Long Journey Home

They wouldn't all fit. They hadn't given me enough space. When entering the US from a trip abroad there is a question on the immigration form that asks which foreign countries you have visited since you left the United States. To be honest, I'd been looking forward to this question for weeks. I squished and scrunched the names, stacking them on top of one another and cascaded them down the margin until all nineteen countries were represented. When I happily handed it to the customs official I expected some commotion, some suspicion or even an interrogation. That's what I wanted. But I'm apparently not the international man of mystery I thought I was, because the official stamped my passport and began telling me how great her trip to New Zealand was (I didn't go to New Zealand) and then asked for the next person in line. I was back in the United States of America.

Although it was a soft transition. Miami carries a significantly higher level of diversity than say, Salt Lake City. So as I joyfully and unhesitatingly drank from sinks and water fountains I still asked for directions in Spanish and received answers in Portuguese. I spent a day in Miami, staying at a hostel on South Beach. Unfortunately, it was rainy so I didn't get the postcard-perfect Miami experience. But I got a glimpse.

After being a backpacker abroad it was interesting to be one in my home country. Fewer people approach me when I'm lost, but more people are willing to help when I ask for it. If it weren't for the bus drivers of the Miami Public Transportation System I never would have found the beach or gotten back to the airport on time. Each time I got on the wrong bus, the driver gave me detailed directions to get me on the right track.

My next stop was Massachusetts where I met my dad and went to my sister's college graduation. I wondered what it would be like seeing my dad again, how he'd changed, how I'd changed. But when I came through those doors and saw he was the only person in the terminal, and it took him three minutes to figure out how to take a picture with his camera before rushing up and giving me a bear hug I realized he's still the same dad as when I left.

We spent the next few days visiting my sister and her boyfriend, getting lost each time we left the hotel and seeing some local sights in the area. I've been to New England before, but I was still blown away by how many trees there were! Trees everywhere! The euphoric feeling of being around so much green was regulated by the claustrophobic feeling they gave me. That's probably why we got lost so much, we couldn't see where we were going. The graduation ceremony was great. There is a lot of tradition involved, the campus is beautiful and the speakers were great. It was a much more pleasant experience than my graduation which was at night, freezing cold and the alumni speakers all awkwardly asked those in attendance to send money to the university.

My next destination was New York City! I took the bus into Manhattan and had the opportunity to spend a couple days with my friend Jewells before flying out to Oklahoma. This was also a different experience than what I was used to. This was the first time I was staying in NYC. To see the city as a visitor and to see it as a citizen are somewhat different experiences. There was no rush to see the sites, no getting up early or calling ahead. We made our own schedule and adjusted it accordingly. My first thoughts were how livable the city is. It reminded me of the Cosby's, and Jewells corrected me saying the Cosby's front step was filmed one street over! The people are also much more courteous than I'd expected. They were downright nice people! People who talk to you in line at the deli or offer their seats to others on the subway. Maybe Crocodile Dundee was right when he said, "Imagine seven million people all wanting to live together. Yeah, New York must be the friendliest place on earth."

We ate mediterranean food at midnight in Washington Square Park, had a picnic on the Staten Island Ferry as we passed by Lady Liberty, ate the best dumplings in Chinatown and had a barbecue in the backyard. Don't get me wrong, we didn't eat the entire time I was there. I refused to leave Manhattan without seeing a Broadway play. A friend of mine recommended we see In the Heights, a new musical set in Washington Heights. Somehow, despite showing up late and missing the discounted ticket lottery, we nabbed seats in the 7th row at 60% off. The show is A-MA-ZING!! There are about thirty songs or so and I was near tears after the opening number! Not because it was a sad show or anything like that, but there's something heartbreaking about seeing something so beautiful, so much raw talent on display just a few feet in front of me. It was an overload for the senses and Jewells and I kept looking at each other after each song with wide eyes and open jaws. If you live in New York, if you're going to New York you must see this production. It is spectacular, the casting was great, the plot is good-it takes place in Washington Heights and it's a latin community so there were great snippets of Spanish and the music was fantastic.



