a lazy descent

I stumbled across a magnificent peak today. If it is possible I didn’t even have to climb to get there. Perhaps it’s because it was an emotional peak and I’m using a common cliché to describe the day I had.

After 3.5 weeks of travelling with someone I woke today to solitude. Solitude that really sucked. It has been raining for 2 days straight, I slept rather poorly in my overpriced hotel and I ventured out onto the road southward. Because J and Justin have a shared loathing for rap music I started my day with some good old Public Enemy and yes 911 is a Joke. I moved on to NWA, Dr Dre and then rounded it out with Digital Underground and the OG George Clinton. Despite the rain and repeat miles (j and I had been here earlier in the week)my spirits were high and I was excited for the road ahead. Somewhere between the ferry to Isla Chiloe and town of Quellon everything went south. Maybe I should have thrown on some Tupac. Regardless of the cause I was miserable.

When J was here we watched Long Way Round (the documentary of Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman’s around the world motorcycle journey) during the boring Central Chile stretches and killing time waiting for the wind to die down in our Altiplano camps. I never should have watched the final episode. It stirred emotions about the impending finality of my trip that I’m not ready to deal with. The harsh reality of renewed solitude, dreary grey weather and dropping temperatures only added to the thick blanket of reflective melancholy that has been covering me for the last week. It doesn’t help that it is Sunday. I can anticipate half a dozen emails each day M-S. Sunday however is usually silence. Very rare is the Sunday email. The thoughts, as I spiraled deeper into my funk, no not knee deep funk (okay that is an obscure Parliament reference that I feel needs to explained) the funk that morphed my melancholy into an authentic malaise ran something like this…

I miss Kitty Pappas’ Steakhouse.

I miss Breyers Vanilla Bean Ice Cream.

I miss clean water.

I miss Thursday lunches with my friends Ryan, Adam, Paul, Cory, Jason, Dave, and Occasionally officer Lange.

I miss Training Table and Crown Burger.

I miss C22.

I miss playing golf while arguing baseball and politics and work with my friends in the intense summer heat.

I miss the search for and pure feeling of a well struck 3 iron.

I miss having a vocabulary. I miss talking to people in English about things beyond just ordering food, booking a hotel, asking for directions or talking about my trip.

I miss sitting on the porch and talking about nothing for hours.

I miss grass. Oh man I miss grass.

I hate the sound of my exhaust.

I hate the squeaky roof rack and rear hatch.

I hate my dusty dashboard and gauge cluster.

I hate the feel of my steering wheel and uncomfortable driver’s seat.

I hate missing half a tooth and shaving my head with the $9 crappy clippers I picked up in Chiclayo.

I would kill for toilet paper that is not made of 220 grit sandpaper.

I would love to drive through a town and not have to suppress the gag reflex because of the stench of garbage and dead animals.

I’d like to sleep in a room with walls that aren’t hollow, where I can’t hear neighbors snoring and the massive dog population fighting in the streets until 4 am.

I would love for Bob Barker to find his way to South American TV and talk about the benefits of spaying and neutering your animals to control the pet population.

I am really, really, really getting sick of being stared at wherever I go. Gringos are not that special. Just ignore me please. It was two years of people staring at me in Alaska that made me such a socially inept freak to begin with and it’s getting old really fast. Say hola or yell at me, anything. JUST STOP STARING.

I’m frustrated with my poor Spanish and even more frustrated with my inability to understand people.

I just want to be home.

Now I can hear each of you right now. Sure the phrasing may change from town to town or mind to mind but essentially it goes like this…

“dave what the hell is wrong with you? You’re living your dream and mine too, you’re on your way to Patagonia and all you can do is feel sorry for yourself? I’m stuck here in this cubicle dying to be outside and you’re sleeping in the Andes. You suck and you need to grow up.”

It’s okay. If I were home reading a similar bitchfest my response would be the same. 12,000 miles from home with uncertainty ahead and the bad fog of loneliness creeping in it ‘s very easy to venture too far down the path above. So there I was in the middle of Isla Chiloe hoping to get an email tomorrow (which will be today by the time I post this) saying my boat was leaving Ushuaia next week so I’d have an excuse to bust ass there and head home.

Then a funny thing happened. The ferry was delayed 24 hours. The town of Quellon is a hole. Dirty, gross and your basic fishing town. But oddly not at all like the fishing towns J and I visited last week on the same island. Those towns had charm and personality. This town has nothing. So what is the funny thing? I stumbled upon Luis from Spain and Odile from France. A multi-lingual couple “on holiday’ from France backpacking through Patagonia. They too are stranded here because of the delayed ferry. I spent about 6 hours in the hotel restaurant chatting with them about their trip, their jobs, politics, my journey, language, and the inflatable evacuation slides on Airbus airplanes. I was instantly pulled out of my funk and my mood brightened. Amazing what conversation with a new friend will do to your soul. From the proverbial valley to the clichéd peak my day ran the gamut.

And yes it included the Humpty Dance, which as we all know IS your chance to do the hump.