January 22, 2015
THE TELESTIAL TIMELINE
Picture the scene: you’re on vacation. You’ve spent the last four hours on an ‘off-the-beaten-track’ trek, most of it uphill. The first hour was lovely. A gentle walk among the rolling hills in a place you’ve never been before. You marvel at the strange plants, waving or talking to the friendly locals as they make their way past you, with most of a small forest piled precariously onto their shoulders. The second hour is a bit less enjoyable. The incline has increased, and you’re just not used to this tropical afternoon sun beating down on you. You’re also wondering whether flip-flops were the best choice of for this adventure. By the third hour, you’re absolutely certain that flip-flops were in fact a terrible idea, and vow to immediately burn them on your return to sea level. Now the descending locals seem a little less chipper and more like they’re mocking the out-of-shape westerners, struggling to complete a climb empty-handed that they’ve already done twice before breakfast with a goat under each arm. You barely have the energy to raise a hand in acknowledgement, let alone stop for a chat. By the time you’re into the fourth hour, you are a mass of aches, pains and resentment, mostly toward the tour guide who told you that it was only a gentle walk. You vow that you’ll put up with it and get there, just to throw the miserable swine off the top. You have to remind yourself that this is supposed to be fun, mostly by chanting a mantra through gritted teeth, something along the lines of “I. Am. Having. FUN.”
But then you get to the summit, and suddenly, the pain and exhaustion melt away. There is no need for words, even if you weren’t too exhausted to speak. You, and the rest of your small group, sit upon the rocks with the dazed surprise of people who were told that it would be worth it, but somehow forgot this along the way. But yes, it was worth it. So worth it. You’re looking at the best, most impressive sunset you’ve ever seen in your life. The light reflects off the water of the bay, turning the whole sea gold. You stare in awe at the trees swaying gently in an afternoon breeze, the poor fools stuck on that lowly beach in the distance, and you remember that this, exactly this, is why you chose to come here in the first place. It was to see and experience things that you never would back home... which is when you remember a friend or family member. How they would love this. In fact, after a quick look at your watch and some gentle mental arithmetic, you realize that it’s only just 10am there. You could give them a call. So your hand reaches for your pocket… and time stops.
Time has stopped because there are three distinct timelines you could go down, depending on the decisions you made before you set off. Each timeline is very different.
In the first timeline, you reach into your pocket and pull out your phone. Up here, you’ve got a nice strong signal, and the person you want to call is on speed-dial. But just as you’re about to hit the dial button, you stop. If you make this call now, you have no idea how much it’s going to cost you. It could be as much as $20 per minute, and while you’d really like to spend five minutes describing the scene from your mountain-top, it’s not really worth the $100 you’d be spending. I guess they’ll like the photos, but it’s not the same. Maybe next time, you think, and the phone goes back in your pocket, unused.
In the second timeline, you’ve taken precautions about such things. For a start, you have ensured that your handset is unlocked (after all, you don’t want to spend four hours climbing just to discover that it won’t work anyway). You also purchased a local SIM at the airport to ensure the best quality service and the lowest rates, and you have plenty of credit. You could spend the next hour up here, gabbing happily away, and it wouldn’t cost you a cent since you’ve already bought the credit. Patting yourself on the back, you dial the number, and wait. And wait. And wait a bit more. After the third attempt you give up, a bit downcast. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. You wonder what you’ve done to upset your friend back home.
Of course, your friend isn’t upset. It could be that they’re at work, where taking personal calls on office time is strongly discouraged, no matter who you are. Or it could be that they didn’t recognize the number. In a poll from 2012, it was found that the overwhelming majority of cellphone users do not answer calls from numbers they don’t recognize, period. Given that you just bought your SIM card a couple of days ago, there’s no way that the person you’re calling will know it’s you. They’re especially unlikely to answer a call with an international dialing code that they don’t recognize. You could leave them a message and tell them of this wonderful moment that you wanted to share, but that’s not quite the same thing, and besides, it’s beginning to get dark.
The third timeline is the one in which you went online and visited Telestial before your trip. You received your SIM card, which came with a US and UK number (so no unexpected mystery country dialing codes), before you travelled, giving you time to share the number with your family and friends before you travel. You have some free credit on the SIM and the rates are much lower than they would be with your regular SIM, so you can still talk as long as you want. If you want, you can wait until the person on the other end fires up Facebook and takes a look at your Travel Journal. They’ll see you right there, a little red location tag on top of the mountain. They can also take a look at the photos you’ve uploaded. It’s the next best thing to them being with you.
Disclaimer – Telestial.com nor any of its affiliates can do anything about your blisters. Sorry about that.