A lot of the subject matter hit home. For example, the girl whose father sells his business so she can finish college and said the only payment he desires is to hear her name followed by "Bachelor of Arts." This after going to my sister's graduation was very moving. Then a few people think of nothing but escaping the barrio and never coming back and at the end discover they are home. That hit me too since I'm undecided as to what or where home is to me. We couldn't stop raving about it to everyone we talked to. Such a good show!

Oklahoma was next. I'd been looking forward to going to the lake with the Mayhew's for months. I had high expectations and I'm happy to say they were all met. We had a blast setting lines for monster catfish, tearing across the lake on a jetski at sixty miles an hour, catching bluegill off the dock, jumping off the cliffs, cooking s'mores on Skunk Island and anchoring the boat in the middle of the lake and having a swim. It was a trip and lifestyle I wasn't in a hurry to leave. And I wrote this little poem as a tribute:

Tan toes, everybody knows
Come from an imbalance of work and pleasure.
You can have your employment, I'ma stick to my enjoyment
and maintain this life of leisure!

Colombi-ahhhhhh... Part II: The Caribbean

Seven months had passed since I'd been on a beach-I mean a nice beach. The cold water, shadeless and windy beaches of Peru don't count. I had been looking forward to the Caribbean for a long, long time. After one last 18-hour bus ride, I was there, in Cartagena, at midnight on a Friday night. Locals and foreigners both sing it's praises and it's difficult to talk about Colombian tourism without mentioning Cartagena

.

I was taken aback when, upon arriving-at midnight on a Friday night-the streets near my hostel were littered with garbage, drunks and the all-to-common salesmen that are found in Caribbean tourist towns. Was I lost? Where's the beautiful Cartagena everyone told me about? Fortunately, I found it the next day as I walked around the walls of the old city, down by the pier and in and out of the narrow cobblestone streets and under the clock tower at the main plaza. I found it again over a plate of fresh seafood and a glass of coconut lemonade. And again walking alongside huge iguanas in the central park. Each day presented another view of this popular city.

There are several day trips from Cartagena that are a lot of fun. The Islas de Rosario is one such trip which departs from the pier in the morning and include a slow boat ride out past the bay where the entire skyline of Cartagena is seen to a chain of small islands. One particular island has an impressive aquarium with a knowledgeable staff and beautiful animals. After visiting the aquarium we went to a nice white sand beach for a fried fish lunch and a dip in the water before starting the return journey back to the city.

One of the more unique experiences I've had was at the Volcan de Tutumo. This is a volcano about three stories high filled with creamy, lukewarm, saline mud. It's so salty in fact you can float effortlessly on the surface. To be honest it's impossible to sink! I've never been to the Dead Sea (yet!) but I imagine its very similiar. The depth of the volcano is said to be over 400 feet, however we all laid on the surface or stood vertically, perfectly and effortlessly suspended in the mud at chest level. Once you get over the weirdness of the experience, it's nice to cover your skin in the mud and relax. After an hour, you walk down the volcano to a nearby lake where everyone washes off, gets back on the bus and heads to the beach were another fish lunch is waiting for us. It's a fun experience I definitely recommend to others.

I was anxious to see what was under the water and spent a few days SCUBA diving in the national park of Tayrona. For a couple days I lived on the beach diving in the morning and afternoons while sleeping in a hammock at night. The Caribbean to me means sharks, unfortunately I didn't see any on my dives but I had a good time underwater and was happy to discover I could still dive after about eight months above water. On our excursion there was a group of dive students getting certified. I went under with them on two occasions and spent some time observing them under water. It had been just over a year since I earned my certification in Australia and I knew I struggled then with some of the skills they were struggling with now. It was fun to be the one to encourage new divers just like many people encouraged me on dive boats around southeast Asia. A lot can change in a year, and my SCUBA skills are proof.

Around this time I could see my time growing shorter and was eager to have another snake encounter before I left the continent. After my dive trip I continued east to the other side of the park and hiked over the mountains to the beach. The hike was fantastic. It wasn't too hot or humid like the rainforest in Bolivia and the activity of hiking was exhilarating. No snakes were found but I came across a different jewel of the rainforest; poison dart frogs. In my experience, dart frogs are common in the forests of Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia. They are active during the day and eye-poppingly beautiful.

