The Lost Girls: Three Friends. Four Continents. One Unconventional Detour Around the World. by Jennifer Baggett & Holly C. Corbett & Amanda Pressner

Author:Jennifer Baggett & Holly C. Corbett & Amanda Pressner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Young women, Travel, Biography And Autobiography, Essays & Travelogues, Sports & Recreation, General, Biography, Voyages And Travels, Personal Memoirs, Women, Travelers' writings, Women travelers, Camping, Backpacking, Biography & Autobiography, Friendship, Family & Relationships, Autobiography, American, Quakers, Women adventurers
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2010-05-11T05:18:04+00:00

Amanda and Jen sat next to me on my spartan twin bed inside the dorm. Their stuffed backpacks leaned against the wall beside us, an unwelcome reminder that they’d soon be gone, leaving me to navigate the ashram alone.

“Aww, guys, this is the best present ever!” I joked, clutching the bag of contraband chocolate to my chest, practically on a sugar high from simply smelling the sweet stuff.

“We knew you couldn’t survive a whole month without dessert,” Amanda said, squeezing my shoulders. I was quickly learning that sometimes it’s life’s little pleasures that can cheer you up the most—and the lack thereof can make each day feel practically torturous.

“You sure you want to stay here, Hol? You could come to Goa with us and just chill on the beach,” Jen offered. I wondered what it would be like to go almost a month without the two extensions of myself known as Jen and Amanda. It was the first time we’d be separated during the trip. And though I’d never thought about not staying at yoga school just because my friends would rather be at the beach, the fact that I felt so lost without them showed me just how close we’d become. We’d taken care of one another through food poisoning. We’d slept head to toe. We were the first people we talked to in the morning and the last before we fell asleep at night.

I’d told Jen and Amanda about the afternoon’s dog incident, and I knew they were worried. But I also knew that, God willing, there’d be many more times to relax on the beach during the trip and that now was not that time for me. Rather, I needed to commit myself to staying and learning. Though to learning what exactly, I still wasn’t sure.

“That sounds like heaven right now, but the ashram’s Web site clearly states, ‘No refunds,’” I said, declining Jen’s offer.

“That’s probably because anybody in their right mind would ask for their money back,” Amanda joked.

I could see from Jen and Amanda’s eyes that they were hesitant to leave me behind in this land of elephant-headed deities, swamis spewing lessons of karma, and rabid dogs. But I could also tell, from how they were already leaning toward the exit, that they were aching to break out of yoga camp. “Well, we’d better get outta here before we catch whatever funky foreign bug is going around. Stay away from the sickies, Hol!” Jen teased.

It had turned out that the blonde I’d seen with the swollen, devilish red eyes in the dining hall didn’t actually have pinkeye but a supervirus so contagious that almost a third of the students had already caught it. It was painful just to look at, so the infected hid behind sunglasses while everyone else avoided them like the plague. Our teachers didn’t seem too surprised by the outbreak. In fact, they’d said that getting sick was normal: all this healthy living purged toxins in the process of purifying our bodies.

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