Mixing and matching – living with the locals

‘I will never fob off a foreigner in Boganburbia again.’

In the time I have been travelling I am constantly amazed at how friendly and helpful South Americans are. Even sitting in an airport terminal, there is always a local traveller who wants to befriend you, to try out their English as you attempt some Español. Email addresses and promises are exchanged: ‘When you find yourself in [insert country here], look me up…’

Tonight at Quito airport a lovely, warm, Colombian woman named Martha used my Latin America phrasebook to find the word ‘trust’. ‘When you come to Colombia,’ she said, ‘you are welcome to sleep and to dream and to eat in my home.’

There is an openness and a warmth here that I admire. ‘You are travelling solo? Strong!’ Martha tells me, motioning Popeye-like with her arms.

Some places have felt warmer than others. Chileans are open and eager to adopt you, while Peruvians get there in the end, even in down-town Lima. The people in Quito, Ecuador, seemed a bit more wary, but probably with good reason. Even the locals will tell you Quito is riddled with crime and corruption. Engage an Ecuadorian in a political, philosophical, or ecological debate, on the other hand, and expect to be bailed up for hours.

On the plane from Chile to Argentina, the people beside me – South Americans – are helpful and considerate in a way their Western counterparts (also on the plane) are not. And yet when it comes to queues and the endless push-barge-give-way system, an entirely different cut-throat etiquette operates.

Each country, each city, has been distinctly different. Until now (I’m currently in Iguazu on the border of Argentina and Brazil), something each place has shared, has been the way their children and pets (mostly dogs), have behaved. Both are allowed to roam free, to mix and to play, and seem happy and well-behaved in a way I’ve never encountered. Take an Australian kid on public transport and expect whinging and harsh words and for everyone around them to be inwardly groaning. In South America, the children have been all smiles and quiet (when they’re not begging or scamming – but that’s another story), and the dogs keep to themselves, quietly curious and free from aggression.

Parents here don’t use prams. They carry their children in their arms or in blankets upon their backs or let them walk. In traditional towns you can expect to see children piling into three-wheeled taxis with alpacas and lambs in arm, negotiating available seat-space, while dogs and other domestic animals roam about unrestrained (when they’re not being carried in the same manner as the children), presumably going home at some stage for meals.

Argentina has been a bit different. I have spotted the first prams. The children here are noisy and whinging, while dogs are locked behind fences, and bark aggressively as you walk past. It could just be that I’m in a tourist town or that it is prosperous here in a way it has not been in the other cities I’ve seen, but the feel is definitely different, more Western, more commercial, and less friendly.

Having said that, when you can get someone’s attention, they will help, even walking you to your destination when you get lost, it’s just that time moves differently, and people have their own schedules where the push-barge system is the only way to get by.

One thing is for sure, I now appreciate how hard it can be to navigate new places, new people, and new languages, and I will never fob off a foreigner in Boganburbia again!

--AG

Recipe for adventure: just add people

‘Girls who go on trekking tours don’t do one night stands,’ – a fellow trekker on the Inca Trail.

For my first real solo-adventure, I opted for safety in numbers, and jumped on a few smallish group tours. I figured this way it would be someone else’s problem to sort out all the logistics with the added advantage of a local English-speaking guide to rescue me from my floundering phrasebook Latin American Spanish. It wasn’t a cheap option, but it has meant I’ve been able to see and experience so much in such a short time.

More importantly, joining tours has allowed me to meet a bunch of new people from around the globe: Australians, Canadians, South Africans and Britons, young people, old people, and everything in between. The kind of people who will look at the stiff bread roll and blackberry jam served for breakfast each day and say ‘that’s fantastic!’ just because it’s something new, something authentic, and something other than what they left behind.

Surprisingly each of the groups has housed quite a few couples. This has its pros and cons. On the one hand, the trips haven’t degenerated into singles-shagathons and the focus has remained on the in-country experience, but when you want to turn to a partner, or a lover, or have someone looking out just for you and you for them, as a solo traveller in a couplish group, you’re pretty much on your own.

Like me, many of the solo travellers have reached a crossroads. We are skin-shedders, people at the beginning or end of a journey. This trip signals the conclusion of one life phase and the beginning of something new when we return. Travel is an escape, a hiatus, and an epiphany. I shouldn’t be surprised by this. These are the type of people who have chosen the same kind of adventure – if nothing else, this says we share a way of approaching one aspect of our lives.

The same is not true for many of the couples, who are mid-together-journey, and for whom this is a shared experience on a continuum.

Each group forms its own dynamic fairly quickly, and no two groups are alike. Even within the one group, as newbies arrive and veterans leave, the dynamic shifts, leaving you feeling more or less connected to those around you, but never truly lonely, even when you’re alone. In fact, I've had to opt out of some activities to spend the day apart, simply because the introvert in me can’t socialise indefinitely without burning out.

I've been lucky enough to meet some truly inspiring people this way, people who have generously shared their world view, their introspection and life lessons, and who have shown me it is never too late to start something new, as many times as it takes.

I’ve also met people whose paths wouldn’t normally cross with mine, who have very different interests and who I might not otherwise choose to hang out with, but that’s all part of the adventure, and in a big enough group, it’s easy to find the like-minded, or to temporarily retreat, without it being an issue.

