BRIEF ENCOUNTER

You meet lots of people when your traveling. Most of them come into your lives for a short time and then you never hear from again and they are lost to you in this world. It was on one of these brief encounters that I met Brenda Waugh of Washington D.C who has since become one of the most faithful followers of my blog. Yes, that's right people, this blog has gone international; I have followers in the US, Australia, Germany, and some other countries I can't think of right now. This post is dedicated to Brenda.
I met Brenda quite by chance. Her son Jasper was at the same Spanish school as me in Costa Rica. Jasper was like the star pupil, who was nearly fluent in Spanish and who I avoided like the plague as I felt very inferior compared to him with my Spanish skills. One day we went on a school outing to see the baby turtles hatch on the beach.

I spent most of the tour silent, too scared to say anything In front of everyone in case people laughed at my Spanish, and trying to avoid my fellow Class mate, Megha (real name Nancy, but Megha is her ancient sand script name) as she drove me crazy! As we all sat down for breakfast, I still sat there silently wishing for it all to be over. Then the women next to me started talking to me in English (relief)! The woman was Brenda and she turned out to be Jaspers mum, who had come a long for the day trip as well. We hit it off straight away, and I told her I wrote a blog. She asked for the name of it and my email, like so many people do when you travel. Then our brief encounter was over and I thought that was that.

Isn't wasn't that, though. Brenda has stayed in touch through out my travels. Sending me emails on how much she enjoys my blog and my stories, but most importantly to her, that reading my blog makes her worry less about her Jasper on his travels. I'm not sure how it makes her worry less with all the crap I get up too!

As I traveled to Puno on Lake Titicaca, I received a email, from Brenda to say that that Jasper was going to be there at the same time as me, and I should email him, though he never checks his emails she said. I sent Jasper an email, but heard nothing.
It was my last night in Puno and after getting something to eat I decided to head back to my hostel as it was really cold. I stopped at a chemist to get some headache tablets and when I had finished and turned round, there by complete chance was Jasper stood in front of me. I guess it was fate. It was weird seeing him again after all this time, as I had not seen him since Costa Rica and that seems like a life time ago. We went for beers, exchanged travel tales and then before I knew it was time to say goodbye again. Another brief encounter, but one that I think, will make Brenda very happy. My mother too like Brenda, worries about her child on the other side of the world on her own, but I think this photo proves that both of their offspring are safe and happy on travels in far off places around the world.