Traveling Light

Staying at a Hostel in Westport Ireland, I met a man from Calgary.  He commented that I was traveling light.  I did my normal spiel on Fanny Trekking and he said he'd never heard of it.  I told him I researched extensively before starting out and found nothing on the subject.  So I’m, in fact, the first Fanny Trekker on earth.  And having made it through a week and a half Fanny Trek before, I hold myself as the foremost authority on the matter.

My position is still very strong.  I’m on my third pair of socks and second pair of insoles for my boots.  I find that thin socks keep my feet from sweating (or stinking).   I ditched my underwear a few days ago – I’ll try to grab a new pair soon – for now I’m commando.  I haven’t managed a Laundromat yet, but have ironically been showering regularly.  Ironic because I detest showering; I’ve been showering far more often than I do in normal life. One of the women I stayed with in an apartment in Liverpool, insisted on washing my shit.  I obliged.  My legs remain strong, but I’m developing runner’s knee – a pain behind the knee from extensive use. I thought of seeking treatment, but opted to take the best advice a coach can give his players...walk it off.  I walked approximately 15 kilometers yesterday, through the countryside of Wicklow County.  

Another critically important aspect of Fanny Trekking is eliminating weight.  When I was in New York last year, I got off the bus and immediately started viewing the city.  It was all around me, huge. Skyscrapers ripping through the air, tickling heights reserved for mountains alone, their towers of babel protruding from a sea of languages.  I had no intention in those moments to have my eyes shut-out within the confines of a walled-off room while doing the requisite baggage storage of a traveller.  I lived that moment, then and there.  On that trip I was traveling with a backpack, unfortunately.  I needed to carry extra clothes for a wedding.  I made it well enough, bumping into people, bouncing off walls, awkwardly slamming about while standing atop the empire state building.  What hell a backpack is.  Inevitably my travelling partner had enough herself and I was amiable to trek-off to the isolation of a room.  We went out later but didn’t manage to cover much ground due to exhaustion of our morning with pack.  If only we had brought fanny packs...