Sometimes it’s the People, Not the Places

I read this  great post by one of my favorite travel bloggers, Jodi from Legal Nomads this week, and it brought back some happy thoughts about folk I’ve met over the years, and that I’d written about one chance meeting for some competition or other last year. It didn’t win, or even get a mention, so I am free to reproduce it, because I think it’s a story worth the telling:

I hadn’t slept well, despite the airport hotel’s comfy bed. My first flight had been delayed, so I’d arrived at Heathrow late, set the alarms on both cell phones, asked for an alarm call from reception for back up, and tumbled into bed. Still my subconscious worried about missing my flight to North Carolina, and when all the bells went off next morning, it was clear to me that I’d wasted money on the hotel room. I could have gotten as much sleep on the airport floor.

I made the flight. I had a window seat, and was all set to sleep away the next six hours.  I organized my space, and crossed my fingers that my fellow travellers wouldn’t turn out to be jumbo-sized chatterboxes, who would disturb me.

“Hiya, I’m Mandy,” a beautiful, fragile-looking, young black woman beamed as she slid her bags into the overhead rack, and sank gracefully into the aisle seat. I introduced myself, we made small talk and it was time for take-off.

She turned out to be the perfect travel companion. We joked about airline food, talked about our destination and the weather inLondon. She didn’t intrude when I read. She exuded a kind of tranquil excitement, but she seemed to be a seasoned traveler.

Unable to place her accent more precisely than “African” I asked her at some point where she came from, and she replied, “Sudan.” Her answer filled me with both curiosity and an overwhelming need to be tactful. It’s not as if she’d said, “Amsterdam,” and I would have replied that I’d been there, and we could exchange experiences.

During the course of the previous couple of years  I’d met lots of refugees from Africa, very few of whom had been from Sudan, a country whose atrocities occupied headlines daily, leaving one with a feeling of despair and helplessness. I felt sympathy but didn’t know how to express it, sitting there in my western skin.

It was as we began our descent that I probed a little, and she explained, charmingly, that she had had some horrific experiences, but that she preferred not to talk about them.  She had, however, written a book, and she jotted down its name, “Slave,” and her name, which turned out to be Mende (and not Mandy, as I’d thought I heard) Nazer.

As I breezed through immigration I turned back to look, and she seemed to be, as she had predicted, having a hard time.

I didn’t see her again, but first thing next day I went to Borders to buy her book, and then I spent most of the next, two days reading it. Mende had had a happy childhood (excepting the trauma of female circumcision), until the day that her village was raided by the Mujahidin. To read a first-hand account of this, as opposed to neutral  reportage, is to feel the terror. I felt the dust in my throat, a deep fear in my belly and rising anger as I read.

It’s hard to describe in a few words how she was thereafter sold into slavery in Khartoum; how she survived, literally,  on scraps from her masters’ tables; how she learned to appear to be subservient in order to spare herself from further violence; how, unbelievably she was presented as a gift to family members in London, and lived in the heart of democracy as a slave; and how, finally, she managed to escape with the help of  Damien Lewis, with whom she co-authored her book, and others.

I’d travelled around 5,000 miles to North Carolina on that visit, but my internal journey had been far greater. It was a learning experience I will never forget. I hadn’t been to Sudan, but as a result of travelling I’d met this extraordinary young woman, and learned about things I didn’t know were still possible in this modern world. I was well aware of poverty, corruption and wars, but I didn’t know that slavery could exist on the scale it does. I’ve read a lot more about modern slavery since then. I sent Mende’s book to an American friend when I left, and I’ve bought other copies to give away. Her story is terribly important, and if she hadn’t sat next to me on a routine flight from London to the US, I would never have known about it.

Travel can broaden the mind in more ways than one. Often it’s the people and not the place which define our travel experience.

Granadilla de Abona

Writing this blog post for tenerife.co.uk a few weeks back I needed to go up to Granadilla de Abona to take some snaps. I’d wanted to see if the floral crosses from El Día de la Cruz were still worth photographing too. So photos were very much on my mind, and an early start was called for. I’m lucky in that I actually like early mornings. I think I’ve said it before, but give me a sunrise over a sunset any time.

