Back in North America

Mexico City gets a pretty bad rap from most travellers. Most people associate it with rampant over-population, shockingly polluted air and being quite literally one of the most dangerous cities in the world. Given all of this I wasn´t too excited about the prospects of coming here.

When Katie asked me if I was sure I needed to go to Mexico I replied with a less than confident "I think so..." And as I rode in the cab toward the airport in Cartegena I seriously pondered what would happen if I just turned back around and went to the hotel.

Katie and had met only 4 days earlier, but we hit it off right away. Maybe it was because our paths crossed on a boat heading to paradise. Well it was actually Cabo San Juan de Guia in Parque Nacional Tayarona, but within about 30 seconds of getting there we both agreed it was paradise.

Maybe I was just hoping that as a practicing psychologist she could provide some free psychotherapy. But if she managed to figure out any of my many pathologies she didn´t clue me in, which is probably for the best. She didn´t even bat an eye when I destroyed her camera, for which she has my eternal gratitude and admiration. In any case we spent the next 2 days with our hammocks strung up next to each other, enjoying the sun, water and fresh fish that came with paradise.

After a hop, skip and a jump we were in Cartegena and it was time for me to leave. Throughout my travels I´ve noticed that some goodbyes have taken far too long while others have come with such haste one cannot even process the surrealness of that one instant.

With all of this on my mind as my flight began it´s descent into Mexico City I cringed at the fact that I was now here. It all seemed like such a good idea when it came to me about a week ago. Mexico is close to the US. I need to go back to the US at some point, so why not just go to Mexico instead and somehow make my way north???

I knew nothing about Mexico City of course, except all of the things that were now turning me of to it. And I had no idea where I was going to spend the night as usual. But I found a pretty nice hostel fairly quickly without incident and spent the next day exploring the town.

And much to my suprise I´m finding I kinda like it. It´s full of beautiful colonial architecture, wide tree-lined streets and monuments to seemingly everything and anything even remotely related to the nation´s history. And after a few months of complaining about the difficulty of finding a good cheap meal in South America I´m absolutely in love with the culture of street food, although needless to say there are some drawbacks.

And there is something comforting about looking at a map of Mexico. It´s like Bob Dylan or the Grateful Dead laid out a song book right there in our neighbor to the south. Cities with names like Durango and Acapulco, Oaxaca and Ixtapa, Tabasco and Tequila just excite the imagination. I don´t know exactly what route I´ll take, but I already know the destination.

No later than Oct 22nd I will be in San Diego. The thoughts of how exactly to put the pieces of my life back together and what exactly this wonderful insightful "plan" that everyone assumes I have already figured out are bouncing around my skull. But for the time being I´m going to try to enjoy this, the last leg of what has been a wonderful journey, a long strange trip indeed.

Just about ready

When I was in Quito and e-mailing back and forth with Bill trying to make plans to stay in Medellin he asked me how long I was going to be here for. I told him just two weeks, but if I´m having a good time I might extend it to three. Well one month after I got to town I´m finally ready to leave. The same thing happened to me when I started this trip 8 months ago. Two weeks turned into 35 days. Medellin is a great city, as addicting as it´s most famous export.

Marta and I continued our tradition of saying our goodbyes over a media botella de Ron Medellin. It certainly was a roller-coaster ride with her this time throught, but thankfully we managed to end on a high note. And seeing Bill again went swimmingly. I´ve got a feeling we´ll meet again soon, perhaps in Medellin again if one of these business ideas takes off, if not maybe in South Carolina once his new condo is done and the fish are biting again.

I spent the last two months hanging out with family and friends. And now I´m going to head to another city where I´ve never been before and don´t know anyone. Obstensibly I´m going to Santa Marta to take a scuba diving course. I was planning on doing that 8 months ago but I never left Medellin the first time and I realized I should probably learn how to swim before going scuba diving. So now that that´s taken care of there´s nothing to keep me out of the water. There´s also a rather famous archeological ruin 3 days away, which sounds tempting.

After that plans get thrown up in the air again. I´m actually basically ready to head back to the US and put the pieces of my life back together. I´m tempted to just be done with it and book a flight from Cartegena all the way back home. But actually I think I´ll try to find a boat heading to Colon, Panama and continue the rest of the journey by busses and trains eventually crossing the border from Tijuana to San Diego.

That also lets me hedge my bets just in case I´m wrong and that Cuban salsa band I´ve been dying to see does eventually get their visa situation straightened out and make it off the island for their Mexican tour. Actually most of them are there already, they´re just missing one of the singers. But I´m trying not to get my hopes up.

Either way this has been by far the best thing I´ve ever done in my life. When I reflect back on all the ridiculous experiences I´ve had and the hodgepodge band of hooligans I´ve met I can´t help but think how my life would be the same as it was before had I just stayed in Seattle working for Microsoft. My biggest concern now is that when I get back and try to acclimate myself to a ¨regular¨ lifestyle I´m just going to want to take off on another trip.

I hear Thailand and Vietnam are really fascinating, jungles, beaches and great food. But I never did get to the northern coast of Brazil and Portuguese is similar enough to Spanish I think I could pick it up pretty easily. Of course parts of Eastern Europe are still pretty cheap and it´s very accessible. And maybe I could just go work on my Hindi in India. Addicting indeed.