Colombia: The End of the Road

All good things must come to an end but what’s next I expect will be just as good

I’ll keep this one short and maybe (probably (definitely)) a little sentimental.

Tomorrow is the last day of this particular chapter of my life. Tomorrow is March 2, 2016. On August 15, 2015, I left a great job in Chicago. On August 26, the day before my birthday, I left on a flight for Korea. I spent two months in Asia, then two months in the United States, and then two months here in South America. Tomorrow at 2:50pm a plane will take off (hopefully with me in it) from Cartagena to Atlanta where I will have ~30 minutes to get on a plane to San Francisco. I’m thinking I’m gonna miss that connection. Oh well. I’ll have a tedious conversation with the airline, but I’ve got nothing pressing for me waiting in SF (don’t call it San Fran or Frisco, they tell me). I’ll take a few weeks to get settled and then start working again (doing who knows what yet?).

But before I leave, I have one more night on the road, here in Cartagena, Colombia. And you know what I’ll do? Get dinner with some friends I’ve met down here. Walk around the city a little bit. Get back early. Read a little bit. Hop in bed. (Hope the crazy guy in the dorm last night who was yelling and walking around naked all night so that nobody could sleep won’t be back again.) Go to sleep early. And in the morning, I’ll wake up. I’ll walk around a little more. I’ll read a bit more. Hopefully I’ll finish the book (another Murakami novel) on the plane ride, and then I can start a new one (also probably another Murakami novel) when I get home (wow, hard to believe I’m calling SF home already, and I haven’t even set foot in the city yet).

So I’ve got an uneventful final night ahead of me. But things are gonna be a whirlwind when I arrive in SF, and I’ve been moving around like crazy up until now. For the past two and a half weeks I’ve been around a few parts of Colombia. I could go on and on about it. I could talk your ears off for hours. But for some reason, I don’t feel like going into excruciating details about this leg of the journey like I’ve done in the past (and believe me, there have been things worth writing about — for those who are close to me, ask me, and you’ll get some fun stories). At times it’s been strange, because I’ve known that my trip has been rapidly approaching its end (I’ve felt like I’m in a sort of limbo at times). But I’ve mostly used that feeling as personal permission to just relax (come to think of it, I’ve done that a lot on this trip). But when I wasn’t just relaxing, I did some really fun things here in Colombia. Here’re the highlights:

• Bogota: walked around La Candelaria and enjoyed the street art (graffiti) and all the students walking around (this part of town is littered with universities); met a friend of a friend (and now just a friend) who took me for some traditional Colombian cuisine (delicious); started to really like Colombia (a feeling that would grow during the rest of my time here)
• Salento: hiked the Valley of Cocora with the tallest palm trees you’ve ever seen (like straight out of Dr. Seuss); camped (so nice to use my tent again after lugging it around unused since Patagonia) near Boquilla on the edge of town on an old horse farm that was converted into a hostel by a Canadian couple from the Yukon (a sizeable group of Yukon’s ~30k residents were in that particular hostel at the time); relaxed
• Medellin: ate some delicious contemporary experimental Colombian food at a semi-hidden restaurant called Alambique on the recommendation of an American couple I met in Salento; took a cable car to the ecological park in the mountains above the city; went out with a fun group of Dutch and German tourists; saw a Colombian movie (El abrazo de la serpiente — about the Amazon and travel and searching and culture); finished reading Infinite Jest (and wasn’t even that mad at the ending)
• Tolu & Mucura: wandered around mostly empty hotels and bars and resorts (it was the low season); ate some delicious seafood; camped on the beach on a small island called Mucura; listened to some crazy stories from a middle-aged American guy who owned and was still finishing construction on the hostel where I was staying; didn’t get sunburn; didn’t get to see plankton with some new German friends because the locals didn’t feel like taking us out that evening; relaxed
• Cartagena: walked around Getsemani and looked at the street art (graffiti); walked around (more times than I can count) on top of the walls around the old walled city with beautiful colonial architecture on the inside and the ocean on the outside; met some new friends on the street who went to my university; got a salsa lesson at a bar from a Colombian woman in the marines and was embarrassed enough for the both of us (I dance just like you would expect an inept white guy to) but had a ton of fun anyway; grilled burgers and chorizo on the roof of a friend of a friend’s host family’s apartment while critically dissecting the new Kanye West album; ate some fancy food at restaurants surrounded by rich cruise-ship-riding gringo tourists and ate some dirt cheap corrientes (bandejas con sopa y jugo (soup, juice, meat, rice, flattened plantains (patacones), salad, corn cakes (arepas)) surrounded by Colombians; visited the school in the San Fernando neighborhood where my friend is teaching English (apparently they were so excited to see me because I look like such a gringo :P (it’s the “exotic” blue eyes more than anything, I think)); and finally relaxed some more

I’ve really enjoyed my time here in Colombia. I’ll be back. This is one of my favorite places that I’ve visited. But it’s so hard to pick a favorite or to even say anything bad about anywhere I’ve been. Every place has been so unique and different (except in the refreshing ways that everyone’s a little bit the same wherever you go). I love it all. The good and the bad.

So in conclusion (lol)… Travel has been a life-changing experience in expected and unexpected ways. I really do feel like I’ve found myself. I know much more about who I am, what I like, what I don’t like, what’s important to me, what’s not… Going on a big trip to find yourself — it’s a bit of a worn-out cliche, but perhaps unsurprisingly, worn-out cliches often hide the biggest truths. If you are feeling lost or just want to learn about the world or yourself or put yourself in some tough situations or just have a ton of fun, hit the road. Over the past 6 months (it feels like years), I’ve stumbled across more truths (from little daily epiphanies to big earth-shaking realizations) than I possibly could have asked for.

And you know, the journey won’t end. I’ll continue to grow up. I’ll continue to travel and see the world (but that’ll be further in the future). I’ve got another new and exciting chapter waiting for me in San Francisco. Who knows what I have in store? I’ll miss the road, but I’m ready to be somewhere for awhile. I’m ready for whatever comes next.