Connecting Routes: Remembering Travels of the Past
SAMOA - GHANA - CANADA
Here’s to “Connecting Routes” ~ a space to spotlight a common theme in my travels that offers snapshots from one place to another, like the tantalizing tease of a tasting menu or a shortlist of your next dream vacation!
Top Three Places To Remember Travels of the Past
Few places offer us a walking tour through the evolution of time like the Galapágos Islands. While there likely aren’t many others that boast such biologically brilliant, scientifically salient or ubiquitously unique resumes as does this archipelago, our planet offers us many hot spots to remember the travels of the past. The limelight it deserves will be for incoming posts (standby for epic wildlife footage within the Galapagos including super cute baby sea lions, albatrosses doing mating dances, a bunch of boobies and more). Aside from this ‘living laboratory’, I wondered where and to whom we would easily make ongoing references, remembrance and perhaps even reverence of those that travelled before us. I suppose the quality, magnitude, impact and institutional attention could contribute to which countries or footsteps are actually memorialized.
Aside from the blockbuster names we’d likely recognize, there’s a plethora of people whose journeys continue to mold and motivate our own travels. Perhaps it’s discoveries such as the terracotta warriors of the Qin dynasty (Zhao Kangmin), King Tutankhamun's sarcophagus (Howard Carter) and shipwrecks such as the RMS Titanic (Robert Ballard) that tug at our intuition to explore. For others, it may be writers of inspired travels such as Arabian Sands (Wilfred Theisger), Full Tilt: Ireland to India With a Bicycle (Dervla Murphy) and The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry). Or perhaps, blogs like this one may also serve as appetizers that transport us to far away lands - arm chair travel that curtails carbon impact.
Journeying today, while fraught with its own nuances and intricacies, stands on the shoulders of the many curious and courageous peoples of the past. I think of names less likely to roll off our tongues. Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan explorer whose expeditions “took him further than any other traveller of his time” or Sacagawea the first Native American woman who was an interpreter and asset to the Lewis and Clarke expedition. For some, search, surrender and stamina led to a more intimate understanding of our world. For the likes of Japanese mountaineer Junko Tabei (the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest and to complete the Seven Summits), others are also inspired to follow suit (such as Bengali born Wasfia Nazreen). Both Woni Spotts and Jessica Nabongo are African American women who’ve not only completed their own goals of visiting all the globe’s countries, but have hoped to open doors for others to follow. Taking it beyond the self, Spain’s Alicia Sornosa (with the Guinness record for the longest motorbike ride without refuelling) combines journalism and solidarity to support charity.
The world we live in offers us endless opportunity for reflection, and action. Whether we traverse territories, explore ocean depths to outer space or, take up a cause that’s close to home, let’s remember and leverage the travels of the past. Known for her 381 meter dive to the ocean floor (which set the women’s depth record and has yet to be broken), Dr. Sylvia Earle works to develop “hope spots” to protect biodiversity and support sustainable marine environments. At another end, Katia and Maurice Krafft improved our understanding of volcanism. For some, it’s obvious that their passion to peruse our planet is far from perfunctory. Like Laura Dekker, who sailed solo around the world at the age of 16.
While many of us may not navigate as much as we dream to, there are many windows and wonders that may be reachable for us to peep into, to ponder on and perhaps even potentiate. I’m reminded of Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to travel to space (and the only woman to have been on on a solo space mission). At 26, on board the Vostok 6 she radioed down saying, “I see the horizon; it’s a sky blue with a dark stripe. How beautiful the Earth is…” And to that end, amongst a plethora of others, these countries may offer a view spanning vintage to en vogue.
Samoa: Timeless and tucked away, the natural and cultural collection here is always on display. Seeing some sacredness as it flows through what seems still the same-same through generations invites us to go with the flow from yesterdays to today, and perhaps even into the morrow.
Ghana: The past lives of many nations have shown several examples of resilience, particularly during periods that push us as humans and humanity into deeper discovery and dialogues. Times of turmoil and turbulence have enabled us to test if we are loosely or loyally connected. In myriads of moments, faith seemed to imprint its footprint here serving as a source of strength and sustenance for Ghanaians past and present.
Canada: Loaded with legacy within lands and communities, the vast country offers a springboard for us to contemplate. As we live and weave our world within the timeless traditions of the past, perhaps from indigenous or immigrant perspectives, the journeys of predecessors are pretty palpable. As citizens will soon observe Remembrance Day, it’s an ideal opportunity for us to rethink our photocopied days.
May we remember and be inspired by all those before us for their contributions - in travel, discovery, dedication and in all lines of duty,