Category Archives: Travel diary

SF

by jose

I had not seen him for over two years. I remember it well. Ladina and I had made a short trip to Paris, to see family, friends, and celebrate New Year’s Eve in the City of Light.

We made a call at his apartment one evening, the one he shared with Thomas at the time, another very good friend of mine: we all had known each other during classe préparatoire, that oh-so intensive two-year course aiming to make us enter the most prestigious schools of France. We had struggled together, endured together, stuffed our sleep-deprived brains with ludicrous amounts of knowledge, and had become close all the while. And we had left it, more disgusted by the pompous and arrogant elitism of it all, and by the dysfunctional educational and academic system of the Western world, than elevated to any prestige. But I had come out with the best friends I am to ever make, and for this I will never regret it.

Maël was there and as always, it felt like we had seen each other but the day before. Before I knew it, we were sitting on the floor watching Machete with a steak in our plates. He told me he was going to study a (third) Master degree in Berkeley, San Francisco Bay Area — or how he put it: “J’vais à SF” — and that was the last I saw of him.

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In the Bay Area

by ladina

The Caltrain came to a halt and dozens of IT specialists from different companies located in the Silicon Valley spilled out of the suburban train. As we waited for them to clear the way before getting on, our backpacks shouldered and exhausted from the twelve-hour flight from Auckland to San Francisco, a man with Google Glasses caught my eyes. Was he screening me? Or just checking his emails while walking? I could not stop staring at him. It was surreal and frightening. The doors of the train beeped, calling me back to reality,  and I swiftly got on the train before the doors closed behind me.

Oh brave new world; that is quite a change from the isolated, calm New Zealand to the heart of today’s technological development area. Hello Silicon Valley!

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Tongariro Crossing

by jose

To me and probably the whole Westernized world — minus the Māoris — Mount Ngauruhoe will only be remembered as Mount Doom, just like Nemo is the new name of the clownfish.

Difficult, then, not to imagine Frodo and Sam clambering up the rocky slopes of this volcano as I am peering at it. And where is the cave they entered to throw the Ring into the lava? I can’t see it. What? It was only a movie?

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Recipes against homesickness

by ladina

After one whole year of traveling, I had the first real blow of homesickness when we arrived in Wellington. I longed for my own room, my family and friends, for Swiss German, known places and European food. Constantly being on the move, meeting unknown people, discovering new places and cultures — I was fed up with all those realities that are the traveler’s day-to-day life. I needed a break, time to breathe and recover. Cooking my favourite dishes, drinking coffee and chatting with beloved ones on the other side of the globe helped a lot to ease my sadness and to start thinking forward again.

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Back in Te Anau

by jose

“Are you vegetarian?”

I goggled at the woman until it came to me it was a serious question.

“Um, no, why?”

“Oh Andrew couldn’t remember if you were vegetarian or not. You’re having tea at his place aren’t you? He’s cooking mussels.”

That is how, after having vainly looked for Andrew at his work, we ended up knowing we were having mussels for dinner before his colleague actually gave us the directions to his new house. The Hills had moved since my last visit, and apparently, they now lived a bit out of town.

We drove and turned back a few times before finding the house, set amidst meadows and pastures — and a golf course. As we went up the driveway, we had to pull over to let a 4WD pass the other way. Andrew was at the wheel.

“Hey guys! We’re just going sailing with Arlo — they’re in the back, in the garden! See you this evening!”

And he drove on.

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On the Milford Road

by ladina

Intrigued by the pictures of Milford Sound that haunted us from tourist guidebooks and postcards, we set out to discover New Zealand’s most famous fjord on our own. The Milford Road, probably one of the most spectacular highways I ever drove on and which leads — as the name suggests — to the sound, invited us to stop at many sites to absorb the beauty of nature. Once arrived at Milford Sound, a two-hour cruise took us through the fjord and out to the open sea. The crisp air, the morning sun and the misty clouds hanging in the green mountains composed a serenity that brought deep pleasure to my heart. The pictures only convey a small impression of the whole scenery, but being there, living it, proved me once again how precious traveling is, allowing you to feel those places.

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Otago Peninsula, New Zealand

by ladina

New Zealand, one of the countries on the very top of my list, awaited us with new adventures: the very first and most demanding consisted in driving on the “wrong” side. We decided to rent a small car for our time in NZ, a little extra to our backpacker’s existence which would allow us to visit more secluded places and give us a whole new feeling: freedom to go wherever we wanted to, whenever it pleased us, without depending on others.

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Magnetic & Whitsunday Islands

by jose

“… The car ferry is cheaper, isn’t it?”
“Well, yeah, but you’d have to cross the bridge and then walk a fair distance to get ‘ere.”

I thanked the driver and clumsily got off the bus — with my backpack and the groceries in my hands, I was unable to turn around. The doors closed and the bus went on its way, to the Sealink ferry. The one we would not take.

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See you, somewhere

by jose

I find it particularly adequate that up to the last hour before parting, we were still furiously playing coinche, our favorite card game, as if wherever we were, and whatever happened, was only a background to our most important activity. Like everytime we had been together. Since August.

The time finally arrived when we really had to move to the restaurant for a last meal together; and the world abruptly came back to us. Marine and Guillaume shouldered their backpacks from their last hotel room after a year spent traveling across Asia, and we set out on the sand under the palm trees. The sea was, as ever, singing its unending song; that day it was one of farewell.

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