Many years ago, when I was a student, I was offered the ‘trip of a lifetime’ to the Amazon. My biology department was working with a big pharma company. They wanted to offer two post-grad students the chance to join a month-long trip to South America. The project was to help look for plants and fungi that communities there used for medicine and to bring them back to analyse. Wow. It was everything I wanted to do … but instead of counting the days to departure, I pulled out and my place was given to someone else.
Do I regret it? Heck yes. Every day. Let me explain why I (stupidly) said no …
A bucket lid of regret
There was a boyfriend. Yup, you’ve worked it out already! He didn’t like the idea of me going. He didn’t like the other student who had also been chosen. Looking back, he probably felt threatened as we got on really well. But I only had eyes for my boyfriend and I didn’t want to upset him and I felt torn. He knew I wanted to go. I was sent the itinerary … it was amazing! The Lost City of Machu Picchu was factored in (and I love alpacas and llamas!)
We would take boat rides down rivers where we could see otters, monkey, caimans, toucans, parrots and so much more. Spending time in genuine settlements – no telephones or electricity (totally at one with nature). So much more than simply a trip to the Amazon, if it could ever be simple. The places we’d visit and the animals we’d hopefully see were the stuff of National Geographic pages, not real life. I really wanted to go. Everyone assumed I was going – you don’t tend to turn (fully funded) opportunities like this down, right?
But then my boyfriend found my Achilles heel. I didn’t (don’t) like spiders. The Amazon has spiders the size of bucket lids, and at every opportunity he reminded me of this fact. Slowly I became scared and anxious … what if I met one (or many) of these eight-legged monsters? That fear took over from the excitement, and I realised I really didn’t want to go after all. So, I gave my place up. Not because he made me, but because he made me see sense. (Oh, how angry that makes me feel now!)
7 weeks later – while my friend was in the Amazon having the most incredible time – my boyfriend dumped me ☹ I know. Bastard.
Wouldn’t want to go anyway …
For 10 years afterwards, I convinced myself I’d made the right choice. My tutors, I could tell, were disappointed in me and I was never offered another field trip. I changed career, and started again in journalism.
If a TV programme came on the screen about the Amazon, I’d leave the room. If there were photos or stories about it in a magazine, I’d quickly turn the page. It was a bad time in my life, and I wanted to forget it.
But then …
… I met my now husband and realised how toxic that previous relationship had been. I grew in confidence and independence, and re-discovered the head-strong individual who had done so well for herself all those years earlier, before she met that boyfriend.
And since then I’ve always wanted to go to the Amazon. For all the amazing reasons that excited me when I was younger … but also to put right a very big wrong.
And the right time is now. My life is in a good place, I’m in a good place, and even if I do meet a bucket-lid sized spider, I think I’d be ok! I’m not brave enough for solo travel (it’s such a long way), but with a friend to experience it alongside me, the itinerary I saw all those years ago is still my Dream Travel Itinerary ‘trip of a lifetime’ today.
Never Say Never!
Disclaimer
This post is an entry into the Trips100 Tucan Travel Blogger Challenge. However, what you read is a true story x
