Friday, May 2, 2008

Rolling solo

Wanderlust interrupted


By JON DUVAL
Express Staff Writer

For some reason, whenever people discover that I went unaccompanied for the majority of my travels, I find myself on the receiving end of that look usually reserved for those who dine alone, sit by themselves at the movies and lepers with a bad case of whooping cough. In other words, with a mix of piteous revulsion because, obviously, there must be something wrong with me.

However, whereas trying to meet strangers in a theater runs the risk of arrest or physical violence, traveling solo has the power to transform a journey from standard tourist fare to a unique experience that can't be depicted in a photo of you in front of the Eiffel Tower or standing on a beach in a hideously flamboyant shirt.

Although traveling with a companion provides a sense of security that comes with a familiar voice, it also removes the necessity to reach out and make contact with others.

And it's these encounters that often lead to lasting friendships or simply brief glimpses into the generous nature of humanity.

On Christmas Eve 2005, I set off from Auckland, New Zealand, with the foolish ambition of riding my bicycle to Wellington, some 404 miles away, to meet a friend for the holidays.

Waking up in Hamilton the following day, having covered not even a quarter of the distance to my destination, I realized that it would be difficult to ride 20 miles, much less 200, without breakfast, but I had unwittingly forgotten that even in New Zealand it would be difficult to find a mince-meat pie on the holiest of days.

While a helicopter would have been preferable, the appearance of an open grocery store was a welcome site nonetheless. And an unwelcome site I must have been, sitting on the front curb attired in Lycra, slurping up yogurt without a spoon and surrounded by a number of banana peels.

Still, this didn't prevent a passerby from inquiring to my day's mission and, once she established that I was indeed sane despite my means of transportation for the trip, invited me to dinner with her family at their nearby farm.

Although I graciously declined and journeyed onward, which, by the way, saw me on a bus before the day was through, the 10-minute interaction remained on of the highlights of five years of travel.

Needless to say, such kindness is as about common as a warm spring day in Ketchum.

Could this have happened if I had been on a tandem bike? Perhaps, but not likely, and not just because people who ride tandem bikes are the cycling equivalent of synchronized swimmers.

Nor would I have heard the stories of Matt Rich, an Australian engineer helping construct an oil refinery on Sakhalin, the desolate island that makes up Russia's wild eastern frontier.

Braving either frostbite or inexorable swarms of mosquitoes, depending on the season, and belligerent Turkish laborers at all times, Rich would toil for seven straight weeks without break and then seek three weeks of salvation in some far-flung locale.

His time off could hardly be called relaxing, however, unless you somehow equate being on a bus commandeered at gunpoint by Maoist rebels in the Himalayas to a sandy beach in the Caribbean.

Of course, it would be irresponsible to say that all the benefits of traveling alone don't come at a price.

For every Matt Rich, there is a beautiful vista with no one to share it with, no one to verify how tough you were for humping a 40-pound pack on a back burned bright pink by an equatorial sun, or no one to remind you that it might not be a good idea to commence in-depth research on the effects of absinthe the night before an early flight.

Then again, maybe it is better to be alone when you're forced to regurgitate the inevitable and punishing results of your research.

Jon Duval is a staff writer for the Idaho Mountain Express.




 Local Weather 
Search archives:


Copyright © 2024 Express Publishing Inc.   Terms of Use   Privacy Policy
All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Express Publishing Inc. is prohibited. 

The Idaho Mountain Express is distributed free to residents and guests throughout the Sun Valley, Idaho resort area community. Subscribers to the Idaho Mountain Express will read these stories and others in this week's issue.