It’s a grand thing to see the world’s sights; but it’s a profound one to experience them in the context of a single human moment. Over the years, as I have taken more trips, the more I’ve come to cherish the chance encounter. It seemed particularly true this past year, in Italy and Norway and Mexico, in Ohio and Michigan and Wisconsin: People are often the best tourist attractions.
I’m a far richer traveler for those who have crossed my path. These people, these strangers I’ll never meet again, have nevertheless given me a remarkable gift. They’re as much a part of my travel memories as any great cathedral or rugged mountain range. In fact, they put those places in perspective.
It’s impossible for me to think of my June 2000 cruise of coastal Norway without remembering the kindness of a woman who tucked a blanket around me as I shivered on deck. I had put my warmest layers of clothing in the laundry, thinking I could forgo the scenery for the time it would take to wash and dry them. But the Lofoten Islands were so startling, it wasn’t good enough to view them from behind the glass of the Panorama Lounge; I had to be outdoors.
She was, she said, from “a little town outside of Oslo; you wouldn’t know the name.” And she scolded me like a child as she fussed the blanket into place.
On that same cruise, I positioned myself behind an artist, the better to see what he was sketching so furiously into his pad. He seemed to ignore both the cold and my presence–I didn’t dare disturb him–as he recorded the coastline in hurried strokes. The scenery was extraordinary, but I found that artist’s response to it even more compelling. I can’t remember when I’ve ever seen such concentration on anyone’s face.
Then there was that crazy cab ride in Mexico. In November, I was vacationing at a spa outside of Guadalajara when I joined some other guests on an excursion into the city. When it came time to return to the spa, two of us shared the taxi that, heavy traffic notwithstanding, zipped through town and whizzed out onto the highway. Landmarks went by in a blur . . . until the driver realized he had missed our turnoff to the village of Primavera.
He yelped, in English, a certain four-letter word, stopped with a jolt and backed up through the traffic to the turn. At first, he simply seemed embarrassed about the driving mistake, until I asked for the Spanish equivalent of the four-letter word. His apologies had us laughing the rest of the way to the spa, and his face was still red when he dropped us off. (By the way, I never did obtain that translation.)
The trip into Guadalajara had been to see the Ballet Folklorico. After the show, I left the theater by a side door. Along the sidewalk, an army of little girls was forming into groups. The children in the red and blue cowgirl costumes were lining up against one wall; those in the black vinyl outfits crowded in a circle; the ones in the yellow feathered leotards were just arriving. It was like being backstage at a dance recital. Those colorfully dressed girls–impatient, nervous, self-conscious–will forever be the first image that springs to mind when I think of Guadalajara.
Back in April, I was driving in southeast Ohio to see the Indian mounds there. But the police had set up a barricade across the northern approach to Ft. Ancient State Park, the most direct route. I was at the head of the growing line of cars and was prepared to wait things out, but the driver of the vehicle behind me wasn’t. He walked to my window, chatted a while, then told me that he was going to take the long (and confusing) way around. If I wanted to, he said, I could follow him as far as his turnoff and he would give a signal at that point so I would know to continue straight on to reach the road that would be the southern approach to Ft. Ancient. When I arrived at the Ft. Ancient visitor center, the people there told me that the road closure I encountered was a common occurrence; the gradient of the stretch of road just below Ft. Ancient is so steep that trucks sometimes turn over trying to attempt the ascent. That fellow saved me a long wait and helped me get where I was going.
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I figured my March trip to Rome was over when I rolled my luggage into the hotel lobby to wait for my ride to the airport and the flight home. It was early, about 5 a.m., and a few feet away, the lone desk clerk on duty was concluding his business with the party of three standing before him. After a polite pause, the clerk left the desk, took the seat next to me and leaned in to gossip. Actually, he didn’t just take the seat, he commanded it the way a king might sit a throne. He was silver-haired, elegantly dressed and he used smooth gestures to slide his trousers just enough up his thighs to sit comfortably, the way men in this country used to do until they all started wearing Dockers.
By the time my ride arrived, I left with highlights of the clerk’s life story, gossip about other guests in the hotel and a glimpse of what everyday life is like for the Italians. They worry about meddlesome mothers and ex-spouses and high taxes just like we do. And they have to earn a living too. That photo of the Roman Centurions on Page 1 of this section is part of one I took near the Colosseum. Those men, for instance, make their living by posing with tourists for a fee. I didn’t want my picture taken with them–you see me with them courtesy of a studio shot by Tribune photographer Jim Quinn and some fancy computer work by Tribune page designer Earl Toledo–but I did want to capture them. I waited for a casual moment when they were between customers, and they objected to my doing so.
“For me, it is my job, madam,” said one of them. I waved my camera in the air in farewell. “It is for me too,” I called.
In my travels, I’ve come to marvel at the number of tourists, usually Americans, who either bristle at being “inconvenienced” by the mere presence of other people or ignore altogether the spectrum of humanity before them. Don’t be one of them. You could be missing the best part of your trip and never know it.
As much as I love seeing new places, I’ve learned that it’s the new faces that make them shine.
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Meet the staff
Toni Stroud took three trips at the baiduhai’s expense last year and in return produced eight stories about those journeys. The rest of the time she travels by telephone and Internet to write and/or edit these weekly Travel-section columns: Trips & Tips, Deal for Real, Big Events, Resourceful Traveler, Fare Check and Traveler’s File. Her e-mail address is [email protected].