Where in the World Am I? (part I)

Have you ever woken up with a start and wondered where you were? I lived with this sensation for about a year as I moved about South America to learn Spanish and explore the place, and it wasn’t always due to waking up in a strange hotel beds.

What’s This Place Called Again?

Staying somewhere with a strange place name makes it really difficult to remember where you are. If you are planning on passing just a day or so in, say, Yacuiba or Florianopolis it can be hard for the name to sink in. It is pretty strange to be in a city and not really know what it’s called but it is also kind of liberating too I think.

Where Do You Live?

After a few months I had begun to learn Spanish reasonably well, or so I thought. I rented a flat in Tarija, Bolivia and I got into a conversation with a guy on a bus journey back there from the other side of the country one day. He told me that he was from Tarija and that he lived in Tarija and basically mentioned the name of the city about 50 times in half an hour. He then asked me where I lived. I simply said, “Tarija”. He scratched his head for a few seconds and then said he’d never heard of the place. His bizarre reaction actually managed to place a seed of doubt in my mind as to where I actually did live.