So, how did I get infected with this travel bug? First and foremost it’s probably in my blood. Both my parents have traveled all over and my mother had the good fortune to live abroad in several countries. But when I was a kid I was pretty normal. Sure we had family vacations to Colorado, California and northern Mexico but I was never obsessed with having to get my travel fix. So what happened? How did I become this serial traveler obsessed with stalking my next trip? I guess if I have to put my finger on it, it all started when I was 12 years old with my first experience living abroad.
The year was 1989. Batman had just hit the big screen, George Bush Sr. was the president of the U.S. and New Kids on the Block were at the height of their popularity. That summer my parents decided to send me down to Hermosillo, Mexico, to live with a family that spoke no English. I would be all by myself, but my sister would be in the same city living with another family.
It was a rough summer. They had a boy about my age, but being that we didn’t speak the same language I spent a lot of the time on my own. I used to look up the word bored in the Spanish-English dictionary I had to try and tell the family I was bored out of my mind, but the word that I came up with was “pesado,” which means heavy. I spent the entire summer telling them that their family was very heavy. Looking back I wonder if they had any idea of what I was talking about.
That experience could have easily done me in. A 12 year old boy cooped up in a foreign country where he didn’t speak the language and really made no friends? Not really a recipe to spark an interest in travel. However, my parents didn’t give up easily. They were determined that I was going to learn Spanish. This time they sent me back to Mexico to spend the summer in the small town of Opodepe.
When you think of a small town, Opodepe fits the bill. It is truly in the middle of nowhere. They have about 900 people in the town and it’s 4 hours from a big city. There is 1 mini supermarket and a couple of stores where you can buy snacks. They don’t have any restaurants and hot water is considered a luxury. In fact, water isn’t available at all during certain hours of the day. Opodepe truly is the quintessential small town.
That summer I went down to Opodepe to once again live with a family that didn’t speak English. This time I went with 4 of my best friends. We all lived in different houses and the families we lived with didn’t speak English. What an experience! That summer we had a blast. I don’t get back very often but when I do, they still remember me.
Maybe that’s where I got the travel bug? It could have been something in the water? Come to think about it, my piss came out orange a couple of times while I was there. Thinking back though, I still don’t believe I was totally infected at that point. It wasn’t until I went to Venezuela that I truly contracted the travel bug.
My father was heavily involved with Rotary International. We had decided to host an exchange student and this got me really excited to go on an exchange program myself. Initially, I wanted to go to Spain but apparently they had no slots for exchange students that year. I had to choose between Chile and Venezuela if I wanted to go to a Spanish speaking country. After much solid research and debate, I decided that I would go to Venezuela. Mainly because of their tremendous success in the Miss Universe pageants! I was a sixteen years old boy and pretty much had girls on my mind 24/7. Venezuela seemed like the logical choice.
I got to Venezuela a few days before my 17th birthday. For my birthday my host brother took me to a huge Latin dance club. I was told I needed to order a drink. In an effort to be cool I decided to order a strawberry daiquiri. After 5 minutes of non stop laughter I made a mental note to never order a strawberry daiquiri again. I begrudgingly downed a glass of whisky, which I also decided I can’t stand. Since then I have always made beer my drink of choice, especially when I travel. You can never go wrong with beer. Venezuela opened my eyes to so many things. It was the best year of my life and it influenced my love of travel considerably. With my true serial nature exposed I haven’t stopped since.
Hopefully you’ll find my travel stories entertaining and if you ever have the chance to travel with me I suggest a few things… make sure you’re fully insured, you’re open-minded, and you don’t have a problem being featured on National Geographic’s “Locked up Abroad.”
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