A couple photos!

After One Week in Colombia

       I decided to take the bus from the Bogota airport without any knowledge of how the bus system worked: the best App of all in a country where blond hair sticks out like a sore thumb is to stand in front of the large Transmilenio bus map and change your expression back and forth between scrutinizing and confused/scared while precariously balancing a backpack made to look heavier than it actually is. Within a minute and a half a kind airline worker gave me detailed instructions on how to reach El Chapinero district and my hostel, which I had decided on after intense research consisting of searching "Bogota Hostels" and choosing the one with the most agreeable pictures. As always there was no plan, but if there had been one everything would have gone according to it.
       My hostel in Bogota was the accommodation I always wanted without knowing it existed; a newspaper article written recently described it as a "flash-packer" hostel: those of us who are willing to spend $14 per night instead of $8 to stay in a chic building with clean and some bedding. It appeals to travelers who would rather clink a glass of wine over a fine (but modest) dinner than throw back seven cheap, local beers washed down with street food of questionable origin and preparation. I still eat more than my fair share of arepas and drink licuados on the street every chance I get: average cost is about $1.50 US, and that gets you one liter of any assortment of tropical fruits you can point to or name on the cart. I like to make a new mixture every time, even though I may never know what lulo or maracuya actually taste like standing alone because of this.
     I told Paul that I would start packing, and so I will. We leave today from Santa Marta, headed to Minca for the day, then hopefully to Aracataca: Gabriel Garcia Marquez's childhood town, and the basis for his fantastic novel One Hundred Years of Solitude. For those who haven't read the work, the first line is often enough to stir the reader's imagination:

Many years later, as he faced the firing line,

Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember

that distant afternoon when his father took him

to discover ice.

Fort Lauderdale to Infinity

Abra Cadabra, you're blogging with the True and Livin'.

Paul is probably in Medellin, and I assume the Southern Boys of Mexico (Mateo and Brian) are in Cartagena. I haven't heard any of that definitively. I'm on my way to Bogota for at least a day before heading up the coast towards the Caribbean coast of Colombia.

My last trip took me and the Civic to the end of the road in Panama, to the furthest southern point on the upper half of the Panamerican Highway, where the road finally meanders through the jungle to end abruptly and unceremoniously at a river's edge. On the other shore of the river lies the wild and savage Darien Gap, the dense jungle allegedly traversed by drug smugglers and rebel groups hiding out from the national government. 

I made it to the Darien in August, and decided against ferrying my car to Colombia. I was pretty tired after six months on the road. I decided to head home and be bored for a bit.

I returned to the US convinced that I was finished with traveling, if not forever than at least for a long while. I sought legal jobs half-heartedly, unsure of what my next move would be. The College of Southern Nevada called and asked if I might be willing to come back and work for a semester. I agreed on a lark, threw a few pieces of clothing into my car, and headed down to Vegas planning to spend a week or a month starting off the semester. I ended up staying for three months. I hadn't brought a belt with me, so I rolled my pants at the waist for most of that time.

The three months allowed me to distill and understand the lessons of my road trip. I was driving to Brandyn's house one day when I pulled the car off the road to scribble the following in my notebook:

Side of the road near Brandyn's, 6:11PM, 9/15/2013:

    The most important thing we can do is conquer our fears, and

    The great conquerers of fear are Creativity and Ingenuity.  

I look forward to the novel, uncomfortable situations that await me on this trip. I look forward to meeting the ingenious and creative characters that will people this story. 

-TH