#tourleading

[edwintansimloong]

#cherryblossom #koreablossom #tourleading (at Changi International Airport T3, Singapore)

[ninks]

Tourleader travel blues

I increasingly find myself wondering how much longer I will be able to stick to this job. The life style is great, I love the fact that I get around so much and I have all the freedom that most people can only dream of. But it is starting to get tiring. By now I have been travelling for 3.5 years; two years as a tour leader. That is 3.5 years of continuously packing and unpacking, moving on all the time. Apart from two drivers I worked with for a longer period of time I haven’t established any real friendships because there just isn’t time. I get friendly with some passengers but you can’t form too close a relationship as this would be seen as favouritism by other people in the group and you never stay in one place long enough to form a relationship worthy of giving it anything more than the “vague acquaintance” status with any locals or fellow travellers.  On top of that comes the challenge of dealing with the people that you are forced to travel with. There is almost always someone that truly makes you wonder whether they have any friends at all in their daily life, whether their mother really liked them or whether they used to torture animals as toddlers because they are so socially awkward, ridiculously highly demanding or otherwise impossible to bear being around for continuous periods of time (i.e more than ten minutes without scratching the walls until your nails bleed because that is less painful than listening to them any longer).  Some people seem to expect you are not only their tour leader, you are also their PA, private escort, you know every detail about each item on every menu of every restaurant in every city on the entire tour, you are their porter, personal translator, nanny or nurse, private booking agent for onward travel, weather forecast psychic, general practitioner and let’s not forget scapegoat for anything that might go wrong or differently than expected.  I knew this job would have a shelf life and I had hoped that four months off would revive my spirits and enthusiasm and it did. For a while. But by the end of the last tour I was hanging and glad to see the back of it. So - be it a streak of bad luck at the right time or a streak of good luck at a bad time, I was told two weeks before ending this tour that my next two tours have been cancelled. This means no roof over my head and no income for an entire month, at a time when I have no money because I spent everything I had during my time off. This also at a time when I am feeling a bit jaded of people and travel so it is not necessarily a bad thing! I signed back up with Workaway, as this seems the easiest way to survive with little money. I used this organisation several times in the past, during earlier travels on this part of the planet and I have almost always ended up in great working locations.  I had already booked a ticket to Florianopolis (when I was supposed to have just five days’ off work in between tours), so it seemed logical to find me a job here on this beautiful island in the south of Brazil. I am now staying with a lovely lady named Liza (sounds like a limerick) who had also just signed up to Workaway looking for a long-term English teacher. So! This means I now find myself helping Liza with her English grammar and pronunciation, in preparation for a CAE exam. This is for twenty hours per week which leaves me with plenty of free time to enjoy the island.  “Floripa” is a stunning island with lovely weather, forests and hikes and the most beautiful beaches around. More importantly: a four week break away from travelling! A closet to put clothes into! A washing machine to do my own washing in! A kitchen to cook in! And also the best horse riding I have ever done in my life (a huge bonus)! Once this month is up I will be running two short tours before another fortnight off in August. That is when my sister and her family are coming over to spend some time with me in Ecuador, so I am really looking forward to showing them around the country then. With so many breaks out of “normal life” (for a tour leader anyway) I think it will be a breeze to keep on touring, and to stay enthusiastic and hopefully all of this will be followed by a transfer to Central America in October; a welcome change of scenery but let’s just enjoy now for now :)