This one surprised me on the trail and gave me a good chase before I caught it. With the frog in one hand I retrieved my camera from my backpack with the other. I took a few photos and watched as he hopped away into the leaf litter. The excitement of the catch made me thirsty and I unscrewed my water bottle with the same hand I held the frog. When I took a drink some of the toxin must have washed from the bottle into my mouth because it tasted a little different, then began to get warmer and my tongue started going numb! I washed the bottle in a nearby stream and spit out what I could and the sensation faded. Never a dull moment huh!

The beach in the park is mostly unspoiled and uncrowded and unsuitable for swimming. I stayed for a few days walking along the beach, sleeping in hammocks, eating coconuts and mango and chatting with a few people along the way.

From Parque Tayrona I went directly to Barranquilla where I would fly out the following week. Many people questioned my desire to go to Barranquilla saying there was nothing special about it. It's not a tourist town, its not as pretty as Cartagena and therefore it's not special. On the other hand a select few told me it was even better than Cartagena because it wasn't a tourist town. After spending the weekend there I can tell you now, it's one of my favorite places in Colombia. It definitely isn't a tourist town, precisely why I like it. This is life for the majority of Colombians. Nobody is touting crappy souvenirs or day trips to the beach. This is what normal life feels like. I like normal life.

Add to that the fact I stayed with couchsurfers, Khris, Mickey and Jennifer the entire time I was there and saw even further into what a normal life is like, and made some great friends and had a lot of fun! Khris' family has a car which made seeing the city much easier and saved time. It was also a luxury I hadn't experienced-riding in a private vehicle-since I was in Argentina. Staying with Mickey and Jennifer exposed more luxuries I enjoyed; xbox, internet and local friends to hang out with. I had a great time eating, going to the movies, playing video games and playing pool with all of them. The most important thing of all was probably that I didn't spend my last days in South America alone. When I arrived in Buenos Aires I had a friend there to greet me and when I left Colombia, I had friends waving goodbye. Time with those friends, from Argentina to Colombia, is what I enjoyed the most.

Rome

It took me awhile to find an outlet where I could charge the digital camera I bought at Heathrow but I finally did. As it was charging, I watched airport staff drinking espressos and eating small breakfasts. A quick stop at the tourist office for a city map and I was off! Here are some of the places I went:

I went to the Colosseum

The Arch de Constantine

This monument,

The Pantheon

and Trevelli Fountain

It was a beautiful day and the sights I saw created a nice loop beginning and ending at the train station back to the airport. But I couldn't leave without trying some gelato, the famous ice cream!

Unfortunately, on my flight to Buenos Aires I left my shopping bag on the plane accidentally with my camera charger in it! Hopefully I'll find a way to charge my camera battery, in the meantime I'm very conservative with the pictures I take.

C'est la belle vie

December 12, 2008
Paris, France

One must record their first impressions of France. You really shouldn't let the glasses of wine and the increasing exhaustion of travel and transit force you to sleep and blur the experience. And here I write:

My first thought-despite it feeling colder here than in London-was where are all the pretty people? I felt like they all stayed in London. Parisians are homely and fair-some are outright ugly to be honest. Hair is matted and disheveled, eyeliner is applied too thickly and most ensembles are seemingly, loosely and quickly thrown together.

The metro isn't as nice either. It stinks for one, and there is an absence of escalators and personnel around. The turn stalls are a pain and the trains are old. I would say of every city rail system I've been on this year-Paris comes up last in terms of cleanliness and modernity. That's saying something considering I've been to Manila.

Of course it's not all bad, I just needed to get the negative out so I could embellish the positive. I found the pretty people in shopping malls wearing designer clothes and smelling better than laundry fresh out of the drier. Then again when I met Olivier's friends and later in the week when we went out dancing.

Paris is quiet. It's surprising how quiet it is near a main street or just around the corner from a common landmark busy with visitors. Parisians have been quite friendly today as Olivier and I walked around lost most of the day stopping random people for directions. Perhaps because conversations were conducted by Olivier in French, but I'm not letting that arguably arbitrary fact sway my feelings that we were met with very friendly people today. Helpful people and some quite jovial.

The reputation for a love of food is duly deserved. Food literally lines the sides of some narrow, cobblestone streets we walked down today. Seafood, fruit and vegetables, even spices are prominently displayed enticing even the un-hungry to stop and browse a while.

