My Mishaps: a complete compendium of all the weird, dumb, or scary things that have happened to me while travelling

  

  • In Corfu, Greece, a Swede and I were standing on a wooden platform in the hills looking at the sunset when the platform collapsed, and we both fell into an olive tree at the bottom of the cliff. It took us about an hour to climb out of the tree, and when we got back to our guesthouse, our friends started shrieking when they saw me. Unknown to me, blood had seeped from a cut on my scalp all down my face. The next day I had to stay in bed with a concussion.
  • In Ecuador I was walking along a country highway when a golden retriever suddenly came up behind me and sank its teeth into my calf. I ended up having to go to the hospital every day for rabies shots in my navel.
  • On Gunung Agung, Bali's highest mountain, I got lost near the summit when a thick cloud blew in and blanketed everything in cold fog. But rather than panicking, I sat on a rock and ate a chocolate bar and waited for an hour until there was a break in the fog and I could see where the trail was.
  • Also in Bali, I was robbed of my knapsack on the beach. This meant I had to go all the way to Jakarta to get a new passport. But American Express did come through for me with new travellers cheques. However, the worst part of the robbery was losing my addresses of all the people I'd met over the last months of travel.
  • One summer while camping in Algonquin Park on a canoe trip, a tornado ripped through our camp at night. Huddling in my tent, I suddenly heard a tremendous crack, and then SOMETHING fell into the front of the tent, missing hitting my head by about an inch. I climbed out of the tent, and, using my flashlight, was astounded to see that a huge old tree had been struck by lightning and had fallen into the front of my tent.
  • Another summer I camped alone on Baffin Island just outside the town of Iqualuit. On my last morning, my tent was vandalized by a gang of teenaged boys. But all they took was a piece of bread, a granola bar, and a few coins.
  • I was standing on the train platform in Amsterdam waiting for the train to Copenhagen, when I heard an announcement that the train was about to leave-then I realized I was on the wrong platform. I helplessly stood there watching my train pull out of the station, exactly on time, from a platform too far away to get to.
  • In Cornwall, England, I was hiking on the Coastal Path, when it petered out into a steep field of brambles. Rather than turning back, I pressed on through the prickly bushes, which kept scratching my legs. I finally climbed up to a fence, and climbed over it-into a field of cows. I was walking carefully through the field when I realized that one of the cows was actually a bull, and it was heading straight for me. I sped up. He sped up. I started running, and he thundered after me. The entire herd began stampeding towards me. Running faster than I thought possible, I got to the other side and leapt athletically over the fence, just in time. The bull abruptly stopped about a foot away from the fence and regarded me balefully.

    (Copyright L. Shuttleworth)

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