Get the Most Out of (Time) Traveling

In the last 42 days, I traveled to Peru, Brazil, and Colombia. In every measure, this has been the grandest adventure I have yet undertaken. My fingers strain to keep apace with these thoughts in Bogotá’s El Dorado International Airport.

All fantastic departures from the real world must come to their end; recognizing this, I tend towards celebrating the recent past rather than wasting time and emotion lamenting the forthcoming return to normalcy. In layman’s terms, I went hard in the paint until the end, whether it was buying the bar a round of drinks upon checking in to my final flights, hitting one more museum yesterday, squeezing in one final run, trying one last local dish with new friends, seeing one more foreign sunrise.

By the time this trip will be over, I will have flown 17 times, through 4 states, to 3 countries. My sister Reese reckons that she counts a country visited if she has eaten a good, non-airport meal there; by this metric, I have visited 13 different cities or locales.

As you may well know, time moves differently when you are traveling. In the real world, your brain tends to skip over the mundane and similar, which is why waiting an hour in the doctor’s office seems so much longer than waiting an hour in your morning commute. The weekend rapidly approaches every week, and then is over before you know it. While traveling, every day is so vastly different that your brain is highly observant of details that are missed in the regular day-to-day. From a certain perspective, time literally slows down. The last 6 weeks for me have seemed to be a lifetime, while for some they may have only been routine punctuated by Christmas, New Year’s and the odd special event or two.

Some of the experiences that have brought me the highest peaks of emotion may be hard to convey. I have made jokes in other languages and dialects, jumped off cliffs, learned a bit of origami, and haggled hard for purchases big and small. I have ran along the Pacific, Atlantic, and Caribbean. I have danced as if my life depended on it on top of bars, and on rooftops, and in the sand. I have seen the sunrise almost more often than not, gone skinny dipping in unbelievably warm water, and eaten sushi in Lima, Rio de Janeiro, and Cartagena. I have made lifelong friends with fellow travelers and locals alike, taken naps in hammocks and in the sand, and hiked to a point higher than any found in the continental US while triumphing over altitude sickness. I picked up a new appreciation for photography thanks in part to being robbed of my phone with a gun jammed against my skull. I have picked up a smattering of slang from other countries, read 12 books, learned and taught new card games, gotten lost in pirate cities, and paid very little to quite a lot (relatively) for some of the best meals I have ever had. Ultimately, I learned a tremendous amount about myself, the world, and my place and journey within it.

Along the way, I have had unbelievably good luck, while mainly following a combination of the recommendations of others and my instincts, and only a touch of guide book, Trip Advisor-y information. I bring back new scars, skin bronzed from many different mountain tops and beaches, and muscles more attuned to hiking and shouldering a backpack. I also have gifts, stories, recommendations (just ask), and new appreciations. I have new friends from all over the world; to all of them, I wish them safe travels until our paths cross again, and a sincere thanks for every bit of magic they added to my adventures.

I have a clear cut vision of myself and my future. There are a million things I want to pursue and master upon my return to the real world, but as I now know what I want most in this world, I have a clear sense of my priorities. I read Paulo Coelho’s book The Alchemist right before I began my travels and was brought to tears by how much I related and identified with the protagonist, Santiago, and his story. Without ruining the book if you have yet to read it, I feel that my journey mirrored his in many ways, and I hope my return does as well.

I now know what the title is of the novel I am writing, a hybrid fiction-travel memoir, with a touch of Gabriel García Márquez’s magical realism. I am still living in the timeline of the book; while I am unsure of the final pages, I know the protagonist’s tale has a happy ending.

I already feel the siren song of traveling calling me again, and I know it won’t be long until I sally forth once more, wiser and slightly more wizened. The last view South America will have of me will be a confident strut through this gate; I am unsure whether I’ll spare a backwards glance, but I am certain I will be back.