Advertisement
Published: November 7th 2014
Edit Blog Post
Tayrona National Park
Empty beach along the way to Cabo San Juan in Tayrona National Park Other than the tittle suggest this won't be about travel impressions, but about the impressions you leave behind. The impressions fellow travellers have off you. Fleeting impressions, and often wildly inaccurate. It's been on my mind for a while now, ever since San Blas actually where I seem to have made quite an interesting impression on some. I'm not saying that who I was there wasn't the real me, it was just a small part of who I am.
You see when you travel you adjust to the circumstances, to the people around you. At least I do. What happens is that one part of your personality might become more pronounced than another part, depending on who you are with.
So on the San Blas tour the social part of me came to the fore. I observed the group, adjusted accordingly and quickly made friends with those around me. At least I hope I did, maybe I made a lot of enemies instead... Either way, the dynamic in the group was such that a rather boisterous and festive part of my personality was awakened. Anybody who knew me only from the tour could easily come to the conclusion that
Tayrona National Park
Red ants carrying leaves, and they also bite!! I am a slightly crazy, party loving fellow. And they would be wrong! And right as well! Sure, I can be eccentric and with the right people I can drink and party, but it only last so long, and it is just one part of the person that is me.
Fast forward a week and those on the boat would not recognize who they saw. Serious, quiet, a loner perhaps, certainly not somebody you would ever think off as social. In San Gil and surroundings I had moved into travel mode, prioritizing what I wanted to see above being social. It's probably the part of me that gets the most exposure on my blogs. This is because the main aim of my travels is not to party, but to see, to experience, to discover. Drinking and partying costs money, money I rather spend on travelling. Sometimes chance brings me in a place and among a group of people who shift my priorities for a while to drinking and partying, but it never lasts long.
The me strolling the streets of Barichara admiring the architecture, or walking along the 'real camino' to Guane is a far cry from the
Tayrona National Park
Rui and Gabriela taking a refreshing dip along the way me on the San Blas tour, yet despite this both are facets of who I am.
But there are other impressions I leave behind. In Villa de Leyva a backpacker staying in my hostel was surprised about, what he called, my 'naivety' concerning my budget. The day before we had talked about our lives and since I had been travelling for such a long time he presumed that my experience would have given me a keen sense of what was, and was not feasible with the money I had on a certain trip. When he heard what my original plans were for this trip, versus what was on my bank account, he was flabbergasted that I had not seen the impossibility of what I wanted to do with the cash I had saved up.
I had clearly given him a false impression of my capabilities. Or had I? Maybe I always knew that my plans were slightly over-optimistic? Maybe I simply decided to see how far my money would take me? Maybe I was fine with changing my plans as I went along, discarding the parts which I knew only had a minuscule chance of ever becoming reality?
Tayrona National Park
Macho man... Our accommodation in the background So what if the Galapagos had been a long-shot, which looking at my account was probably never a realistic option? What he didn't realise was that I have a rather relaxed approach to my travels, I don't cling to plans, and while I will try to do the impossible with my limited funds, I am not fussed if I can't actually achieve everything I set out to do. My life revolves around travelling. If I have to skip something now, that's fine, I know I will be back one day and I will do it then.
His impression was based solely on one conversation, after which he had deduced certain traits which belong to the story I had told him. Long term traveller, means experienced traveller, means good with planning and budgeting. A general and fair assumption, but it only gets you so far.
And so the impressions continue. People who meet me off-the-beaten track, presume I am an adventurer dedicated to exploring only those hard to get places which main-stream backpackers eschew. How disappointed they would be if they saw me walking around Koh Phi-Phi Island in Thailand, or god-forbid, taking the San Blas Adventure tour!!
Tayrona National Park
View from our hammocks Some read my blogs and think I am spiritual, others read another blog and find me cynical, and yet others might see something else they like or don't like about me. Impressions, impressions, impressions. Who am I? Dr. Jekyll or mr. Hyde? Or both?
The truth is you can't place anybody in some box which neatly describes them. The only thing you can really tell from my blogs or when meeting me is that I love travelling. Everything else is mere speculation. And speculate you may, and judge, and assume, and you will always be both right and wrong.
Here I sit writing this blog in Bogota, in a hostel. A cheap one, a party hostel so it seems. But I won't party, I can't afford it, I don't want to. So what impression have I made here so far, what impression will I leave behind? Boring? Serious? Quiet? I don't know, I don't care, all I know is that I am going off to explore the city now. Bogota beckons.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.061s; Tpl: 0.023s; cc: 16; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0228s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
auspicious
Michelle Duer
Well put! Even outside of travel, in the day-to-day, we have so many parts of ourselves that seem to show themselves depending on the season, the company, or even the light of day. Really enjoyed this blog.