life @ 13
Friday, January 23, 2009
Leg 1 -- Cartagena to Quto -- Welcome to the (alti-) Jungle
Nothing, nothing matches the feeling when you first arrive. I'm not one for traveling by plane, but the moment you walk out the back of the plane onto the runway -- which you do in cartagena -- every sense is aware that you are somewhere very different, and that, among many other details, your life changes from one of predicitbility to one where the unknown is not just a fact of life, but the driving force.
At the same time, and a little to my dismay, I adapted qickly to the environment. it's familiar to me. I can hack the language. But that's all OK.
Latin America is a thouroughly interesting part of the world, especially viewed by a North American. By no means is it short on amenities, hoslitality, and life lived out in the open. Colombia in particular is very much its own country, but one that clearly lives in the shadow of and finances its lifestyle from the wonderful monstrosity to the north. It seems like most of the countries in the region are this way.
The days spent in gated communities (Poblado, Medellin) remind you just how much we tend to seal ourselves off, but the days spent in more scrappy neighbourhoods (central Quito) also remind you why we tend to do this. Personally, I can't spend much time sealed off from the world. The bicycle is definitly a symptom of this.
The freedom of riding, in paticular riding into the unknown, is exhilirating.
At least equally rewarding, for me, was spending a week with a family. one constant problem all travellers face, especially ones not fluent in the local language, is the repetitive conversations. questions rarely come from outside a group of 15 or so. but by staying with someone for a while, you get to participate in a real, true cultural exchange. which sounds pretty goofy, but in reality is a very powerful thing.
Unfortunately, I'm not much of a writer...but one of the big reasons i keep this blog is to try and communicate my encounters and experiences. There is no substitute for seeing the world firsthand, but I think that if you get to read about it through a known filter, there is something more real and comprehensible about it. At the same time, it's usually not the big things (and definitely not the numbers) that impact you, but the strange little things...like a random drunk guy who, while having a little spat with the police, turns around when i walk by and says, sincerely, "hola pues!" (hello then!).
I'm rambling a little. I'm not sure if this is at all interesting. Leg 1 of the trip was defined a little before the start as Cartagena to Quito. I guess leg 2 is Quito to La Paz. It's pretty arbitrary. Unfortunately the Leg 1 commentary has no prior leg for comparison, so we'll leave it here. hopefully i'll get better at these I go along, and hopefully i'll be able to keep this varied enough to, you know, keep it interesting.
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