When you travel solo, you learn a lot about yourself and your limitations. Traveling solo teaches you how to deal with things, both good and bad. Sometimes the problem may be as easy as deciding which hostel to stay in, and other times you may have to figure out how to get out of a sticky situation.

I’m not talking about escaping from a knife-wielding mugger; I’m talking about spider webs.

 

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Here There Be Spiders

This past weekend, while hiking alone through Cinque Terre, I traipsed through forests, along cliffs, and through small towns. I clambered over rocks and trees, pushed aside branches and bushes, and clung onto railings next to steep cliffs. It was an amazing hike. But, as with any trail through close knit quarters, I was bound to come into contact with spider webs. I walked through dozens of them.

I don’t know anyone who likes to walk through a spider web. Most people instantly freak out and create a new dance trying to get the sticky, super-glue-like web off. Men may even scream like little girls.

 

But the biggest concern? WHERE IS THE SPIDER?

 

The spider could be ANYWHERE. It could be in your hair, on your back, or heaven forbid in your clothes. It could be big, small, black, red, or furry. It may be trying to find a soft patch of skin to bite. You scream and dance to get rid of, and perhaps scare, the spider. After a minute or two of freaking out, you calm down, ask someone to check you over, and then laugh about. Even then, you still imagine, and feel, a spider crawling on you.

If I had been hiking with someone, I would have surely danced a little jig, swung my arms wildly about and then asked my partner to see if the spider was on me. However, since I was hiking alone, I had to suck it up, calmly brush the spider webs off and not think about where the spider could be. I most likely carried a few spiders far from their home, but that’s what they get for being in my way. If I was lucky and saw the spider web before walking through it, I picked up a stick, threw it at the web and watched the spider crawl away.

I was proud that I dealt with the spider webs by myself. I felt as if I had accomplished a small feat by calmly handling the situation. So, if you’re traveling solo and deal with something that is insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but is a little scary at that moment; be proud of yourself, you handled it alone.

 

P.S. I’m writing this as I’m far away from Cinque Terre, but I keep feeling as if a spider is crawling up and down my back… Perhaps it’s all my imagination.