NileGuide 5 with Christine Gilbert of Almost Fearless

This week’s NileGuide 5 interview features Christine Gilbert of Almost Fearless. Christine quit her corporate job in 2008 in pursuit of a freelance writing career and digital nomad lifestyle. She urges others to follow in her footsteps by redefining their lives and traveling the world. Follow along with Christine through her travels on Twitter at @almostfearless.

1. What’s the most underrated destination you’ve been to?

I always crush on a place for a while after I visit and right now you’ve caught me just after a month long trip across the US, up through the Canadian Rockies, across the Yukon and into Alaska. The drive to the Yukon is amazing but sadly none of my photos did the 360 degree vista justice. It’s one of those drives that reminds you how amazing North America is and while it’ll never be as sexy as trekking the Himalayas, it’s something everyone should experience at least once.

2. How do you kill time when you’re stuck on a bus or plane?

I read. I go through about a book a day when I’m doing a long haul, so I always make sure to have a half dozen in reserve.

3. What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen or experienced traveling?

I’ve never written about this story before, I’ve been saving it for a short story anthology, but I’ll give you the very short version. Last year, I spent a week in Panama in the town of Las Tablas for Carnaval. I had heard it was the big party destination for the week long festival, so I bought a 4 dollar bus ticket and headed in. When I got there, of course, there were no hotels– everything had been booked solid for 4 months prior. I speak enough Spanish that I was able to make some friends and find a house full of 20 something Panamanians. They were very gracious and let me sleep in a tent on the back porch for a few bucks a night.

It was amazing. All day we’d dance, sing, drink, and get hosed down by the Coleco (water trucks) and watch the parade go by. One night, one of the kids starts acting very strange. He’s talking in this very grumbling voice, which I recognized as a Cuban accent. I was dragged into a room and told to sit, this was “muy importante”. His eyes rolled back and he started predicting the future one by one of each of the Panamanians. “You! Your mother, she is in danger, if you don’t leave tonight, something very bad will happen to her!” he said in thickly accented Spanish. He leaned forward and stared unseeingly at a curly-haired girl who let her expression drop at this news.

He proceeded like this around the room until he got to me. I swallowed hard. “You can do anything you set your mind to, but there is something dark inside of you. You have to make a choice, to let this darkness take control or to let it go. If you don’t it will destroy you.”

Holy crap. “Also, you need to get more sex.”

I wanted to chuckle at this, but the room was silent. Everyone was watching my reaction. I just nodded my head.

“Christina, take a picture!” I was the only one with the camera, and they wanted me to capture our friend in his “state”. I complied and later I noticed a black orb floating above his head. Or was that just my camera acting up?

The curly-haired girl left that night, two days early.

Later, they explained that our friend was a witch, and these kinds of events are common in the more rural areas. We exchanged emails, promising to add each other to Facebook and a few days later parted ways. I searched for them online, and never found any of them.

4. What’s the first thing you do when you arrive at a new destination?

Find my hotel or hostel, drop off my bags, take a shower and then head out. It’s the part I can’t wait for, that first walk around the city, finally getting to see first hand what I’d traveled so far for. I won’t use a map, but instead get myself nice and lost. I love seeing a city in this way, because then you feel like you discovered it. On my first day walking around Paris, I wandered into this courtyard that looked like a good place to take pictures. I turn the corner and there is the famous fountains and glass pyramid of the Louvre. Finding that unexpectedly was so much more fun than just chasing down a dot on a map.

5. If you could give one tip or piece of advice to travelers, what would it be?

Learn the language. I’d say you’re missing 50% of a destination if you can’t speak the local tongue. I’m not talking fluency, but enough to communicate with someone. Meeting people, talking to them in their own language– you really can’t express how much this will add to your travels. It’s why we travel– to learn something more than ourselves.

[Photos: Christine Gilbert]