The Lost Girls: Three Friends. Four Continents. One Unconventional Detour Around the World.

by Jennifer Baggett

  As I chugged another gulp of water and caught my breath, I realized that I felt happier and more grounded than I had in months. Suddenly the thought of returning home in a few days sent a ripple of dread through my body. Unlike Amanda and Holly, who’d been desperate for a reprieve from their chaotic, cutthroat magazine jobs, I had recently scored an exciting new position as a marketing coordinator for a music television channel that I was eager to resume.

  For once in my adult life, my career and living situation were actually on track, humming right along—but things with my relationship weren’t going so smoothly. In fact, I was bracing myself for a potential train wreck.

  After I had dated my boyfriend, Brian, for almost three years, the confidence to shout off the rooftops “Hallelujah! He’s the One!” still eluded me. Though many empathetic souls reminded me that I was still young, a growing number of onlookers had begun to pounce on my uncertainty. “Shit or get off the pot,” they’d say, invoking the single phrase I loathed more than any other. I mean, maybe I was just comfortable staying in a seated position longer than other people. Can’t a girl simply enjoy the feel of cool porcelain without being judged?

  While my romance with Brian hadn’t followed the traditional cinematic structure—boy sees girl, they lock eyes, share a passionate embrace, and fall head over heels in love—it had grown out of something stronger: a true friendship. We’d met at a business lunch halfway through my “freshman year” in New York. Network television sales assistant meets advertising client—an industry cliché that always made us laugh. Soon we grew from casual acquaintances to after-work happy hour buddies to true confidants who organized late-afternoon photo shoots in Central Park, signed up for salsa lessons, and dined in cute garden cafés on Restaurant Row.

  Before we knew it, we were a serious couple. And as the months turned into years, we never had a moment’s pause about progressing naturally from one level to the next. Becoming Exclusive. Meeting the Parents. Planning Vacations. Discussing Living Together. I was one of the lucky ones, shattering the Manhattan urban myth that it was impossible to find a sweet, gainfully employed city guy who wasn’t afraid to commit.

  But within the past few months, we’d hit the proverbial relationship wall. We had no real reason to break up, but also no real catalyst moving us forward. I knew that Brian and I would have to face the question of our future eventually, but at twenty-six (for another precious few months, anyway), I was more than content to take the safe road—present bus ride excluded. As we neared the park exit, the driver slammed into a pothole, sending me and my wandering thoughts sliding off the bench and into the aisle.

  Fortunately, the travel deities, it seemed, had decided to cut us yet another break: in the parking lot, we spotted the same snoring taxi driver who’d originally transported us across the border using a series of dusty back roads and convinced him to do the exact same thing in reverse. A few por favors, 20 Argentine pesos (about $7), and we were on our way.

  Even after our mad dash through the jungle, none of us were quite ready to call it a night. By the time we’d reached our hotel—located within the national park on the Argentinean side—Holly had come up with a better alternative.

  Her green eyes glinted, and a mischievous smile crossed her face. “Hey, so now that we’ve gained an hour of time back, do you guys want to hike over to Devil’s Throat waterfall? When I spoke with the concierge this morning, he said it doesn’t take long to get there and the view is the best one.”

  “I’m definitely down for that. Schmanders?” I asked, invoking Amanda’s college nickname.

  “Hey, why not?” she said, sweeping her blond curls off her neck and into a loose ponytail. “And at least we know we can’t get stranded on this side!”

  After smoothing on a fresh layer of sunblock (my fair skin tends to freckle and burn even in the light of sunset), I grabbed my day pack and we took off running down the trail.

  Giddy from our day’s adventure, Amanda, Holly, and I theatrically strutted across another set of Iguazú’s elevated catwalks, following the signs to Garganta del Diablo. We passed over marshy wetland grasses and under verdant green canopies until we finally reached the park’s main stage. Rather than staring at the thunderous, driving force of the water from below, this time we were perched high above the falls—at the same vantage point as the red-breasted toucans we’d seen darting through the rain forest. From this height, we could take in the full scope of the cascades rushing over the horseshoe cliff, thundering into a foggy abyss below, and enveloping us in a perfectly circular ring of rainbows.