After using the photos I needed there were one or two left over, and I thought you might like to see them. There were a couple I really liked there. Granadilla de Abona lies in the foothills, about fifteen minutes’ drive from El Médano.

The parish church of San Antonio de Padua surveys the town from a slightly elevated church square. The original church was destroyed by fire, and this was constructed in the early 18th century, the bell tower being added in 1885. Frequently, when I’m showing visitors around they remark that architecture reminds them of South America. The reason being that, of course, the history of the Conquest of Tenerife follows a very similar timeline to that of the Americas.

The Senderos de Abona Hotel Rural  is sited right opposite the church. I haven’t used it at all, but if the exterior restoration, and its attention to detail, are anything to judge by, it seems very inviting. Perhaps further investigation is needed, methinks.

Some pictures of floral crosses in the street between the church and the hotel from El Día de la Cruz which didn’t make it into the original post.

We stayed mainly in two areas, because that’s where the crosses were. The street up from the church has some nice details too.

These plants growing on the roof of the building in the other photos. Maria challenged me to get the bee in the photo – he’s a bit blurry, but I did!

Calle Arquitecto Marrero lies close to the town hall and other public buildings. It’s a quiet street, especially at 9am on a Saturday morning, and many of its buildings have been restored. It reeks of charm.

That said, the restoration bit, I mean, don’t we love the ones which haven’t been restored? Don’t we wonder what stories they could tell? What secrets are hidden behind rusting locks on warped doors?

Walking back to where we’d left the car, close to the town hall, we walked along the main street. It’s narrow, and sadly traffic-choked most of the time during the day. It’s an odd mixture at attempts at modernization and some seriously rickety old buildings, but hard to photograph on account of the traffic. Civic pride is quite evident, however.

Mural depicting rural life in Granadilla of yesteryear on a building on the main street.

Under the cloud you should just be able to make out El Teide and Alto de Guajara. Guajara marks the northern boundary of the municipality. View from the main street.

And lastly, simply because I loved the gaudy colors – which are ok because it’s a nursery school.

It’s so often the way here. I went meaning to get a couple of snaps for a short post, and some pictures of the floral crosses, but the more I saw and delved the more there was to know, but that’s for another post.

 

Crossing the Caldera

Missing the full impact of the sunrise I described (or at least tried to) in my last post I would normally have sulked (at best), but on that day I was able to be delightfully zen about the missed opportunity. Why? Because I was on my way to crossing an item of my bucket list, and that was to walk the Siete Cañadas trail, a walk which takes you some 16 kilometers, across the breadth of the caldera in the Teide National Park, from the parador to El Portillo, the crossroads where the downward journey to the northern side of the island begins. Crossing the top of the island you might say.

Pilar taking a closer look a local wildlife.

I’ve been hearing for a long, long time about this walk, that it’s a  challenge on a hot day; that it’s a journey through time – from the volcanic eruptions of pre-history, through the legends of the Guanches (the aboriginal island inhabitants); through the remains of more recent pastoral and colonial history to present day status as a World Heritage Site; that it’s a dream for photographers, botanists, birdwatchers and geologists; and that the surreal landscapes of the area, at times majestic, at times ghostly, are even more dramatic  at these close quarters.

All of that was true, and more.

I’d walked a part of the trail twice in recent months, around an hour into the four-and-a-half of the whole each time  (once en route to my memorable night sleeping in a cave before we diverged as it joined another trail, and once as a short walk a couple of weeks back), so my imagination was already in overdrive when we set out on Saturday from the village of La Camella, just above Los Cristinos.

The early start was utterly worth it. We passed hardly any other cars on our ascent, let alone buses or motorbikes. That alone was dream-like, curving lazily around the bends, slowing down when we passed something interesting, and relaxing for the walk ahead. When we alighted at the parador, which nestles in the heart of the crater, there was the faintest chill in the air, just enough to don  a light windbreaker, but we had risen above the cloud cover and the crystal clear skies promised heat in the hours ahead.

