Don´t Cry for Us, Argentina

Fruit, the universal currency

When you´re travelling through many countries, you need to stay sharp as a tack in dealing with the various currencies. The kip, the baht, the peso, the euro, the dollar. The daily swings, the drops. The highs and lows of money are a lot to manage -- oh, the MENTAL OVERHEAD -- which is why I´ve chosen a far simpler model.

I deal solely in the currency of fruit. That´s how I like to travel. No lopsided economies. No messy math.

With fruit, there are no imprecise equations. Who could mistake the exchange rate of an apricot to a durian? Or a lychee to a prune? No one could. Everyone knows the value of a prune.

Offering fruit to a fellow traveller is how I make friends. A pleasure to meet you. Are you weary, friend? Would you care for a pear?

Fruit never offends. It never calls attention to itself. It is its own sweet self; its goal is always to get along. But like currencies, there are some fruit that are more valuable than others, a few that I cannot live without day to day: the mango, the banana, the apple.

The apple, ubiquitous, unsung, is the gateway fruit. It leads to good conversations, philosophical musings; sometimes, pie. An apple is a wonderful thing. I make sure to always have a couple of them in my handlebar bag during times of famine and hardship, when the road is long and the hills are heartbreaking. You never know when you need a Waldorf salad.

Which is why I travel with a salad bowl. But I´ll save that for another blog.

-- Mad Dawg copyright 2007