I came from a little town tucked away in the mountains in the corner of Colorado; and Denver and Albuquerque were the closest cities, and weren't even really that close. I had a lot of family in Denver. Just so happens, I also had a cousin who was on life support in Denver for a few years before they pulled the plug on him.
I loved my cousin Billy, we didn't get to share many memories, but he was definitely one of my favorite and most charismatic cousins of the family. He was the first to get me and my other cousin Michael petho, as we were heading to kindergarten or 1st grade super buzzed one day (fear not, we ALL got in trouble for it). I guess I cracked my head that day from what I hear. He had some problems in his young life that led him to attempt to take it, which lead to him being in a coma for several years until my aunt got tired of seeing him suffering. It was my first experience of grief that I remember. I didn't quite know what happened, or why, or understand, but I remember when he died. God bless and rest my cousin Billy's soul.
He became the reason that I first got to travel, and see a city, which was Denver, CO. When we pulled into the city and I saw that sea of lights and cars and buildings, I was overwhelmed. Right away I told myself I need to be here, or somewhere like this, I fell in love with the city at first sight. It was a euphoric feeling for me at the time. I remember arching my neck standing in the streets so far back, I almost fell backward trying to see the tops of skyscrapers.
A few years after that trip, I felt like I was big enough to go ahead and run away from home and head that way again, because it felt like that was where I had belonged. I hit the road with a small bag and a thumb up. Im sure I worried my mother near death and other family members. I never thought of how my actions affected other people back then, but I do now and can't imagine how my mother would feel with my 3 and a half foot tall, about10 year old ass took off on the road like that. Some super nice man bought me a hotel room for the night in the next town over, and I took off from there and made it to a place called wolf creek pass. I was then picked up and the people were suspicious of me, because I said I was 18. I definitely didnt look a day older than what I really was which was around 10 at the oldest. They got ahold of the proper authorities and my uncle picked me up in Pagosa, horrified yet relieved a few hours later.
It makes me recall one time when I took off at the age of 6 or 7. I lived by a train that was put in retirement in a park that was relatively close to my projects. However, there was a super busy and dangerous road with lots of traffic in between that train and I. My mom always told me never to go down there, but I had such an infatuation with the train at the time, it was well worth the risk, after all if no one knew, what would it hurt, right? Long story short, my uncle, for some reason, knew exactly where to find me when my mom called him and said to go find me. When I got home, I got whats known as a "chinga", and a good one that I still remember. I was very adventurous from a very young age, very independent, but very stupid also because I failed to think of the big picture. I can't imagine the hell I used to put my mom through.
Anyhow, back to travel. Denver was my first taste, and that's all I needed to be hooked for a lifetime. From Denver it turned into Phoenix, Albuquerque, Santa Fe and closer places I could go stay with fam or friends from Colorado. Then I found out who my dad was and found I had half a family in southern California, which was sweet because I had always wanted to go there, and live as well. Off I went, a new place and a new adventure and eventually made trips to LA, San Diego and Las Vegas while there.
Then came the time to decide on my degree in college, which was international business. I had to study abroad or work abroad or do something abroad for at least 3 months. I had never even thought of what life was like outside of these borders. Everyone might as well have spoken English and paid in dollars to me at that point. After doing genealogical research on my family, I found my roots go back to Spain and Italy. Italy was too expensive, and I found a reasonable spot in Spain I could afford with loans. So that was my decision, and that I would see all I could while there. Long story short, turned out to be the best time in my life, and I learned just as much if not more just traveling the world those months, as I had in a whole lifetime in books; and even went on some adventures I NEVER thought id find myself in (Morocco, Africa).
I learned to appreciate differences, rather than to judge them. I learned to not judge entire groups or races of people. I learned that I was an ignorant, closed and small minded person before I was there. I learned your never too old to grow and never too old to learn. I learned that that spark for life people have doesn't burn out, people put them out, and that new ones can be lit. I learned more than anything who I was in the past, who I was at that moment in time, and who I would become in the future. I learned not to be afraid to take risks, to not be afraid to go on adventures that you have no idea where they may lead. Afterall, that's the essence of life, not knowing what will happen next. If we knew just how our lives would play out everyday, how boring of a life would that be?