Looking back at Guajara, the moon was still high in the morning sky.

The beginning of the walk, if you set off from the parador end,  is, arguably, the most impressive part,  with its truly weird and twisted rock formations, and this was the part I already knew. The photographer in me was glad I’d done it before, because at 8.45 the sun was only just rising over the mountainsides, leaving the tortured volcanic shapes in shade. The picture below is from a previous visit.

More and more, as I walk this island, I realize how  connected its history is to the landscape. It flows out of its peaks and woodlands, and it’s almost tangible.  This route, on which we were setting out, previously called camino chasnero, was at one time the quickest way of connecting  north to south. Last Saturday we probably didn’t meet more than a couple of dozen walkers in the five hours we rambled, but it may well have been much busier in the past than it is today, as farmers  from the north, with mules laden with chestnuts, pigs, and farm implements, traveled southward, and figs, potatoes and cochineal were hauled north, and this was the easy part, the plains of the caldera, there were mountainsides to climb first and then to descend after the crossing. The stories remind me of those of the “Wild West,” of the wagon trains which crossed North America around this same time in history.

Along the way traders would have met goatherds and their flocks; folk hoping that the mountain air would cure illnesses like asthma, bronchitis or tuberculosis, and in later years scientists and astronomers studying earth and sky. The central plain is littered with crumbling, one-or-two-room buildings, which are probably a mixture of goatherds’ shelters and the simple cottages used by the infirm. I knew from January’s bivvy how cold it can get at night, and these simple buildings seemed totally inadequate protection!

Abandoned shelter and an army skeletons marching down the mountainside, the remains of last year’s abundance of tajinaste rojo.

Even before the route was used by farm folk taming and colonizing the island,  evidence suggests that it was used by  the Guanches. The mountainsides which form the wall of the caldera, like so many places here, are pockmarked by caves of some dimension or other, and archaeologists have found  remains, including mummified bodies along the route, most famously in Cañada del Capricho. Mummies have been found in these surreal rocks in caves so high up that they could only be accessed by modern climbing methods. How they were placed there remains just one of the mysteries which died with the Guanches. Of course it’s hard to separate fact and fiction now.

The Guanche princess Guajara is said to have thrown herself to her death from the mountain which now bears her name, as I mentioned back in January, but there are other versions of that story too, and somewhere the aboriginal beliefs and real history intertwined and soon became lost under the rule of the Conquistadors.  Guanche folklore, or as much as has been gleaned from the remnants of the past, told of the fire god, Guayota, who kidnapped the sun-god and hauled him down to the depths of hell through the portal which was the mountain top, El Teide.  Magec, the sun-god, was rescued by the god of gods, Achamán, who then trapped Guayota inside the mountain. Thought about logically, all of that makes prefect sense as an interpretation of volcanic activity by a Stone-age people. El Teide (or Echedye as it was called by the Guanche) was both feared and sacred.  When you walk Siete Cañadas he watches you, brooding, waiting. You can’t ignore or escape it. Its colors seem to change with the light or the angle from which you view it, its lava flows speaking of times even before the eruptions the Guanches remember.

Teide seen from the end of the walk.

Before man walked here, the earth’s violence scattered these plains  with rocks, boulders, pumice and finer sand, which were wrenched from its bowels and vomited over the landscape. Sometimes, in a field of small, black rocks you find an enormous, red boulder, which doesn’t fit with the other types of rock you see around. Was it flung from some more distant eruption? Which one? How far did it soar into the air before it landed just here?

This walk is far better than any theme park, back-to-the-future-type ride.

About half way we stopped to eat, seeking shade from the sun in one of those crumbling shelters, with Teide hovering above, all-seeing. Up to that point we had seen little fauna, but as we rustled our wrappers and bags, tiny eyes appeared at seemingly every crevice in the stonework, and a few, braver lizards came out to inspect us. Bird life apart, the zone’s fauna is mostly invertebrates, and I’m far from knowledgeable about them. Spiders’ webs decorated the space, strung between plants, but there was little sign of anything more to my ignorant eye.

El Teide from our “dining room” in an abandoned shelter.

