deartraveller

My dearest Sara,

First of all, I can’t believe how cute your friend is! I’m so jealous! You have to invite him to visit our town so I can meet him too and please if you are truly my best friend… MARRY HIM! Just kidding (but seriously, he looks like he was photoshoped!).

Well, speaking of other matters, what you said about Queen Elizabeth left me very curious too. I rented the movie and there was a particular speech of Walter Raleigh telling of his adventures that got my attention:

“Can you imagine - can you feel - what it is to cross an ocean? For weeks you see nothing but the horizon. All round you. Perfect, and empty. Your ship is small - tiny - a speck in such immensity.    

You live with fear, in the grip of fear - fear of storms, fear of sickness on board, fear of the immensity. What if you never escape? How can you escape? There's nowhere to go. So you must drive your fear down, deep into your belly, and study your charts, and watch your compass, and pray for a fair wind - and hope. Pure naked fragile hope, when all pure senses scream at you, Lost! Lost! Imagine it. Day after day, staring west, the rising sun on your back, the setting sun in your eyes, hoping, hoping.

At first it's no more than a haze on the horizon, the ghost of a haze, the pure line corrupted. But clouds do that, and storms. So you watch, you watch. Then it's a smudge, a shadow on the far water. For a day, for another day, the stain slowly spreads along the horizon, and takes form - until on the third day you let yourself believe. You dare to whisper the word - land!

Land. Life. Resurrection. The true adventure. Coming out of the vast unknown, out of the immensity, into safe harbor at last. That - that - is the New World.”

Isn’t it incredible? This description simply took my breath away. I was enraptured with such deep and meaningful words. Suddenly I wasn’t here in 2012, I went back in time and found myself on a ship, heading to the unknown. I consider myself an explorer since I’m travelling around the world with nothing but a bag pack and a map, but can you image how it would be to go on a journey like this? The feeling of adventure, not knowing what you are going to find, how many days left to find it. The fear of end up not finding anything at all or the excitement of finding a bit of paradise here on Earth. The unavoidable doubt: how is it like? Is it even real? Or just a product of a mad man’s imagination? Is it an inhabited place or just desert land waiting for us to discover it?

I can’t help thinking that travelling is not so exciting now, I mean, it really is wonderful visiting other countries, meeting new people, experiencing new things, but the boring part is that we already know where we are going to. The possibility of just getting on board of a ship and set sail to the horizon with no direction and hope to find something never seen before is nothing but a dream now. Everything has been discovered already and that leaves me thinking that the world has become a smaller place. Or if not smaller, more empty. Don’t you agree?

I was really surprised to find out that Virginia was named after the “Virgin Queen”, it’s funny, in its way. I searched for pictures of “Virginia beach” online and it really is beautiful there. Besides, you know I can’t resist a nice beach like that! So don’t leave just yet, I’m going to meet you! I already bought the plane tickets! I guess I won’t have to wait for you to bring Gabriel to our town after all! Some of the friends I made here in India agreed to go with me so I won’t be going alone!

I hope I find a cute friend like yours during the flight! I miss you a lot and can’t wait to see you!

Love,

Érica.