The part of travel that “changed my brain chemistry”
Updating the blog has taken me a while - it has been three weeks since my return and the thought of writing up a blow by blow description of each country and place has led to some amount of dread and procrastination. So instead I thought I’d start with writing about the parts of the trip that surprised me the most.
I expected to encounter some nastiness at immigration along my trip - after all, I was passing through airports quite a bit and had heard many horror stories, particularly for immigration through the US at this point in time. However, there were instead many pleasant experiences. For instance, the officer at Los Angeles who told me that she loved Guatemala and that I’ll have a great time while I was transiting. At Colombia, I received a “Singapore… what are you doing here?” and honestly I initially couldn’t tell if he was joking or being serious, but he ended off with a “we don’t get many visitors from Singapore here, have a good time”. I had a similar experience with the immigration officer at Panama, who looked at my passport in surprise and welcomed me to the country. And it was the same with taxi drivers - who would tell me “Bienvienidos!” and attempt to make conversation with me in Spanish about both my country and theirs. These little things always made me feel a bit more welcome and comfortable when visiting places.
I was surprised by the help I received during the moments in my travels with I was most vulnerable. Remember when I was sick in Almaty, Kazakhstan? I was down with pneumonia (not that I realised it at the time). I had a high fever and a racking cough, it was the sickest I had been in perhaps years, and in a country where I didn’t speak the language at all. I had cancelled on a city tour at the last minute and communicated with the guide over Whatsapp - she messaged back asking me to take care and to let her know if I needed any help, offering to translate and provide assistance if I needed it while in the country. It wasn’t an offer I expected to take up - however the next day I found myself at a medical clinic, where there was no one who could speak English. As I sat in the doctor’s office, I had pulled up Google translate but did not have the Kazakh keyboard on my phone and audio translate did not work, the doctor was beginning to get impatient at our inability to communicate - I found myself calling the guide and explaining the issues to her - she immediately became my translator for the next 3 days over the phone as I went back to the clinic repeatedly for my results and treatment. I am immensely grateful for all her help - from a lady I had never even met - I don’t know what I would have done otherwise.
And this time on the LATAM trip, I fell sick from food poisoning while in Bolivia. On the fifth day of my illness, it was a Monday and I was moving into a homestay in Sucre. I was feeling nauseous from the illness and also weak after a diet of largely water and biscuits while ill. After moving in and collapsing on the bed, I texted my host that I would not need meals for the next two days. Naturally, I was also worried that the family might be concerned about me coming into their house while sick. However, the homestay host was incredibly kind - she immediately messaged back saying that they could help me prepare “cleaner food” with no sauce while I was ill, and that I was also welcome to use the kitchen to prepare meals for myself. The next morning, I received a text message letting me know that there were oatmeals pancakes ready, and that they were gentle for the stomach. From that day, the family fed me up - with lunch consisting of soups, plain chicken and mash. They checked daily how I was feeling (asking me “Mejor?”) and would place juices in front of me, saying it was good for the stomach. The family was so hospitable during my entire stay - even though they only spoke Spanish and mine was poor they did their best to communicate with me. And when I left and had a stopover in Santa Cruz between flights, they reached out to their daughter to host me there and bring me out to dinner. The sweetest family which I was so grateful for, staying in the homestay really helped nurse me back to health.
And perhaps the one that surprised me most - the help I received even when it wasn’t the most obvious that I needed it, and the kindness of the people in Colombia. Communication was a little bit of a challenge in Colombia - their Spanish is quicker and they never seemed to understand anything I said in basic Spanish (even though the words sounded the same to me) - but there were always locals around who knew some English, who were always ready to help.
Upon trying to take the bus in from the airport, I was trying (failing) to let the driver on the town which town I needed to get to. Two university students immediately stepped in to help inform the driver, and even though their English was also limited they pulled out Google translate as well to make sure I had information on what the driver was saying and the cost. They even let the driver know to look out for me and to call me when the bus reached the correct location, typing it out via google translate to tell me. The same thing happened when I was taking the bus back to the airport, a lady saw me struggling to load my luggage up the bus steps (I had arrived just in time and the bus was already moving) and came over to help pull it up. Another helped to translate later when the bus driver was trying to speak to me to ask if he could help me move the luggage to the boot of the bus. And the bus driver was lovely as well! When we were stuck in the tunnel for a while due to a slight jam, he checked to see if everyone was ok with the temperature in the bus and showed those in front how to adjust the fans (like those in the planes). He also plugged in his phone to play music videos on a screen in the front.
Even just in passing on the street, people were lovely and helpful. Once when embarking on a day trip to Guatape from Medellin, I was standing by the side of the street waiting for my pick up. An elderly man asked in passing (in Spanish) if I needed any help, and gestured to the security guard nearby to let me know to approach him. I did end up checking with him, which was great because it turns out that I was on the wrong side of the road and there were actually benches where I could wait.
When hiking the Cocora valley and trying to find the right route, another traveller and I stopped a few guides hosting other tourists to check. They always did their best to explain in detail to us the direction even as their own tourists ran ahead, and they would say to us welcome and thank you for visiting us here before running to catch up to their groups. En route back to the town, another passenger checked with us if we wanted to ride inside or on top of the jeep. He even came running to tell us there was enough space when we assumed it was full and went back to the queue, and after calling us back helped to ask others in the jeep to move in slightly so we could fit.
Or when I was at the bus station in Pereira with another Australian traveller looking for the location of Uber pick ups since we needed to get to the airport. A girl stopped as she passed just to check if we needed anything. At first I thought she was trying to ask us a question, but it turned out she was just seeing if we needed any help, and she pointed us to where the unofficial uber pick up point was.
And in general the Uber drivers I encountered were extremely kind! Like the one in Bogota who made sure to tell me which area was safe when he dropped me off in La Candeleria; or the Uber driver in Medellin who turned up the radio when I told him that I liked the music in Colombia.
In Colombia, they had a saying for tourists - don’t give Papaya. Maybe we did give Papaya if so many people were offering us help LOL. but really, the kindness of the people in Colombia really struck me.
It sounds cliche, but if you talk about “experiences that change your brain chemistry” - it was really these experiences that hit me on this trip. Day to day life, particularly at work, can feel transactional. Everything comes at a cost, and people only act it if benefits them. The same can be true of travel of course, particularly in more touristy places - The guides and hotel owners are nice to you because you are a paying customer. But this trip reminded me that kindness exists outside of that as well.