Birds were another matter, thanks to Pilar, I have new knowledge of the birds of the high mountains. Kestrels, of course, are everywhere on the island. They swoop over autopistas; you look down them as they hover in valleys, their reddish feathers gorgeous in the sunlight, as you drive or walk upwards; and they soar above you at this height, perching on high rocks to survey their territory, as they did this day. I’ve seen the odd buzzard sometimes, and at the beginning of this walk we disturbed a couple of really brightly colored blue tits, as we approached our first tajinaste of the day. However, the treat of the day, and I got excited by Pilar’s enthusiasm, was when we heard what sounded like a gaggle of mini chickens, making a fair old din. It stopped us in our tracks, and Pilar, in stealth mode, neared the tangle of plant life from which it came. As she tiptoed closer another sound which I would never have identified as a bird. It was deep and sudden, and not at all animal-like, clearly a warning, which reminded me for all the world of some tone for a mobile phone. I stayed back for fear of disturbing them more than necessary, but it turned out to be a great grey shrike nest. We had already spotted one a couple of miles back. Eventually momma bird flitted off in search of sustenance, and I got a nice view as she scooted from branch to branch, her head with its Zorro-type mask cocked to listen for possible dangers. She was far too quick for my camera, though. I’m thinking that a serious birdwatcher might have a great old time there right now.

Lone tajinaste

From time to time as we walked there was a whisper of the scent of broom on the air, but whether it was that last year’s display of flora was so utterly magnificent that everything was worn-out and recuperating,  or whether two years of scant rainfall have taken their toll,  I have no idea, but nothing was as abundant. In fact, flowerings were sparse, the odd tajinaste (Tenerife’s emblematic plant) braved it here and there, fragments of the broom bushes were ventured into blossom, and here and there other species popped up. The skeletal ghosts of tajinaste still stood erect as reminders of last year’s opulence, and tangles of dead and dying broom were all around. At the southern end of the trail rosalillo were beginning to flower, but it was too soon to say if they will extend to the vast carpets we saw last year. At the northern end they were barely sprouting.

The “find” of the day, almost at the end of our trail, was a tajinaste picante, the  delicate, blue flowers looking vulnerable in the heat compared to the hot pinks of its sister the tajinaste rojo, and here was something new for me.

Tajinaste Picante. The only one we saw.

After the walk we called into the Visitors’ Center across the road from its ending, where I learned that the plant I thought was the tajinaste azul is actually tajinaste picante, and the blue variety grows only on the island of Fuerteventura. Looking at photos on the internet now I can see the difference, with the tajinaste azul being much bushier and denser, more akin to the familiar tajinaste rojo. I know a couple of years back I described plants I’d seen as tajinaste azul, so my apologies to anyone who may still be reading. I can’t tell you how much of a thrill it is to learn new stuff, though, especially when it’s about flora and fauna which occur nowhere else on the planet. It makes me realize what an amazing place I live in, how much there is to learn, and how lucky I am to be here when I can’t be in motion!

And as we near the end of the trail, we spy El Mar de Nubes (the sea of clouds) hovering over the northern coast. An utterly different scene from the parched plains we’ve just traversed.

Notes: The National Park (one of the earliest created in Spain in 1954) entered the 21st century with the added honor of being a World Heritage Site, having received the award in 2007. In the citation it is described as being “well managed and resourced,” and I couldn’t see anything to make me disagree with that. We came across only one piece of obvious litter, and, sadly, of the sort we didn’t want to pick up and remove with bare hands. Note to the ladies – we all have “calls of nature” when hiking, but please, please carry a bag to take the paper you use away with you!! This was a very easy walk, with no sharp gradients. Last Saturday there was a very welcome breeze, but in summer it must be very hot, it’s very important you take sufficient water, sun screen and protection for your head. There is no shade at midday at all. It’s described, variously as four or four and a half hours. We took five because we stopped to look at flora and fauna, to take snaps and to eat, so if you intend to walk both there and back it’s a long walk. If you do one way, as we did, you need to note the bus times to return you from the end of your walk to your car or back home. They are infrequent, but comfy and air-conditioned :=)

All my pictures were shot in automatic mode, because that’s what I do when I’m hiking with friends who are not as nuts about photography as I am. They’re snaps. If any turn out to be “photographs” there is a lot of luck involved!

