Tarife is absolutly gorgeous with its sandy beaches that look to Africa. It is a town that feels young, populated with tourists and beach bumbs. The beach at times is almost deserted except for the occasional topless sunbather or horse back riders. However, when the wind is high you will see flipped flopped, shaggy haired, tanned bodies in wet suits pilot rainbow color kites and sails as they glide on their boards across the almost perfect tide. 
After a relaxing morning on the beach and the sad news that wind surfing lessons were out of the question, due to the lack of wind, Jon my travel buddy and I dedided to head up to Granada for the evening before we make the drive to Madrid.
By this time we have spend many hours chatting about all kinds of things. It suprises me what complete strangers will talk about.I guess it is becasue you let your guard down a little. You know that more than likely this person will only be in your life a short time. Maybe it is becuase you become lonely traveling in a foreign county with really no "deep" conversations (especially in my case when you do not speak the language and you are lucky if you get what you asked for when ordering food) for weeks, that you open up faster? It is refreshing and sad at the same time. You meet wonderful people that you can imagine regularly meeting for dinner, a coffee, or maybe a bike ride. You can make strong connections in a short period of time with people from all over the world. You can become inspired.
This is Jon`s inspiring story....
At first glance I thought he was local spanish man having his morning breakfast with Pepe. As I was tring to explain to Pepe about my BLOG, Jon healped translate a little, then spoke a few words in "American" english. I smiled, because one becomes a little home sick when the past 4 days have been filled with talking very slooowly...and using half english...half spainsh...and really not knowing if the person you are communicating with knows what you are saying. We started to talk about the normal things. Like where we were from, how long we have been here, where we have been , where we want to go, etc... This conversation lasted until the afternoon and Jon invited me to go with him for the next couple of days. I learned that he is actaully half mexican and half caucasian, not spanish, but lived in Spain until he was 2 years old. He is here in Spain to document where he lived in spain, find places that are pictured in childhood photographs, and find some connection with his biological parents that passesd away in a car accident when he was 2. He still has a scar under his left cheek and I can guess must be a reminder of a family unknown. The family he calls now are actually his aunt, uncle, and cousins. He shared with me that his parents do not really talk about his biological parents and a few months ago he came to a point in his life where he was able and ready to know more. So armed with a camera, a laptop with scanned letters and photographs, and video camera and tripod, this Berkeley trained former reporter in Pakistan, uses all his training and experience to find pieces to his life puzzle.
He has been interviewing old friends of his parents, finding places in photographs from his childhood and documenting the whole experience. I was there for a very small portion, to snap the photo smilar to the one he has scanned in his laptop, but now he is not a cute little boy but a 34 year old man.
I feel lucky that I got to be a small portion of this experience. It make me feel lucky for what I have and all the knowledge my parents have passed down to me...from there own mounths.
Maybe one day I will see the end of Jon´s story or maybe we will get to go wind surfing...if not I am happy knowing that my travel buddy has touched me and reminded me of what a lucky girl I am.
Amore,
Katelyn
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