You do meet a lot of interesting people when you travel like we do. In the last 45 days, we’ve only paid 5 times to sleep anywhere. All the other times, we were either WWOOFing to help out and learn new skills or staying with people we’ve met through the Couchsurfing network.
Couch surfing is not exactly what it sounds like. It involves no particular aquatic balancing skills and up until now, never once a couch either. This worldwide network links a whole lot of people willing to welcome travellers into their homes, not expecting anything in return and no strings attached. They could be a bunch of university students with a spare bed in the living room or an elderly couple with an extra room now that their kid is off to college. Whoever they are, they are a varied bunch and they all have our wellbeing at heart. Some encounters we’ve made this past month are more memorable than others though…
There’s Jason and Emma for example. An English couple that took us into their Motel and gave us a small apartment for a week in exchange for some help around the garden. Not having a Quebec flag around, they chose to fly the colours of Canada and France combined on the front lawn as a send off present on the last day we were there. They also have two Labradoodles, a mix of Labrador and Poodles.
During our stay at a Buddhist centre, we met Mark, an animal behaviour expert who trained hundred of animals for movies and television, ranging from butterflies to elephants. His worldwide claim to fame is training Tom Cruise’s dog in the movie “The Last Samurai” filmed at Mount Taranaki, New Zealand’s answer to Mount Fuji in Japan. The same dog was also used in both “The new adventures of Hercules” and “Xena, Warrior princess”
Then there’s Shane and Bev. When we read their Couchsurfing profile, they mentioned and interest in conspiracy theories. As it turns out, interest is a gross understatement. We’re talking full blown obsession here. They believe in every single crackpot theory in the book. From evolution being a hoax, the moon being a hallow alien made object, the Pope’s hat betraying his ties with Dagon, the Babylonian Fish-God to Tesla and Einstein’s collaboration in the 40’s to make a ship disappear and travel in the future, everything is not mere speculation but proven fact. They also firmly believe in the 2012 Mayan prediction of a paradigm shift in the universe and a global apocalypse followed by a new age of enlightenment. Pretty far out stuff. They even showed us the bunker they have built in the back yard, 500 feet above sea level, stocked up with over a year of food rations and survival gear. When we left, two days later, they seemed genuinely interested in my suggestion that they should incorporate a CCTV network in their backyard in order for them to be able to see the world outside, crumbling in ruin from the comfort of their supped out shipping container.
Whoever they are, we are always very grateful to anyone willing to open up their homes to us for a couple of days. Sometimes it’s a young guy wanting to join the army who watches war DVD’s all night long, sometimes it’s an old couple sending us on our way with a homemade picnic and some chocolate. Every encounter is different, but one thing is certain, it’s never boring.
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