I helped a Guatemalan girl carry her luggage to Gare du Nord this morning when I got of the bus. Then I met Olivier near Chatelet and we stashed our luggage at his old workplace and walked around the city past the Moulin Rouge, Notre Dame and a couple other cathedrals. I bought a phone and SIM straight away so that's out of the way.

I was exhausted by 7:00pm when we met Oliv's beautiful girlfriend Elod back where our bags were. I was staying (am staying) at Olivier's friend's house, Rafael. He cooked dinner for us tonight. Seared duck, with fried potatoes served with a blue cheese sauce and a fruity white wine for accompaniment. This will forever be my first dinner in Paris-and what a welcome it was!

It's gearing up to be a great weekend!

I love my friends!

Fear not my friends, I am alive and well! A thousand apologies for what must have been an excruciating silence over the past-can you believe it?-month since I've last updated my world tour. You'll find me now in a small mountain village in the French Alps. But I'm getting ahead of myself, let me fill you in since my last update...

Celebrating Thanksgiving Day with Ben's family in London was a lot of fun. I had a lot to be thankful for over the past year and especially in my current position stying with Ben and his family. They were wonderful hosts, ever ready to make a cup of tea, help me plan my day or have a chat. While Ben was working during the day I caught up on reading some books my friend Trevor sent me, chatting online and going to the fridge whenever I was hungry! You don't' know what a luxury it is to be able to hop into the kitchen and have a bite to eat whenever you wish as opposed to going to a restaurant or food stall. One of the things I enjoyed most was being in a home again and waiting for those friendly faces to come back in the afternoon after being at work.

Ben and I went to Hillsong church in London on Sundays and attended a couple other activities like a men's day, teaching night and home group. I made some friends, ate some good foo and rocked out to eh Hillsong worship team. We also managed to explore some of the city and take some photographs on Ben's day off.

I was fortunate enough to have three of my friends from the States come visit me in London. Helen and I met in Costa Rica and hung out together in Denver a few times afterwards. She'd been in Spain for awhile and was finishing up her time in Europe bagging a few extra countries and between seeing a former roommate in Sweden and her dad in Ireland she had a stopover in London and stayed with me. We shared a fantastic day doing the tourist thing. We walked past Big Ben, the London Eye, Tower Bridge and Buckingham Palace. We had some fish and chips, rode a double-decker bus and took a photo in a telephone booth. To finish in classic "terry-and-Helen" style we took the wrong metro line and she nearly missed her airport transfer! Fortunately she made it on time and last I heard she was in Italy with her father.

Trevor and I also met in Costa Rica during a semester abroad. He now works for the company we studied with and was sent to London on a business trip. It had been five years since we'd seen each other, but we've kept in contact ever since and we never missed a beat as we met in London and went to a football (soccer) match. We managed to meet up another night for dinner with his colleagues and we all met up again in Paris a few days later. It was great to get to spend some time together again after five years. And what better than over a croque madame and cafe au lait with a view of the Eiffel Tower!

Adventures in Eating

This week I asked for chocolate milk... cold. I got a Coke. Yesterday I asked for a lassi, got a rootbeer. When asked for the soups du jour, my server rattled off a list of sounds that could have been in English, Malay or Pashtu for all I knew. I thought I heard the word "beef" in the last choice, I mumbled it back to him, trying to imitate his pronunciation.

Beef tongue soup... wonderful. But hey, I'm a traveler, I'm adventurous, I'm open to these things so I dug right in. It's not horrible, most strange food isn't, but I wished it came with bread, or rice or maybe without beef tongue! It looks hairy on one side and smooth, like squid, on the other.

Halfway through with being halfway through, I had the following thought; in the past months I've had crocodile, kangaroo, monkey, dog, durian, duck embryo, fermented taro root, grasshoppers and water beetles, cobra, intestines of all kinds, dried squid, live ants, century eggs and I'd happily try rat if given the chance. I don't think we need anymore evidence that I'm an adventurous eater! So I did something that I rarely ever do, and paid for my food and left with uneaten food at my table. From now on I'll enunciate when ordering my drinks, and better yet, ask for a menu!

Best-Case Scenario

"I've heard climbing near Krabi is good." "Oh yeah! Tonsai is where you want to go."
"You've been?"

