Warning:
Travel Snobbery ahead. (You know, how you get some travelers together and one will say “I’ve been here, it was incredible,” and another will reply “but I’ve been here, and it is more incredible!”) I try to avoid this as much as possible in my blog, but today I’m going to jump headfirst into a bout of travel snobbery.
You have been forewarned.
I think that, for me, West Africa was the best introduction to travel. I hadn’t been to any “different” places before (only Western Europe, and that is hardly challenging.) So I was pretty green when I woke up to unfamiliar sights and sounds my first morning in Burkina Faso.
Burkina Faso is an incredibly rewarding, beautiful, warm (both literally and figuratively) place. But I’m not going to lie – it’s not an easy place to travel. The cities are chaotic and dirty, the rural villages isolated and rustic. I loved every minute of it, but it was a challenge.
Why was this the perfect traveler’s bootcamp for me?
Because now almost everything seems like a piece of cake. While others complain about aggressive vendors, I can’t help but think that they are nothing compared to the “artisans” who line Ave Kwame Nkrumah in Ouagadougou. Things run slowly sometimes in Guatemala, but it’s nothing like waiting an hour and a half for a plate of riz sauce in a Burkinabe restaurant.
This isn’t to say that Guatemala doesn’t come with its own unique challenges. I’m not saying that everything is a walk in the park everywhere, or that I’m some “super-traveler” that knows everything.
What I’m trying to say is that my extended time in Burkina (and elsewhere in West Africa) has made me feel prepared to take on the challenges in practically any part of the world.
My favourite skill aquired in Burkina?
The art of the bucket shower.
While living in the village of Sapone three years ago, we often ran out of water. I learned to clean myself completely using a quarter of a bucket shower.
This morning, then, when I discovered that there was no water in the shower (or taps) in Xela, I made due. I walked to the kitchen and poured a pot of boiling water from the hot water heater (you know, the thing for tea.) I waited for it to cool a bit, and then, with about six cups of hot water, I showered. Yes, my hair is shiny, and I have no unfortunate odor about me.
While my fellow foreigners in Xela feel sort of gross and smelly, I am sitting happy… and, let’s be honest, like a travel snob.
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