It’s the beginning of December 2022. I’m sitting in a cafe in Bali, great tunes blasting from above my head. The breeze is warm. I’m people-watching (or rather, moto-watching).
It’s been forever since I’ve published anything heartfelt on the blog (my last post was about how I got my valuables stolen in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico). I never published a year-end round-up since 2020. It could be that that post ended me in trouble and now I’m suffering from PTSD – getting deported at LAX airport and removed from visiting USA…
My Instagram got unfairly suspended for 4 months from August to November 2022. That was a wake-up call for me, to learn that the heartfelt captions that I started pouring into can be erased from my life forever. The blog is what belongs to you and will stay with you for as long as you own it, which was the very reason why I started it in the first place – to immortalize my journey called life.
I’ve hesitated to publish this for a number of reasons.
- WORK. Isn’t it the story of our life? It’s always about prioritizing clients. Work getting in the way.
- Travel has also gotten in the way. 20 countries in 2022 – that’s not to be taken lightly.
- I’ve started putting more focus on other projects, like my Youtube channel and my SEO course, Skyrocket With SEO.
- What I’ve written below.. is kinda personal, vulnerable, imperfect, messy. But isn’t life?
- Not reading/ writing has given way to not reading/ writing. Inertia is a bi*ch.
But I think it’s about time.
Enjoy. 🙂
JUMP TO: 6 Best Tours In Tamarindo, Costa Rica [2024 GUIDE]
At A Glance
Part 1 – Tamarindo, Costa Rica
10 June 2022
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- I have the freedom to choose my preferred working hours and when to work.
So I’m finally forced to write. I’m in Bocas Del Toro, Panama for the week. It took me deciding to come to town and the whole town running out of power to finally get me to sit down, open a blank doc and disregard the 20 other tabs open and my message notifications to do it. Oh, and also a cup of matcha tea next to me.
It’s a good time to ruminate on the past year. I hadn’t written a word about my journey across South America since my last year-end reflection post. It does feel like another story has come to an end, with my end date with Selassie coming to a close (in less than a week, boohoo).
I always found something missing not having a year-end round-up post at the end of 2021 and a new year resolution list for 2022, but it also didn’t seem right.
You usually write year-end posts when an old year has ended and new beginnings arise, but I was still living the same old routine with Selassie through new year’s and nothing has really changed when the clock struck 12 on 1 Jan 2022.
Really, I wanted to prolong what I had with him.
We had a weird relationship, to begin with. It was a relationship that wasn’t supposed to be but still came to be against most odds.
What are the odds that you’d meet someone on a tour boat you weren’t even meant to go on, who’d agree to teach you surfing unconditionally and every day?
What are the odds I’d have an extra bed in our hotel room so he could crash?
What are the odds someone would be so willing and eager to show me his home in the woods?
What are the odds that I’d be turned away at LAX airport and return the next day to the same town, only to stay for another 1.5 weeks?
What started as an innocent plea to learn surfing turned into us hanging out daily in the 10 days I had on the beach town, and then an additional 1.5 weeks (with me sneaking him into my hostel to hang out on most evenings).
Was it fate? Was it destiny? Was it luck? Was it initiative? Was it Jeff’s instigation?
There were so many permutations where this couldn’t have gone right. He might not have contacted me even though I gave him my number. I would have left for LA and never seen him again. He could have been so caught up with work that we wouldn’t have had time to hang out much.
Part 2 – Oaxaca, Mexico
It all started with an innocent invitation to join me in Mexico for 2 weeks. On my dime. That’s the kind of generosity I’d never offered before. A no-strings-attached return flight to Mexico to have fun?! What came over me?
Once upon a time, there was a time when I’d been so fortunate to receive so much no-strings-attached generosity and kindness that I felt the obligation to pay it forward, when it felt right.
When you’ve travelled enough, you can’t help but draw comparisons between the circumstances some people are born into and your own.
And immense gratefulness overflows you.
Living in a mansion in Bocas Del Toro, the only son of the owner is born into a home where there are more surfboards than a surf shop could own. (For context, a surfboard costs a couple hundred dollars each.) He needn’t want for anything.
Meeting Selassie who had to work as a child to earn his own keep (and buy his own Gameboy), what struck me was his humble yet generous attitude. He offered to teach me surfing without charge. He offered to show me his favourite hangouts on his bike without hesitation.
What struck me most was his fluency in English, which showed his zest for learning that comes innately, not forced upon him and not entitled to have.
It was a far cry from most of the locals I met, who couldn’t really string complete sentences together even though they work in tourism, and he was still in his teens! Sure, it wasn’t perfect; some conversations throw me off, and others would lead to miscommunication. A few would end up in frustration on both sides because of the “broken telephone” phenomenon.
For instance, in the conversation I had with him about his siblings, he’d tell me he has 4 brothers, when really he has 2 brothers and 2 sisters.
In the brief time that I knew him, I was already impressed at how much he knew about ocean life. His passion for the sea was apparent. He was such a hardworking, keen learner who was bound by the circumstance he was born into.
In my years of travel, I’ve learned that many people have not and will not ever step out of their country due in part to their closed-mindedness, but mostly due to financial constraints.
Something in me clicked when I thought how much he could get out of real-world travels, both mental and emotional stimulation. Especially with someone who’s so eager to learn, genuine, intelligent and street smart, the sheer thought of being able to empower an individual and experience the world the way the world has offered me was good enough reason to get him that ticket.
I’m privileged to have one of the strongest passports in the world and be able to travel flexibly. Travel has changed me, down to my very core. I can go on forever and unpack the layers that travel has peeled off me and built on me. I’m not the same person before I spread my wings. I’ve built an identity through travel.
