30th of July to the 3rd of August, 2019.
Should we keep remember the bad things / moments that happened to us (like to write about them, for example) or should we just forget them, make it like just about the good and enjoyable moments? What if you are writing a book about your long journey, which could become a nice movie in the future, and all the moments count and the bad ones contribute to the dramatization of the movie? I am about to tell you how were my first four days in Malta, which include a certain person, and all the good and bad things it comes with it. So I am still deciding if I write about or not…
I am walking out of the airport and I see this guy. We are going to Valletta. We were in the same flight. He even spent one or two nights in the Rafiki Hostel, while I was volunteering in there. He has a phone and get the direction to the closest supermarket in the way to the city centre. It is a LIDL. I am starving, as I mentioned before, so my first attempt of dumpster diving cannot work. I buy bananas, tomatoes and bread. I ask for water in the streets.
Let’s call the guy B. So B has some things in common with me, like he did dumpster diving before, he lived in abandoned buildings, he uses CS, so we get along well at the beginning.
My plan it was find a Hostel to drop The Hulk, go around Valletta, camping somewhere outside and start my trip around the country in the next morning, just walking from one nice place in the coast to another, since everything is near and there are beautiful cliffs and beaches to see.
B offers me to come with him, by bus, because he has a lot of trips on it, to this beach where there is an abandoned building we can sleep later on. Now remember, I think he quite insisted that I should come. Not with words like – “Come one, you must come!” – but with an attitude that he was really interest in the fact I could come. I am thinking that could be interest to do something different of what I am always used to but my bags are suddenly too heavy and I am concern about slowing him down, reason for what I tell him I might should not come, for his own good. He travel extremely light because he is just in vacation, going back home after Malta. In the end I decide to come. I prefer to believe that everything in life it happens for a reason and not that it was a stupid decision.
He buy some food before we take the bus. We arrive at the Golden Bay just in time for the sunset (even that it was not possible to see it because of the position) and I even go to swim. I get out just in time to get rid of a jelly fish, though. We go to his abandoned building, which is very close to the bay. After eating we sleep. Everything it is fine.
Next morning we go to swim in the morning and after that decided to ask for left overs of breakfast in the fancy hotel. The woman who talked to us is a very rude person, who treated us like shit an it is not interested at all in helping. So we decide to go to Medina, this wonderful medieval town, surrounded by a big wall. Passing through a small plantation, I suggest that we grab some tomatoes and bell peppers, since there are a lot of them dropped in the floor, like as nobody cared about them. I jump inside and quickly get as much as can for two meals: tomatoes, bell peppers, kale and parsley. Outside the town, during the sunset, we take some nice pictures, me and B, go inside the town, he buy some bread, beers, a wine and cheese. We wash ourselves in a public toilet, eat and go outside town to sleep somewhere. For the first time in my trip I share my tent with someone. For some reason he starts to acting weird at this point.
Next morning he says his first stupid and rude sentence, while running in front of me, with his ridiculous light bags comparing with all the weight I am carrying: “I am sorry but I do not have 10 years to see everything, I have just two more days before I leave.” At that moment I should have known and left him. Sometimes it is fucking stupid to have a big heart and be incapable to be mean to or rude with someone else.
He decides to go to this other beach in the North, in Bugibba, and spend sometime at a Reggae Bar. I agree because I think it could be nice but I am really interested in have a nap later on.
The bar looks very simple and people start to come in slowly. Suddenly it is full. I do not see where I can have a nap, there is no shade in the beach so I just stay in there, thinking, watching the sea and doing nothing. Suddenly, from nowhere, well according to B it was because I had this lost look while I was pulling pieces of my scarf out, he freaks out, after going to swim! He comes back saying it is better if we take different ways. The reason he gives to me is the most obvious one (when it comes to men): he started to have feelings for me, he thinks I realized that and that is why I am acting weird, so it is better this way. What? How older are you, 12? I had friendships that survived for years along even though people, here or there, had feelings for each other, deep feelings, real love, and you are telling me you cannot control yourself, in order to give up under some stupid flesh feelings?
