Bad Trip

 

The Run Down:
-I have an unhealthy addiction to traveling

-I had a lot of bad luck
-I almost died

 

 

So as you probably know by now, I have an addiction. An addiction to traveling. And like most addictions, there are highs and lows. There’s the high of escaping reality. There is the low of coming back to it. And it becomes a habit.  You just want one more city, one more hit, just another country, you got to get your fix. But sometimes things get out of hand, and you see your life tumbling, crashing, and slipping away right before you eyes…And that’s was my experience on the Canary Islands...

 

We had a week off from school for Carnaval (a celebration all over Spain and a few other countries). I believe it has something to do with Lent, but that was never discussed, all that was talked about was costumes. Costumes on costumes. Costumes for days. From what I gathered, the premise of the holiday was to dress up…and party…for a week. And as you know, it’s always been important to me to get to know a culture, so of course, how could I pass up this event. (It’s like all the best parts of Halloween minus the stupid scary shit!).

 

One night we went to Verin, a small village, for Noche de Comadres (Night of the Godmothers), where everyone had to dress as a girl…I have never seen so many men so proudly cross-dressed.  This tiny village was packed with drunken “women”, broken glass and a huge concert (that for some reason chose Lil Bow Wow as their background video). Our bus dropped us off there at 11 and picked us up at 6 AM (as to be expected in Spain).

Now, because we had the week off, I was able to book a flight back home to attend the NBA (Nebraska Bowhunter’s Association), but I had a 3 days free before my flight home. So, I had two options, one was to stay in Ourense, which was known to have a decent fiesta… Or I could go take a hung-over Blablacar to Madrid on Friday, party, catch a flight to the Canary Islands to party for two more days straight, hike a mountain hung over, and then rush back to Madrid to catch a flight home…given my addiction, I assume you know what I chose….Saturday morning we landed in Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands, known for the best carnival and highest mountain in Spain. At this point I was still high on my travel, only lacking sleep….

Then I found out I had no money in my account.

Before arriving to Tenerife, we decided we would rent an RV so we could travel around the island, party, and have a hotel on wheels. So, when we got to the airport I needed to take out my share to pay for the RV, which is when I found out my job didn’t pay me yet. Luckily, I brought my credit card for emergencies. Unfortunately…when I went to put the down payment for the vehicle on the card, turns out you need a pin code…and my credit card doesn’t have. Soooo that was utterly useless the entire time.

Luckily I was with a good friend who spotted me the entire trip. So we were able to take off in our RV and travel the island. After adjusting to the terrifying sharp turn roundabouts, getting slightly lost, and loading the RV full of food and booze for the weekend, we arrived in Spain’s greatest Carnaval city.  We parked our RV in a parking lot, changed into our amazing costumes and went out at about 12.  We partied our faces off for a good four hours then went back to our RV to rest for 3 hours before waking up at the crack of dawn to drive up a curvy, winding mountain.

To hike the mountain, Teide, we had to book a reservation, and because I was only there for two days, we only had Sunday morning to hike. Therefore, in addition to lack of sleep and no money, I had to wake up at 7 am to hike the highest mountain in Spain…hung over.  Driving pass the DUI checkpoint without getting pulled over was a high, going .2mph the entire way up the mountain and missing our reservation was a low.

This may have been the point in the trip where things were my addiction was catching up to me. Where I felt drained, exhausted, and irritated…but determined. Even though we couldn’t hike all the way up due to missing our reservation, we were there so we decided to hike what we could.

Now, when you go to the beach you always remember sunscreen, when you go to the mountains… not so much. Unfortunately, we were above all the clouds before we started the hike, and as we went up the gleaming white snow only reflected the sun back onto my burning red face. Five hours of burning was enough to bring more awareness to my hangover, lack of sleep, lack of energy, and lack of money…then we lost my friend, Nithin.

He had decided to go on without us, as he was determined to reach it to the top. However, on our way down we met some people that said it was literally impossible to make it there and he would only be able to reach the sleeping hut that night and have to come back the next day if he kept going. We tried to call him, we tried to yell up the mountain at him, but he was long gone. So we had no option but to head back to the RV and wait….and wait…and wait.  Three hours later we were starting to get worried, as we began to realize he was hiking alone, if something happened to him we wouldn’t be able to get a hold of him. We also realized if he stayed in the sleeping hut I would miss my flight the next morning…also none of us knew how to drive the RV except for Nithin. We tried to brain storm what we should/would do if he didn’t come back, and we all drew blanks. Our fear was growing and growing until around the bend, as if out of a movie, slowly and heroically came…CAPITAIN AMERICA.  (Nithin was Captain America for Carnaval and was still in costume.)

