How discoveries and travel change people. How travel changes lives
“The search for yourself cannot stop. You cannot say to yourself: “I have experienced everything, there is nothing further.” You cannot simply dissolve in the world, content with low credit rates, your corner in Moscow and dubious creative success.
I thought about this when my old college friend called me and offered to go learn to surf in. By this time, I had already quit my job for 3 months and, like, was looking for a new one. There was no money. Surfing in the Canaries seemed very far away and very unreal. Although, like many snowboarders, I have long dreamed of learning how to surf. What if? The next day was my birthday and I told a bunch of invited friends that no gifts were needed - the most desired gift was a ticket to the ocean.
A month and a half later, I was sitting on a plane, waiting for the most incredible journey of my life to begin. A journey that changed my life forever.
Surf training
How do people imagine surfing? Differently. I, like many fans of mountain boarding, thought that surfing and snowboarding were similar and that I, an experienced snowboarder and football player, would succeed very quickly. Cruel delusion. I realized this on the first day of learning to surf in the Canary Islands.
Surfing is not only physics, and the hardest physical activity, it is also an art. The art of understanding the nature of the ocean. While floundering and exhausting myself, I realized that I knew nothing about the Ocean. About where the wave comes from and how it is formed. After the first workout, everything hurt - the muscles of the arms, legs, joints, back.
I also realized one more thing. Surfing does not start in the water, but on the ground. Firstly, you should definitely stretch and warm up your bodies before entering the ocean, and secondly, they should absolutely not be neglected if you do not want your surfing training to slow down.
In addition, one more thing is very important in surfing. Learn to row. Swimming, of course, is a good thing, but it is not too much help, especially after 5 hours of paddling. The ability to row correctly, quickly and without wasting extra strength comes only with experience.
All that I understood in my own skin and in the evening sitting in the lobby of our surf villa in Famara thought that I had no strength left for the next day of surfing. However, I drowned these thoughts in hot fun and ice-cold beer and the next morning I woke up absolutely sick.
However, I couldn't miss the surf lesson! Salty ocean water will cure me. On this day, I finally got up on the board on the foam. First small win!
When I entered the ocean, it was as if I had changed forever! It seemed to me that I washed out of myself all the alien and unnecessary rubbish that was sitting in my head. Now I'm the only one left.
I got into a real surf environment, and day by day I became part of it. Surfing every day has become for me not a compulsion, but a necessity.
... And I really liked the island of Lanserote. People, food, clothes, life in general. Fish, rum, bunk, ocean, mountains, flat stomachs of surf girls, music in the streets, Spanish slow-life lifestyle in a fishing village - I really, really liked it all! And it doesn't matter who you were there in the city.
… What is surfing? For me, first of all, it is freedom. I feel freedom in everything here. In a bright blue sky and a burning sun. In a piercing wind that crashes the waves and throws sand in your eyes. In the sand itself, which is everywhere: in sandwiches on the shore, in the water, in the lungs. And also freedom here, it's salt spray in the face and undercurrents stealing the bottom from under your feet. And in the uncertainty that the ocean carries.
It's quiet on the lineup. You sit on the board and feel how yours balances. You just look into the ocean because there are no thoughts. Only a sense of respect for the ocean, to which you give all your attention. Gigantic masses of water move calmly and majestically around you. And suddenly, about 20 meters away from you, you see a wave. It still doesn't tell you anything about her size or where she'll get the maximum height. You turn your board around and lie down on it. For a second, your hands are lowered into the water and relaxed, but in the next moment you are all - one desire to ride the wave. “Paddle!, paddle, paddle” you command yourself, rowing strongly towards the shore, but looking over your shoulder at the wave, so as not to overtake it and miss it. It takes 3-4 seconds of frantic rowing, the wave has already gained height. Hands with all their strength are almost completely lowered into the water, paddling from the nose to the tail of the board. The wave hits your legs, lifting the back of the board up. The heartbeat is accelerating. Now. One, two, three powerful strokes, emphasis and jump. If you didn't have time to get up, the wave twisted you, spitting the board a couple of meters up and pulling you with Lish! And if you have time, then you can take a ride ... For the time being, this is not important for me. So far, only the very attempt to interact with the most powerful element on earth, the Ocean, is important to me. Yes, this is enough for me now to feel boundless happiness.
