The concept of a “companion” fascinates me. Simply defined as “one who accompanies you”, they are neither friend nor family and at times, they can very quickly degenerate into a nemesis. This is the individual who will, for a short period of time, come to know you deeply as a person, your base needs, your aspirations, and primarily your shortcomings. And that interchange is a two-way street.
Choosing the right travel companion is extremely important because they can make or break your trip. However, an educated choice is never an actual possibility until the trip itself happens.
The rebound curve of wildly vacillating emotions is even more peculiar. While companions latch on as smoothly as remoras to the back of a manta ray, as you and your parasitic latcher(s)-on embark on your spring migration, you may find yourself vaguely wistful for the blood-sucking when it’s no longer there. Even stranger, once reunited, in terms of memories shared, the inequity of the symbiotic relationship that you previously perceived as one-sided is often pardoned.
A friend went traveling with me one year. Usually I travel alone, and the previous trip had left me shell-shocked. There’s just something about being distantly away from anything that made me feel safe, and while planning for my upcoming trip, that feeling had started to gnaw at me. So this time I decided to bring a companion.
It started well enough: partying, sightseeing, and switching turns playing wingman. Me and Dave would traipse around various cities in a drunken haze, laughing and carousing, sampling the delicacies each country had to offer and making friends as we went. And when the inevitable downs came: missed trains, meager meals, seethingly igneous hangovers, we commiserated and kept plugging along.
See, that whole last paragraph is a perfect example of what your memory does, a whole whitewashing of the events in question as significant distance is put between them and the present. What I just described was a total romanticization, making it seem like our times together were some teen comedy with the nerds having a few out of their dad’s liquor cabinet and stepping out into the night to live out a series of crazy adventures.
The truth is, Dave was impossible. I saw a side of him on our trip that was so self-focused, so based on immediate needs, and completely not conducive to the travel we were undertaking. He was worse than my grandma.
While the small things really irked me, his main shortcoming was his inability or more likely his unwillingness to face the hardships that you inevitably experience on the road. Yeah he wore basketball shorts everyday, a choice of attire that bellowed “American! Coming through!” straight into the face of every passerby, and he couldn’t be bothered to learn a single phrase in the language of the country we were in; those I could handle.
No, the problem was this simple: when he was hungry, he had to eat, and when he was tired, he had to sleep. News flash! When you set off on a backpacking trip, you will miss many meals and lose a lot of sleep. Sometimes you have shit to do that will trump those immediate comforts. So when the air in your scuba tank is running out and the moray eel has clamped down steadfastly on your hand, impeding your progress and trapping you in a watery predicament, you start to seriously consider the need to unsheath the diving knife strapped to your ankle and start sawing away at the wrist. You have to take a loss to breathe.
Thankfully the moment I became aware that I had to free myself from the ball and chain holding me back came near the end of the already scheduled departure. We had been together for almost 2 weeks and every little movement he made caused a network of fire ants to consume my nervous system with fury.
I see some old couples in public that have been together so long that the simple act of taking an audible breath provokes the wrath of the other. Add to that the fact that they’re old and give less fucks than the temperature necessary to freeze nitrogen, so they certainly have no qualms berating them for what seems inconsequential to the horror of passing bystanders. Dave and I were reaching that level.
We happened to be in the most beautiful residence you will ever see in your lifetime: the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. I had explained to Dave even before we had set out that, although my trip was 9 weeks long, my main goal was to see this place. A former fortress/palace, this was where the Muslim princes laid their heads after a long day of seizing control over the Iberian Peninsula for the Prophet. And damn could the Muslims decorate! Fountains, courtyards, serene gardens–throw in a harem, and this becomes a terrestrial paradise.
Dave and I had fought that morning over some bullshit. His main point of contention was that he couldn’t sleep for an extra half hour that morning because we had to see the Alhambra. Mind you, I had suffered a disastrous, sweaty bus ride to get to some party town that he wanted to go to, spending an extra day there and missing a flight that would have cost only $30, meaning we suffered another 18 hour hot, sweaty bus/boat/train ride, to our next destination. The flight would have lasted one hour, and let me reiterate, COST $30!
Yet when I told him months in advance that the Alhambra was the ONLY thing I wanted to see, now he was balking.
After an hour of arguing on the walk over, our turn to enter the Alhambra had finally come. You see, this is one of the most visited places in Europe, so they stagger groups of tourists who are entering. This also means that you have a mandatory tour, and then only about an hour to look around.
The only thing that the Spanish care is precise.
Our tour had ended, and based on our now resolved fight, Dave was trying to be on his best behavior. I wasn’t even paying attention to him. I was a kid in a candy shop, or maybe more accurately, an adult in BevMo where everything is 95% off. The whole world spun around me like a gilded carousel as I explored and fantasized about whiling out my days passing time in these courtyards. Reclining in a state of repose on plush pillows, dressed in linen robes and strategizing about the next great military campaign, while I took my lunch in the shade, eating chicken prepared with lemon and olives alongside couscous using my fingers, be-ringed and be-jeweled, all the while in the company of several, beautiful….
Livin’ the fantasy…
Dave butted in, “Hey, dude, could we hurry this up a bit? I’m kind of hungry, and I want a hot dog.” His words crashed through my daydream like a burglar slipping on the roof of a glass greenhouse in New York in December, quickly letting all the heat escape. And out of everything else, despite all the delicious Spanish food to eat, this burglar hijacked my mind state reaching for a goddamn all-American hot dog. This was unforgivable.
Lesson learned: Try to get a good feel for your travel buddies before you leave, especially in a few crucial areas. If you choose poorly, don’t beat yourself up. Instead leave some alone time at the end, to take a vacation from your companion.
-Dillon, (22), Sacramento, CA, loving my leeches in Spain