"Yeah. Couple years ago. Meant to spend two weeks there and stayed for three months."

"Three months! Haha. It's that good huh?"

"Wait 'till you see it."

"But I don't have any gear."

"No problem, just meet other climbers. Everyone's cool there."

The conversation I'd had three months earlier in the Philippines was fresh in my mind as I walked down the beach. Nobody. Beautiful rock, but no one to climb it with. Unwilling to shell out the cash of a guide I'll move on tomorrow-another disappointment.

I went back to my book, which I'd put down hours earlier in order to go find some climbing buddies before I gave up, and picked a beach chair next to two girls who were also reading. Slightly disappointed I dove back into the plot of an African boy destined to be the welterweight champ of the world. And then she moved. It wasn't her movement that was significant, but what she moved, a pair of blue, lace-up, Boreal climbing shoes.

"You're a climber?" I tried to sound more impressed than facetious. My tone landed somewhere in the middle.

"Yeah, but we're taking a rest day today." She pressed an index finger onto her skin and waited for the color to return to where she pressed, the international test for sunburn. "You just get here?"

"Yeah."

"How long you staying?"

"Well, I planned on a couple weeks, but I'm not sure. How long've you two been here?" Their eyes turned up and their mouths hung open like they were thinking about a math problem, trying to count the days before answering in an air of disbelief that it's really been that long. I would ask a lot of people that same question over the following days and they would all answer the same way, some people's math taking longer to compute than other's.

"We're going to try the traverse at the end of the beach. You want to come?"

That was how I met the M's; Emily and Emma. And how, less than four hours from arriving on the beach, excited to climb the surrounding limestone that was everywhere but feeling dejected that I'd fail to make friends in time, I was bouldering ten feet away from the Indian Ocean who's horizon was extinguishing a golden sunset behind me. The best part being, I wasn't as weak as I thought I was, the technique hadn't left me, my hands weren't bleeding and I could still climb! We made plans to climb together the next day and I just then realized, I was living my own best-case scenario.

The M's and I climbed together the next day, then took a trip to Ko Phi Phi, an island whose infrastructure was completely destroyed by the 2004 tsunami, and climbed there before we split up and I went back to Tonsai. The scene in Krabi is quite diverse. There are four main beaches in the area; Tonsai, Railay East, Railay West and Pranang Beach. Pranang is the nicest beach but there's nowhere to stay apart from a few resort style hotels. The Railay beaches are back-to-back, facing in opposite directions so the accommodation is basically the same, but East's beach is nearly non-existent and has a muddy bottom whereas West has sugary white sand and a view of the sunset. Railay West is the posterchild. Through the jungle, or over the hill or around the rocks at low tide are the three ways to get to Tonsai, where I stayed. The sand is coarse and the point offshore hides the sunset before it dips into the sea, but it's quiet, it's cheap and it's where most climbers decide to stay.

It seems everyone is a climber to some degree on Tonsai. During evening meals and over an apres climb drink, patrons are physically recounting the day's climbs with their hands in the air, grasping invisible pinches, sidepulls and slopers of invisible limestone at their dinner table.

There are loads of climbs suitable for every level of climber as well. To my climbing buddies I would describe it like this: Imagine Wild Iris (that's near Lander, WY to my non-climbing buddies,) increase the vertical, take away the mountains towards South Pass and insert the Indian Ocean, replace antelope with monkeys, increase the humidity, decrease the summertime heat to around 80 with plenty of shade trees and add a sleepy town within walking distance of the crag where there's plenty of food to shove down our necks when we're done! Then you'll be getting close to what it's like.

The deciding factor of where to climb in the morning is usually related to which climbs are going to be in the shade. The first day with the M's I asked if we really needed an entire bottle of water for each of us. They assured me we did and by ten o'clock we were all quickly finishing the second halves of our bottles. It didn't take long to realize these girls could climb. Although I'd been climbing longer than them, they had a clear mental edge when it came to lead climbing. They led everything without batting an eye while I was more hesitant and decided to let them have the first go before I would then lead. We climbed all day that day and I cleaned our gear off the final route in the dark by headlamp! We couldn't possibly have climbed anymore.