  “You know, I wouldn’t have cared if we’d gotten stranded in Brazil,” said Holly, stretching one of her lean legs along the railing. “I’d take this over opening mail any day of the week.”

  Amanda grimaced and plopped down next to me on the bench where I’d settled near the main lookout point. “Let’s not mention work, please? I can’t even think about the massive pile of papers and e-mails waiting to eat me alive when I get back.”

  “Oh, c’mon, Amanda. You know you’d rather be sitting at your desk working on that lifesaving article you’re doing on…what is it?” I teased her, pulling a half-eaten granola bar out of my bag for emphasis. “The grooviest snack foods? The most artificially flavored?”

  “The Skinniest New Snack Foods,” she said miserably, grabbing the bar and acting as if she might toss it over the edge. “But I’d happily eat full-fat foods forever as long as I could do it here. I bet they don’t even have a word for ‘deadline’ or ‘anxiety attack’ in Latin America.”

  “I’m with you,” Holly said, coming over to sit next to us. “But at least we managed to escape for more than a week. That’s way more than most people get away with. And even if we have to work until midnight every night for a month, it’ll be worth it.”

  “Yeah, I can’t believe we really pulled this off. Especially you, Hols. I mean, you hadn’t even saved up for the trip like Jen and I did.”

  Holly shrugged and rolled her eyes playfully. “Well, I figured eating Luna bars for lunch every day and hiding flasks in my purse at happy hours was worth the sacrifice.”

  From what I’d learned about Holly already this week, I had a feeling she wasn’t exaggerating about what she’d had to do in order to get on the road and travel. Though I’d done my fair share of scrimping since moving to New York, I’d thankfully never been in debt. I’d even managed to earmark a small portion of my modest television salary for overseas vacations. Holly, on the other hand, had never really had extra money to spare and had been picking up odd jobs—berry picker, cosmetics color analyst, lead paint poisoning tester, college dorm toilet scrubber, pizza delivery girl—since she was a kid in order to stay afloat with her expenses. Yet somehow she’d managed to visit nearly twice the number of the countries I had, because she’d either earned study-abroad scholarships or paid for the trips out of her own pocket. She prioritized adventure and discovery over stability and structure—yet another reason why Amanda and I were so excited she’d been able to join us at the last minute.

  “Do we really have to go back? Can’t we just set up camp and stay?” Amanda pleaded.

  “Okay, fine, it’s decided,” I said, rising to my feet to face the girls. “We’ll build a tree house right here and live like the Swiss Family Robinson.”

  “Yeah, and we could sneak into the hotel at night and steal leftovers from room service carts,” Holly added.

  Soon we all got caught up in the fantasy of transferring from the concrete jungle to a real one. Our skin would glow from pristine air quality; we’d have lean and chiseled bodies from 24/7 hiking; hot Brazilian men would magically appear and fall in love with us—all excellent reasons we tossed out for settling here.

  “Well, I hadn’t mentioned this to you yet, Hol, but Jen knows my plan. If I ever get promoted to associate editor, I’m gonna start socking away money, quit the magazine a year later, and take a few months off to travel,” Amanda said, brightening at the thought
. “I’d invited Jen to come with me—but how much fun would it be if you came, too? It’d be just like this week—only infinitely more awesome.”

  “Oh, man, I am totally gonna rat you out to your boss,” Holly joked, uncrossing her legs and swinging them over the side of the bench. “Actually, I have a secret too. I’ve been interviewing for jobs, and one of the magazines already asked me for references, so I’ll probably be gone before you are. If you do leave to travel…well, maybe I’ll come for part of the time.”

  Despite what I’d learned about Holly, I was still shocked. “Are you serious? Would you actually come with us, Holly?”

  “Would you really come with me?” Amanda said, now staring at me intently.

