Real Travel Adventures of Deb and Debb - Part 4: Deb’s Wanderlust
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Deb in Cuba (2017)
My wanderlust probably began in my teenage years…I recall that at my High School graduation when everyone was writing in each other’s School Annual what they wanted to be or where they wanted to study, my great ambition was ’to travel the world’. Of course, in my naivety, this goal had no thought to HOW I was to accomplish this with no money?!
After being awarded a scholarship/bursary for university, I reluctantly put my lofty travel goals on hold and completed my studies with a double major, and then law school.
I did, however, take a year out to study subjects that I felt were more about ‘the study of life’, such as philosophy or nutrition, etc. And it was during this ‘sabbatical’, that I also decided, before I ventured out into the world, I should really see my own country first! After a few hiccups in starting out from Vancouver, BC, a high school friend and I travelled across Canada for about 2 months and visited every province except Newfoundland. It was wonderful! I had been told that the prairie provinces were ‘boring’ because they were so flat, but I never felt that. I thought they were expansive and given the time of year that I went, the countryside was covered in fields of yellow mustard flowers and I found it beautiful!
On that trip, one of the most memorable moments included staying at a private hostel in Orangeville, Nova Scotia where you had to do ‘chores’ for your stay. This involved such things as using an outhouse that had walls covered in amazing articles; or the ‘bathroom sink’ was the nearby pond in which you brushed your teeth or washed yourself with fellow frogs! I got to milk a cow for the first time. The whole time spent there was quite an experience for this city slicker!!
For my ignorant younger self, one of the key lessons learned from that trip was ‘that everyone has a story’ and you shouldn’t discount someone based on what they looked like or what you ‘assumed’ about them. In Ottawa, specifically, there was a homeless man who sat near us in a park one day. I had a fairly protective upbringing so I felt very uncomfortable and uneasy being in close proximity to him. However, my friend struck up a conversation with him and it turned out he was from Europe and told stories of his firsthand experiences during the war. We learned more from him than any classroom setting. And I vowed to change my attitude about making preconceived assumptions about people I met because everyone had a story to tell.It took me many years before I travelled again given my studies and expectations on what I should be doing. Like so many 20-year-olds at that time, my parents believed you should go to university, and focus on establishing your career. Unfortunately, my dad died suddenly in my late 20’s and it was then that I decided that life was too short and travel was the best education of life so I would continue to follow that path. But, of course, being a very pragmatic person, I now knew that to make these travel adventures happen, I would have to ’work one year to save money and only make local trips, i.e. within Canada, USA, or Mexico’ and then with my savings, ‘travel the next year on a bigger venture overseas’. I followed this pattern for many years and it gave me the opportunity to see and travel to a variety of places in the world. Not enough for sure, but a flavour of what is out there if you seize the day!
And when I travel, I also am not one to laze by the beach for too long or hit ‘McDonald’s’. Instead, I search out local markets, try different foods, and learn some phrases of the places I want to visit. Each country and city/town had its charm but I found the people I met along the way and the local cuisine and culture, only enhanced the trip and made for memorable moments!
The following highlights some of the experiences I have had when travelling to faraway places.
My first big trip was to Europe for 2 months where I covered 8 countries with a first-class Euro rail pass as I wanted to see as many places as I could and then decide where I would return to on future trips! I had never been overseas before and boy was I a ‘green traveler’. But, by the end of my trip, I had a lot of things down pat and learned fast how to make things work, i.e. always book in advance the first hotel upon arriving and the last hotel upon departure; try not to arrive at a place on a Friday or Saturday as hotels/pensions can be booked up; always eat and not wait until you’re starving as everything looks worse if you’re hungry; keep only the amount of cash you’ll use during the day with you (otherwise pack the rest away); and do your research on the specific sites you want to see and how you’ll get to them (via foot, bus, train, etc.).
That European trip was an eye-opener on many levels and only fueled my passion to travel to other exotic locations in the world!
For the next couple of decades, I found myself experiencing such exciting adventures that included the following: swimming with sharks🦈in Belize; parasailing at Kata Beach on Phuket Island, Thailand; hiking through the jungles at Tikal National Park in Guatemala to watch the sunrise and then visit the ancient temples of Tikal which is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site; playing with dolphins in Cuba; walking along the waters of the Travertine Pools at Pamukkale in Turkey; and standing in awe in front of the Terracotta Warrior Soldiers in Xian, China.(1)
One trip involved work, as I was part of a film production crew covering some of the extreme sports in New Zealand, and then actually making the jump into space off the Sky Tower in Auckland, which is 328 metres (1,076 ft. tall), because no one else would do it for the film shoot! Although I didn’t even get ‘stunt pay’ for this, it was still quite an experience and going above and beyond for work! Haha! Part of this film production also involved doing wheelies in a helicopter🚁 with the door open over areas where the Lord of the Rings movie was filmed, or jet boat speeding down fjord-like rivers of Queenstown, and trekking through cannibal caves in Fiji.
Other travel adventures included snorkeling in the crystal blue waters in Bonaire, Dutch Caribbean/ Antilles; kayaking in the Baja (Mexico) and catching fresh tuna for dinner; and cycling 🚴♂️from Istanbul to Ephesus and then sailing on a Turkish Gulet in beautiful clear blue waters over an underground city on the way to the southern coastal city of Antalya.
Of all these amazing adventures, by far my favourite and most memorable was being on a catamaran in the clear, turquoise blue waters of Tahiti and coming up to a Marae (sacred burial ground) and having 2 dolphins 🐬on either side of the catamaran ‘dancing upright’ as we slowly moved towards the beach. The local guide even said it was very unusual that this occurred. I was so excited that I thought I’d surely tip the catamaran with my exuberance at being so close to those incredible creatures! That moment is forever imprinted in my mind and soul as it felt almost surreal and heavenly!
There are many more tales from my travel adventures but I’ll end here for the time being.
(1) Debb (with two 🐝🐝) is particularly jealous of your trips to Pamukkale and Xian – they are still on her bucket list!