When I was in the parador some weeks back I picked up a great book in their gift shop, “Flora and Fauna del Parque Nacional del Teide” by Juan Manuel Martínez Carmona and Francisco Torrents Rodríguez, which I used to check information. I don’t know if there is an English translation, but it’s a good, little resource with loads of information set out in easy-to-read style, and with lovely sketches, although the few photos, describing walks at the end, are less good. I hesitated about buying it, given the state of my bank account, but I’m really glad that I did. I can see it’s going to be much-used.

The Best Sunrise You’ll Never See

I have to be out of the house by 7ish this morning, so we here we are at 6.30, Trixy and I, walking along the sea front in the semi-light, watching the white phantoms which are wave tips moving across the immense, grey mass which is the ocean.

Yesterday it rained, a very unusual event for the south of this island in June, and menacing clouds still hover, making the normally dry air humid. As yet there isn’t even that thin line of light on the horizon announcing the sun’s arrival, but shapes are becoming clearer as dawn seeps into day.

Above, a huge, purple-grey cloud is still. It hovers like ET’s starship, foreboding and immense. To the east, it tapers, making a triangular shape, so that its tip rests over the Montaña Pelade headland, making it look as if it’s emerging from the mountain. Its folds, like threatening chunks of dirty cotton wool, merge into its gloomy volume, but I know that as the sun appears it will wash the edges of the clouds which make up this conglomeration and turn them pink and then red, and finally suck the grey out of it all.

But I have to go, an early appointment calls, and I turn for home. As I drive out of the garage and onto the still-quiet streets the sun is still not risen, but the day is brighter. I join the autopista, it’s weekend and the traffic is light. I let my mind wander to the walk ahead of me.

There is something like a flash in my wing mirror, and I glance over. There, reflected in the mirror, as if it’s a tv screen, is a fantasy sunrise, the one I imagined. That ominous purple triangle is turning rosy around its edges, then red, then orange, and the colors spread and leak all over the sky. My heart aches to stop and whip out the camera, but it would be a waste, better just to watch in my mirror and enjoy. Soon the whole cloud is crimson, and then, quickly, because that’s how it happens here, the sun, early-morning but powerful drains the cloud’s color, until it’s just another large cloud in the sky. In a few minutes it will break up, disperse, and the heavens will be blue for the rest of the day.

I love early mornings.

Saturday June 9th

Just an Average Island Day

At 6.30am El Médano wears a very different face from its usual sunny but breezy one.  There’s a faint chill in the air, little wind (it blows in with the sunshine), the  lights in the square  are still atwinklin’, but there are no kids skateboarding beneath them, and the air clanks with the sound of dumpsters and recycling bins being emptied, and the whoosh of the high pressure hose as streets are cleaned.

Trixy and I place hesitant feet (well, paws in her case) on the damp pavement.  Sometimes the paving they use here gets dangerous when wet. Trix is always suspicious in the dark,  she sniffs along less than usual and sticks close to my legs.

I hang around at the end of the street, where pavement meets beach, waiting for her to do that which she has to do, when a beaten-up old truck passes slowly by, then reverses.  I tense.  Now I’m the suspicious one, and I hope that Trixy looks suitably fierce, even when performing her toilet.  However, they are simply surveying the dumpsters to see if there is anything worth taking before the council truck arrives to empty them.

It’s a familiar kind of sight these days. When I moved last  I put out some old, surplus furniture alongside the containers, and it disappeared within the hour, possibly to be tarted up and reappear at the car boot sale. I admire the entrepreneurial spirit of these guys.  They don’t let pride get in the way of their trying to keep body and soul together – unlike some of us.  I shudder.  It’s a thought which has crossed my mind in these times, the need to get so desperate, especially since my pension rights got lost in the fog of bureaucracy.

