T R AV E L
THE INTUITIVE TRAVELLER by Dustin Grinnell
Dustin has found that his intuitive abilities are heightened when he is travelling.
He takes a fascinating journey around a town in Northern Africa and experiences his intuition kicking in at what may be a crucial moment. Maybe it’s also a timely nudge for us that it is safer to travel with a trusted and pre-organised tour guide.
IT WASN’T OUR GUIDE who made me suspicious. It was the bystander, a short, African woman with vibrant dress and bananas in her hand. Our guide had been confident all throughout the ‘tour’ of Arusha, Tanzania, not the least bit shady. “This way”, he said. “Right through here”, as he pointed to a shoddy door on the side of a nondescript building. The woman, however, was shifty, her eyes twitching, her too-still body poised, begging, “Don’t go you fools. It’s a trap.” Everybody knows a suspicious look
when they see one, those darting eyes or a stare that gives the feeling of impending danger. These impressions can be heightened in a foreign land. Such feelings are instinctual, whispers from the psyche. Though easy to detect, they can be difficult to follow. “Wait”, I said, motionless. My friend
stopped and turned, followed by the guide who looked confused. The half- day adventure through the busy town in Northern Tanzania, which served as a jumping off point for safaris and treks up Mount Kilimanjaro, had been fun and stimulating, but most importantly, and sometimes surprisingly, safe. And the guide, a scrawny, twenty-something African from a neighbouring town had been accommodating and seemed genuine, despite his obvious desire for us to buy one of his paintings at the tour’s conclusion. As the woman beside him
shuffled her feet anxiously, I began to reconfigure my impression of the
42 july 2014
young man. The sudden hint of danger had cast the local artisan in a different, less-than-hospitable light. In return for a few swirls of paint, a quid pro quo I was certain he performed regularly, perhaps he had wanted more than a few of our American dollars. The woman had been quiet, she hadn’t
nodded at me, she hadn’t slipped me a note, she hadn’t screamed, “Run!” or had done anything overt at all. But I had reacted nonetheless, pausing awkwardly. She had given our guide away, exposed him. Now pensive, I wondered what the building in front of us housed. Maybe it was a group of jolly painter friends, lost at their easels, welcoming of guests though, especially ones from the northeast with deep pockets, who’d gladly entertain the idea of carrying a rolled-up canvas a few thousand miles home. Maybe it was an indoor market, bustling and colourful, like the one we had already passed through earlier. Perhaps it was something my imagination couldn’t even conjure, something for which a little mystery was appropriate, a sight our guide would present theatrically with an outstretched arm and a clichéd, ‘Ta-da!’. “No”, I said, despite the fact no one
had addressed my hesitancy. The guide had been slick, and successful in hiding any ulterior motives he may have had. The woman, on the other hand, had been honest with her exterior, a veritable beacon of useful subtleties, all of which warned, ‘Danger ahead’. “But this is last part of the tour”, the
guide responded eagerly, placing his palm on my friend’s backpack. Without my control, a game of
connect-the-dots erupted within me. I followed like breadcrumbs the details of the last few hours back to the moment when our guide discovered us at our hostel’s front door, wading through a crowd of peddlers and beggars, offering us refuge in a cosy alleyway where he stashed his artwork for purchase. “I can show you around Arusha”, he had prodded. We told him ‘no’ a handful of times, but ultimately, adventurously, agreed. His services required such persistence, of course, but not taking ‘no’ for an answer should have been our first tip-off, the first of what I began to think were clues. The second had been his speech; it was choppy and too quick, like a coffee-house barista who’d done too much of her own stuff. I always thought your senses were keener while travelling. In my experience, I had always been more attracted to novelty in transit, noticing architecture and admiring a creator’s choices, or pausing on a wispy cloud in the shape of a lion, which I certainly would have missed had I been commuting to work or discussing a quarterly plan with my supervisor. I was keener indeed, but I had missed, perhaps overlooked, his fast- talking ways at first. The guide had loved my friend’s
Gortex boots and, with a grin, had joked my friend could leave them with him before we returned to Boston. His quip had seemed playful and benign then,
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