There are tourists, travellers and explorers.
We were staying with Auntie Jean in a country area, of which more in a future post, no doubt. We had planned to be tourists for at least half a day but that was progressively downgraded. Ocho Rios & Dunn’s River Falls were too far; Negril was too expensive. Bluefield Sands was doable but we ran out of time. And there’s also a limit to the dependence you can put on relatives to provide transport. Then came the long-awaited rain. We made do with buying a bunch of fish from a dubious-looking vendor at the roadside not far from the Sands.
My real mission here is to be the attentive but otherwise drone-like consort of an expatriate, my beloved Karleen, returning for purposes of tying up loose ends with family, friends and business after five years’ absence. At this moment, I’m sitting in the “business center” of the Four Seasons Hotel in Kingston. It’s really an Internet room with a shelf of well-thumbed books for guests to borrow. I’ve taken a volume of short stories by Somerset Maugham, typically involving a languid Englishman holed up in an hotel in some far-flung corner of Empire. Like me then, but in the Thirties.
I came in here planning a despatch peppered with local colour and spicy anecdotes; but I don’t have the perspective and distance. Maybe later, when I somehow manage to get back to Blighty (exiled soldier’s affectionate slang for England). Today, there is no big war on, but parts of the airspace have become a no-fly zone. An Icelandic volcano is spewing dust to the upper atmosphere, affecting our booked return flights via New York. The newspapers speak of the Navy being poised to rescue stranded holiday-makers, but that’s in the Med, whereas we’re separated from home by the Atlantic.And so I’m wondering if we are tourists, or what. The skill of a tourist is to know the best places to go, and the best deals; and how to complain effectively when expectations are not fulfilled. The failure of a tourist is to be upset when things don’t go according to plan. When an Act of God, of Biblical proportions, darkens the sky, who shall I complain to?
Perhaps we are travellers. One skill is to know how to wait, for this is travelling’s principal ingredient. Another is to observe dispassionately how things are done by the locals, and be at their mercy with gladness; and marvel at their ways—their adaptation to their native soil. A tourist seeks comfort in insulation from those ways; seeks only blue ocean, cheap drink, well-shaped bodies and laughing faces; or seeks escape from the stresses of normal routine—a fantasy world to be master or mistress, able to command at his or her whim.
The traveller opens himself to the world and its experiences, whilst conserving as best he can his limited purse, his belongings and his equanimity, through all the accidents and adventures that befall him. The failure of a traveller is to let his longing for home overwhelm him prematurely. Another kind of failure is when he cannot distinguish hospitality from robbery—”t’iefing”, as they would call it here in patois.
The third thing is to be an explorer. We imagine him as an intrepid hero dressed in pith helmet, bush jacket, knee-length drill shorts and stout boots. He’s been bitten with leeches. He has hacked a path through virgin jungle with a machete. He goes where no man has trodden before: perhaps everyone else had more sense. (I like to call myself an explorer of the inner life, but it’s not true. Wherever I go there, I discover by their writings others who’ve trodden the same paths and gone further than I.)
On Thursday we start the first leg of our return to UK, by flying to Miami, thence to New York. There is no confirmation of our hop across the pond to Heathrow. It all depends on the current Act of God. We might be stuck in NYC.
But here’s a funny thing. At 19, K worked as a typist at the University of the West Indies. She got friendly with the office cleaner, who used to bring along her little daughter, a very bright child. She wasn’t paid enough to send her child to school. So K from her own small salary gave the cleaner a regular sum to help with school fees. A few months ago, having lost touch with both mother and daughter, she looked up the daughter’s name on Facebook. This little girl is now a PhD with a good job in New York. She’s offered to put us up for as long as we need, till the dust-cloud blows over.
I’m starting to feel like an explorer.
a wayfarer’s notes 
Karma has been stored. Interesting post.
You are joking about warships going to glorious places aren't you. There is a large vocal group, comfortable in their own environments, who object to taxpayers money being used to help British citizens. 'They should stand on their own two feet, use a bit of initiative, zap into the war time spirit', etc. etc. Some go as far as to say, no help of any kind would be given if it was not a pre-election period.
One woman and young daughter have, so far, managed to travel from Amman through to Spain by a variety of means. There are school parties unable to leave China for at least 2 weeks because of flight schedules. Then there are the usual stories of hotels and other organisations seizing opportunities for quick bucks.
On the other hand, we do not know if other nations are doing anything about repatriating their people, what we do know is, the Channel Ports are functioning, extra boats are criss-crossing The Channel. Travellers and explorers are being advised to make their way to one of the ports.
In these circumstances, remaining an intrepid traveller or a brave explorer may be your best bet for the time being.
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Yes, we want to use our initiative and stand on our own four feet, but it's a little hard these days to cross the Atlantic other than in an aeroplane! My daughter is on holiday in Spain, celebrating being 21 and is being accommodated at no extra cost till a flight is arranged. She is merely worried how her work will manage without her.
It now looks as though we will get on our booked flight after all, God willing.
Karma is being stored indeed. It seems that Jamaica depends for its daily running on this kind of battery-power.
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Sometimes I like to think I'm an explorer of the inner life, but as I go, I encounter others who have trodden the self-same path. They have passed away, usually, but their written words stay fresh.
Indeed. In my view this is the best way to travel – by the imagination and the written word. To read, to dream about somewhere and then see it in reality can only disappoint.
Better to explore – and take whatever comes – or be a tourist; recognise what you want (weather, food, landscapes, sights etc) and attempt to find the best approximation.
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what a lovely thing, to find the small child grown into a success! K must be happy to know her kindness contributed importantly to that!
As for travel, I've always seen myself as a traveler on the time-budget of a tourist. So instead of cramming things in until it's just a blur of check marks (done that!) I'm more apt to walk, wander, and linger over a coffee or glass of wine… and just watch. Perhaps in this next portion of my life I'll be able to do some traveling, but…. there are always things tying one down, it seems.
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kudos to K!
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Vincent,
I just found this post. I was waiting to see your beach photos.
Jamaica means to me
Blue Mountain coffee and Jerk chicken and Goat curry. I bet you enjoyed their foods and drinks.
But your story sounds more than a story of traveller or tourist. I read it with much interest because of the story about your beloved Kay. We get much more out of a trip if we have connection with a native person.
Now, I'll go on reading your next blog. Please show us photos soon.
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Vincent, I enjoyed reading. K has a big heart. That was so kind of her to help the woman and to discover that the daughter is doing quite well now. A wonderful story.
I like your thoughts on tourists, travelers, and explorers. I will be taking a short jaunt soon within the states and you provide good reminders for me.
Yes, inner explorers… for life, in life, after life.
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Bill, I find the best place to be a tourist is in my own backyard – which includes my teenage haunts on the Isle of Wight.
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Hayden, I'll be interested to read of your own return to San Francisco some time, and how it appears after a long or longish absence: for we see the changes in ourselves reflected that way.
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Ghetu, I learned more such things about K from that trip that she had never told me herself.
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Beach photos, Keiko? None. Let them be painted in the pastels of imagination. I never set foot on the beach. Next time.
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Rebb, I'll be interested in any tales of your forthcoming jaunt in the States. My brief toe-dipping into that great land leaves me kindly disposed to it. I hadn't visited since '97 and somewhere along the line had built up a prejudice against America, now dispelled. I needed to see a few ordinary people doing ordinary things, just like here. It took that face-to-face contact to see that despite government politics (which nobody can do much about despite our attempts at democracy) we are very similar. What reassures me is meeting the ordinary people!
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