I won't lie, I never had any desire to find myself in any part of Africa. As I stated earlier, I was a small and closed minded ignorant individual. I guess you can say I felt like I was too good to find myself in Africa, and never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd be there in this lifetime. The program I went through even offered an excursion to Africa that was reasonably priced and seemed pretty fun. I had seen all the students that went and all their pictures on social media and it looked like a fun time on camels and shit, but it still didn't sway my desire to not go.
There was a girl, a very beautiful girl, that was part of my program whom I had met on the first day in Madrid during orientation. She approached me and sparked a convo. You see, with beautiful women, I am like a deer in headlights, I don't know what the hell to do or say, until Im approached, then I become more comfortable. I dont even bother with beautiful women because they are generally taken, or definitely out of my league. I tend to think of myself to be in the lower leagues of the earth, so I kind of dismiss myself right away. She came up to me and we hit it off socially right away, because she was gorgeous, ambitious and played fantasy football and loved sports. She was from Texas. I had a mean crush on her, but im sure it wasn't mutual. I was kind of fat back then too, admittedly.
Anyhow, this same girl that I had kind of hung out with during my semester approached me at a club one night. I was already feeling good, buzzed up, and hanging with some cool friends and she was there. Well, she came up to me and asked me if I wanted to go to Morocco with her and maybe one more female friend. Im like, "HELLS YA, im game", not knowing what exactly I was agreeing too. All I heard basically was "will you come travel somewhere with me and this other girl". So she said she would set everything up and all Id have to do is give her the money. So it was all planned out, and off we went on a Thursday until that Sunday.
I didn't think it would be so bad, I mean I had already been in another country already that spoke a different language, used a different currency and was just about as different as it could be, almost...
It was the adventure of my lifetime so far for sure. I didn't really know what was going on most of the time. I was just walking through the streets and doing as I was told from the 2 girls. Luckily, one of them spoke a little bit of arabic, so that helped us out get around and stuff. I got to see life from another point of view. It has been critical to my progression as a person to have as many different views as I can of life. Seeing life first hand from another place is 2nd to none. It was my first experience in a culture that was not westernized and was a poor country as well.
I seen some scenes in the streets I will never forget, like one kid throwing a baseball sized stone at another kids face and that kid trying to get even, but the crowd broke the children up. They were maybe 6 or 7 at the oldest. I also recall a poor lady I seen next to an old mosque a one of my friends was visiting. She was laying with her back on the wall rocking back and forth with one hand out asking for change, and a baby in her other. I gave her all I had had in my pocket at the time in Durhams. It was a very different experience for me and at the time I didn't know how to feel. Looking back at it now, it was one of the best experiences of my life and when I talk about adventures in my life, its always at the top of the list.
What it did do, I realized after, was give me a very real connection with the place. Say if America was to go to war tomorrow with northern Africa or something, it wouldn't be as easy for me to just say blow them off the map. Its very easy to say something like that when you have never been to the country you are talking about or every met anyone from there. To me, it should never be easy to just want to blow an entire country off the map like some of our politicians and military officials have stated.
There are people that die in wars that have nothing to do with the wars. Too many people like that die, who probably would have chosen peace over war had it been up to them. I hate the fact that its usually the innocent who pay the price. When a bomb is dropped, it doesn't distinguish man from woman or from child. Whatever is around will be dead, no matter how they felt about the war, whether they had anything to even do with it, or if they were even barely old enough to think and talk, they all die. As a human, its hard for me to grasp. We should be past the stages of war for remedies as a human race. History keeps repeating itself, war death and pressing the reset button, and yet we learn nothing from it.
I am sure that those who have traveled and enjoyed the presence of an individual from another country and its land can relate. Especially those who have traveled to places who are less privileged and not as economically, socially and politically stable as some westernized countries. I have only gotten to visit one, but it was enough to open my eyes. I would eventually love to return to Morocco and see other parts of Africa as well.
