These days, it's hard to get lost while travelling because there's always Google Maps to rely on. But back in the not-so-distant era where there was no data roaming, having to navigate the overseas streets with only the use of paper maps and street directories was more challenging.
In 2009, I was in Mexico for 7 weeks for a summer exchange programme during my university days. For someone has not never stepped out of Asia in all 20 years of my life at that time, flying across the world and spending 7 weeks in a faraway country was something that was unthinkable - but I still took the leap because I just wanted to step out of my comfort zone.
Anyway I digressed. The main point was in the first week in Mexico, I got lost.
From what I could recall (that was 14 years ago!), there were two big supermarkets (let's call them A and B) in the vicinity of my place of residence and the university campus. Usually I would visit the one (A) near to the campus, but on this day, the lessons ended early so I thought I should explore the city and go to the further supermarket (B) to get my daily necessities.
From the campus to supermarket B and then back home, based on the scale of the paper map that I had, the distance would be roughly 1.8km. Back then, there was no Google Maps or GPS.
Unfamiliar with the place, I was only aware that I missed a turn when I saw big highway and flyovers (almost on the edge of the city!) As it was my first week in a foreign country, and language was a barrier because the locals spoke Spanish, I started to get scared.
I thought of retracing my steps all the way back to the university campus, but I realised I was probably too far already. Fortunately, I saw a convenience store not too far ahead, and I plucked up my courage to go in and ask the staff for directions. Fortunately, my bare minimum proficiency of Spanish (I did try to learn some basic words before the trip) turned out to be just enough to know where I was and how to get home, as it was getting late, i.e. the sun was setting and the streets would get quite dark.
The next 30 minutes were the most frightening experience of this ordeal. Knowing which route to take to get home was one thing, but I didn't know if any danger was lurking in the those streets. The streets turned out to be relatively quiet as it was mostly residential, but there were occasional stares from the locals, as they probably wondered what an Asian guy would be doing at this area. I secretly told myself to keep walking, and at the same time, not display any signs of panic because the last thing you want people to know would be that you are lost. I was taking glances over my shoulder frequently to make sure no one was following me.
Thankfully, after what seemed like a long walk, I finally saw my place of residence and I was so relieved. Perhaps I was really fortunate that nothing happened to me. Or perhaps the streets were really safe and the people staring at me were just curious and meant no harm, and I was just scaring myself this whole time.
But my sighs of relief didn't last long. When I was near my place of residence, I saw one guy standing in front of the door. I started to weigh my options. Should I approach the guy or should I wait/hide somewhere and see if he leaves? I guess that's another story for another day! Hehe!
So that's all for my sharing this week! Hope you enjoyed reading and let me know if you have any comments! Thanks for reading and have a pleasant weekend ahead!