Apparently, when I told him that, in a much nicer way, let’s say, he got real offended and suddenly realized how much I had changed from two days ago (I had not, it was just this particular speech I gave to him). But anyway, he had a CS offer and the guy was inviting him to a beer festival. I do not know why but he said I should come. I decided to accept because I had no plan and he was the responsible for this suddenly change. So we walk to the bus stop. It was almost sunset.
I had just eaten some sandwich with the traditional Maltese cheese and before I drank some wine. Not too much, just a bit. A migraine starts and when I tell him that, he acts surprised, saying that it cannot be otherwise I would be far from there, in a quite and dark place. You idiot! Everything has a start! Even a migraine! He is quiet and when I ask him if he wants to talk about it he spit out some awful things he thinks about me. Things which had no sense at all to say it! I am full of flaws, I know that, but what he said just had no base even to someone who had knew me my whole life. And the jerk had just met me! Seriously, that is what he is a completely jerk. But also, I truly believe he has some mental issues. So what? Because of that should I take it easy with him? That does not give him the right to be mean to other people. Fuck off!
The problem is you know how emotional I can become when somebody say or do mean things to me. So I told him that I could be all those things he just said but I never, ever had been mean to someone, just as he had been to me. Ow! Good move, ham? Yeah, but then I started to cry. I try to stay away from him and had decided not to take the bus with him but because he saw me crying he also did not take it. Then he start to apologize.
Because of all the crying, my migraine increased immediately, as usual. And I knew there was something wrong with my stomach too and because of that, the migraine would not be gone until I throw up. But without appropriated medication (the best one is a garden tea, called Boldo do Chile) it would just take a long time until I could do it. So, seen that I was awful now and quite because of him, he goes to buy some water and I lie down in the floor of a park, luckily just behind the bus stop. Is a nice view of the ocean and it is a nice sunset. Sadly I cannot enjoy it but I know it is there. It is like Robert Downey Jr.
I get a bit better but I know, and I tell him, that it will not pass completely until I have a place to lie down and sleep for good. We make a quickly plan of going to another town (I do not remember exactly why) and take a bus but we need to walk. When I am walking I get better, it might be the Adrenaline. Still very weak and needing to be careful to not kiss the floor, I can walk and the pain is not so strong. On the bus, I get very bad again and I feel I am going to be sick. As soon as we get out of the bus, finally I throw up. I knew it! Since the beginning! How many people have that much knowledge about themselves and their health, ham?
We find a place where it looks safe to sleep but since it is too hot I decided not to put on the tent. Silly mistake since during the night it becomes too cold and in the morning we wake up quite wet. Now another completely out of box thing: When I was about to sleep, B thought that he could put his arm around me…? What? Are you fucking crazy? Were you not there when you just told me those awful things? Get off! Of course I told him, gently, to get away.
Morning, I am much better, of course, and for some reason we decide to go to Popeye Island, just nearby where we are. We hitchhike and a wonderful guy pick us up. But the truth is that it is very close, over 1 KM I think. We had not eat anything so we try to ask for left overs in another fancy hotel. This time the manager is very kind but she cannot help us because it still to early, so they are still serving the breakfast. She actually says that if we want to come back after eleven o’clock she might be able to help us. I would love to do that but we have to leave the town before that.
Popeye Island is quite beautiful to see but it is also quite creepy. It is a fictional city, like a thematic park, And of course you need to pay. We just take some pictures and go to a place where B can swim. I cannot not because it is too deep and the only beach nearby it is inside Popeye Island.
We take the bus to Sliema, a town just before Valletta, because B want to see this rescue place for ducks. He is passionate by ducks. In some how, actually, I think he reminds me of a duck. The place is as creepy as possible.
From there we walk to Valletta. In Valletta he will take a bus to the airport and I will figure something on my on. I send some CS requests from a McDonald’s. When he finally leaves, he does not say anything, just raise his hand and walk away.
I do not know why this crazy experience had to happen to me. But I do admit I learnt some things with him (like to use a old lid from a jam jar to cover my camera lens; how to tide a piece of cloth and use as a purse; and he also motivated me to get ride of a lot of clothes and I traveled much lighter throw Malta after he left) and for that I am thankful. But unfortunately he is not the type of person I would like to have around me. In the end, after some reflection, I realized that all those awful things he said about me, could actually be said about him. Maybe he was just shouting to himself.
