UK Edition
My mother wanted to spend her twilight years travelling but left it too late – I won’t do the same
Approaching the age her mum was when she died, one writer attempts to tick off the unfulfilled travel wish list she left behind
There’s a 108-year-old shaman living in a tiny village in the deep dark Amazonian forests of Peru. He’s tired. He feels his journey here on planet Earth is coming to an end. He wants to die.
When my mum was 68, she left this earthly plane. She’d wanted to spend her twilight years travelling but left it too late. She wasn’t old, she wasn’t tired and, unlike the jaded shaman, she didn’t want to die.
I remember being with her on her first ever flight. We were heading to Malta. I was 17. She was 39. She was so excited, wide-eyed with exhilaration as we took off.
Her work – as a nurse at an NHS mental hospital – and having children at home meant she didn’t take her second flight out of the country until two decades later.
She often told me how she planned to travel the world when she retired and, harking back to our first fun trip to Malta together, she hoped we could go on more foreign adventures when that time came.
Retirement time came but, just as she began to think about going abroad, cancer struck and within months, she was gone.
Halfway through my sixth decade, when the youngest of my four children had reached adulthood, I became acutely aware of how speedily life passes.
Entering my 60s, I started to wonder whether my fate was destined to be the same as my mum’s and whether I too would die before I hit 70.
It’s natural to become more aware of your own mortality as time goes by, more so I believe when you see your children go from babies to adults in what feels like a blink of an eye.
Last year, I had an accident. It could have been fatal. I was in a wheelchair for four months but I recovered. The experience gave me the kick I needed.
No more waiting for opportunities to come knocking on my door. No more procrastinating. It was time to take action and turn my mum’s dreams into my reality. I was going travelling.
As a very spiritual person, my mum would have loved Machu Picchu, so I decided to make Peru my first stop. My eldest daughter, Ruby, was keen to accompany me: together we’d do a journey that my mum and I were never able to do.
Ruby attached a locket my mum had left her to her mantra-bead necklace. “That way, Granny Marie can come with us,” she said. (The locket is very special: when it’s opened, we can sometimes smell my mum’s perfume – but that’s another story.)
The trip – which incorporated a two-night stay in Peru’s bustling capital Lima, a five-day cruise down the glorious Amazon river, two nights in Urubamba (the largest town in Peru’s Sacred Valley), a steep climb up Machu Picchu to see the citadel known as “the lost city of the Incas” (built circa 1450 AD and abandoned for reasons unknown around 120 years later) and 48 hours in Cusco – was thrilling, breathtaking (literally, in high altitude Machu Picchu and Cusco) and unforgettable.
I chatted to my mum in my head every day, especially when seeing or experiencing something I knew she’d appreciate: sightings of crocodiles, pink dolphins, monkeys, snakes and eagles; whizzing down the Amazon river through jungle in tiny skiffs; stunning sunsets and sunrises; the vivid colours of flowers I didn’t know existed; and spending a morning with the friendly inhabitants of a tiny Amazonian village.
We took eight flights, two train journeys and several long car journeys over a 12-day period, so the trip was arduous – but I know it wouldn’t have deterred my mum. Before she became ill, she had boundless energy and would have seen the journeying as part of the experience.
She’s travelling now, of course, but not in the way she might have hoped. In her physical absence, I feel now that I’m travelling for her, on her behalf, in the way she’d have liked to, as often as I can.
The story of the 108-year-old shaman – told to my daughter and I by a guide called Alex, the grandson of another Amazonian shaman, on our way to the cruise boat in Iquitos – was one that will stick in my mind forever.
To get to that age and feel your life is complete is a privilege. To have your life cut short without getting to do what you intended to do is a tragedy. To be able to live out someone else’s dreams is an honour. I hope my mum, wherever her soul may be, is happy I’m doing what I’m doing. And I hope that one day, my children will live out the dreams I fail to fulfil.
As long as I’m alive, I’ll attempt to visit places my mum would have loved – with the joie de vivre I’ve inherited from her, and with her spirit by my side.
Essentials
Original Travel (020 3582 4990; originaltravel.co.uk) offers tailor-made trips to Peru, with a dedicated concierge on hand throughout. As well as providing insider knowledge of Lima, Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley, these trips can also help navigate lesser known areas; in this case, a cruise with Aqua Expeditions through the remote Pacaya Samiria Reserve, deep in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, and the lesser-visited Maras salt flats.
Prices from £8,000 (based on two sharing), including return international and domestic flights, private transfers, private tours throughout and 11 nights accommodation (six nights B&B, one night half-board and four nights full-board onboard the Aria Amazon).
Jacqui Deevoy’s trip was facilitated by Berghaus (berghaus.com); Cotswold Outdoor Clothing (cotswoldoutdoor.com); Marriott Hotel Heathrow (marriott.com); and Aqua Expeditions (aquaexpeditions.com).