With only a week left, and no more group tours, I’m left wondering how I can return to the mundane of home, how I can keep in touch with the new friends that I’ve made, and more importantly, how I’m going to save up for my next big adventure.

--AG

The Guide Gallery

Having toured now for over a month, I’ve encountered tour guides in all shapes and sizes, but whatever the attraction, the excursion, or the adventure, you can be sure to come across one (or more) of the following types:

The Language Barrier
This is an advertised ‘bi-lingual’ guide who has memorised their English script but can’t deviate from it. Identifiable by their poor pronunciation, these guides are likely to provide some entertaining translations (for example, damage to monuments being caused by ‘thunders’), but will be at a total loss if you ask any questions.

The Super Sleaze
Typically an older señor who has determined you will be endlessly flattered by his ongoing attentions, serenades, and inappropriate remarks. And you might be, until you realise he’s tried it on every señorita he can find. If he’s particularly determined, he will ask about your family, your marital status, and even grill your fellow group members to find out all there is to know. Eventually of course, it just gets annoying and you wish you’d taken the advice of the Lonely Planet and invented a husband from the outset.

The Bundle of Knowledge
For this guide, the tour isn’t about showing you the sights, but showing off their knowledge. They don’t want you to learn, they want your adoration and adulation. For every tit-bit of information, you will be prompted to inquire, to expose your ignorance, and to marvel, not at the facts, but at your guide’s knowledge of them.

The Moral Crusader
This guide has an opinion on EVERYTHING, and [insert appropriate deity here] help you, you had better not deviate from theirs. If you do, you can forget whatever sights you’re seeing, you’ll be ear-bashed until you agree that Americans are the saviour of the earth, people who destroy the environment should be put to death, sharks aren’t dangerous and you will eventually win the lotto.

Get Thee to a Nunnery
Usually found in a converted convent, museum or art gallery, this guide will dress as though it’s 1934 and carefully express only orthodox opinions. While you take equal care to word your questions in order to get some semblance of useful (if sanctioned) information out of them, you’re left secretly wondering if this guide doesn’t do a naughty-by-night transformation as soon as she’s off-duty.

Everybody’s Best Friend
This guide makes an effort to get to know and entertain the group. Less likely to accurately answer your cultural and historical questions, this is the guide you want to have telling Dad jokes and doing magic tricks while you’re trekking to 4000 metres through sleet and hail. At their best, you will become friends with this guide, but at worst, they just want to be liked by everybody, but don’t really like anybody.

The MIA
When this guide turns up they might as well not be there. Happy to take your money, they are less happy to actually do anything to earn it. At best you will see this guide at pick up and drop off, at worst, you won't see them at all.

The Bi-polar
Moody is how best to describe this guide. Your Best Friend one minute, they will turn sullen by the end of the day. In the case of the Super Sleaze this may result when they realise not only do you not intend to return their interest, but you also find it humorous. In all cases the Bi-polar will result at your lack of tips.

The Kick-arse Awesome guide
Lastly I want to make a special (serious) tribute to our Peruvian guide, Bel, who faced illness, injuries, and the Inca Trail (again) to keep us working together as a temporary family, who went above and beyond to make sure we could kick back and enjoy while she worked tirelessly in the background. Tips are not thank-you enough for the kick-arse awesome guide.

--AG

Peruvian poverty

Nothing quite prepares you for it. I was expecting beggars on the street, people hassling, hoards of homeless, and there was that, but there were also endless shanty houses stacked with mud bricks with not-quite roofs perched on desert slopes that would never survive if it ever rained. Homes dotted in the middle of nowhere where people have snatched a corner to prop themselves and nest.

What got me most was the sheer vastness of it, people making their living however and wherever they can. In soil that has never seen rain, people have irrigated just enough to grow and sell watermelon or papaya on the side of the road. Chickens and donkeys and goats have been bricked in with nowhere to graze. I can only assume they are grain fed.

On the streets and along the roadsides, people sell anything they can get their hands on. They even busk and perform at traffic lights. In restaurants, entertainers do the rounds at tables asking for tips and flogging their CDs. Our guide tells us there is no taxation here, no welfare. People make do with whatever they can, because if they don’t work, they don’t survive. She also tells us not to buy from the children selling lollies on every street corner, who should be in school, and who could be using the money to buy drugs.

In Pisco, a town devastated by earthquake, there is no money to rebuild. Roads have crumbled and been upturned and cars swerve to avoid the piles of rubble. Our guide tells us this was chosen as our overnight stop in order to support the local economy.

Further south, in the seaside town of Paracas, the wealthy have built impressive beach houses. Their swimming pools lie empty, but over summer they will be filled as the people pile in. Paracas also suffered from the 2007 earthquake and the almost-tsunami, but there is money here to restore.

Along this part of the coast is a constant sea fog, but it never rains. In summer the fog will lift, and it will rain in the highlands. This is where the people get their water, as it seeps into the ground. It has been especially dry this year, and there is talk of a drought. It’s hard to say what will happen if the rains don’t come.

Meanwhile we’re paying to ride mountain bikes down the desert slopes in Lima, touring the coastal districts, experiencing the wildlife by boat and the historical culture by air, and today, lazing by the pool. I guess it’s all part of the experience, for us and for them.

--AG