The sun announces its imminent appearance in a thin, bright light which ekes along the edge of the low cloud which is hugging the horizon. A brighter flash, like the gleam of a lighthouse, and then it emerges, slowly, but much quicker than it does further north. Soon it is a flaming sphere, balanced on those clouds, melting those clouds, and I have to look away.

We return home, greeting neighbors on a similar mission to ours. Feed Trixy, mop the floor, the coffee is ready and welcome. I swear I feel it touching each nerve in my body to bring it to life. I know it doesn’t work like that, but the notion helps wake me fully. Breakfast, shower, dress, check emails and Facebook and Twitter, then the big question: how many hits did the blog get yesterday? I know it isn’t important, but, dammit, there is a little thrill when it proves to be more than normal. I’m certainly not in the big time, and not sure I even want to be, but it’s nice to know that people actually read what I write.

Toss Trixy a biscuit and head out the door. It’s just after 9, and the autopista isn’t too bad. May through June is low season, and this year especially as the recession grinds unceasingly on, so traffic is light. I pull into the Vehicle Inspection Center, my van is due for its biannual check over. There is no queue (things are improving!), and the paperwork is quick, drive to lane indicated and honk the horn, brake when instructed and wiggle the wheel a lot. It passes. Phew! I find this on a par with going to the dentist, always afraid it will result in them finding something wrong which will result in a big bill.

Stop by the supermarket. Drive into Los Cristianos. The fountain at the town’s entrance looks bright and inviting against the sky’s intense blue. It’s hot and sticky in the car, and I have to seriously resist the impulse to stop & climb into it! Post office, book store, bank, office supplies, record store to sell some unwanted cds. I walk slowly back to the car park, enjoying the warmth and the fresh air, envious of the folk on the beach – but then, they’re probably envious of me, living here. Backpackers scurry past, bent under the weight of their packs, heading for the ferry to another island. The sight of it makes my feet itch.

Back to El Médano. I park the car in the garage, unload the shopping, whizz Trixy to the end of the road, and then toss her another biscuit as I close the door again. I meet a friend for lunch in Cafe M on the boardwalk. We order loops, a kind of bagel which they overfill with salad stuff and meat or fish as you choose, and large intense fresh fruit juices. Nothing stops the chatter, though. We laugh and we people watch, and we lay plans for a future hike, talk of future journeys, and I idly wonder why we are sitting next to the beach and not on it.

It doesn’t take long to answer that question. I have a class at 5, and haven’t finished preparing it yet, so I make a move. I walk slowly again, because, well, I’m just that way out today. Sort of “Stop the World, I Want to Get Off!”  I stop to smile at the latest sand sculpture on the beach, reluctant to leave.

I’d rather stop in this bar by the harbor and have a mojito or two.

I’m not in a working mood at all today, but I turn the key, clear the table and settle down to finish what I should have done yesterday.

5pm my students arrive. Lethargy is out the window. It’s a good lesson. Sometimes I enjoy teaching ESL so  much that I feel guilty being paid to do this, but I love the feeling when I know that students have grasped something, are improving, more confident. We also laugh quite a lot.

6.30 It’s too hot for June. I skip across the plaza for an ice cream. I don’t even want my favorite Chocolate Brownie, I choose refreshing passion fruit, and sit on a bench overlooking the harbor to enjoy it before it melts. I stop, as I almost always do when passing through Plaza Roja to gaze at my favorite piece of Médano sculpture, entitled Homage to Magellan. Its original and bold, and he looks out to sea, dreaming of places over the ocean, planing voyages and biding his time.

Time for another walk. I don’t enjoy evening walks nearly as much as morning ones,when we are almost alone, when I feel as if the world is ours. In summer we don’t see much of the sunset. Children squeal in the playground. Skateboarder dudes scud past. Trixy sniffs other dogs. Other dogs sniff Trixy. The waves cream onto the pebbles, and a few hopeful windsurfers coax some mileage out of the light breeze.

Soup, salad. Resist the strong desire for a cold beer (tomorrow is a run day). Check emails, and Facebook and Twitter and stats. I sit here and write this. Amazingly I have three early starts lined up over the next three days, so at just after 10 it’s time for bed.

