Why travel? I awoke one day in the small beach town of Montinita and I asked myself why I was traveling. And a few things came to me as I sat in a hammock under a large Palm tree
Because nothing will ever go according to plan. travel to dance with locals to local music, because you wish to know how other people move. travel to taste food you've never heard of and drink juice from fruit You never knew existed. Travel because you might get lost and scared, you might find yourself alone in the dark, but you'll be forced to discover why you fear the things you do.
Why travel?
Because when you move you can see clearly. You will be forced to see the person starring back at you from the still puddle on the ground for who she really is. Travel because getting drunk in another language is a great way to learn. Travel because, if you never go, you will never know the options. To live a life in only one place is to order vanilla ice cream every time.
Mostly, travel because what you go looking for is most surely not out there but something else, something better, really is waiting for you outside your comfort zone.
So I sat in a hammock, in a beautiful place in Ecuador, surrounded by beautiful Argentinian people speaking the most beautiful language in the world and I remembered. I remembered all the reasons I had decided to go, and i laughed because what I left looking for and what I have found are wildly different. And that, that is why we travel.
Monday, March 30, 2015
Some things I've learned 3/2/15
1. The only truthful way to be is without certainty. Those who know everything have lived not a single day within the universe.
2. The answers are always there, the test just doesn't always ask the right questions.
3. To live without art is to live in a pointless world. To go through life without creation is to never experience what it means to engage with the universe. To never take from the world around you and make something out of nothing is to spend your life hitting your head against the walls of the world.
4. A love that compromises the self is not a love at all
5. Loneliness is pessimistic independence.
6. There are artists, and then there's everyone else
7. There is a universal beat that the heart follows, all one needs to do is listen
8. The only kind of people for me are the adventurers, the crazy ones, those who live with nothing to loose, those who believe life to be an epic battle of discovery. The people who inspire me, Who can make me wonder and question the storytellers, those are the people for me.
9. Spanish is always a beautiful language
10. Humans should sleep when they are tired, not when they are told to.
11. Art inspires art
12. Failure is the most important part of any good success story.
13. Facts and numbers give you knowledge, but wisdom cannot be taught in a classroom
14. Today is an essential part of the story of how you change the world.
2. The answers are always there, the test just doesn't always ask the right questions.
3. To live without art is to live in a pointless world. To go through life without creation is to never experience what it means to engage with the universe. To never take from the world around you and make something out of nothing is to spend your life hitting your head against the walls of the world.
4. A love that compromises the self is not a love at all
5. Loneliness is pessimistic independence.
6. There are artists, and then there's everyone else
7. There is a universal beat that the heart follows, all one needs to do is listen
8. The only kind of people for me are the adventurers, the crazy ones, those who live with nothing to loose, those who believe life to be an epic battle of discovery. The people who inspire me, Who can make me wonder and question the storytellers, those are the people for me.
9. Spanish is always a beautiful language
10. Humans should sleep when they are tired, not when they are told to.
11. Art inspires art
12. Failure is the most important part of any good success story.
13. Facts and numbers give you knowledge, but wisdom cannot be taught in a classroom
14. Today is an essential part of the story of how you change the world.
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
They are watching me
The man he is watching me 
He smiles and calls after 
The man he is staring, following my movements with his twisted smirk. The man he is watching me, and I cannot get away.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Many miles down! Many more to go!
Leaving the city center in Medellin 
Waiting for the bus 
Still waiting for the bus 
Ipiales (at the boarder) 
We've made it! Ecuador 26 hours on the move
18 hours on one bus. The sky was dark as we pulled out of the bus station and the air conditioning was on full blast. We payed 97,000 pesos for a trip through southern Colombia. (47 usd$) The bus drove through the city and I said a silent goodbye to Medellin. A place that had been good to me. Eventually we reached the tretcherously curved highway that led up and around the dark ominous mountains. The peaks around me pitch black and enormous, I sat as the bus swayed back and forth around the steep cliffs and tried to sleep while also holding onto my chair as to not wake up face down on the floor of the bus.
Hours past and morning arrived. I could now look outside and see hills reminiscent of central California. It appeared as though god had placed a hand on the flat earth and pinched the ground upward as if it were nothing more than clay.
