Traveling Companion

This is something I wrote following my trip to Ghana last April, it is focused around a friend I had on the trip but maybe this blog will serve in place of a real traveling companion.  

Every traveler needs a companion. Maybe not on all trips but if it is a real trip, a journey both in place and mind, then a traveling companion is needed. Despite what happens before or after the trip this person leaves their own impact on both the traveler and the trip. They know what you are thinking and you know what they are thinking, and if you don’t know one can learn if from a look, a smile or a furrowed brow. While two little friends sitting underneath the tree or two fiends sharing what they have can connect you to a country it is often harder to connect yourself to your own thoughts. It is the traveling companion’s role to connect you to your experiences—others can bring you closer to what you are seeing but the companion can bring you closer to yourself.

Traveling alone can have its advantages; the solitude and the selfish collection of memories, but it is often better to share them. This was especially true on this trip because it presented so many dramatic experiences that it would have been easy to become overloaded and disconnected. The ability to talk and to share made the experiences more real. If they had all stayed in my head then they could have remained there and become simply memories, things that mean a lot to me and no one else. Now that there is another person attached to them they can remain ever clearer in both of our thoughts. And the secrets of this trip are shared by two and not one; extending the possibility of them impacting even more lives if and when they are reveled.  
So please leave comments and ask questions and I will try my best to respond to them. This is a blog to share information and knowledge with you.