happened 5 years back, when I was a 21 year old, just out of college kid. Making use of my sister’s stay in UK where she was working for a year, my father and sister sponsored my trip, a memory which is etched in my mind till now. After all, 20 days of travelling in Europe by car – with my sister and aunt, across 5 countries is something that is a once in a lifetime experience in itself.

Having said that, it was still a trip where all the planning (awesome planning!) was done by my all-knowing and adventurous sister. The fact that I was accompanied by my aunt from India meant that I had someone elder to guide me through, to tell me exactly what needed to be done and how. Moreover, it meant that I had someone looking over my shoulder, taking care that I don’t run into any trouble!

….

Coming back to my 2^nd trip to this amazing continent called Europe, it was as different from my earlier trip as possible. On the one hand, it was a trip funded by my hard work and hard earned money! My company was sending me to a beautiful quaint town in Portugal called Cascais for a global project I was chosen to work on. On the other, since I could not get anyone else to accompany me on this trip which I intended to extend for my personal travel, I prepared to travel to countries I had no familiarity with, travelling alone for the first time in my life for such an extended time period! I was excited. More than that, I was scared. So much so, I had dreams of driving alone into the horizon with no path in sight days before I was to venture out on my solo trip!

Now Portugal isn’t a place a lot of people think of as a travel destination – especially Indians. Apart from the fact of course, that it borders a very exotic country whose language exudes charm! SPAIN! If someone has asked me about my to-go-to places, there is a very little chance I would’ve chosen Portugal! Especially when there are so many other exotic and well-known places to go to. As it turns out, I was destined to start my journey from this charming country, with such beautiful people and food! A country where people go out of their way to help you out – even when they can’t understand a word you say – and neither can you!

Now having been given the chance to travel overseas, especially to Europe, I was counting on my sister to accompany me. However, when that didn’t work out, I was in no mood to cut short such a chance. Hence, after having been given the possibility of travelling alone, probably back-packing, by my sister, I made up my mind and started planning! Now I am a planner by profession, a media planner at that and daresay, I am good at what I do! However, as my family would vouch for the fact, I am not exactly well known to be a great planner in my life. In fact, I seldom plan, and the few times that I do, my life seldom goes according to my plans. But since I had made up my mind to go travelling alone, I also faced the daunting task of planning! For my travel! All by myself!!! Trust me, it beats any media plan I have made in my life for the even the most challenging clients!!!!

The toughest task about planning your travel is to decide where to start! You don’t know what’s out there to see, you don’t know where to go, how to travel, where to seek accommodation. Especially when the primary reason for your travel is business, you have to plan everything around it! Thankfully, I come from a family of well-travelled people, especially my dear sister – the most adventurous of us, and daring too! :D

So, post a few tips from her as to where to look, etc. I set about making my itinerary. As it turns out, your itinerary is one the most challenging thing about travelling. Once you start researching about your travel destination, you get thrown so many ideas, suggestions, and places to travel to! More so, in today’s day and age of living the internet life! There are just too many options!!! But alas, you have to put breaks on your excitements, start being practical and realistic about the places you can do. And the ones you want to, but can’t. One also needs to keep in mind and bear with the fact that itineraries change, and they will, till the last moment! You can’t expect everything you plan to fall to a T.

My itinerary set: Portugal (Lisbon-Porto-Cascais) – Spain (Sevilla-Cordoba-Granada-Cadiz-Barcelona), the second biggest thing in the travel check-list comes the place to stay! Now, since I was travelling by myself, and having read a lot about back-packing in Europe, I was sure about one thing – i.e., I would be staying in hostels! Hostels??? For Indians, hostels are not a familiar thing, except while growing up – while or school or studying engineering, college, etc. I’m sure it’s something everyone in the West is familiar with, but the country I come from, a good way to travel is a good hotel! Or a cheap one, if you can’t afford!

So, scavenging through Tripadvisor’s various travel forums, apart from reading on other forums on Spain and Portugal about places to stay, I zeroed down a few hostels. The next few days were spent in going over and over those hostels, reading reviews, rating, checking, re-checking the terms and conditions, the directions to the hostels, how accessible, how comfortable, and friendly? It is a crazy task, but the moment your hostel bookings are done, it feels so much more real! Yes!!! I was going to go back-packing in Europe!!!! *bells ringing in the ears, stars twinkling in the eyes, while the heart goes thud-dud-dud*

As it turns out, I did manage to sail through 15 days of non-stop excitement, adventure, getting lost, finding myself, learning how to read a physical map, meeting strangers and making friends I would cherish throughout my life, learning to eat alone and not fiddle with my phone. You see, staying alone makes you find yourself, realize how strong you really are, makes you understand how it’s ok to trust strangers and how it’s important to trust your instincts!! More than anything, it makes you realize how important it is to learn to be comfortable in one’s own company, and start appreciating and enjoying it.

We live in a world of utter chaos and noise. We are always surrounded by people, work, stress, deadlines, destinations, gadgets! What if you suddenly found a time and place where there are no deadlines being shoved down your throat, no hurry to zig zag your way through traffic amidst flaring tempers, when there’s no errand to run at home, when there’s no mobile phone connection to watsapp/check facebook or even randomly go through your friends’ social profiles. You understand then, that the most important company you’ll ever find is of your own. The one that will tell you to calm down when you are lost. The one that will give you the courage to keep going even when you have blisters on your feet since you have a train to catch and nowhere else to go. The one that will tell you how its ok to sit alone in a café full of people and just appreciate the food that has been so beautifully laid out in front of you, looking over at a beautiful river or city-side.

More than anything else, it makes you cherish and appreciate all the things you left back home – the familiar ATM, the public transport where you get fleeced off 10 extra bucks but which still takes you through the well-traveled paths, the familiar bed which welcomes you each night after a tiring day, your own house where everything is YOURS. And most importantly your family and friends, those people who are always taking care of you, every single moment – in their actions or their thoughts and who make you feel safe and loved every single moment of your life!

As to where all I went, what all I did – some crazy, some not-so-crazy moments, europa cuaderno de viaje se tardará en llegar!!!

Manténganse al tanto ;)