It’s often said that life’s major turning points happen when we least expect it. They lurk in the shadows, sneak up on us, pounce and yell “Surprise! Your life will change now!”.
I had one of those moments the very first time I arrived in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
At the time I was working for travel wholesaler Peregrine Adventures and, as a seasoned climber in the Himalayas, I jumped at the chance to take an expedition to Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Americas.
When I arrived in Buenos Aires I fell in love with the Baroque architecture, magnificent tree-lined streets, lyrical Spanish and ice-cream. Oh, yes, the ice-cream! What I didn’t expect, though, was one of those life-changing moments to line me up, charge and knock me flying–Argentina stole my heart.
After the expedition I returned to Australia and missed Argentina like it was my homeland. I spent a few years toing and froing between South America and Australia until I finally moved to Mendoza, in north-west Argentina.
Alli Sinclair worked as a Travel Consultant for many year
I immersed myself in the culture and language and in the process, the creative side of me started to shine through. I kept a journal about my travels, revelled in meeting an array of nationalities, and loved my work as tour guide with Tucan Travel as it took me through some remote regions of Latin America.
All the while, ideas for stories percolated but I pushed them aside as I was too busy collecting memories.
It wasn’t until many years later, after I returned home to Australia, that I allowed my creativity to finally surface. A journalist from a radio station interviewed me about my travels then asked why I hadn’t written about them.
It was a super good question, I must say. The question was so good, in fact, that it inspired me to enter a national travel writing competition with STA. My story was selected and published in their magazine and once again, another life-changing moment arrived without warning.
Seeing my name in print gave me such a buzz that I took to writing travel articles that were published in Australia and overseas. The writing-bug had taken hold and so I opened my journals and started going through ideas for stories I’d jotted down.
And this is when Luna Tango, my debut novel, was born. It turned out to be my love letter to Argentina and combined my love for culture, family saga, mystery, travel and adventure. The buzz of writing a novel opened a Pandora’s Box and the ideas just kept coming.
When I decided to set one in Spain, the home of my ancestors, Under the Spanish Stars tapped me on the shoulder and shouted in my ear that now was the time to write this story. There was no way I could resist setting a story in Granada, one of the most beautiful and fascinating regions of the world.
With centuries old buildings, flamenco caves on the hillside, and aromatic spices wafting along narrow cobblestoned streets, it’s impossible not to be drawn in by the romance of Granada. What’s not to love about a city that has as many secrets as the characters I write about?
We are so spoilt for places to travel to and experience, cultures to immerse ourselves in, and history to enchant us, that I doubt there will ever be a shortage of fascinating destinations to set stories in.
The journey from travel consultant to travel guide to travel writer and now fiction author has been crazy, unpredictable, amazing and so very rewarding. And to think it all started with an innocent trip to Buenos Aires.