The island of Lanzarote, consisting of stone and solidified lava, tied me to itself. I can meet the sunset here high in the mountains above the ocean. People from all over the world become my friends because we share a common passion with them.
Surfing is now my spiritual path. I chose surfing to live every day, to own my body and enjoy the feeling of health, strength and flexibility. To be happy right now, not sometime in the future. Join now!
You will see the whole world even before you begin to think. I am sure that traveling in childhood, even the unconscious one, forms an excellent imagination and develops the intellect. Unfortunately, I don’t yet have confirmation of my theory on living (already grown) examples, although I traveled in early childhood, it cannot be called travel.
Traveling from birth?
If you know Polish / know how to use Google translate, the opinion of the mother of two such children, Anna Albot. Traveling parents took their children, Hannah and Mila, from the age of 6 months around the Black Sea, Central America and the islands of Oceania. The eldest girl recently went to school, and has already visited several dozen countries. I was lucky enough to meet Anya and Thomas personally almost 10 years ago when they first met, and now it is very interesting to follow their adventures on The Family Without Borders blog. Now they live in Berlin and actively help refugees.
Perhaps these girls will be completely tired of traveling by the age of majority and they will not have this delight of knowing the world, which all beginners already at a conscious age have (“Whee, the first flight by plane!”). And perhaps they will travel around the whole world, which will seem to them all the same amazing and they will never get tired of making discoveries.
What if you are from a family of homebodies?
But if you have ordinary parents, then most likely they took you out only for a typical “mattress” vacation once a year or not at all. And then you will find many discoveries! Traveling will make you you and you need to use every opportunity to get another cherished ticket in your hands or hitchhike over the horizon. In general, while you, the choice is obvious: the road to nowhere is much more useful than buying a closet. It is during these years that travel brings the greatest pleasure. As they say, when you already have stability and money, you can buy all the pleasures you want, but will they bring joy? Over the years, emotions fade away, and in the end it can be different: for example, you will arrive in the country of your dreams and feel nothing. Therefore, it is better not to pull.
How travel shapes personality
I have been traveling for as long as I can remember. Starting with trips with parents to sanatoriums and relatives, then there were trips to Germany, performances in other cities with a school theater, trips to the weeks of science and technology with an astronomy circle and trips around Belarus and Russia with a tourist club, then hitchhiking began (mostly Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and a bit of Poland), then I traveled a lot around the world as a young naturalist civil activist. Yes, it’s very funny now, but then a banal command of English, a desire to know everything, the ability to speak and burning eyes, a naive belief that something would change in Belarus during my lifetime helped. There were countries like Indonesia, Peru, Egypt, South Africa, Thailand, etc. Well, and, of course, there were sudden independent low-cost sorties, like, and in close Europe.
How travel is remembered at different ages
That's how travel changed my life at different ages:
0-10 years
Little remains of these trips inside, but the memories are very vivid, like yesterday. I remember most vividly in Palanga. I tried to run to him, and my parents constantly caught and returned back. I remember. Probably, this time gave me to nature in general. There is almost no memory left of the people I met then.. But maybe I'm just learned to communicate.
10-15 years old
The first trip abroad, it changed a lot in my head: even then I began to think why they have it, and we have it differently. From this period there are many connections for life. Lot hobbies, hobbies and patterns for life. Trips around Belarus have strengthened the love for the motherland, now against the backdrop of other countries. Further this feeling grew, but only in relation to nature, not to the state. Traveling helped me understand my location in space, assess my capabilities (and their limits) and how you can apply what you learn at school (traveling helped me at the age of 10 for the first time speak with German children).
15-18 years old
The first independent hitchhiking and trips to (by school standards) serious scientific conferences. A unique experience of communicating with completely different people. I realized that I feel people very well, I know how to find an approach to them and intuitively avoid dangerous situations and solve problems that spontaneously arise on the road. Trips around Ukraine made me think about the situation with the Belarusian language. Except for the lessons at school, for the first time I spoke Belarusian in Transcarpathia.
