It was January, 2003. I was in Santiago, Chile waiting at the train station. My stomach was churning with anxiety, my foot constantly tapping the ground. I could not sit still. I had never traveled this way.
We were on our way to Pichilemu, a small beach town south of Santiago. My girlfriend had been there many times, essentially every summer of her life. It was where her family went for vacations. She knew what to expect on the other end of our bus trip. I did not. I had spent my life with my vacations meticulously planned. I could not recall a time in my life when I had gone somewhere without knowing that there would be a place for me to stay at the other end.
That concept scared the shit out of me. There was a great unknown at the end of that bus ride. So many questions.
Besides, the bus was scheduled to leave in five minutes and she chooses this moment to run to the bathroom where I can see the line bulging from its interior. You all know how I feel about time. My stomach churned thinking about missing our bus that was taking us to a town I knew nothing about where we had no idea whether there would be a place for us to stay or not.
Needless to say, we got on the bus. We got to Pichilemu without a hitch and there were dozens of people waiting for us to get off the bus to offer us places to stay. Hmm, that’s an interesting way to travel.
There are distinct moments in time where something hits us and changes us. This was one for me, I went from being a planner to winging it.
You see there are two types of travelers. Those that plan and those that do not.
Planners are the type of traveler I was before living in Chile. The adventure begins as a destination. Then the maps are pulled out and a rough route is determined. Research is then performed to know how, where and what is along that path. Dots are placed between the start and end of the trip. There is no doubt that there will be gas at point C and we will be stopping for food at point G. As long as everything goes as planned, we should have time to stop at the museum an hour before it closes and see the thing that’s in there.
Reservations are made. If it’s a road trip, there is a final destination for every night because you have a reservation at the KOA/motel and that’s where we are staying. I mean they have an awesome view and a great Jacuzzi. Plus the restaurant right across the street is known for its organic, locally grown salads.
For the planner, part of the joy is figuring out the trip. Getting the details refined to the point that there is little unknown between your front door and the point at which you return. Knowing the interesting historical facts about the small towns you are traveling through so that you can see the stuff about the people and the things and other stuff. There’s usually a folder involved with printouts and hand written notes ensuring that day one through four go as “planned.”
Traveler type 2, the Chilean type, picks point A and point B, everything else will get figured out while the journey unravels. The trip is more like a story that hasn’t been told yet. Every stop is something new. It might be a good stop, it might be a bad stop, but the stop belongs as part of the journey and then you continue.
Of course, there are times when you arrive and there isn’t a place to stay. For example, a few months after said excursion in Chile, I needed to cross the border to renew my visa. Sweet, a weekend trip to Argentina sounds awesome. The bus ride was magnificent. Having to get off the bus in the middle of the Andes at 2 AM in the morning with snow drifts around us was not. That was cold, but the views were worth the 20 minutes of being uncomfortable.
We arrived in Mendoza the next morning and there wasn’t a single person at the bus station waiting for us. No one was there offering us a place to stay. We started to walk. Hotel after hotel, hostel after hostel, everything was full. Apparently Easter weekend in Mendoza is a big tourist draw. Of course, after walking for what seemed like an eternity we found a hotel. There always seems to be the “of course” moment when you just figure it out. Sometimes you have to walk farther than you had wanted to, but you went around that next corner and…
If we had planned that trip, we wouldn’t have seen half of the city of Mendoza that we did. Wandering around with a lost look on our face. We met people, got directions. Got turned down, got more directions. It was a journey, an adventure.
Or the time in Mexico, I don’t remember the name of the little town, I was sick from the heat, hadn’t eaten all day due to being waterlogged. I roll into this small town and stop at the one shop, buy some chips and soda for the electrolytes. I hunch down and eat what I can. There is nothing left in my brain. I need a place to cool down. I walk back in and ask about a room to rent for the night. There’s only one place in town, just down the street. I find the place and this lady comes out and a look of disgust flashes across her face as soon as she sees me. Nope, she didn’t have any rooms available. Nope, didn’t matter how much I was willing to pay.
I ended up sleeping in a giant culvert ten miles outside of town. I put up my tent to keep the bugs out and then just sweated until the sun went down. I was damn lucky it didn’t rain that night, or this post wouldn’t exist.
I didn’t like the unknown when I was sitting on that bus station bench waiting for my girlfriend to get out of the bathroom so we could get on the bus that was taking us to a place I knew nothing about. After a few more of these trips, I began to feel less anxious and more excited. The unknown was why I was in Chile. I wanted to learn things. You can’t learn things without jumping into the unknown. For me that’s what hoboing is all about. Leaving my front door and figuring out where/what/when while I’m out. The unknown is addicting…
Here’s to stepping over that fence and leaving the road.
P. L. and R.