  “Oh, please! You love your job more than life itself. You would never abandon it or New York,” I said, tormenting her as only a true best friend could. “But I triple dog dare you to quit because it’d be nice if you graced us with your presence at social events again.”

  “Okay, so I’m not sure exactly when I would leave or for how long, but it makes me feel better to have an emergency escape route mapped out, just in case,” Amanda shot back, grabbing her pack from the bench and walking over to the railing to get a better view of the sinking sun. “It’s either move up or move on, right?”

  Although I’d witnessed her frenetic race up the razor-sharp publishing ladder firsthand, I also knew that if Amanda Pressner committed to doing something, nothing would stand in her way—or woe to the innocent bystander who did. For starters, she was the only one out of five of my college friends who hadn’t bailed on our postgrad Europe trip. She’d said she was moving to Manhattan afterward to work in entertainment, and she had, all by herself, with no help or nepotistic connections. When everyone had told her it was impossible to get an editorial position at a magazine without being published first, she’d given them the mental middle finger and done it anyway. So if Amanda said she was going to leave to take a trip in the future, I had no doubt that she would.

  “You know what? Unless something drastically changes in my life by the time you’re ready to leave, I’ll nominate myself as your partner in crime,” I announced.

  As I spoke, I realized I was serious. For some reason, this particular trip to Argentina had intensified my itch to escape my New York reality more than ever. And if things didn’t get better with Brian, I might feel the need to flee the city anyway.

  From the safety of another continent, the idea of leaving everything familiar behind to live like nomads seemed almost possible. If all of our promotions and job transitions happened as planned, we’d have about eighteen months to save—and we could stretch out a trip budget for almost a year if we stuck to cheaper countries. With that much time, we could cross several continents and maybe pick up odd jobs along the way (“My friend made ten dollars a day picking fruit on a farm in Costa Rica,” Holly tossed out) or volunteer with an organization in exchange for lodging (“I could secure some freelance assignments,” Amanda added). And hopefully by then we’d be at a point in our professional lives where we could leave without totally committing career suicide.

  “And we’re all turning twenty-eight next year, which is the phase of our lives called Saturn Return,” said Holly said, hastening to add, “It’s an astrological thing—I used to edit the horoscope section for the magazine.”

  She explained that during the years between twenty-eight and thirty, the planet Saturn completes its cycle through your birth chart, which marks the end of youth and start of adulthood. And it brings with it monumental endings and new beginnings.

  “So it’d be the perfect time to take a trip together,” Holly said in a low, conspiratorial voice. “I say let’s do it, ladies.”

  It wasn’t the New Age talk that sent shivers up my spine. It was the Age part. The mention of our twenty-eighth birthdays stimulated a memory, an innocuous conversation I’d had with my mom about a year and a half earlier, which suddenly seemed epically relevant. The scene played out in my mind with eerie vividness…

  My mom and I were sitting at a sidewalk table at my favorite neighborhood cantina, sipping frozen margaritas. In typical fashion, we gabbed for hours, covering all the usual subjects: my job, the extreme importance of maxing out my 401(k) contribution, how I couldn’t afford to eat and would be homeless if I maxed out my 401(k) contribution, Dad’s latest home improvement project, the dire consequences of not having renter’s insurance, and of course, Me, Brian and The Future.

  We’d been together barely sixteen months, and I’d already heard questions from people like “Is marriage on the horizon? Shouldn’t you date other people if it isn’t? You know it’s safer to have kids in your twenties, right?” Great! I’m already a bad mother, and I’m not even pregnant.

  As I voiced my frustrations about all of this pressure, my mom offered what, at the time, was a brilliant suggestion: “Maybe you’d feel better if you picked an age, any age you want. And make a pact that you’ll just enjoy dating and not overthink anything until then.”

  Hmm, it would be a relief to let myself off the hook for a while. After all, still in my midtwenties, I was a mere babe by NYC standards. I could give uncertainty another few years, right? So I threw age twenty-eight out into the ether.