18-25 years old
Students, the most generous time to travel. They appeared out of nowhere, spontaneously organized by me or my friends, some kind of conferences, trainings, meetings ... A lot of new faces, new foreign languages, new information, a new level of communication, taking into account all the experience and new knowledge. It was accumulation period, sponge period: whatever they give, I take, but for now I don't know what I need that no. Travel is the ideal source for this phase.
25-30 years old
This is where it started "filter" phase. I sort through everything that I have accumulated during my travels for all previous periods, build my own coordinate system, stop looking for inspiration from outside. It is already clear that the world is very the same, wherever you go, only the scenery changes. Therefore, the scenery is finally starting to matter: in these years, and happened very on time. Travel becomes more meaningful, but become even more spontaneous and uprooted in a good way. Finally there was a place for detailed travel plans, although before everything was always spontaneous. Plans don't make travel any less cool, which is surprising. I already love to come back and take on life from a new angle, with a new point of view and with new conclusions. Conclusions, by the way, are finally appearing, because before all travel was more for emotions than for reflection.
What's next?
I do not know. Probably, if you are over 30, then instead of giving up wherever your eyes look, you prioritize things, loans and family worries. A little later, other expenses will be added to these expenses, then a binding to one city, trips to doctors and stupid medical prohibitions to go to too humid or too warm climate will be added. I am already silent about traveling with children: not everyone can afford it.
At some point, a person begins to prefer comfort and ceases to want to stay in smelly but cheap hostels. Or starts to want personal space instead of staying with god knows who through couchsurfing. Then you want to keep them quiet at night behind the wall and also have bacon for breakfast or have a menu for vegans. Then the list of things needed on the road will increase. And then one day you will no longer be able to pack everything you need in a suitcase the size of a low-cost airline and you will have to look for a better job in order to fly more impressive airlines. Travel changes with the person. If you change dynamically, you will be very surprised what happens. For example, I can't believe that at 18 all I needed was my Zenith camera and $50 for the whole summer...
Dream in time
If you think that all this will not happen to you, then so be it. I thought that this would not happen to me, but I was simply tired of driving. It seems to me, travel has already played a role in my life, it is unlikely they will give me more. Yes, there will still be adventures in my life, but they won't feel as important. For a couple of years I wanted to go to Australia so much, but now I don’t want to. I guess I'm too late with Australia. Yes, I'm still planning trips, but with all these cool modern deals like 100 euro round trip to Iceland or 300 dollar round trip to New York, I feel like an adult in no one's candy store. That's it, at arm's length, and now you don't even have to be rich to drive. And then it will be even cheaper! But something is no longer very desirable, and the priorities are different. It's not good or bad, it's just different. I know those for whom the Road is their cradle and medicine, and it's good that they were not afraid to take a step and start discovering the world on their own. This is self-knowledge, albeit in a roundabout way. For some, it lasts for decades, and it's not great anymore.
Book your accommodation through Booking (if you want a cheap hotel) or Airbnb (if you want to live like a local).
I wish each of you that your Road leads home.
Egypt, November
Before meeting my beloved, I didn’t even imagine that I could travel on my own, plan a route myself (and change the route along the way), buy plane tickets (and even be late for it). That is, when all the responsibility lies only on you - both for a properly planned route, and for awareness of certain interesting things.
When you are both a guide and a tour operator. All by himself.
The travel style of a loved one in numerous joint trips has shown that one should rely only on oneself (sometimes on LP) and, in extreme cases, ask random people you meet for information.
I found myself in an amazing position, when I was loved for the tour operator and for the guide, and I could only admire the beauties and interesting things of this or that country.
It also happened when planning a trip in November 2010. True, for this trip we used the services of a tour operator and bought a last-minute ticket to Egypt for $ 93 for each (prices decreased due to shark attacks, but this did not scare us, since everyone understood that we simply would not reach the sea). Beloved himself planned the trip, but the nuances were not conveyed to me. At that time, it was not necessary - I knew that he was traveling with us and the trip would be, as always, interesting and memorable (we traveled in three: me, my beloved and friend (Serpent).
