Travel

I love to travel. It’s exhilarating being new in an unfamiliar place, away from the comfortable confines of one’s world with its usual patterns and predictable routines.

I usually go on strolls, whenever I’m new to a place, to acquaint myself of the strange territory. My lungs hungry for adventure suck in the refreshing breeze of the unfamiliar air.

Be it in a bustling city or a remote island I usually leave the pack and explore on my own unhampered. I like seeing a place with fresh new eyes and musing lightly, alone in my thoughts or sometimes entertaining myself with a good book when there’s nothing much to see. It’s relaxing, soothing experience.

Sometimes, I think I may have taken after my adventurous ancestor Ramon Velez y Santos (born 1840, father of my great greatgrandma Rosario). He owned a 13.32-ton ship which he named Paciencia. Like the Parian merchants of his time, he used it to scour the islands for products like copra, pearl, cacao, tobacco, etc. for sale to foreign merchants. He was also a renowned photographer in 1880s when photography was first introduced.

Unlike him however, I don’t scour the islands for products I can trade. I used to travel a lot as part of my job. I took on that job even if it meant the demise of a quite lucrative business I was starting due partly to the lure of travel and of seeing new places.

Whenever I got home I always brought with me souvenir items to remind me of the place I’ve been to. I searched around for icons of unique cultural peculiarities, just inexpensive ones but quite significant.

Sometimes, it’s food that took my fancy.

Now, I travel a lot because my family lives on an island frequented by tourists.

On one of my trips, I read a book Recollections of a Voyage to the Philippines written in the 1870s by a Belgian writer J. De Man and translated to English from French by E. Aguilar Cruz. Reading the book gave me a refreshing perspective of 19th century Philippines from the eyes of a tourist.

There’s something about travel that’s rejuvenating. I like being aware of my sweat dripping on my back, trickling on my forehead while I go strolling under the sweltering heat of the sun in light casual clothes. Or feeling the hurried breathing of my nostrils taking in the fresh gust of wind on top of a hill or on a wet, damp shore when the tide has ebbed..

More than the physical exhilaration, I love the feeling of not being claimed by a place while I absorb everything in. It’s like dining places. I wrote a poem once of a mountain I climbed:

I’m hungry,
And I’m having my fill.
Of rugged mountains,
And pouring rain.
Of overcast sky,
And blowing wind.