The fact they invited me to Ko Phi Phi was actually quit nice since, we'd be going as a group and be able to share a room and climb together. The ferry departed early the next day. I think we were all shocked at the amount of people, stores, bicycles and noise that was on the island. The funny thing is that Ko Phi Phi isn't any more loud or crowded than any other popular island in Thailand, but after being in Tonsai where there are only two trucks in the entire village (and one's broken) you take for granted the stillness of that place. We all instantly wished to be back in Tonsai!

To escape we went to Long Beach at the other end of the island. We were saving ourselves to go climbing the next day and dedicated this day to finding a sea snake and working on our tans. I grabbed my mask and rented some fins and set out to find my reptilian friends. The visibility was about nine meters and I was swimming in about ten meters of water. So I could just make out the bottom and still have a nice view of the coral formations that rose up closer to the surface. I didn't see much and slightly regretted not waiting for the others because now I was alone, bored and about two hundred meters from the shore in ten meters of water. I was thinking about swimming back to shore when the biggest reef shark I've ever seen made up my mind for me! I've seen sharks before while SCUBA diving, but never snorkeling. And it should be mentioned that whereas I'm not afraid of much while I'm diving, I'm afraid of everything when I'm snorkeling; trash, jellies, seaweed, you name it. This shark was over eight feet long and swimming off to my left. He didn't seem too interested in me, but I suppose that's what they want you to think. My first reaction was, O crap a shark! then the biologist in me thought, O cool a shark! and I started swimming towards it, not necessarily to get closer to it, but I felt more comfortable when I could see it than when it disappeared which it didn't take long to do. I turned around wondering if maybe I should go back when another one came out, a little bigger, looking a little hungrier and I decided my mind was made up. Forget the sea snakes, bring on the tan!

The next day was a lot of fun and like the time before, we were finishing the day in our headlamps. The view from the top of the climbs was amazing and Emily and I decided to do a multi-pitch climb to take advantage of it, but when she climbed up to meet me at the top of the first pitch I couldn't feel my legs anymore due to the hanging belay cutting off my circulation, so she finished the second pitch and I rappelled down. Emily was the most adventurous that day, especially when she was climbing the hardest route of the day, just between the last bolt and the anchors and was attacked by monkeys! I'm not kidding, they climbed up the tree next to the rock and went to attack, I don't' know how she kicked them off and stayed on the rock, but we had a good laugh about it afterwards!

When I got back to Tonsai I met Rob, a Canadian climber from British Columbia. We climbed the following day alternating between easy and more difficult routes. I was belaying him on the first route of the day when it started raining. Fortunately for him the rock was overhanging enough he wasn't getting wet. As for me, I was pressed up against the rock trying to stay dry and the neighboring monkeys, excited from the rain were running through my belay area! Fortunately they were nice monkeys, unrelated to the thieving mongrel monkeys of Ko Phi Phi. After climbing all day and successfully climbing a route I'd fallen on earlier we headed for our daily meeting with the Fried Chicken Lady who sells delicious, grilled chicken (Grilled Chicken Lady doesn't have the same ring to it) and mango sticky rice for a little over $1.

The following day was going to be a rest day. I woke up late, read a few chapters of One Hundred Years of Solitude and then went to a leisurely breakfast. I was halfway through my iced coffee when Emily showed up with her friend from Bahrain. They had only arrived the afternoon before and were going climbing that day, would I like to come along? Sure! Rest day or not, I wasn't about to miss a climbing opportunity. We went around to East Railay and spent the day climbing there. We found some really fun moderate climbs that afternoon and I was happy to see another part of the area where I hadn't climbed yet. Then, at the end of the day, after we raced the incoming tide back to Tonsai I met Rob over some grilled chicken.
"You climb today?"
"Yep, we were at 1, 2, 3 Wall all day."
"Are you tired?"
"You mean do I want to go climbing tomorrow?" he shook his head yes. "Yeah, I'll go with you tomorrow!" I laughed.

Just then a newly arrived couple came to browse the delicacies of the Fried Chicken Lady. Rob and I voiced our approval of the food and after they ordered they sat down on broken plastic chairs and asked us, "You been here awhile?"
I furrowed my brow, looked up at the sky with my mouth open as I calculated my own silent math problem. "Yeah, I guess it's been two weeks now." And the circle was complete.