Friends of Friends of Friends
Alejandro and Vero are friends of friends from Buenos Aires. They and their two sons usually spend Christmas at their country house an hour outside of the big city. Their family and our mutual friends unexpectedly invited us to their Christmas celebration. We accepted and joined the fun. We had plenty to talk about, wine to drink, and games to play. Elisa and Lucia got some fun pool time in the pileta, which seems to be a Christmas tradition for the millions of people who live in Buenos Aires. On the eve, we tracked Santa’s path through the skies celebrating the secular version of the holiday late into the night.
The kindness of strangers is by far one of the most redeeming aspects of travel. It doesn’t matter how you travel-alone, as a pair, or with your children-you are going to need help, and when you least expect it, random people always end up helping out random people. Some feel a duty to visitors, others feel familiar kinship and may see something in you they recognize. Honestly, the reasons are many, but most people don’t have a reason. Vero and Alejandro helped us because we have mutual friends, sure. But there are others, many others, who have lent us a helping hand, made our lives easier, happier, and way more comfortable in between long stretches of life on the road.
I will never forget a Chilean woman who showered us with gifts in Ecuador. We entered her life when looking for a place to prepare breakfast. We saw a restaurant called Los Hornitos and accidentally pulled into her driveway. She and her husband are Chilean exiles from the Pinochet dictatorship. In Ecuador, they gardened for many years and eventually became pickle experts. That’s the abbreviated version she told us after delighting us with coffee, bread and blackberry jam, Chilean empanadas, a box of choclates and of course, pickles. Chocolates and pickles? We were caught off guard. Her restaurant may have been closed but her heart was definitely open.
In Colombia, when a young gas attendant inadvertently pumped gas into our water tank, we thought the trip was doomed. Just three weeks down the Panamerican Highway, and we had our first crisis. In the city of Pasto we found Madam Eau, a French hydrologist working in municipal water systems with the tools and expertise to clean the Rainbow’s tank and tubes. Moved by the absurd tragedy that befell our family caravan, she did it for free. And then a friend of a friend in Bogota gave us access to his diplomat benefits to send a new tank and pump to his house in Guayaquil. The day we finally picked it up, he was out; we never met face to face, but his assistance was invaluable, and Madam Eau’s confidence helped turn the taste of gasoline to something more palatable and highly chlorinated.
I was fortunate to receive support during my recovery from a herniated disc in my back. Over the course of three countries, people stepped up to make my life a lot better, trying to help. Jorge, a neurosurgeon in Chile who married Ignacia’s friend, helped diagnose the problem after checking my MRIs. A talented osteopath in Ecuador released a pinched a nerve in my back, and his wife was so surprised we were traveling in a van with two kids, she gave us a bottle of olive oil; so random. Fran and Gonzalo in Guayaquil, a couple I had met just once in Bogota, offered me a house and a bed. And when the overlanding life took us to a luxury lodge in Huaraz, Peru, the staff made us an irresistible offer to spend a week in the Cordillera Blanca, resting and restoring our hopes. Throughout, I was close to giving up and going home, and may have if it weren’t for so much kindness.
Then there are the people who helped us out when our windshield exploded in the Chaco. Adrian, the owner of a print shop in Charata, Argentina, had his staff fashion a rainproof plastic windshield onto the Rainbow and then gave us a place to park for the night. He did it all for free, because it was clear we were visitors, and the code of conduct in these parts is that the locals help out-of-towners.
Finally, we will never forget the people in Paraguay who took us in after the windshield saga. Again, these are friends of friends and people we had never met, yet they offered to come pick us up, deliver a windshield, or do whatever it takes to alleviate the crisis. The windshield incident will always be a story in our family’s history, but what makes it so easy to tell is the following week we spent in Asunción with Dini and Chiara, bighearted people who interrupted their lives to help us. They gave us a bed and a house; they provided us the extended family we needed when ours was far away. For this, we will forever associate Paraguay with tremendous hospitality.
These stories encapsulate a series of important lessons: yes, strangers are nice, yes, people are good in general, but friends of friends are more valuable than we could have ever imagined. In the age of Internet and artificial “friends”, it is reaffirming to be able to count on and share experiences with real people. To do this, first you must cultivate healthy relationships with the friends you have. Then, despite distance and time, you have to make an effort for these bonds to grow and strengthen. And finally, you have to be available, because you too are a friend of a friend.
In many ways, it is the people of South America and not the places that are the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. On a person-to-person level, charity can do wonders, if not for the receiver, for the giver. I’m convinced that’s why people help people; it makes you feel good. It’s a win-win. Over and over, we tell our daughters to share: everything from their toys to their ice cream to their space. It sounds cliché, but empathy moves the world, and incorporating the social contract to help one another is how we ought to face our collective future. This is my new year’s resolution for 2020.
Thank you from the bottom to the top of our rainbow, all those people who have been there for us: Alex and Diana in Ibagué; Luis Carlos and Olga in Cali; Gerardo en Sibundoy; Juan Pablo, Diego Monki, Vero and Santiago in Quito; Fran and Gonzalo in Guayaquil, Pete in Canoas; Abby in Baños; Isa and Hugo in Cuzco; Mariana and Gonzalo in San Pedro de Atacama; Guillermo in Salta, Alex and Pepa; Sebas and Laura in Montevideo; Leo and Marisa in Buenos Aires; and to all the overlanders who have shared the road, a campsite, and a drink and a hug; we love and appreciate you all.