Travel connects us to one another and the land and wildlife around us as well. Just in my travels within my own borders I can identify the differences in people, wildlife and landscapes. At the beginning of the year I made a change moving from a small mountain town in Colorado to the high desert area of southern California, San Bernardino county. I stay in Apple Valley part time and in Lake Arrowhead part time for work. The differences in everything are very evident to me, and I am one who appreciates differences and change. The beauty of the desert during sunset from my aunt and uncles house from atop a hill in Apple Valley is amazing. The wildlife is so different as well, and don't let me be the first to say Coloradans and Californias are a tad bit different haha.
The change is even more dramatic outside our borders. I can only imagine the difference in someone from another country when they come to America. You meet good people everywhere. One of the most important things I remember from my trip to Morocco was a statement a Moroccan we had met there made while we were at a bus stop at 3 am waiting on the next bus. He told me in spanish, "there are good people everywhere, and there are bad people everywhere." It is so true, there is no place on the globe exempted from the presence of good or bad. The streets of Morocco really weren't all that much more dangerous than say the streets of Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Hong Kong or Mexico City. But they were so different, and that difference is I think what scares people. Not knowing what exactly that difference is or what it is like holds a lot of people back from a lot of things in life. It did me.
That difference people are scared of is not exclusive to travel either, it pops its ugly head in other aspects of life as well. When confronted by that "difference" I believe people revert to whatever they have heard or what little they may know of that difference such as stereotypes, predispositions, and judgments. I used to be, admittedly, an ignorant person who fell victim to this very thing until I traveled. To hell with stereotypes and judging people and their differences. People are different, places are different and that is the beauty of the world, we are not all the same. One man tried before to make us all the same and it was one of the worlds most horrific periods in all mankind's history. Learn to appreciate differences in people and other parts of the world, and travel to really do so and appreciate it a little bit more.
Well this post is going on for quite sometime, I will end it with my closing argument. Travel is an essential tool for self reflection as well as world peace I believe (no, I'm not trying to win Ms. or Mr. America beauty pageant (I wouldn't even be considered) lol, but I do think of a better world all the time). It puts you out there with the hope that nothing goes wrong in a place hundreds or thousands of miles away from home possibly in a place where you don't speak the language, know the exchange rates of money, and know nothing about really. Those types of places are where we find out what we are all about as people. It challenges our mind and our spirit, and in some places, even our physique. Anything that challenges us, if we defeat it, only makes us better and stronger.
As far as peace, I will leave you with a question. Had you been around during world war II, and you had some exchange student friends or good friends from Hiroshima, Japan that you had visited there before and had came to visit you in the US; how fond would you have been of the dropping of a bomb that wiped them and their entire city off the face of the earth forever? Do you think that your travels and personal connection with the city and maybe little adventures you had there (alone or with people you met there) would have any impact on that answer?
I understand we live in a sad world where it's acceptable to think its okay to kill entire nationalities of people, which is propagated mainly through media, misuse of religious beliefs, politics, economics, disinformation and selective releasing of information. I would say to not let your government, or your church, or you religious system or anything teach you to hate anyone or any group of people so bad that you want them ALL dead. How could you hate someone that bad and not have ever even met them? or know what they are like?
That one person I spoke of earlier who wanted us to all be the same had this same way of thinking, and he also used propaganda to get masses of people to think like him. His name was Adolph Hitler. We should not accept it again as a human race. Beyond imaginary lines on the earth called borders, beyond language barriers, beyond religious beliefs, political beliefs, beyond all that and everything, we are one human race and it should be in our human nature to not want another human to be killed, slaughtered, tortured, starved, bombed and what have you. I'm talking about the people who are washing dishes, or reading books to their children, or kids outside playing and running around, or families eating, or people working to provide for their families when bombs are dropped on them and they are killed.
It shows that we haven't evolved too much in our time as we should have, because we still fight over the same things we have been since history can remember; over territory, imaginary lines, power, politics and religious beliefs. We still haven't learned or gotten very far, but maybe if travel one day becomes more accessible and affordable, more people will do it and see the world out there isn't too bad after all. Not all American's fit the international stereotypes i have heard of, just as not all of any one race or nationality fits the stereotypes we have heard of. As my brief friend from Fez, Morocco said, there are good people everywhere, and there are bad people everywhere. Buen Camino a vosotros, espero que os guste este articulo.
