I think the most valuable gift of solo travel is vulnerability. Daily routines protect us and give us time for reflection and creative endeavours, as well as a stable base for our obligations to ourselves and others. Travel opens up all kinds of questions and doubts, or it can. And those feelings leave us more aware of our frailties and more sensitive to the details and questions that we don’t usually tune in to.
a chicory flower, such a reminder of hime, near Lake Sevan in Armenia
Once I’m faced with the need to make sure I have passport, packed bags, tickets, and knowledge of where I’m headed and how, I return to the open-eyed slightly adrenaline-fueled person I was at seventeen, when I first travelled on my own. I was ignorant of a lot, still am. But I became alert to the world outside me, tried to read its signals and understand how to be in it, how to blend into it.
In modern day travel we have reassuring backups that weren’t around even twenty years ago. There were maps, my favourite tool. But now our phones can help us navigate the geography of a new place, find the train station or our hostel, seek out a restaurant or museum. And we have tech that helps us communicate with people whose language we can’t speak or read. Even so there remain moments of vulnerability.
spice & flavours vendor and expert Luisa, at Deserteri; a great source of utsko suneli (blue fenugreek) and other essentials
I’m leaving Tbilisi today, catching a flight to Rome, where I’ll find a train to Bologna.
The day before yesterday I started thinking about my train ticket: where was it? No longer a physical ticket, it is lodged in my phone. And the same is true for tickets I have for the next legs of my travel. I was sure I had printed them out before I left Toronto. But I couldn’t find them anywhere in my luggage. Either I failed to print them or I have lost them, I thought. How stupid. I got myself into a small state of almost panic.
Then modern tech tools came to the rescue: I realised I had made links to all the train tickets for the rest of my trip (Bologna to Berlin; and then a few days later Berlin to London) in my laptop. Panic over.
All this has been a reminder that we can always feel vulnerable travelling, and that that’s a good thing. Why? Because the alternative - just cruising along heedlessly – enables us to forget the vulnerability of others, leaves us in a bubble of oblivious entitlement rather than tuned in.
a cheese kiosk in Kutaisi; stirring freshly harvested grapes in a kvevri; a restaurant sign in Tbilisi
With the ImmerseThrough group, seven lovely people, in the course of eight days we travelled a wide loop from Tbilisi to Tbilisi: first from Tbilisi west to Kutaisi and beyond, then south to the Turkish border, and from there into Armenia. After two nights in Yerevan and area we headed back northward into eastern Georgia, the region called Kakheti, that is bordered by Azerbaijan.
Mount Ararat seen from a viewpoint outside Yerevan; it is the symbol of Armenia but lies entirely inside Turkey’s border; a deer carving at wonderful Gegardt Monastery in Armenia
The evening we crossed out of Armenia and back into Georgia, we were running extremely late. A small part of our lateness could be blamed on a traffic accident that held us up for a long while. But most of it was due to our failure, Tamar’s and mine, to properly time ourselves through the day. The result was that we didn’t roll up to the place we were staying, John Wordeman’s Lost Ridge Inn near Sighnagi, until nearly 10.30 pm. We’d phoned ahead, so they had held supper for us. The food (we had pre-ordered), was delicious, welcoming, just what we needed, and so were the wines.
a streetside market in Kutaisi; bakery signage in Sighnagi
Once in my room after supper I reached for a water glass and flash! felt a sudden intense pain in my middle finger. I’d been stung by a wasp. It must have been hanging out on the glass. Yikes, pain! I ran cold water over it and got to sleep without too much delay or worry. The sting turned into a bit of a saga over the following days: burning itchiness the following night, with a lot of swelling in my knuckles, and heat. Small creatures have great powers! Now six days and a few anti-histamine pills later I have only a slight remnant itchiness and swelling.
The whole thing reminded me of an incident long ago at Drepung, a large monastery outside Lhasa. A mastiff had growled at me as I walked past it, keeping my distance. As I got further away, suddenly it ran over and bit me on the leg. The bite didn’t break the skin, though it left a very clear imprint of the dog’s teeth on my calf. And it was deeply shocking (and instilled a fear of big dogs that lasted for a decade or more). That evening when I told the story to a few other travellers, one guy suggested that perhaps the dog was a reincarnated Buddhist monk and that I’d been bitten to make me more mindful and humble. Perhaps he wasn’t entirely wrong?
migrelian khachapuri with a filled cheese and herbs on top, at Oda Winery; ceiling frescoes at the ancient cliff-side monastic complex at Vardzia, near the Turkish border
UPDATE & CODA
All that was written before I left Tbilisi. Now on my first morning in Bologna, I am about to go out exploring. But first a small story: Last night I went round the corner to a small local restaurant the bed and breakfast person had suggested to me for supper. There was a scattering of people waiting for a table. As they thinned, I fell into conversation with a couple of young women who were also waiting. They turned out to be Georgians!! here for a conference who work in Tbilisi for GYAL, a remarkable NGO that pushes for and defends human rights. We ended up sitting together for supper, sharing a bottle of wine and conversation until late. It felt like the best kind of traveller’s luck, the lovely flip side of vulnerability.
classic courtyard in old Tbilisi, a style of building called Ezo; Ketevan of Oda Winery explaining a wine; pomegranates at Dezerteri market in Tbilisi
The chatshapuri looks to die for
I can so relate to this post Naomi. On my last night on a recent trip to Italy, I opened my purse and discovered my passport was not there. Then I realized it was in my packed back in a locked room in the hotel. Panic set in with me thinking that maybe it was not in my bag, and if so, what would I do? I barely slept and then did find it in my bag the next morning. Such relief! Later that day I was talking to a lady on the plane who had worked in the passport office. When I told her about fearing I had lost my passport she told me what I would have gone through if indeed I had. Let’s just say, I’d still be in Italy right now and a few thousand dollars poorer. I’m a little too casual with my passport, but no longer. Lesson learned! 😕