Travel Writing Competition 2014 Entries 3

I remember once walking up my grandmothers taupe coloured concrete staircase and there she was, sitting on her half broken wooden rocking chair with her aged hands clasped over her face.

The October sky was leaden with an imminent deluge. That morning, we had been emptied out of our comfy coach to explore Paris at our leisure.

The warm onshore breeze carried the tops of Adriatic waves up the brilliant white cliff to the crumbling castle perched atop.

I couldnt breathe. I was bent over at the waist, clutching my belly as if squeezing it harder would make it hurt less.

Namib Desert, its 6 o clock, right before sunrise. Im on my soulful, solo journey to Dead Vlei.

A wrinkled face on the road side tea stall in Rudraprayag looked in anticipation as I walked towards it.

Dark blue eyes encircled by white and green rings in the midst of a bright turquoise water looked alluringly up at us as we gazed down from our tiny jet.

A proud Mexican family stood around the font at a baptism service. Twelve feet away a shaman sacrificed a chicken.

We scramble and slip down steep boulders covered with moss and rainforest mildew. The mixture of sweat and sunscreen stings my eyes.

It is a photograph I never took. A man of my age gazing warily down one of the many dusty seen better days streets in the half light before dawn.