Are Hippos really that sweet?

WANDERLUST, is there a cure?

Have you ever woken up and said to yourself “There has to be more to life than this, I am sure I am missing out”.

Sometimes my stories make sense, and the content has a planned introduction, body and conclusion. Then some days, like today, it’s just a collection of thoughts and feelings jumbled into some form of order.

I have had this blog conversation with myself over twenty times in the last few weeks, and I thought if I don’t write it down and get it out of my mind, I may just drive myself crazy.

They don’t call it the travel bug for nothing. It isn’t some cute nickname they came up with over a pint of beer. It has meaning, and over the course of my life and its different stages or attempts at staying in one place, I have grown to wish they could come up with the anti-biotic to cure it.

As I sit out here, in the beautiful African Bush, listening to the birds and watching the sunset, I try to cure myself of this “bug”. In between swatting flies, and writing these sentences down in my journal, I look up and try to absorb all the wonderful elements around me, enough to fill this space inside my chest that burns with desire to continue exploring the world. I truly think I am sitting in the middle of the most gorgeously sense tickling place on earth, watching the jackal and elephants continue about their daily business and I curse this bug for making me feel like this is not enough.

It has been almost two years since I came back to Africa, and in those two years I have moved twice. This is pretty good going for me, who seems to usually relapse with the travel bug every three months. This time I am fighting the biggest internal battle of whether I can cure this on my own by challenging my spirit with the logic and reasoning of my head or if I am going to just give in, once again to the ludicrous nature of my wandering spirit. Although, since I do love it here so much enough to try and find a reason to saturate my desires to be free and travel, as well as remain, I have been forced to do some extensive research on how to continue travelling and backpacking without giving up all I love out here in Africa. Besides I also have two dogs, and I could never leave them behind. (but I was desperate enough to consider taking them with me, and if you are in that same situation maybe you will find this helpful http://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/how-to-travel-with-pets/ )

For anyone else who is battling to balance a new life of settling and filling that empty hole of desire to travel, I have found a few things that may help you get by. During my desperate search for an answer, or help on the way forward, I came across a website: http://www.helpx.net/

I began really thinking, can I have both? Can I have a home, and a city I call my rest stop before my next adventure, and can I make this permanent? I believe with websites like this, I can. There is a chance to go away for three months and live and work in all these different countries for free accommodation and food. Most of them have programs, like the one I have signed up for in India, where you start your morning at 4am and do meditation and yoga, then you work for four hours picking flowers and threading them, or picking fruit and then you have your afternoon off to explore the local community. You are expected to live and comply with the host family’s rules, and personally being that I enjoy getting to know the people, culture and food the best, I could not think of a better way to backpack.

To saturate my desires, I have also started a real live Pinterest board, where I can physically pin up the things that make me happy, that fill my heart with all the things I love. It mostly is just random words, or pictures, but I felt by physically putting them up, I have set myself a goal, and am no longer saddened by the thought of not being able to travel, but excited by the prospect of setting the date, of working towards the goal. I spend an hour a day researching where, how, why. I have not limited myself and decided if it is a year of pure backpacking I need, then that is what I will work for. The next trip will be Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia, and I will be going together with my husband, as he has expressed a desire to travel too, and has not had much of a chance. Then my solo trip to India for my 30^th is just around the corner, and I have a lot of mental preparation to do for that, as I have signed up to work in a temple and live with the family who runs it.

I am starting to realize that when I have this incurable urge to pack up whatever I can fit into my old faithful suitcase and go explore, I can do it mentally first, and instead of hopping on the next plane with no plan, I can give myself a few moments to reflect on what I want to gain, and what part of me I want to grow, or mature through the next trip. For now, it is to learn how to find a balance, and by no means should it be difficult, as I do not work the typical 9-5 job in an office (which by the way would kill my soul in less than a week). After I have learnt to find a healthy balance that doesn’t involve returning to my previous nomadic lifestyle 100%, I would like to be able to learn how to call one place home. A place where I feel a genuine attachment too, because after so many years of having no attachment to anything materialistic and no hold on to anything gathered, it has become too easy to pack up and head off to new horizons.

For now I will enjoy the lions vocalizing at night, and the ever changing dynamics of African Bush life. We are headed to Bali in November, and traded in the hotel option for a place in the Ubudu Forest, and in between we will continue to explore South Africa. In the meantime we are doing thorough research on the year backpacking through Asia, as well as establishing where we want to “settle”, and I put it in inverted commas because to be honest, I don’t think I can ever truly settle, it will be a matter of time again until I need new scenery.

Feel free to write to me, and tell me about your experiences you have had while travelling, and maybe a bit of insight on how you have managed to transition from traveller life to settler life, or if you have not managed at all and are still at it. Then again maybe, you are just like me and are trying to find the perfect balance.