After stuffing the last of my dirty clothes into my backpack, I hefted it onto my shoulder and almost slipped down the rickety staircase to the ground floor of the hostel. Away from the tiny room with 8 bunk-beds, no heats, and minimal lighting (I thought I had left my hostel days behind years ago). Past the other travellers rubbing the sleep from their eyes as they prepared for a full day of Easter Weekend adventures on the Garden Route of South Africa that might include a game drive with zebras, lions, and giraffes; a free fall from the highest bungee jump in the word; or a dip in the rolling surf of the Indian Ocean.

I stumbled into the early morning African sun and shook my head to clear it from the indulgences of the night before. Who knew that you could buy a bottle of red wine in a South African restaurant for the equivalent of a glass of wine back home? Or that you could dig into a gluten free puttanesca pasta followed by a creamy goat cheese cheesecake in a tiny town called Wilderness on the Eastern Cape? I had no regrets about borrowing from my retirement fund to pay for this trip, but I needed a walk to clear my headache and to help keep my traveling companions, Suzy Saddlebags & Paula Paunch, in check.

On my way down the gravel pathway, I bumped into Matthew, a Dutch traveler that I had chatted with briefly in my red wine induced haze. We had swapped travel stories and I had confessed how deeply I have already fallen in love with the children of Africa. As I waved goodbye and told him to enjoy the rest of his vacation, his voice followed me down the path.

Due to the thickness of his accent, it took me awhile to process his words. By the time I had rolled them over in my mind, I had left the pathway behind and joined up to the country road to squeeze in a walk before jumping into a van crammed with backpacks, the smell of damp towels, and 8 other tired volunteers.

For the rest of the day as we travelled from the sandy shores of the Indian Ocean, through the ragged, rusty mountain peaks, and past the lush rolling hillsides dotted with vineyards, his words reverberated through my mind. I had forgotten how much I love the random conversations that come when you strap on a backpack and head off in search of fresh perspectives.

“Have a beautiful life,” he had said as we both left one adventures behind in search of the next. I can’t wait to borrow his simple, but powerful words the next time I part ways with a stranger who for one brief conversation felt almost like a friend.