a trip [2019]

It was the summer vacation and my friends, and I were in New Zealand. I was with my mother and two of my closest friends. We were staying in Christchurch, and we planned to drive to Queenstown from there we were in Christchurch for only a week, but we spent our time there judiciously and made some lifelong friends.

We were to leave on a Saturday and all our bags were packed. As a surprise my mother rented us Toyota SUV to spend our eight-hour journey in. As we entered the car park we jumped for joy. A gentle shaft of morning sunlight fell on the most gorgeous car I had ever seen. It was sleek and looked like a truck with its coat of metallic paint glistening in the deepest shade of blue. My mother said, “a little Birdie whispered in my ear and told me this is the place where dreams come true”. We stepped in and my mother took the wheel. We drove past turquoise lakes, dimly lit forests and vast barren spaces brimming with cacti. I could not believe the different kinds of landscapes we crossed on the ribbon roads. We were enamoured by the sights and often we stepped out to take some noteworthy pictures. We’d completely lose track of time as we passed through yet another patch of endless beautiful emerald green and saw the dying sunlight paint the sky a thousand shades of orange and purple. Suddenly, our state-of-the-art car sputtered and stopped.

This shook us away from nature’s painting and we began to try to figure out what was wrong. It was hard though as it was almost past sunset and there was nothing but quiet land as far as the eye could see. The manual in the car helped little as did the lack of street lighting on the long country road that we found ourselves stalled upon.

 For some reason the GPS couldn’t navigate our location and our phones did not have the faintest signal. The sun quickly left us too and we were alone in the middle of what seemed like nowhere. My friend was inconsolably convinced that even God could not find us. It was dark and we were baffled, scared and a little frustrated. What will we do? My mother then had an ingenious idea. We had an extra night to spend her so why not spend it camping in the car watching the stars out of the wide sunroof? We reclined the front seats smoothly, pulled out a couple of sleeping bags and slept on the seats that we liked the best. We were lulled to sleep by the hypnotic movement of the stars and clouds playing hide and seek up in the sky. When I awoke, it was to the sound of bird song and my watch told me it was 7:30am. Something about daylight lifted my spirits instantly. I turned my phone on and a flickering signal appeared. I laughed with joy and woke my friends as well as my mother. We ate chocolates and banana chips for breakfast. Crossing our fingers, we waited as my mother started the car up and it worked! It turned out to be a simple issue with the battery of the car engine. We continued to Queenstown as if the nights adventure was a conspiracy between nature and machine. We played loud music in the car and bickered happily over the choice of songs. When we finally saw the hotel driveway, we heaved a collective sigh of relief. After checking in we all ran to shower in the comfortable tubs in our rooms. As I soaked in the warm water, I reflected on the experience realizing that living in the moment and taking whatever comes my way could be done!

There is always a silver lining to each cloud. I also learned to be prepared and have a backup plan. To this day I always have some snacks and water when I leave the house. My caption to my Instagram post for the day was simply ‘you can’t stop time, you can’t rewind the pace, all you can do is press play’.