The unpredictable happened - the beloved refuses to travel at the very last moment, exactly at the last - at 07.00 in the morning, when already at 11.00 you have to leave home for the train to the airport. Naturally - panic - how, where, why and why?
My beloved calmly took the LP, handed it to me (for awareness - I don’t know English) and said: "I believe in you and you can do it without me !!!". In frustrated feelings, I packed a backpack, took an LP, and on the way to the Paveletsky station, my beloved in the metro told me about the planned route, and I frantically wrote down word by word.
The route turned out to be as follows: we arrive in Hurghada, the next day we sail to Jordan by ferry (we were supposed to visit Petra, but since the entrance suddenly became expensive a month before the trip, we had to enter the city at night, hiding from the guards), then to Israel - Jerusalem, Aqaba... that is, only days of arrival and departure were planned for Egypt.
Let's go, that is. One and a half tourists, no language, no understanding of the peculiarities of the countries planned to visit ... well, there is insurance against stupidity - a paid hotel with food and a beach.
Whiskey, Baileys. Relaxed flew to Hurghada.
We settled in, settled in - immediately look for a port to cross the Gulf of Suez to Sharm el-Sheikh, then from there to Jordan. We walked for a long time, we did not find the port. We returned to the hotel with nothing.
The next day we find out - there is a storm in the bay, the ferry does not go - maybe it will go, but only the next day. At the same time, there is no certainty that the ferry will be, in principle, even in a week (that is, we could not have time to return to the plane home). We make a decision - to walk only around Egypt, according to its interesting places, and, as we all know very well, there are a lot of them !!!
The next day we went to Cairo.
Be sure to visit the world's largest repository of ancient Egyptian art - the Cairo Museum. Photography is prohibited in the museum. Collected in the Egyptian Museum the richest collection cultural treasures of the dynastic period. About 150 thousand exhibits are placed in more than a hundred halls and galleries. At the entrance to the museum there are giant sculptures depicting Amenhotep III and his wife Tiyu. Contrary to tradition, her figure is the same size as the figure of the pharaoh himself. On the first floor of the museum, works from the Amarna period are exhibited. They are much more realistic than anything that was created in Egypt before and after them. What is one head of the famous Queen Nefertiti worth! First of all, these are the treasures of the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun, exhibited at the far end of the second floor. This tomb was discovered in 1922 in the Valley of the Kings, near the city of Luxor. This find became an archaeological sensation of the twentieth century. The tomb of Tutankhamun is the only one of the royal tombs that was found unlooted, in its original form. Her treasures were so numerous that it took five years to describe them and transport them to the Egyptian Museum.
Before entering the museum, work is underway to restore the exhibits.
Inspired after the received positive emotions from visiting the museum, we wanted to continue and went to see one of the seven wonders of the world - the greatest architectural monuments ancient egypt- pyramids! But here we were faced with the fact that none of the locals at the bus station knew how to get to the pyramids. We were surprised! And they began to check the information specified in the LP. But this information turned out to be erroneous, buses have not been running from the stop indicated in the LP for a long time. There were friendly people who helped us. A minibus was passing by us and people told us that it was necessary to get into that minibus. And immediately taking us into their car, they caught up with the necessary minibus at the traffic lights, we jumped into it and drove only to the station (we are in shock). But they immediately co-opted and found a minibus, got into a conversation with the driver. He also decided to help us and took us to travel company next to the pyramids. There they began to "breed" us. But we quickly understood and got away from the annoying selling of our services.
Wandering for a short time in search of an entrance, we got there and saw... BEAUTY!
The pyramids are located near the city of Giza.
The largest is the pyramid of Cheops. Initially, its height was 146.6 m, but due to the fact that now there is no lining of the pyramid, its height has now decreased to 138.8 m. The length of the side of the pyramid is 230 m. The construction of the pyramid dates back to the 26th century BC. e. The construction is believed to have taken over 20 years.
The pyramid is made up of 2.3 million stone blocks that have been fitted together with unsurpassed precision. No cement or other binders were used. On average, the blocks weighed 2.5 tons.
Locals travel on donkeys and everyone offers to ride camels.
