Marital Backpacking

Flying back from our three month jaunt around South America I am finally facing a couple of facts. My husband is not a backpacker. He’s positively glowing about our return to Seattle. And I’m ready to settle down (for a while).

Homecoming feels so different to ten years ago when I reluctantly flew back with my university friend from foggy New York after our six month world trip. Both of us had embraced the nomadic lifestyle, when rocking up in a town and finding the cheapest bed and coldest beer were the most important and only necessities of living. Neither of us was happy about returning to find a serious career, an apartment and to start growing up. On this occasion I persuaded my husband of two years to take three months (originally six but thankfully I compromised) out of work and the idyllic Seattle lifestyle and slog our way through Argentina, Chile, Bolivia and Peru. My desire to travel for an extended period was something I was up front about from the get-go. He knew within the first three months of our courtship that marriage, children, traveling and returning to live in the UK were requirements of our relationship. I am stunned I didn’t scare him away. I knew he wasn’t a natural traveler; however I fell into the typical trap thinking he’ll change. I’ll show him how fantastically rewarding traveling can be. I was also remembering my traveling days through rose tinted glasses, forgetting the interminably long and uncomfortable bus journeys, the stomach problems, the bed bugs …. How could he not enjoy those new and wonderful landscapes, fascinating cultures and the freedom of the road? Yet my husband is a person who likes to have some control over his life and despises wasted time. A twenty eight hour bus journey along a dirt road was the first example of inefficiency and I felt that he was contemplating all the things he could be achieving at home during those long bone-rattling and dusty hours. Guitar practice, yoga, preparing and enjoying fabulous meals, a roller-blade around the lake and a good night sleep! I admit the bus journey wasn’t a wonderful travel experience. During the days the driver blasted us with techno music and we spent two nights wriggling around in our seats trying to sleep. The barren Patagonian landscape grew dull after a few hours. The most exciting moment came when the bus shuddered to a sudden stop and an armadillo scuttled into the brush. Many other travel events were similar and left a sour taste in our mouths. We did have travel highs, but we are not convinced that they equally balanced the lows. At the time it seemed as though the lows were winning the contest. Perplexed, I wondered whether my new intolerance to backpacking travel was due to my ripe old age of thirty and with it my more luxurious lifestyle and greater cynicism or perhaps South America is far more challenging than the Asia-South Pacific–US circuit I undertook ten years previously and the European rail adventure thirteen years back. Or was my darling husband dragging me into his barely disguised misery! It was possibly a combination of all three and more. However, as I sit on the plane flying high above Texas I’m already losing sight of the times when I spent nights staggering between my bed and the bathroom in a shivery feverish panic or those terrifying bus journeys crammed into an overloaded mini-van while hurtling around unstable mountain roads. Just the memories of awe and wonder at the places we visited linger, the mountain sunrises, the fun conversations with new friends, the beautiful faces of curious children and the constant newness. I found riding the buses gave me time to think and reflect on what we’d seen and heard, what was to come and where my path would lead back in Seattle.

While I was relishing this mental freedom I was irritated that I had failed to turn my husband into a world nomad. He sits next to me on the plane perhaps the happiest I’ve seen him these past few months, but perhaps it’s for the best. He agreed, nervously, to share this adventure, he didn’t walk out on it half-way through, but gritted his teeth and did have some fun! Now we’ll go home and resume our life. The days of the long trips are over, for now, and that’s fine with me. I’m actually secretly relieved. However the explorer in me persists. I will forever be dreaming of the next adventure. But now they will be ones we can fit into weekends or two to three week vacations. Truthfully I’d much rather have a husband who enjoys shopping on Saturday mornings at the farmer’s market, loves home-cooked dinners with family and friends, happily goes hiking in our beautiful local mountains and will curl up on the couch with me in front of the TV. If I had married a true wanderer would I have had the chance to create a beautiful home? Would I even have seen him? No, probably not. So I believe the past three months were wisely spent for me to realise this truth.