With July and August come vacation season. For those parents
working full-times jobs, these months offer the perfect time to get away from
it all. The destinations vary: either trips to visit out-of-town family
members, to a resort, or for the fortunate, an exotic locale. However, none of
these match the imagination when it comes to a once-in-a-lifetime destination,
the dream vacation.
So what is my dream vacation? Let me take the word “dream”
literally. A couple of months back I had one of those vivid dreams that seem to
last all night long, one that made me feel as if the waking world is the dream
and no the other way around.
I boarded a jet from an unknown airport for a flight that
lasted almost an entire day. The destination? A tiny island in the middle of a
vast ocean; a place was so isolated that only a handful of people lived on it.
The island was remarkable. Cocooned by a light fog and a hushed
isolation, it floated high in the southern seas, as if anchored in the mute white
atmosphere. Surrounded by cold green waters, no trees grew on it. Besides a few
humans, only penguin-like animals populated it. It was too distant to receive any
type of radio or television signals.
But rather than dark, the island was a happy place. Despite a
paucity of adults, the island was inhabited by many happy children who
climbed its rocks and played on its beaches. Enormous whales floated about in the
waters, constantly rising from the depths and snorting huge plumes of water.
It took me several minutes to get my bearings when I woke
up, the dream being so life-like. I wandered through my quotidian duties that
day but the dream did not leave me. When curiosity could no longer be contained,
I checked a world map on the computer, searching for remote islands that may
resemble the one in my dream.
Several possibilities emerged but were quickly dismissed. The
Galapagos felt remote enough, but iguanas and giant tortoises did not appear in
my dream. Several islands of the South Pacific – Bora Bora and Tonga -- appeared
on the screen as possibilities, but my dream island was far from a tropical
paradise.
I finally entered “the most remote island in the world” in
Google search. The answer popped up immediately: Tristan da Cunha, an
eight-mile-wide island in the middle of the South Atlantic, whose closest
mainland city, Cape Town, South Africa, lay 1,743 miles away. I couldn’t say with
certainty that it matched the one in my dreams, but similarities existed. The
island, dominated by a rocky volcano, is devoid of trees. Low-lying mists
create a secluded, hazy setting. Rockhopper penguins nest on its shores.
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| Tristan Da Cunha |
Unlike my dream, no airstrip exists. However, fishing boats
from South Africa visit eight times a year. A trip to Tristan da Cunha is an
exercise in patience and planning. About eighty families live there
permanently. There are neither cell phones nor home internet service, but as a
gesture to the modern world, one lonely internet café exists. It seems that the
island is a paradise for children. The entire island, with neither predators nor
crime, is a vast playground for children, who live in complete freedom.
I would love to visit Tristan da Cunha. Is it the island of
my dreams? Obviously, I can’t tell but I did gather one more scrap of evidence.
It seems that whales and dolphins swim the seas around it. Certainly, it’s a
place for a dream vacation.
Mohan Ashtakala is the author of "Karma Nation."
He is published by Books We Love.
www.bookswelove.com
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