As I look back through old pictures to add to this blog, I realise how much it hasn't been the most recent travels that have inspired my direction, but those from when I was a child. The latest trips have certainly played a big part in achieving a deeper understanding of the world and the environment, although it is travelling with my family that has instilled in me a wanderlust spirit. So, I’d like to dedicate this week’s post to looking back on those memories and try drawing lessons learnt from my childhood travels. I’ll start by sharing an anecdote from when I was probably three years old, which is in my memory the inception of my passion for nature and forests. During a holiday in Corsica, I used to play in the garden of the little house we stayed in. One day, I wandered too far and got lost inside a wood behind the house, and I remember being so scared, and so disoriented. Everything was green and I couldn’t find a way to get out. I called and called my family to come rescue me. When my parents finally arrived and led me out of the wood, I realised it wasn’t a wood at all, but actually a very small group of bushes right behind our cabin that, to me as a two-year-old, must have looked like a jungle. Like Bruce Wayne falling into the well and being attacked by bats, forcing him to face his fears and become Batman, I got lost in some bushes and I am now obsessed with forests. My passion for everything natural, however, was most probably initiated by our family trips to the Alps. If I haven’t mentioned it yet, I’m from Italy, and many of my trips as a kid were to the Italian, Swiss and Austrian Alps. Hiking with my family through the woods of Gressoney-Saint-Jean in Valle d'Aosta, recognising flowers and trees, are part of my fondest memories. My parents also often took us to Seefeld, a quaint village in Tyrol (Austria), and there too I enjoyed being out in green pastures in the midst of monumental mountains. The outrageous amount of times I dragged my parents and grandparents to nature museums, both in Milan (where I grew up) and elsewhere, is a testament to what I learnt by being outside and observing nature during those trips. The most important thing that travelling during those years has taught me is how to appreciate local nature and value every organism in an ecosystem. No matter how big or small, it must be cherished and respected. As I grew up and learnt more about nature, I realised that what I saw around me hadn’t been the same all the time. I learnt that nature isn’t static, and it has changed on a daily basis for thousands of years. The same goes for cultures, societies, cities and technology. I realise these are obvious statements to anyone who is reading, but what does “thousands of years” really mean to a child with no frame of reference or enough understanding to put it into context? It isn’t an easy concept to really wrap your head around even as an adult. What helped me gain a deep time perspective was definitely participating in archaeological excavations which my grandad was involved with (check out his website!). I enjoyed chatting to very patient archaeologists as they desperately tried to work, asking them about everything they were doing. Though I’m sure I annoyed them, they did their best to keep me entertained and, thanks to that, I was exposed from a young age to researchers studying the past. I learnt it is crucial to uncover information about our evolution as humans (both physical and intellectual) and the dynamic change of surrounding environments, in order to understand more about our future. Whenever I visited ancient temples and ruins in later years, I always thought about how much the world has changed since the days when Paestum or Pompeii were teeming with people. I soon learnt that the journey of humankind through time has been hectic, always busy surviving invasions, climate and natural disasters, but still managing to achieve enormous feats. Yet, observing nature, wandering through museums and bothering archaeologists hasn't been all that led me to become a researcher myself. Two trips in particular have dunked me into nature in its rawest form and fuelled my hunger for adventure. I used the word ‘dunked’ purposefully because the first of these experiences involved diving in the waters of the Red Sea, off the shore of Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt. I only snorkelled, but it was enough of an immersive experience to imprint in me a necessity to explore the natural world from within. Swimming near a coral reef so pullulating with life, you realise you are just another creature living amongst a myriad of others and that you are no longer in the safety of your own environment. You are swimming in an environment that is not yours, and you are at the mercy of the creatures around you, including barracudas and potentially sharks. To a young child, that is scary yet so very exciting. The other trip that immersed me into the wilderness was the safari I did in Kenya with my adventurous grandma. At the time, I was eight years old, and sitting in a Jeep in the middle of a country so far away from home and so different, full of animals I had seen on TV, was once again a frightening but thrilling experience. Kenya was the polar opposite of where I had grown up living, and it was beautiful. It was the animals, it was the people, it was the scenery. In the lodges, Kenyan music was being played by locals, who dressed in colourful clothes spreading joy. Still, lodges and cities like Nairobi are more similar to the western world (because capitalism, colonialism and globalisation!), but I was lucky enough to meet a Masai tribe, exposing me to an ethnic group that don’t live at all like us westerners do. I remember speaking to the chief of the tribe as he showed me around the village’s huts, the cattle they herded and explaining how they make their jewellery. Before then, the only African animals I had seen were in zoos behind a cage. However, in the reserves (we visited both Serengeti and Maasai Mara National Reserves), animals would roam freely and wildly in the savannah. Nothing will ever beat the magnificence of witnessing the Great Migration of wildebeest and zebras, rushing from one side of a river to the other and trying to avoid vicious attacks by Nile crocodiles as they crossed the water. The feeling of the earth trembling as the swarm of animals passed by me remains unbeatable. Have a look at more pictures of my trip to Kenya here! It is only fair to say that all the trips I had as a child have deeply affected the way I think and see the world and have shaped my direction from a young age. I have learnt to respect cultures and recognise their beauty, no matter the colour of skin, economic background or lifestyle. These travels have instilled in me a passion for nature and an understanding of the time and effort the Earth has taken to produce environments the way we see them today. I’d like to thank my parents and grandparents, who took so much time and energy to make sure I was exposed from a young age to the richness of the world’s nature and cultures. I am eternally grateful to have had the privilege of travelling and experiencing so much of the world while growing up, as I realise that’s not something everyone is able to do. I’d love to hear some of your best childhood travel experiences in the comments below, and what you have learnt from them!
Stay tuned and stay wanderlust Dael
1 Comment
Anon
7/21/2020 02:57:28 pm
I agree with you completely about swimming in the Red Sea by the coast of Egypt. It's such a humbling and awe-inspiring experience, and for those of us lucky enough to have that, it's impossible to forget.
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