This in response to a question my friend and I asked ourselves yesterday, “What do we do all day?” This wasn’t a creative nor an adventurous day, it wasn’t especially happy nor sad. I didn’t angst because I couldn’t find the right word, or curse the inefficiency in some office or other. I didn’t walk or run or climb or swim, though I do all of those things from time to time, some more than others.  It was ordinary. Too many of these and I would get bored! This was a slow, leisurely day, if it hadn’t been I couldn’t have written this. It’s a snapshot of an average, slow, leisurely day. It’s doing the sorts of things women the world over do, the difference is that my backdrop is kind of nice, isn’t it? And because this place, much as I love it, isn’t my home I still have that tingly feeling that I’m just passing through. OK, OK it’s been a long sojourn, and the island’s tentacles have proved to have a long reach whenever I’ve been away for too long, but, still it will “do” for now. That said, it’s been interesting to note how many times in a day I reference travel, even on a day when I don’t read about it or watch tv………..

Can you be too old to stay in a hostel?

A friend remarked recently that I’d lived my life the wrong way round, and I have to agree that’s true in some ways! It’s certainly true that I’d stayed in quite grand hotels before “poverty” made hostels the norm. One advantage of doing it that way round has been that I now feel quite unfazed by any type of accommodation – so long as it’s reasonably clean. Still, I had my list of doubts about whether it was a way of traveling with which I would be comfortable.

It took a long time for the penny to drop, and that partly because, despite (or because of!) the zillions of blog posts I’ve read over the last nine years or so, I still had an image of hostels as being full of  swinging teens, partying their way around the world. I thought that, at 60+, I would be the fish out of water, the square peg in the round hole, that I would stick out like a sore thumb.

My first hostel experience, in Guildford, England,  was only around three years ago, and  I was very hesitant about it. I was nervous that everyone else would be 40 years my junior; I was nervous about the safety of my laptop and camera (let’s face it, if I hadn’t bought the camera I might have been staying in a hotel & not a hostel that time!); and I was nervous that the name YMCA meant what it said – that my booking would be refused when I arrived, and they saw I was neither male, nor young, nor Christian! (OK they might not be able to see I wasn’t Christian, but don’t they have some sort of spiritual antennae or would there be some sort of test, knowledge of the Bible, perhaps?……but it was the only hostel in town, so there wasn’t any choice.   I was far too nervous to book a dorm, so I splashed out on a private room.

The very best thing about the hostel in Guildford is that it is just around the corner from this idyllic scene, and it’s lovely to take sandwiches & sit by the river & feed the ducks & just enjoy.

As it turned out, they didn’t look at me as if I was the freaky old woman down from the hills when I checked in – first relief! The attitude wasn’t what I’d read about though. Where were these friendly young receptionists, probably travelers themselves, earning a crust to see them on their way? I stayed there a couple more times over the next few months, and don’t believe I ever saw a smile. I felt guilty. That feeling that I shouldn’t be there was reinforced, although there were folk of every type coming and going. Perhaps they really did think I was some frugal old broad too mean to stay in a hotel? The room and the shared bathroom were both very basic and very worn, but also quite clean. It was, in short, just the sort of place I’d always thought hostels were like before they became trendy. It wasn’t my worst nightmare by any stretch of the imagination, but I hated it. It was depressing. I felt as if I was a nuisance any time I asked anything at the desk, and it made me feel kind of faceless and grey, but my laptop was still there at the end of the day when I returned at least, having left it quite unprotected in my room.

Happily, that was the worst experience. The next was far better. It was almost everything a good hostel experience should be, although, it was Sevilla, and who wants to hang around the hostel when you’re in Sevilla?! Maria and I had a double room in the Samay Hostel. It was colorfully decorated in a kind of hippie meets IKEA sort of way, and the location couldn’t have been better, slap bang in the middle of the historic heart of the city, so we were able to walk absolutely everywhere. Our room was located around the corner from the main building overlooking a leafy square, full of that old city sort of charm. The bathroom was immaculate. The staff were the young travelers I’d expected, but they were knowledgeable and helpful. Atop the main building was a delightful azotea, where we imagined would be a great place for hanging out and meeting other travelers. We didn’t simply because we kind of had a schedule to keep.  There was generally a queue for the computers, so we went around the corner to a very nice café to use the wifi, and it turned out to be the place to go, as it was obviously widely used.

