Unum.
I'm flying to Aruba on Wednesday, December 5th, and slipping south into Venezuela.
I'm flying home from Guatamela City on January 6th.
What happens in between is uncertain. I've added a link to a map of the region to the right-hand side of this page. I want to cover the whole distance overland, possibly with segments 'overwater' (but not overboard). I want to spend the entire month thinking about anything but school or medicine. (I'm now 12 months through PA school, with only ten weeks to go, once I return, before clinical rotations start.) I want to read some great books. I want to come back to Albuquerque speaking more Spanish. I want to come back without malaria or dengue.
I cut my hair into a fauxhawk. It's now shorter than my beard. The change has more to do with shampoo and combing than with any sort of allegory for my psyche, but the latter sure sounds sexier and more apropos for a first post on a travel blog.
Alden is joining me for the first half of the excursion. She's flying back to the States from San Jose, Costa Rica, shortly before Christmas. It's her first trip of 'this sort.' She's excited and I don't want to shatter that with the reality of diesel fumes, of diarrhea, of countless hours crammed into a bus, cradled against your anonymous, sweaty neighbor as if they were a lover.
Right now, the night before I leave, my thoughts aren't on the practical reality of military and police checkpoints, travel routes or border crossings. When I think "beautiful white powder," it's beaches, not checking the bottom of my bag for surreptitiously placed parcels of cocaine before I inadvertently become a mule. I'm thinking about how I loaded my MP3 player with Leonard Cohen and Neko Case and I'm imagining dusky-eyed Colombian girls dancing on beaches under the moon light ("...with the wind in their fists and the stars 'round their wrists..."). As absurd as that is, it's even more absurd that I'm imagining speaking Spanish with enough skill to add swagger to my language. (A verbal wink.) I'm smirking, leaning in, an apricot scarf around my neck, dropping a savvy, "Well, you know..." with a twinkle in my eye. Ridiculous. Delightful. I'm excited.
I hope there're challenges along the way, but I hope they don't involve bowels, being kidnapped by FARC/ELN/AUC, or mosquitoes. Other than those things, I'm game.
I'm flying home from Guatamela City on January 6th.
What happens in between is uncertain. I've added a link to a map of the region to the right-hand side of this page. I want to cover the whole distance overland, possibly with segments 'overwater' (but not overboard). I want to spend the entire month thinking about anything but school or medicine. (I'm now 12 months through PA school, with only ten weeks to go, once I return, before clinical rotations start.) I want to read some great books. I want to come back to Albuquerque speaking more Spanish. I want to come back without malaria or dengue.
I cut my hair into a fauxhawk. It's now shorter than my beard. The change has more to do with shampoo and combing than with any sort of allegory for my psyche, but the latter sure sounds sexier and more apropos for a first post on a travel blog.
Alden is joining me for the first half of the excursion. She's flying back to the States from San Jose, Costa Rica, shortly before Christmas. It's her first trip of 'this sort.' She's excited and I don't want to shatter that with the reality of diesel fumes, of diarrhea, of countless hours crammed into a bus, cradled against your anonymous, sweaty neighbor as if they were a lover.
Right now, the night before I leave, my thoughts aren't on the practical reality of military and police checkpoints, travel routes or border crossings. When I think "beautiful white powder," it's beaches, not checking the bottom of my bag for surreptitiously placed parcels of cocaine before I inadvertently become a mule. I'm thinking about how I loaded my MP3 player with Leonard Cohen and Neko Case and I'm imagining dusky-eyed Colombian girls dancing on beaches under the moon light ("...with the wind in their fists and the stars 'round their wrists..."). As absurd as that is, it's even more absurd that I'm imagining speaking Spanish with enough skill to add swagger to my language. (A verbal wink.) I'm smirking, leaning in, an apricot scarf around my neck, dropping a savvy, "Well, you know..." with a twinkle in my eye. Ridiculous. Delightful. I'm excited.
I hope there're challenges along the way, but I hope they don't involve bowels, being kidnapped by FARC/ELN/AUC, or mosquitoes. Other than those things, I'm game.
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