One of the patterns that we’ve noticed as we’ve traveled is one we like to call travel karma. Similar to (although not exactly the same as) the religious concept, travel karma represents the balance of good and bad travel experiences for anybody (or travel group).
The idea is that you always end up balanced out, between your good and bad travel experiences. So for as many (or as important, or as significant, or some combination) good experiences you have, there are a similar amount of bad experiences. Take us, for example:
- Our vastly different volcano trips, within a week of each other
- We got within 20 miles of Cotopaxi
- We had a great time ascending and descending Chimborazo
- We were surprised by our time in Lima and in Arequipa, too
- Thought we would hate Lima but we liked it
- Thought we would love Arequipa but hated it
There have been lots of times when we’ve experienced this – random cases of exceptionally good luck or seemingly unending streams of bad events, but we do what we can to keep the balance in our favor. We send out good vibes whenever we can, including:
- Giving good tips to waiters and others
- Giving up our spots in line (sometimes without knowing it) when we’re not in a rush
- Helping out other foreign travelers (advice, translation assistance, etc)
- And generally just trying to relax when things don’t go the way we expect – which happens a lot here in South America…
So that’s travel karma; we get it a lot here (both good and bad).