View from the azotea (roof terrace) of Samay Hostel in Sevilla

Via the hostel we arranged to go on a walking tour, and that was when the penny dropped, and some of the illusions I had about hostels fell away. Our guide picked up first at Samay. We were the only customers that day, and we then scuttled around the other hostels in the area, collecting more punters, and as Filipo, our guide, emerged from each doorway with people in tow, I realized just what an eclectic  bunch we were. I probably wasn’t even the oldest! There were all nationalities, all types, all ages. It was a personal eye-opener that there were folk of my age, and that there were folk who really wanted to know about the culture of the city. They were interesting to talk with and already well-informed about where they were – totally unlike hotel experiences I’d had in the past with people who only wanted to boast about their own lifestyles, and who hadn’t a clue about where they were, let alone anything about its history.

Heartened at last by this great experience I booked a dorm (ok, let’s go for it!) for my next-but-one destination in York, England. If I was going to have a true hostel experience it was time to get realistic, not to mention that funds were dwindling! The great thing about booking hostels or anything else today, is that you can get an idea from the internet as to what to expect before you arrive, and with two differing experiences now under my belt I was curious about my next. It really helped the still-nervous me that it came recommended by a fellow blogger, Barbara from HoleintheDonut, a far more widely traveled lady then I.

Section of York’s well-preserved Roman wall, just a couple of minutes from Ace Hostel.

The Ace Hostel in York proved to be an altogether different experience again. For one thing it has oodles of history, dating back to 1753, so despite the fact that you share a dorm with 9 other people it still has a touch of that grand hotel feel about it. In fact, it deserves a post all of its own one day, so I won’t make this one any longer by describing the charms of Micklegate House. Micklegate itself is one of the city’s main, historic streets, and the original Roman wall lies just a couple of minutes from the hostel’s door, and just about anything else you might want is just a hop, skip and a jump.

Whilst my vast age has taught me to be reasonably confident in most situations, I can go a bit shy faced with a host of other people, so that first time I entered the key-coded room a bit tentatively. I’d chosen girls only. I’m pretty sure that I could never face a mixed dorm, although I stand to be corrected as experience grows and money dwindles! I needn’t have worried. The dorm of ten beds, was pretty full, but everyone was friendly, and if anyone wondered about a woman of my age being there no-one made it obvious, plus, later that evening another “mature” lady arrived, and down in the bar there were several people in my age bracket too. The beds were immaculate and comfy, and the staff friendly. I’ve stayed there three times more since then, using a private room when I thought arriving at 3am might disturb a dorm, and I swear I don’t know where those cleaning fairies come from, but it’s always spotless. The wifi’s pretty cool too, not in the rooms, but ample in the assigned room.

So – would I recommend women my age to forget their inhibitions and try a hostel? Absolutely!                     I appreciate that I have yet to experience hostels on other continents, but I think it was good to dip my toe in the water first. Just in the same way that if you have doubts about traveling solo you should start by taking yourself out for a solitary meal to test your reactions. The thought of less modern plumbing etc doesn’t worry this child of the late 40s at all. What would have worried me, had I not given them a try in Europe, is that I would have been a bit intimidated,  and been made to feel my age – something, apparently, I rarely do in the course of normal life. But it appears that there are thousands more of we, “mature travelers” having exactly the same experience, so that is most certainly crossed off my list of doubts. For sure there are more under 30s than over, and some are perhaps not over-friendly, but then, again, isn’t that typical of life in general? I’m sure that just as with life the exceptions will more than make up for the rest, and the opportunities for meeting folk, swapping stories and even making new friends are certainly more abundant than when you stay in a posh hotel…….not that there is anything at all wrong with a bit of luxury when you have the money and the inclination to truly wind down.