Day 4 of the BootsnAll Travel Challenge asked us to tell about a time when we got information from a local, and also encouraged us to pose as a tourist in our town and ask 5 strangers about things to do and then go do it.
There is no equivalent to experiencing a new city like a local when you are traveling. This is true whether you are on another continent or just a nearby town, but it is especially magical when you require this inside scoop because there is no other way to obtain this coveted knowledge other than asking someone who lives there. When you find that special experience, that place where no guidebook or travel blog or Trip Advisor review could have led you, you instantly feel a connection with and a deeper sense of the place you are in.
When we traveled around the world with our kids we were continuously trying to get off the tourist track, away from the tour buses and restaurants with picture book menus. Inevitably, in the same places where we sought these back door experiences, we also needed guides and drivers in many locales where for instance, driving wasn’t recommended (Sri Lanka) or language was a major barrier (SE Asia). Our guides would often try to take us to the major tour stop restaurants and we would try to redirect them to something more authentic, asking them “Where would YOU eat?”. Usually, they would chuckle and say that no, the food they would eat wouldn’t be good for our stomachs. We nearly always succeeded in cajoling them into taking us to a local restaurant, where we sat amidst the local lunch crowd, nary a foreigner in site. Sometimes, it was just pulling over at a card table laden with some homemade recipe with the cook standing there in her apron while her children played nearby. These culinary adventures didn’t always end well or weren’t universally appealing to all six of our palates, but we always walked away happy in at least one sense, feeling that little prickle of having “broken through” and looked in the face of the real thing. We had gotten out of our comfort zones and experienced something new. For a couple of stories about these adventures, check out these old posts here and here.
I lay in bed this morning and posed the #DoYouIndie Travel Challenge topic to Jon, and we reminisced about some of our favorite local experiences. They are too numerous to recount here, so I decided to share one that really stands out for me. We were very fortunate near the end of our trip to have a unique opportunity to stay with an American expat family in Peru. They were running an AirBnB in a big colonial home in the heart of Cusco with their 4 kids and a few chickens running underfoot, and we instantly saw the potential for a great connection. Bill and Nic were the consummate hosts, and the most genuine and open people, and their generosity allowed us to really see Cusco from a local’s perspective. They do run a few tours from their AirBnB and one, A Day in the LIfe, involves eating Cuy (guinea pig) and seeing how a Peruvian farm is run. I think timing and other factors conspired against us doing that, but we were able to have some other amazing experiences together. Bill had heard that we had some baseball gear with us, and the idea began to form that we would have a big family ball game. So, we packed a picnic lunch and carpooled to the nearby historical site, Sacsayhuaman (pronounced “sexy woman”). It felt a little strange running around a baseball diamond made of sweatshirts and stocking caps while tourists looked on from their explorations of nearby 1000 year old ruins and a hallucinogenic, Shaman-led Ayahuasca experience was happening in the background at one point. But it was intensely memorable and I laugh every time I check out the photos, remembering how surreal the whole thing was.
Our baseball diamond in the midst of the famous Sacsayhuaman archeological site
Another morning, the whole Roaming Jones clan took a bus to an open air market with Bill and one of his kids, where we trailed along behind as he picked up breakfast staples (provided as part of the room rate to their guests) and food that we would need for a shared meal we were all cooking together that night. His fluent Spanish and familiarity with the market helped put everyone at ease and made it easier to take photos and get questions answered about unfamiliar foods or anything around us, really. On the way home, we were all crammed onto a standing room only local bus, and a woman said something to me – Bill translated that she had commented on how good the large bunch of mint I was holding smelled. Instant connection and warm smile.
The busy marketplace
Bill picking out some produce
Bill asked this man if I could take his photo and he was more than happy to oblige!
My “friend” from the bus, thanks to Bill’s help as a translator
One Saturday morning, Nicole and I woke up early and walked to the local flea market, where she hunted through her usual haunts for used and antique goods for their AirBnB. Nicole is blonde and looks every bit the American that she is (or was) and it was fun to watch the faces of the vendors as she held up an item and inquired basically, Cuanto? They would name some ridiculous tourist price, to which she would spit out an indignantly fluent tirade and begin to set the item down. She nearly always walked away with her prize, and a satisfied look, while the vendor sat smiling and shaking their head, also pleased with the spirited transaction and impressed by this white girl’s skills. If my memory serves me, after a few hours, we had procured some amazing woven blankets for the beds, some sheets, a couple of dishes or trinkets and nearly a cool green sofa set that was just too expensive at the time. Another night, Molly and David agreed to watch the kids (our 2 and Bill and Nic’s 4, of whom the youngest was 1) while Bill, Nicole, Jon and I snuck off to a local Irish Pub to watch the US defeat Ghana in a world cup soccer game. We felt and acted like American tourists there, but it was a great break for Bill and Nic and we all had a blast, concluding with a very entertaining walk back to the house.
Enjoying the homeschooling art supplies at Bill and Nic’s
When I look back at that time in Cusco, it almost feels like we were locals, despite not speaking the language and only having stayed there a couple of weeks, simply because we were able to shadow Bill and Nic as they went about their daily lives. Like I said in an earlier post, it is always about the people.
Speaking of which, a second part of today’s challenge was to ask people in my own city where they like to go and choose one of those suggestions and go do it. I am proud to report that I DID ask a few locals about their favorite things to do in Seattle and here is how it turned out:
1) Pike Place Market
2) I’m not from here (and he thought I was hitting on him so I dropped it), and
3) Suggested I try out his restaurant in Ballard, called Copine, that will be opening in April. You heard it here first, folks!
Even though I didn’t get any great insider tips that I could act on today, I loved getting outside of my comfort zone by striking up conversations with random strangers. A bit of thaw on the Seattle Freeze reputation!
Beautiful Andes
