No Groupie On The Road

Tourists on a group tour may be characterised in several broad strokes:

1. Gormless, albeit dangerously armed with cameras and bum bags:
a. able to hold up two fingers (palms facing camera) while posing with
large-and-decorative national monuments,
b. consumers of half the world's fridge magnets and keychains,
c. generally geriatric.
2. Pilgrims worshipping at a shrine, be that outside the gates of Graceland or the tomb of Maria Eva Duarte de Peron (best known as Evita).
3. Hapless victims of relentless herding from one souvenir shop to another, and most likely to pay for their 53rd Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt while wearing one of the other 52.
4. Most likely to tie gaudy ribbons to Samsonite knockoffs "so you can see it from afar when it comes out on the belt".
5. Indentured prisoners.

None of these descriptions have ever enticed me to sign up for a group package tour. In all my years of travel, I have actively eschewed being part of any itinerary that could not be customised and/or cancelled at a moment’s notice. But travel comes in strange currencies, in this case, legal tender was a "field trip" to a great civilization whose history numbered almost as many years as there were people originating from it.

Suddenly surrounded by 12 teens and almost as many adults, I found myself unwittingly boarding and re-boarding a tour bus, heading from one (agent-paying) restaurant to another, one (bric-a-brac-selling) craft factory to another, one interesting-yet-quickly boring historical relic to another. This must be payback for selling these packages as part of a vacation job as a 16 year old at a travel agency, I thought, more than once in the six days of my groupie experience.

My silent screams addressed to that All-Seeing Benevolent Entity In The Sky were heard by no one, although I am sure that if they had been they might have been echoed heartily by another 50 per cent of my fellow groupies.

I want to loiter! I want to tarry! I don’t want to leave this plaque before reading it till then end even if it is in a language I can only dicipher 2 per cent of! I want an intelligible tour guide!! I don’t want to feel constantly late! I hate waiting and making others wait! I need my own space! I hate the combination of travel and adult responsibility! – all this I yelled, in my mind.

My toilet breaks had been reduced to a constant-but-fruitless quest for two-ply toilet paper, something I managed to convey to at least three people; in particular, one who accidentally peed on my foot as her spatter defied a too-short loo partition. Me, I painfully endured the humiliation of the unwelcome warmth as it splashed onto my flip-flop wearing left foot - immobilised as I myself tried to complete my own Number 1. (At least I now know I’m no shower girl).

Any tender exchange with a husband miles away had been reduced to our we-have-no-privacy monosyllabic code of ayes and nays in response to a hastily mumbled, 20-question list of administrative "hondidyoudos".

As days passed, splinter groups formed among those who shared my recalcitrant travel habits. One such mutant gang of four found itself by a riverside bar sipping whiskey and chomping on deep-frieds. And what a colloquy: "I never knew", "No really", "No way", "It's genetic", "Maybe it's the environment", "There are many theories", "No thanks, no flowers/fruit/snacks for us", "You mean it's like this?", "There are twinks, and there are bears...", "How do you know for sure?", "How do you know for sure?", "How is this a double shot of whiskey?", "I like this place".

The best part of being part of a big group, I suppose, is the high chance of finding like-minded folk who will share forever that one moment of concentrated peace, all set to Bob Marley's universal reggae grooves. "Exodus. Movement for Jah people. Oh yeah."