From Video Games to Sleeping on a Park Bench
Theses are the words from my journal... I may change the way it is written on paper slightly, but I can assure you that the stories are exactly as they happened.
I learned at a young age to keep a journal when traveling, and this one is all about my very first backpacking adventure, on my own without adult supervision!
Unfortunately, there are almost no photos from this trip.. but hey we'll get creative, use midjourney and read it like a book!
I've wanted to tell my story forever, and the time has finally come to transfer these experiences onto the internet. And who knows, maybe you'll let me know whether these stories are worth making a book one day too.
I couldn't tell you what it's like today for 20 somethings to travel the way I did, if it's safer or more dangerous, but I can tell you that it shaped the rest of my life and traveling the world became a winter ritual for me and eventually for my family too!
These are the stories of my youth, stories I never want to forget. I hope you enjoy them, but most of all, I hope they inspire you.
Early Morning Jan-12-2000
Alright, I got to Laredo, Texas! Yesterday, my friend Ezekiel picked me up from Cort's house a little later then I had hoped, but better late than never! I met his girlfriend Rosie and his friend Chris who goes to school in New York. We all went to an arcade to play video games for a couple hours. We avoided going to his apartment because the power had been turned off. Then we went to Chris's mom's place, where we played more video games. His mom served us a big 'ol plate of some delicious chicken for dinner, as we continued playing games.
We eventually made it to Ezekiel's apartment for a nice candle light chill out session. We must have talked until 2 in the morning, just catching up on old times. I had met Ezekiel when I lived in Baton Rouge a couple years prior, it's always nice to see a friend like that after some time!
You know a friend is a real friend when you can see each other after a couple of years and nothing feels weird when you are together again. We caught up as if no time had passed.
The next morning, I got woken up by the FedEx guy knocking hard on the door. I was waiting for a packing with my bank card in it, which I kind of needed to travel with for the next six months!
Ezekiel and Rosie had gone to pay their electric bill and when they came back we made ourselves a nice breakfast and watched the Matrix. What a great movie that was... When it was time to go we got some po-boys and headed to the bus station.
Before stepping onto the bus I said my thanks and my goodbyes, I was heading towards Mexico. Just me and my little backpack!
Po-boys (poor boys) are traditional, very delicious sandwich from Louisiana. You can have a shrimp po-boy, an alligator po-boy, a mud bug po-boy (crawfish), and tons of other kinds. But when they're made correctly, they really are so delicious, the bread a little crunchy, good tomatoes, excellent sauce with a kick to it and you get the idea. I sure miss those things!
The first stop was Houston, Texas. That's where all my troubles started. There was some misunderstanding with some guy who was heading towards California. The problem had to do with the guy's suitcases, which made me want to check the bus to see if my backpack was still on it, but it wasn't or I couldn't see it. Naturally, I asked about it. The driver told me he had seen it and remembered taking it off the bus to reach another bag, and assured me it had been put back on, so I jumped back up on the bus.
The second stop was San Antonio, in Texas too. I got of the bus to look for my bag while they unloaded some boxes and suitcases that were transferred to another bus to a different part of the country. And my bag was nowhere to be found... What the fuck, I was freaking out a little.
The bus wasn't going to hang around very long, so I jumped back on and found out that the if it's not on the bus it must be in Houston. Bags are supposed to be tagged like at an airport, but I hadn't put one on since I wasn't heading to anywhere specific and didn't have an address to put on it. He told me, normally they hold bags without tags up to a week.
The third stop was Laredo, Texas. This was the last stop in the USA. I had slept a little on the bus, but it was 2 in the morning when we pulled into the station. I went to baggage claims and explained my dilemma, thankfully someone was there and they were able to find my bag pretty easily. The lady at the counter was super nice and called Houston. My bag would be on the next bus to Laredo which would arrive at about 1:30 in the afternoon.
I was only a little bummed out but happy the journey would continue!
Being that I had quite a few hours to go before the 1:30 bus would pull in to Laredo, I walked around and found a park. The air was warm and I was kind of tired, so I laid down on a bench and went to sleep. I only had a short sleep as the birds were waking up some time before the sunrise. It sounded like there were tens of thousands of them in the trees all around me yapping and screaming until the sun was up. They were so loud, it made it impossible to sleep.
Eventually an old man walking happily through the park stopped where I was sitting and asked if I wanted some company. I must have looked lonely. We talked for a while, though he did most of the talking. He told me about all about his job, his son's job and a friend of his who would make him laugh when he spoke Spanish with an American Indian accent. He repeated himself a lot, talking in circles a little, I tuned out a bit, but one story stuck was about his friend Jack. He would always look at the ladies saying, in his funny accent, "la mamasita, como se llama?" (what's the pretty girl's name?) but he would never work up the courage to actually talk to them.
I told him my story, all about my bag disappearing, and my upcoming trip. The time passed by pretty quickly and it was almost time to check on that 1:30 bus, so I got up and politely said my farewell.
Alright, so my bag , as you might have guessed... wasn't on the 1:30 bus from Huston!!!! I really started getting scared. My passports, traveler's check and everything else were in there, what the fuck would I do if my bag was actually lost? I had the bus people talk to Huston, and my bag was not there either. All I could o at this point was wait for the next bus. At around 3:30 a big green bus pulled into the station, my bag wasn't in there. I asked if it was from Huston but they said that bus had pulled in at the other end of the station.
As I walked towards the other bus, I heard a man call out iss dat your bag, senor? Holy shit, I don't think I had ever felt this kind of joy to find something I'd lost, it was my bag, in deed. The bag was mine again!!! I was so excited nothing could hurt me now. So I waited for the next part of this journey which would take me to Nuevo Laredo, in Mexico where I would meet my two friend Sandrine and Veronique.
The next episode will be all about Mexico and not finding my friends at the border. Understandably, I was almost a day late coming to meet them and without cell phones all we had to rely on was email.
My First Backpacking Trip:
Chapter 01: NYC to Mexico - Y2K
Chapter 02: NYC to Mexico - Cajun Wedding
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