  “That gives me plenty of time to relax and have fun. If Brian and I are still together then, we definitely should have things figured out. And if not, I’ll have to do something really radical, like move to Colorado to become a ski instructor or join a rock band roadie movement or max out my 401(k) for the first time ever in my life,” I teased.

  “You’re not funny,” my mom replied with a laugh. “You should really put the full ten percent of your paycheck toward savings,” she added, unable to resist.

  Now, standing in the middle of an Argentinean rain forest, I couldn’t shake the sense that the whole round-the-world trip idea had come up for a reason: the three of us winding up on vacation together; talking about the possibility of leaving to travel abroad right after my twenty-eighth birthday; remembering an impromptu pact I had made over Tex-Mex food. Considering the turbulent state of my love life and my overwhelming inability to make a decision, it was clear that I was nearing a critical fork in the road. Well, let’s be honest: I’d set up camp there ages ago and was still sitting on my ass roasting marshmallows.

  I’d secretly hoped a sign would appear to point me in the right direction, but I’d never expected it to be a trip around the world. It was an odd, inexplicable feeling deep in my gut, but everything seemed fated somehow, as if any path I’d chosen would’ve led me to this exact point. Maybe this was something I was meant to do.

  Sitting there with Amanda and Holly at the top of a waterfall, in the middle of the jungle, I had a vision of what our life on the road together would be like. It was a lightning flash of the future waiting just an arm’s length away, daring us to reach out and grab it.

  Could I really spend an entire year traveling around the world with these girls?

  As crazy as it seemed, I knew the answer was yes.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Amanda

  NEW YORK CITY

  MARCH–AUGUST

  Most “real” New Yorkers claim that you don’t become one of them until you’ve lived in the city for at least ten years. Some say it takes a lifetime. According to the New York State Unified Court System, I’d managed to become a New Yorker in less than seven years, and it was time to show my appreciation by paying a visit to the courthouse.

  For months, I’d been boomeranging jury notice slips back downtown, convinced that if I deferred enough times, the powers that be would give up on me altogether. But the government, as it turned out, was no sleazy day trader at happy hour who—eventually—took the hint. No matter how often I rejected the offer for a date, Uncle Sam wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  Our little courting ritual came to an end one Tuesday night in March. I arrived home to the cramped apartment Jen and I shared with our friend Beth and swept up the stack of
mail threatening to slip-slide off our front table. There, wedged between a Vietnamese delivery menu and our latest cable bill, was a red-and-black envelope marked URGENT—FINAL NOTICE.

  Ripping open the letter, I flung myself onto the futon and tried to figure out how I could possibly get out of going one more time. That’s when I heard the key twisting in the lock. Jen didn’t even get the chance to dump the three bags she was carrying on the ground before I pounced.

  “There’s just no way!” I railed, pacing the length of our ten-foot living room while Jen calmly hung up her pink wool coat with the patent leather trim. “I can’t miss work right now. I’m already so overloaded that I’m starting to make really stupid mistakes. Misspelling words when I have to make changes on-screen. Our research chief pulled me aside today to remind me how to annotate copy.”

  “Ooh, that sucks. But I’m sure they know you’re just busy. What’d you misspell?” she asked, shaking the snow out of her honey-colored hair.

  “Safety. Can you believe that? I spelled it saf-tey, and the proofreader almost didn’t catch it until it went to press. Claire was definitely not impressed with that one.”

  My new boss, Claire, a veteran women’s magazine editor, had taken over the nutrition section after my previous supervisor, Kristen, had moved over to head the new sexual health department. Whereas Kristen had worked with me one-on-one to help me grow as a newbie writer and assigned me feature stories rather than busy work, Claire seemed to believe that assistants should pay their dues in messages taken and paperwork filed. To say that she and I hadn’t exactly clicked professionally would be a major understatement. I’d always felt that if she could have replaced me instead of inheriting me, she wouldn’t have hesitated a second.

  “Well, I wouldn’t freak out about jury duty too much. Every New Yorker has to do it at some point,” said Jen, prying a microwave burrito from the back of the freezer. “You probably won’t even get picked.”