Nithin recapped his story with us, which in general was pretty uneventful. He found some people that told him he couldn’t keep going and he turned around. But the best part is the fact that the mountain was too steep for him to walk down… so he began to foot-ski down the side of the mountain… passing people who were coming up… by himself…dressed as Captain America.

At this point of the trip I was aware of that my addiction to travel could be problematic. The first step is admitting you have a problem and the hangover, exhaustion, and lack of money was rough, but the burned skinned was enough to make me admit I had a problem. But we were almost done, only had to drive down the mountain, park for the night and make my way back home the next morning. I rested in the back bed with a friend as night set in and we made our way down. At one point I felt us pull over to let the 8 cars behind us finally pass. Then I drifted back to sleep.

I was the awoken by what I thought was us pulling over again, as the RV was rocking. But instead of settling onto solid ground, it began to rock more, and more. My eyes weren’t open yet and I heard the girl next to me screaming at Nithin. It was dark, and I could only feel the movement of the vehicle, until things began to fall on me, and I heard the sound of breaking glass.

It was all a blur but I was aware enough to know two things : one, our RV was tipping, and two, it was rolling towards the side the mountain that drops off.

The brakes had gone out in the RV as we were coming around a curve, going down the highest mountain in Spain.

 

For what seemed like a lifetime, I just felt my body being thrown like a rag doll, felt things crashing above and below me, and thinking “please stop, please stop, please stop”.

We stopped. The girl who was in the back bed with me was screaming, and I found an opening in the broken window and we crawled out. It was dark and there were fumes and I could hear a liquid pouring out. I was shaken but aware enough to know that liquid could be one of three things: water from the shower, propane from the kitchen or gas from the car. Two to one were not odds I wanted to play. I began shouting for Nithin, first to make sure he was alive, and second to “SHUT OFF THE FUCKING ENGINE!”

Nithin made it out uninjured, a moment later I saw the two others, also uninjured. We all crossed the road, flagged down passing cars, and shook our heads in disbelief. Not only in the fact that we were uninjured, but in the fact that we were alive at all. As the hour passed and police, ambulance and fire trucks came, we were able to exam the severity of our close call. 

After tipping towards the steep side of the mountain our RV was stopped by a gigantic boulder. Had we rolled five feet earlier or five feet after, our RV would likely have ended at the bottom of the mountain. When the tow truck tried to turn the RV upright we saw how frail it was, as it all completely feel apart before our eyes.
Our night ended with a short hospital visit, gathering our belongings, finding passports and phones, booking one of the last hostel rooms in the city, a hearty meal, and lots of hugs and gratitude.

So thiiiiis was the point where my I was ready to sign up for a 12 step program, get my life back on track, stop letting traveling throw me off cliffs. Buuuut I had a flight to catch back home. And apparently my bad luck was not nearly as exhausted as I was. I had two of the worst flights of my life, going through endless turbulence, which given the recent accident of me being thrown side to side, I wasn’t a fan these roller coaster flights.  When I finally arrived in Mardid, I set THREE alarms (for my 3AM taxi ride)…but I set them all to PM. After rushing and catching my taxi, I waited in an hour-long line to check in. When I was one spot away, I read my text messages, one that was saying “call your taxi driver, you left your passport in his car”.  After paying for him to come back to the airport, re-waiting in line, actually making my flight, crying a little, sleeping a lot, and taking 3 more flights, I FINALLY arrived in The Good Life (Nebraska). My best friend picked me up from the airport and I couldn’t have been more thrilled. I recounted every bit of my last three days on our drive from Omaha to Lincoln, and it was decided WINE WAS IN ORDER. We pulled up to the liquor store and I went to grab my wallet… out of my bag?... “it must be in the back seat…or in the trunk…fuck.”

I left my bag at the airport in Omaha.


 

** I would like everyone to know I have seeking counseling for my addiction and working on a full recovery. **

 

The problem is that my counseling has consisted of traveling around Spain and planning a trip to South America.