As hours passed the altitude got higher and higher and we crossed from the dry side of the landscape into the green and lush scene of the far side of the mountains. The cliffs became more irregular and it no longer reminded me of California. We had passed into a new territory, a place among the clouds, closer to the heavens. After 18 long and pensive hours of watching a world I was beginning to know pass by we arrived in a small semi-city called Ipiales on the boarder. A hill that was stacked with small shack like houses and stores stood before us as we dismounted the bus. We jumped in a shuttle that took us the last ten minutes to the boarder. We stood online waiting for our farewell stamp from Colombia and the immigration police bid me safe travels and farewell. We stepped outside and looked at the imaginary line that my gringo ancestors had helped create. We decided to walk the quarter of a mile across the bridge and into the second country on our list. Ecuador! So at 8 pm, Katie and I stepped across the boarder and found that we really needn't fear the dark. We got our shiny new Ecuadorean stamps in our passports and found our way to the nearest bus station and started on the final leg of our 26 hour long journey. Not long after we left the bus station however, the bus was stopped by some national police. Katie and I wondered what was happening and a man told us that the police were looking for drugs. We were not only the only travelers on the bus but also the only gringos. We watched as the police searched the bus and then the people. We got back on the bus and a man behind us told us that they had found drugs and other things. We watched as the police loaded what looked like 50-100 km of cocaine into a car. Then a girl who was crying was taken and put in the same car. 45 minutes after we had been pulled over the bus began to move and we were on our way to Quito. We arrived at the bus station around 2 am and found our way to a bed where we slept for longer than we've slept in the last 4 weeks.
Hours past and morning arrived. I could now look outside and see hills reminiscent of central California. It appeared as though god had placed a hand on the flat earth and pinched the ground upward as if it were nothing more than clay.
As hours passed the altitude got higher and higher and we crossed from the dry side of the landscape into the green and lush scene of the far side of the mountains. The cliffs became more irregular and it no longer reminded me of California. We had passed into a new territory, a place among the clouds, closer to the heavens. After 18 long and pensive hours of watching a world I was beginning to know pass by we arrived in a small semi-city called Ipiales on the boarder. A hill that was stacked with small shack like houses and stores stood before us as we dismounted the bus. We jumped in a shuttle that took us the last ten minutes to the boarder. We stood online waiting for our farewell stamp from Colombia and the immigration police bid me safe travels and farewell. We stepped outside and looked at the imaginary line that my gringo ancestors had helped create. We decided to walk the quarter of a mile across the bridge and into the second country on our list. Ecuador! So at 8 pm, Katie and I stepped across the boarder and found that we really needn't fear the dark. We got our shiny new Ecuadorean stamps in our passports and found our way to the nearest bus station and started on the final leg of our 26 hour long journey. Not long after we left the bus station however, the bus was stopped by some national police. Katie and I wondered what was happening and a man told us that the police were looking for drugs. We were not only the only travelers on the bus but also the only gringos. We watched as the police searched the bus and then the people. We got back on the bus and a man behind us told us that they had found drugs and other things. We watched as the police loaded what looked like 50-100 km of cocaine into a car. Then a girl who was crying was taken and put in the same car. 45 minutes after we had been pulled over the bus began to move and we were on our way to Quito. We arrived at the bus station around 2 am and found our way to a bed where we slept for longer than we've slept in the last 4 weeks.
Friday, March 6, 2015
Sunday, March 1, 2015
The fear
You could spend your entire life afraid. Scared of the dark, of what lies behind locked doors, of what might happen if you step out the front door and get swept away into the unknown. You could let the world tell you no, let them push your peg into the round hole they think it belongs in. You could stop dreaming, decide the stars are already out of reach before you even spread your fingers wide and make an attempt to catch one in your palm. You could hear the warnings as a list of reasons not to go. Or, you could decide you don't want to, you could recognize that the round hole is a prison not a safe haven. You could throw caution to the wind and decide life is about the adventure. That arriving at the end safely is not really arriving at all. You could take a bet on yourself and risk everything. Risk the world your comfortable in, risk familiarity, risk your neck, your pride, your confidence. You could take a bet on living and forget what they say life is. Decide fear is a challenge to be overcome not a cage to live in. You could be the one, the one who was crazy enough, the one who has the stories to tell, the one who makes a grand entrance at the end. After all, the only ones who succeed are those who believe success is out there.
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