Sure Travel Journey Vol 5.2 Autumn 2019 | Page 25

© LAZAR/ADOBESTOCK.COM
© CHAPMAN
Clockwise from above: Quiet residential
roads butt up against the bustling city.
Good company isn’t hard to find in
Barcelona. Looking out over the city at dusk.
© CHAPMAN
What I realised most
while travelling alone
in Barcelona is that
you experience
the world and
know it through
others, be they
foreign or familiar
South African guy called Matt.”
The old lady pointed to the opposite door
and then passed me a slightly smelly plastic
bag. Desperate to get away, I chose a key
and rushed to the opposite door. The key
slid into the lock, it clicked and I tumbled in,
collapsing with relief. When I’d recovered, I
plucked up the courage to open the plastic
bag. It contained a banana peel, chocolate
wrappers and some other nasty junk. Granny
had given me her trash to take out.
The following week was spent wandering
the streets with my camera, swimming
in the warm Mediterranean Sea and
people-watching for hours on end. The
streets of Barcelona – or “Bartha” as the
Spanish pronounce it with their trademark
lisp – are a constant mix of cultures and a
buzz of beautiful people. In 2016 alone, an
astounding 32 million people visited the city
– by comparison, there are only 1.6 million
permanent residents.
Barcelona has Roman roots stretching
back more than 2 000 years, and
everywhere you look is a bizarre clash
between modernity and ancient history –
churches and cathedrals are surrounded by
graffiti-stained walls and high-rise buildings.
The flashy shopping district of Passeig de
Gracia butts up against narrow alleyways,
where plants, laundry and flags form a
tapestry in the sky. Locals and visitors dine
and dance and argue on the sidewalks. It is
a city that never sleeps, where people live,
play and work amongst one another in a
beautiful mess.
The blessing and curse of travelling alone
is that you often meet people you would
usually not spend time with in everyday
life. At the Museu d’Art Contemporani
de Barcelona in El Raval, I met Yotam, an
ex-Israeli soldier, and we spent the night
popping into clubs and sharing stories from
our fractured homelands.
The next day I was grabbing a coffee when
a middle-aged fashionista stopped me and
asked to take my portrait. He was working
on a book about Barcelona street fashion.
His name was Steve Black, a foul-mouthed
Scotsman who abandoned his mundane
MAKE MEMORIES FOR LIFE // 25