The next city that we were honored with our attention - Alexandria! The city is in the north Egypt and is a port on the Mediterranean Sea, founded by the great Alexander the Great.
While walking along the embankment, we visited the library - one of the largest libraries of antiquity.
The Library of Alexandria was founded in the early 3rd century BC during the reign of King Ptolemy II Philadelphus of Egypt.
The library has many rooms dedicated to different areas of art.
The sculptures next to the library building once again show us the ancient Egypt.
In continuation of the walk along the embankment of Alexandria, we visited the Kite Bay fortress, which was built on the ruins of the Lighthouse of Alexandria.
Visiting the fortress is active.
The fortress was founded in 1477 by Sultan Kaytbey and since then it has been rebuilt more than once, but, as you can see, it has survived to this day.
Here you can visit the military barracks where the soldiers lived, see the holes in the mighty walls, where the cannons were previously located.
Climbing up observation deck Fortress of Kite Bay, enjoy the stunning landscape: on one side - the endless golden sands, and on the other - the turquoise Mediterranean Sea.
Fishermen are peacefully located on the coast, waiting for a big catch.
Without thinking twice, we decide to climb Mount Sinai and meet the sunrise there. Of course, I was a little sorry that I would meet the sunrise on the top of the mountain not with my beloved, but with a friend.
The cities of Egypt traveled only by bus. Sometimes they forgot to change the currency, but they found people conducting the exchange unofficially (whoever searches always finds).
We got to the city of Suez already late at night, and we were kind of accidentally warned about the likely deception on the part of taxi drivers. And there is nowhere to go, the buses do not go!!! The taxi driver offers to go to the tunnel through which the buses to Sharm pass. But as soon as I imagined that we alone would stand somewhere in a wasteland, being in the unknown whether the bus would go or not ...
In general, I was scared. And there was no strong male shoulder nearby to keep calm. My fear turned out to be stronger than the Serpent's confidence, and we just went to the hotel for the night. The next day, it turns out that the first bus to Mount Sinai will not be until after 14.00. I did not want to wait at all - we went to the desired intersection by bus to Sharm. From the turn to the mountain, you look, and we'll hitchhike.
Hitchhiking was not quite easy, and far from free. We got there anyway, into the night.
At the hotel we will find out how best to climb to the top of the mountain. And here is a surprise - tomorrow the bus will be in a single copy and at 6 o'clock in the morning, because all the locals suddenly had a holiday, about which they rest en masse.
The monastery of St. Catherine is closed. We are upset, but we want to go to the top of the mountain, and then how will it turn out (for information - we have 1.5 days before the plane goes home).
We got up at 4 am. Very cold. We dress securely - T-shirt, sweater and windbreaker. Let's hurry to the top. From the monastery of St. Catherine, two paths lead to the top: a short one and a long one, they join not far from the top. We go up a long path, overtaking groups of tourists, and the locals follow us - strong. We reached the steps - they are so imperceptible that they displaced us on a sypukha - she almost fell, slipping down. cannons were located earlier.
A sign calling for the disposal of garbage exclusively in tanks is carved into the rock.
Along the way, camels look at tourists with sad eyes, on which you can tirelessly reach the steps leading to the top of the mountain.
We are not sadists. We love sad camels and we go ourselves!
North wall of the Church of the Holy Trinity at the top and a cave near it.
We reached the top of the mountain. And then we were greeted by the religious chants of a group of African pilgrims. The sounds spilled over the top and created an absolutely magical atmosphere.
The view from the top of the mountain is amazing.
At sunrise, looking at the beauty emerging from the dusk, I am once again convinced that I am the happiest person in the world!
Satisfied, they went down the mountain.
There are no buses. We negotiate with a minibus for $ 20 for two, although the same cab drivers carry Americans for $ 30 each (lucky).
In the evening we were in Hurghada.
Global organizational findings:
I'm afraid, but I can!
It's bad to live without a loved one, but you can survive!
You can travel without a language, but it is more difficult without a guide. Blue eyes will bring you to Cairo.
Next time I'll tell you how my beloved left me alone in the middle of the wild, wild Philippines.
Tags: Egypt,
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