Heather

There have been a lot of goodbyes on my trip. Some have been easy, some have been difficult. Today I said goodbye to Heather, but strangely after 2 ½ months of travel together, it didn’t seem like a real goodbye as we embraced on the side of the road in Jerusalem. It seemed more like a divergence of paths that would most certainly meet again.

We met in Egypt at Abu Simbal. Heather had just crossed from Sudan and I was on a hunt for other travelers to fill a felucca to head up the Nile. Three days floating and I thought she was alright – a hot & cold 31-year old Canadian engineer who had embarked on the same kind of journey as I had, one of adventure and self-discovery.

The more time we spent together, the more I liked her and the more the similarities between us became evident – to the point of being eerie at times. We solved problems the same way, had the same laissez-faire attitude towards banking, enjoyed the same type of travel experience (prioritizing people over sights and splurging on spas now and again), both peed with the bathroom door open, fairly consistently were drawn to the same souvenirs, obsessed over little things deconstructing emails and events of great and little significance and most importantly enjoyed one another’s company. Of course there were differences that often overshadowed our similarities to people who met us, but our combined personalities made ideal travel partners often playing good cop/bad cop and navigating our way as women through Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Israel.

I now sit here on the bus heading to Amman where I will fly home in a few day, county the many blessings that have come my way in the Middle East. Heather, despite our little stresses, is one of the greatest. It is a special person you can meet one day and spend the next 75 days and nights with. Thank you, Heather. ‘Til next time, dear friend.