6 (not 5 and not 10) uncool, unrelated and useless facts about travelling. #inlovewiththenormcore

No rainbows, no unicorns, no legendary moments, no thick descriptions, no instalicious pictures. This is the ode to disgusting details of the glorious wanderlust, the hymn to uncool facts of the praised adventure, the out of tune ballad about absurdities of relativity. A composition of random, unrelated and useless facts that you would never implement in your future travels.

1. Your clothes are dirty  

Sleeping in a tent is fantastic, don’t get me wrong. Doing hand wash with just the water is liberating and brings you closer to the nature. All that and more. Ladida. However …. people can easily distinguish you from the participants of the organised group tours by the way you look. This may not be a good thing. The organized group people are everything you are not. They are ‘the clean people’ -  they have nice backpacks, clean shoes and nice, freshly smelling outfits. It’s great to be you, BUT, let’s state the obvious – you look like a bum.

2. Superficial needs vs. journey deep down into yourself

You talk to your friends about positives of having a nice pedicure. They say it’s better to have an adventure and forget about being superficial. The condition of your feet proves them wrong. Obviously. 

3.  Half of mouton can cost you less than ingredients for the Greek salad.

 I mean, how long can you go on with the adventurous local food like goat heads, zebra steaks and all the catchy game meat. How long can you absorb carbs with meat, carbs with carbs or carbs with potatoes. You need kale. You need spinach. You crave those tiny, weird sounding superfoods. You die for something green called ‘detox’ or ‘vegan’.

Ain’t gonna happen.

All you get is overpriced mass-produced veggies imported from China or a local market version that sells single genre of your favourite delish healthy food (so you’d have only onions, only tomatoes or only garlic – good luck being the creative cook).

 4. Travelling local means you will get stuck at some stage.  

There is no bus till next week - you stay. You soak into the atmosphere of boredom being killed with the bar existence*. You manage to leave… eventually. Then you have another week to spend before your next bus departs. You are excited – you will be in a big city, there will be concrete sidewalks, supermarkets, and you can do waxing! Delightful! Two days ahead and you stop lying to yourself – going to the store to buy water is not fun. Sitting at the roof terrace of Hilton Hotel ** and watching the sunset is kind of nice if you fancy feeling privileged. Living in a segregated city might be an adventure if you think that guided tour of townships (poor/coloured areas of town) is a great way to know the real thing and be the man who knows it all.

5.  As you meet more and more fellow travellers your hatred towards human kind grows significantly. 

How long can you look up to the cool silent types with mysterious travel story? How long can you socialize with the Dutch and German Families? You already know that approaching the couples might be a waste of time***. Meeting the weirdos does not impress you anymore. You are German and have a feather hat – fine. You are an ex government worker growing weed – awesome. You are a hippie – good for you. You are basically a half local and know all about this place – fantastic. 

You seriously could not care less.

6.  Jamming is great but most of the pop music you hear in Africa is crap.

Worst thing is – you find yourself actually liking it. 

After a month and a half it felt like this is the time to have a look at my survival guide - a farewell gift from my friends. 

Adventure is electrifying, but you do miss the close ones. 

And this is a good thing.

#shittyispretty

#inlovewiththenormcore

* Just have a look at the wonderful survival gift from my friends – they already boozy knew it all!

** Brangelinas spent there weekend or gave birth to one of their  kids in there. I’m not sure. Google.

*** Conaill and Jo Jo -  miss you even more as I go along!