wan·der·lust

ˈwändərˌləst/

noun

a strong desire to travel.
"a woman consumed by wanderlust"

I feel as if I should go further into detail about my prior travel experiences. The one that was the most transformative for me was beautiful, transcendental, weird, raucous Thailand. It was when I came back from Thailand that everything changed for me. Nothing seemed the same. The things I once thought I understood seemed like mysteries to me. I started to question everything. My own lifestyle, goals, motivations...everything.

Feeding Motala at the elephant hospital.

There were many times while I was there that I spent with my head bent over my journal furiously writing about my experiences and I read back on it now and realize the transformation in the pages. One of my favorite times that I can remember is my night in Koh Tao (an island off the coast of southern Thailand). I sat on that rope swing for hours watching the fire dancers on the crescent shaped beach thinking about how I could possibly make this my life. Was there a way I could continue to grow and change as a person through travel?

The following year I traveled to Morocco and discovered the transcendental magic that is the Sahara Desert. Explaining that time in English words seems silly but the only way I can describe it is magical. The sand is so smooth that it's like water. When the sun rises over the dunes they turn a pinkish tan. I distinctly remember looking at a huge dune that towered over the Berber encampment thinking, "I got that" as I started clomping up this thing. Okay, so basically it was like trying to climb.....uh...exactly what you think it was like. Sand. Like a freaking mountain of sand. I swear to you, friends, I thought I had been dragging myself up this dune for at least a good thirty minutes but oh no. Actually, I had only been dragging myself for about 5 minutes but it actually felt like 30 minutes of struggling. So basically to make a long, out of breathe story short, I made it to the top of the dune. I sat there with my now husband, a Moroccan local and a few Aussies just gazing around the desert. Telling you that it was crazy beautiful is a ridiculous understatement. We heard drumming in the distance being brought in on the wind from the other Berber camps around the dunes. We could see little, tiny flicker of campfires speckling the desert. Freaking. Glorious.

After sitting on the dune and listening to the wind blowing around we finally clamored down back into the camp. Obviously it goes without saying that going down the dune was much faster than going up. Sleeping outside of the tent (surrounded by scorpions......) I watched the milky way clearly move from one side of the sky to the other.