From all my years of travel (50 countries now at the end of 2022!), it’s now less about crossing off destinations as it is about spreading the impact that travel has on one’s identity. My personal meaning for travelling is evolving.
Was it pity? Was it admiration? Was it infatuation? Was it generosity?
Call it serendipity, and even though he had to get a passport within 2 weeks to make it for the flight (keep in mind he has never flown a plane before), he said yes!
Zipolite, Oaxaca, Mexico
That reunion at Oaxaca airport was a really heartwarming one, even though we still hardly knew each other. I’d just come from a vulnerable state, having my most expensive equipment stolen the day before by the only person I knew (and thought I could trust) in a foreign city, Playa Del Carmen.
We’d somehow developed rapport and trust in the short time we’d spent in Costa Rica together. I’m usually not a bad judge of character (except when I got my belongings stolen by a friend/ stranger and fell for the wrong man in Hawaii), and Selassie’s authenticity was unmistakable.
Sometimes I feel I trust too easily. The bond I’d started to form with him started to deepen, and it deepened quickly, even though I knew I had to keep my feelings in check, because saying goodbye to someone you’ve become used to being with is just the worst feeling in the world for a travelling muse. This was all while knowing we wouldn’t be together infinitely.
We’d really gotten into the rhythm of living together. Him helping me with translations and me making travel decisions. Us experimenting and sharing food together. Going food shopping together (one of my favourite things to do is hunting down local produce).
As our intended 2 weeks neared the finality, we had to bring up a taboo subject: To leave or not to leave.
As fate would have it (or should I “as COVID-19 would have it”), all of his classes were, for this one exception, virtual.
Part of me had hoped that he’d caught the travel bug, but the more selfish part of me would’ve missed his companionship if he were to choose to board the return flight.
I was secretly (or not so secretly) hoping he’d want to stay with me and travel together as much as I did. I honestly wasn’t ready yet to go solo after months of travelling with people. Shopping’s always more fun when there are two. Cooking would be so much easier if you were not just cooking for yourself…
Part 3 – Dominican Republic
Read: Worst Holiday Nightmare? Airbnb Break In In The Dominican Republic
Part 4 – The Parting.
Honestly, I’m not even sure what to call what we have. All I can say is it’s been really reassuring knowing there’s always someone I can run to when I close a new deal/ client and do a happy dance with, someone I can talk through my frustrations and struggles with, and sometimes just talking anything out loud helps me figure my way out of my own excitable entrepreneurial brain containing the labyrinth of crazy thoughts.
He’s emboldened me to embrace the childlike fearless adventurousness in me, to let go of the need to be clean and step into the dirt, to step away from technology and trust my instincts. To walk in the dark, to be okay with getting lost, to feel safe knowing that a dead phone is not the end of the world.
When was the last time you let your phone battery die?
His humility taught me resilience. His fearlessness taught me perseverance.
Since being on my own, I’ve seemed to lose my purpose of travelling when he’s not in the picture. My motivation seems to stem from wanting him to experience new things.
Like going on a road trip, exploring the outskirts of Costa Rica, taking a public bus on an expressway for the first time (yes he’d never been on one until Lima, Peru!), teaching him how to properly rock climb with equipment (previously he just climbed trees), living in luxury through my sponsored collaborations, him experiencing the cold for the first time in Bolivia, mountaineering in sub 0 degrees at over 5000m in altitude, etc.
Through this time with him, I also learned something about myself. I’d learned that offering travel opportunities (read: life learning opportunities) to the less privileged fuels me. That there’s nothing happier than hearing someone tell me they’re travelling solo for the first time, that they’re conquering their fears and realizing they’re more than they thought they were. More resilient, more courageous, more street smart. More adaptable, bolder, and more outgoing.
And I want to help make travel more accessible to all.
Sure, I want to explore new destinations still, but it took me a whole great deal of inertia to finally book the flight out of Costa Rica to Guatemala to cross off a new destination on my own. Between choosing to spend more time with him at home and visiting a new country, I’d been battling between these 2 options throughout the whole of May.
I often find myself at the crossroads of having to choose between the head and the heart. And you know what I’ve always leaned towards…
But not this time.
This time, I knew I had to live by my philosophy of never doing things with regret. To not live with the “what if”s.
If I gave Guatemala a pass, I may not visit it in the near future, since I knew I wouldn’t be back to Central America anytime soon.
Carpe diem.
We knew we had this day coming. We knew it from the beginning. I don’t know if any relationship started with the end in mind, but ours sure did.
As much as I’d tried to protect myself from going too deep, it was hard not to let the heart take its own course.
In the days leading to my flight out, I’d spend moments in a daze, gazing out the window, a million memories flashing by in that heavy mind of mine.
Surfing at La Punta. Yeah, that’s him!
Catching glimpses of him coming back from his surf instructing trips from my hotel room in Tamarindo, jumping down waterfalls, cycling on the roads of Bocas Del Toro, crashing in the barrels (me gasping for air) while surfing together, lying on the deck of the catamaran stargazing in Tamarindo, making Vietnamese spring rolls in Puerto Escondido, zoning out at the rooftop of our guest house smoking weed, holding hands in taxi rides, competing for attention with a stray dog in Puerto Angelito, off-roading on the worst paved roads in the Dominican Republic as cows and palm trees pass us by, barefoot exploring caves…
I’m curious to hear your thoughts about this different style of post you see on the blog. DM me on IG/ FB to tell me what you think.
Besos.
