A Toast to "Travel Muggs"

At Sanawari Traffic light just after dark, a young, wandering, sandal wearing, slender and tall man with only twenty thousand in hand disembarked from the small motorbike with a brief interaction and no exchange with the driver.  As the waiting traffic sat there anxiously amidst the evening's bustling activity, the young man from Cape Town advanced about two car lengths and walked around to the driver’s side of one, timing it so as to avoid the other bikes maneuvering between the delayed vehicles.  With no bag upon his shoulder and no other items clenched under his arms, he proceeded to exchange words with the driver of the car in what appeared to be the form of requests and negotiations as he pointed up the road, seemingly suggesting his destination.  From the small bike to a small white car, we saw him enter the vehicle just before it drove off.  Taking a left at the green arrow, we assumed it would be the last we saw of him as we joked of him being a bagless hitchhiker whose logistics we didn’t quite understand.   Shortly thereafter, only about two-hundred meters further up the road, we take a right to continue to the house far up the hill through the neighborhood.  To our astonishment, we see him walking as we turn off the Tarmac onto the dirt road.  We share another harmless laugh as our account of the wandering bagless hitchhiker seems to be coming truer.  As the humor momentarily resides, the reality sets in as we consider that maybe we should offer what we can.  I lean out the door and ask if we can take him somewhere.  He quickly accepts and tells us that it would help if he can just get a lift up the road.  He boards the Land Rover and squeezes himself up against the mountain bike taking up most of the space in the backseat.  We continue up the road assuming he will tell us his intended destination, but instead he reveals to us that he is still searching.  A place to stay for the night is all he wants, and the cheaper the better.  He affirms our initially facetious declaration of the bagless hitchhiker by telling us that he is traversing East Africa by foot.  Having gone through Ethiopia and making his way through Arusha, he admits that he is traveling light and is letting chance take him where it may.  Carrying only his dedication to his cause and twenty thousand shillings, his relatively aimless path coincided with our own as we reached out to him.  He explains quite honestly that even after being mugged in Dar he has not been deterred from his journey.  We offer a bit of consolation and briefly introduce ourselves as we consider how to aid in his search.  I mention the Safari Lodge just before we both realize his price range as he informs us of the mere twenty thousand.  A small local lodge is mentioned and we soon arrive there just up the road.  The price is checked and confirmed at fifteen thousand, and our fellow traveler exclaims that it is three quarters of his total.  We understand but assume it is his only bet.  We offer what we can, which at the moment is only a small sum of sixty-five hundred, nonetheless, a definite contribution.  As he disembarks from the uncomfortable seat scrunched up next to bicycle, he humbly thanks us for the help and graciously accepts our small offer.  As we continue home, we look back and notice that he doesn’t enter the gate of the lodge.  Instead, he backtracks down the hill with the hopes of finding a room or a suitable place to lay his head for the night.  We chuckle with awe and a bit of confusion at the fact that he clearly appears to be floating along with chance.  He exhibits a content and optimistic demeanor as he walks out of sight to reveal to himself the unforeseen closure to his evening.  Soon after, we jokingly coin a term to reference him and the manner in which he is traveling, which to others may seem to be careless, naïve, and dangerous, but for him, the experience is humbling and is exposing some type of truth or insight for which he clearly has some hunger.  Life is being exposed to him as he wants it to be, and his decisions are his own.
     The next day I receive a call from my friend.  He tells me that he has just witnessed the same man in town while driving.  He passes him walking near the clock tower in the late afternoon, unfortunately with a limp.  With an apparent injury to his right foot or leg, he remains in town at the moment.  Perhaps the quest for shelter the previous night did not provide the most comforting results, yet his story continues.  With appreciation for the crossing of our paths, we offer a compassionate toast to the bagless traveler.    Here’s to “Travel Muggs”, a man who we hope will find what he is seeking, and to whatever is seeking him, we hope that it brings with it only the best of intentions, for he may be asking for trouble unknowingly.  The wandering man from Cape Town continues on to an unknown end of which we can only imagine.