About Traveling Solo, Blue Skies and Paella

31/07/2018

Time is relative. How can it be already August 2018, when in my mind we are still in September 2016? If I look back at the last 18 months, I gape at how many things happened, how many people entered my life (or left it for good) and, above all, how much I changed. Yes, I know - I am not saying anything new. Pretty much anyone would say the same, old thing: "oh, I am so different from who I was one year ago! I cannot believe it! New life and yadda yadda".

Look at me, pretending to know how to take selfies in Ronda

So let me skip to the interesting part.

One year ago, anxious and borderline depressed as I was, I don't think I would've ever pictured myself walking in a deserted valley in Andalusia, backpack on my shoulders, water bottle in my hand (gotta stay hydrated in that heat) as I had to hike in the sun to get to my hostel. One year ago, I had almost never set a foot in a hostel. I have always wanted to be like that, free and uncaring and brave enough to travel the world on my own, but something has held me back, until now. It is surprising how little it takes to finally become, partially, who you have always wanted to be. I say partially because I am still not the person I wanted to be when I was thirteen, but who is? We always need to set a goal for ourselves, don't we, or we will just settle down for something easy and reachable and boring.

Sunset in Malaga

So, after this collection of trivialities, I will get to the point. In the past week (20-29th of July, as I was writing this weeks ago) I did my first solo trip. It was nothing extraordinary, I didn't spend six months on the other side of the world or anything, but it was a starting point for myself to get accustomed again to be with myself. Does it make sense? Sometimes we spend so much time trying to be someone else, for someone else, that we forget what we want and what we can do.

Hi Ronda

It was only six days in Andalusia, but, to me, they lasted like a month. Every day was so rich, and full of potential, and crowned by meeting stories of people and tasting new food with my mouth and landscapes with my eyes, and they were days like life should always be made of. Days in which you grow into your own skin, and you get to know yourself like you rarely can during ordinary life. I really do get lost easily; I always write too much on postcards; I never feel alone when I am walking on new steps in an unknown city. I laughed with strangers and gave them life advices, pretending to be someone who can actually give life advices, and listened to their stories and their dreams. 

I could go on and on about the colours of Southern Spain nature, about the music that horses leading carriages in Sevilla played, or about the magic of ancient cities like Ronda or Granada. I will just leave some pictures instead, where you can see how blue the sky was - which gave me saudades of Portugal, the first place where I admired such a deep blue sky, so blue you could get lost in and sink in it like it is the ocean.

Ronda...again. Can you tell I really liked this place?

 All three pictures are from different parts of the Alhambra in Granada (top-down: the Alcazaba, the Nasrid Palance and the Alhambra from San Nicolas Mirador)

In a week you barely get accustomed to yourself, and it is a time frame way too short to learn that in Spain you are supposed to say "Gracias" and not "Obrigada" or anything else in Portuguese; or, you know, to have some typical Spanish experiences like eating some Paella. Pretty much everywhere I went, I looked for a place where I could have some, and I couldn't find any that satisfied my expectations. So I delayed and delayed, and in the end I flied home without tasting any. Which is kind of a metaphor of my life, waiting and waiting for something to be perfect and in the end not getting the thing at all. 

So, this is it - first post on my blog in the new year (because we can all agree that the new year starts in September, right?). It just came out of nowhere during a boring Summer evening and I decided to publish it now. I hope you enjoyed it and stay tuned for more!

View of Sevilla from Las Setas 

PS: quick explanation of the tag: "hotchpotch" is just another word for "melting pot". I thought about calling this new tag after the Chinese boiling pot, a traditional Chinese way of cooking soup in which everything (and I mean everything) can be thrown inside this pot - from which everyone eats, fishing food with their spoon. My idea is throwing everything that doesn't fall under any other tag in this one, making it my own hotchpotch. Also, I like this word.