As I sit in the Head Offices of Ticket To Ride in England I can count on one hand how many days it’s been since I’ve left Cape Town but I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count the adventure/challenges I’ve had in these past few days.
Something people don’t know about me is, I love my little bubble and routine. Whether it be with my boys in Cape Town or my family and the Palmboom’s on the Bluff. I love my comfort zone. It’s all good to have your routine but sometimes it can hinder growth in some ways, especially if you’re still in your 20’s with no real obligations & commitments.
So I managed to bend the arms of the crew in Head Office to book me a ticket to do a stint in England. My ticket was booked, bags were packed and I was ready to go on my adventure. I know catching a flight to Heathrow doesn’t seem like such an adventure but when Max books your flight with a 21-hour layover in Ethiopia it turns into one…. and fast!
Ethiopia
The first stop on my travels was Addis Ababa. The capital of Ethiopia. Having basically an entire day to kill and an airport that was grubbier than a public toilet seat I thought to myself “I’m going to go for a walk through one of the poorest cities on the planet”. To my ignorance trying to explain to passport control, I am only going to be in the country for a few hours was a 4-hour task in itself. Not only did they not speak a word of English, they kept shouting in Amharic ( a form of Arabic… I think) why are you here? I’m afraid my Amharic wasn’t quite up to scratch so the language barrier made it bit of problem. 🙂 After queuing for hours on end, almost throwing in the towel and sitting in the airport and trying to decipher the local language, I was through the gates and walking the streets of Addis.
To my surprise, it was actually really chilly and every hour or so a thunderous 10-15 minute storm would come tearing through the city. The rain, at first, was welcoming until I realised like the majority of the locals in the street, I hadn’t had any shelter to stand under. Using my backpack as an umbrella and jumping puddles to save my socks from getting wet I was on a mission to find some traditional Ethiopian coffee. At first, I had cursed Max’s name 100 times over for booking this flight, but now I couldn’t be more appreciative of the eye opening experience. Seeing the poverty in that country and how every person is on the hustle to try to make ends meet made me really appreciate my life and the life we live in South Africa.
The land of the Queen
I’d made it England and happy to have survived the streets of Ethiopia and a caffeine overdose from the 20 cups of coffee. I now found myself (With no sleep in 48 hours) staring at a train station platform board, with names that sound like they were all from Middle Earth and no idea where to go? This was my next adventure/challenge. I walked through crowded Paddington station with an overweight surfboard bag and no idea what platform to stand at. This may sound simple but I had never been on a train before. At least people spoke English and were a bit more accommodating than the last country. Someone eventually pointed out where I need to stand, I glanced over to see my train about to take off without me on it.
I summoned some crazy Hercules strength to throw my 6 stone board bag over my shoulder and sprinted across the busy station to just make it. Finally, I was on my way to Exeter where I would be greeted by a cheeky smile from Linley because he could tell It looked like I had been dragged through the bush backwards and the fact I walked straight into the turnstile doors thinking they would magically open for me like the gates of heaven… They didn’t.
Sleep deprived, forgetting to mention I had dropped my toothbrush on the floor in the Ethiopian toilets (This is self-explanatory), hadn’t showered in days, I finally made it to the welcoming Head Office of Ticket To Ride.
The first weekend away
Feeling desperate to get into the ocean, I rang up Jeffa Snell (who helps run the Ticket To Ride surf school in Perranporth) to head down there for a ‘surf ‘weekend away. TTRide had organised me a car to use which I packed my boards and wetsuits in and I was off early Saturday morning for the 1.5-hour drive to the coast of England. Obviously not knowing the roads I accepted the inevitability of getting lost a few times. I eventually made it, walked into the surf school and to my surprise, it was absolutely buzzing! I wasn’t too sure about the UK surf scene but the school was jammed packed with frothing people amped to learn to surf. The guys were full of energy and seemed to be such a close-knit group of friends who live for surfing. Which is what you want in an instructor!
After two fun surfs in Perranporth I decided to make the long journey home. Not knowing that the A30 would be closed due to roadworks (N2 for South Africans), A 1.5-hour trip quickly turned into a 4 hour one. Travelling through farm roads that the Ttride truck could hardly fit on with a fuel tank running on low. I soon had to accept defeat and admit to myself I was lost in a foreign country with zero signal on my phone, dwindling fuel and a setting sun. The panic started to set in. Driving down countless one ways and pissing off, even more, locals with my erratic turning I really started to stress as it was now dark and I was accepting the fact I may need to sleep in the car on the side of the road. ( If I could find a road big enough to pull over) Eventually, I finally found an on-ramp to the highway that wasn’t blocked off. Success! I was back on track. Once the heart rate had normalised I remember a great quote from a book I’m currently reading…
“Everything worthwhile in life is won through surmounting the associated negative experience. Any attempt to escape the negative, to avoid it or quash it or silence it, only backfires. The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering”. – Mark Manson
Although all these experiences are minor in the big scheme of things, the point of this blog is that none of them would have happened if I had stayed in the comfort of South Africa. This is only the beginning of my trip. I still have Norway, Amsterdam and a 6-week trip to The Philippines to get through. Which I hope won’t be a walk in the park because I have already walked through a park today to get to work and that was easy. 😉
Till next time.