Imagine you are at the register of a bus station somewhere in India. All the buses you see are small and without AC. It is hot so the windows will be open. You know that everyone is wearing light and white clothing because of the heat. None of it will remain white because of all the dust and sand flying in through the open windows. There is no bathrooms in these buses and usually there are barely any toilet breaks. Usually these buses are the only options there are. But luck has always been present in your travels, which is one of the things you love about it. So you decide to ask whether there are any other options. You can always ask right? Indeed luck strikes again: today there is a private van going with a doctor and his wife. The van is a modern car, with AC and a personal driver. The person at the register says this is the only other option available but that it is almost twice the price. "How much is it?" you ask. "300 dollars" the person at the register says pitifully. "What? 300 dollars? Count me in!"
This was one of the first travel stories Cristina told me. Cristina is a 77-year-old woman from Chile. She started travelling when she was 68 years old. She had always wanted to travel but never did. Now she had some money saved and decided to just do it. "I was not going to live the rest of my life with regret of what I hadn't done." Since then she has travelled through 65 countries in five continents!
I was not going to live the rest of my life with regret of what I hadn't done.
I met Cristina on a potluck gathering in a park in Honolulu. We were sitting with five women in their twenties when Cristina joined. After a few minutes I already knew I wanted to know more about this woman. After she shared the India story with me later that evening and I had to leave I asked her if she wanted to have coffee sometime.
A few weeks later I went to her apartment building for coffee. When I came in Cristina was still making coffee. We chatted for a little bit and I don't know how we came to the topic but then she asked me if I wanted to share a gummy. Because I hadn't seen her smoke the last time in the park I did not expect the question at all (never assume, lesson learned). It had been a while since I had done edibles but why the heck not, I thought. So we both took half a gummy and took a towel and our coffee down stairs to the shared pool looking out over the ocean.
The hours that followed were amazing. We talked, shared stories and both cried from laughter. If you would have told me a year ago that I would be sitting at a pool, looking out over the Pacific Ocean with a woman in her 70s, both high on life (and a gummy), crying from laughter... I would not have believed you. But here I was.
The stories that we shared were very different. Cristina had travelled over 65 countries already, had started travelling when she was 68 . I have been in less than half of the places and started travelling when I was 18. But our stories were also so similar! We both went to Laos, stayed in hostels, visited the same or similar places, noticed the same things, and we had similar traveler experiences. Cristina usually travels by herself and strongly dislikes (read: hate) the idea of tours. She doesn't like following someone with a flag together with a bunch of other people and prefers to travel by ear, she goes where the energy flows. She always has a one way ticket because she never knows how long she will be on the road. She comes home when she gets tired of uncomfortable beds and her own bed sounds very appealing. Then she is home until the travel bug comes and she hits the road again.
From the very first moment I met Cristina she inspired me and in the only two times that I met her (after that I left Hawai'i) I learned a lot. The first lesson: you are never too old to follow your dream, or create new ones! Age is only a limiting factor if you believe it to be a limiting factor.
Another story from Cristina that illustrated this was on how she learned French. In 2012 she got a CD to learn French. Her colleagues at the time repeatedly told her jokingly that she was too old to learn a language. But Cristina did one lesson everyday and after 6 months she was fluent! As she was telling this story I realized that what these colleagues told Cristina I had always told myself: after my 20s I would be too old to learn a new language. So I had to learn every language as soon as possible. This belief came from the fact that our brains stop developing in our 20s. So to an extent it is true that learning becomes harder than it is for children whose brains are developing crazy fast. But Cristina's story made me realize that the fact that something becomes harder does not mean it is no longer possible. And just like that I learned another lesson: never let someone stop you from believing you can do something. And that someone includes yourself!
In 2020, when it was no longer possible to travel she decided to travel within. She stayed on O'ahu, Hawai'i where she is still living now. She told me she is building up strength to travel some more. Her next trip will be Antarctica, where she will have to 'bare the tour situation'. and where I met her. Interestingly, I met Cristina two days after I wrote a blogpost on never being too x or not having enough y to follow your dreams. In that blog I wrote that I felt like people wouldn’t take my advice on following your dream because I am young. And because I am still in 'a phase where it is possible to find and follow your dreams'. I wrote that I would find the people that worked themselves (or quit themselves) into ‘that phase’ again. The people who took the risk. I wrote that I would capture their story to inspire you. Cristina is one of the stories that I found. And she inspired me in many more ways than what I had hoped to find.
I am incredibly grateful for the conversations we had and for having had the pleasure of meeting this beautiful, inspiring and funny woman. Friendship is another thing that is not limited by age. I hope we will meet each other again with more stories on both sides.
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