We're Coming Home

December 21 has been a date circled on our mental calendar and lingering on our thoughts’ backroads for several weeks now.  We have mixed feelings about coming home.  On the one hand, we miss the comfortable lifestyle: one grows weary of the suitcase, the hotel room, the taxis, the restaurants.  We miss our family and friends, and returning to our home during the holiday season is always an annual highlight.  On the other hand, nothing in life provides the perspective and the enrichment that traveling does.  It is an education by fire: enlightening in the best ways, illuminating other cultures and other ways of life, but most importantly engendering self-exploration and personal growth. 

As I have said, there is nothing in life like waking up from an overnight bus or train, tired and groggy, lugging your huge suitcase out into a strange city in the early morning hours.  It reduces life and actions to a very basic (but admittedly tame) form of survival.  Find transportation, find food, find shelter.  Try and scrap together enough bad Spanish to make your point known.  It can be stressful at times, it can seem like a crazy way to spend a vacation, but like anything difficult, the payoff is worth it.  And that feeling of uncertainty, the feeling of standing on the precipice and looking over the edge: that is why we love traveling without a plan, without a tour group, and without reservations.  The anxiety mixed with anticipation: it’s what I love about traveling.  I’ve joked a lot about my love of jumping off of high things, and I feel the same about those leaps of faith: the thrill is not in the jump, but in the moment before, when you find yourself standing on the brink and staring down at the vast expanse below, and hopefully you find something out about yourself.  The thrill is of knowing you are about to jump, and the steeling of resolve that precedes the actual step.  One of my favorite moments like this was standing with my cousin Rob by the railing of the Jolly Roger pier in Topsail Beach the first time we ever jumped from it.  We stood there, having envisioned our plan, the lifting of our skinny 12 year old frames to the top of the rail, spotting a large swell in the distance, a big wave that would break the free-fall.  Those moments of fear, of anticipation, of uncertainty is what I keep coming back for.  The great unknown, the deep green sea, the backroads of Vietnam, the jungle of Colombia, the deserts of Bolivia, the wild jazz clubs of Santiago.  It is what keeps us going when the rational part of our brains wants to stop and rest and sit down and be still for a minute.

And we have enough perspective to know that weeks from now, when the realities and regimen and sameness of life reassert themselves we will long for the simplicity and freedom of the open road.  The weariness of repacking our backpacks will transform into the longing for the liberation of carrying your life on your back.  The frustration of staring at strange menus will fade, and we will pine for the simplicity of leaving our hotel room, walking arm in arm through South American streets at dusk, and sitting in the quiet corner of a small café with a glass of wine and an open schedule.  I guess the grass may be greener sometimes, but I think the important thing is to look back on this four month trip with the fondness we already have, and remember how lucky we are.  We will recall what an amazing experience this was, the places we went, the people we met, the cultures we got a glimpse of.  I think that is the point, that is why we throw ourselves into the unknown.  It gives such valuable perspective moving forward.  When you get too big, and your world gets too small, nothing recalibrates that perspective like travel.  It reminds us how big our world is and how small we are.  Little old us, in this big old world.  It’s good to remember that sometimes.

There are things we won’t miss about the trip, at least not anytime soon.  There are just some things we have had our fill of.  We will not miss backpackers and the stories of backpackers.  We won’t miss our chronically top-heavy bags toppling over as we try to wheel them down an incline.  We will not miss obsessively checking the hotel room 49 times to make sure we didn’t forget anything (Michael).  We won’t miss the conversation we had about 700 times in South American hostels.  We don’t want to hear how long you have been traveling for, or how many countries you have been to, or how much longer you plan on traveling for.  We don’t want to hear about how long you stayed in Cartagena or how raging the hostel was there or how many people were in your room.  We don’t want to hear about how long the jungle trek was or how you did it faster than anyone else in your group.  We don’t care that you ran down the mountain the afternoon of the second day of the Inca Trail or that you were the first one to Maccu Piccu on the fourth morning.  We don’t want to hear the words “mozzie” or “heaps” or “mate.”  We don’t care that you are traveling on $45 per day or that your backpack weighs either 10 kilograms or 30 kilograms.  We don’t want to see your backpacks or smell your socks or see all of the visas in your passport.  We don’t want to see any kangaroos or catch any boomerangs or eat at Outback Steakhouse.  I appreciate that you just finished high school, and you and your mates are blowing off some steam before you start “uni.”  Best of luck.  And please, for the love of God, can we talk about something besides traveling in South America.  Anything else.  Besides that, we love you, fellow backpacker, it’s been great.  And it felt good to get that out.

And we miss home.  We miss our family and friends and our dog and cat and our easy chair.  We miss ice and drinkable water and crappy American food and good American food.  We miss regular ESPN and clean couches and clean pillows and our Moms’ cooking.  We miss good beer: with hops and flavor and head and another one, please.  We miss sitting around and not doing anything and we miss clean underwear (just kidding, but really, we do miss clean underwear) and we miss walking around the house in that underwear.  We miss real toilets that you can sit down on and we miss sinks you can stick your face under and we miss showers with hot water.  We miss cooking and we miss drinking wine while we cook.  We miss not apologizing for speaking English and we miss not feeling guilty for not knowing more Spanish.  We miss milk and cheese and grocery stores and driving to the grocery store and getting angry at the person in front of us for driving so slow to the grocery store.  We miss our crappy cars and bitching about the price of gas.  We miss arguing about the best way to get from Highway 86 to Davie Circle.  We miss sitting with our friends and families and doing nothing.

Reflecting is always easier with some distance.  But this trip has been amazing.  We planned on taking this leap of faith and trusted that it would be a once in a lifetime experience, and we were not disappointed.  It has been amazing.  It is bizarre to be sitting here, at the end of the trip, reflecting on a trip that at once seems so short and so long.  We missed home, and we looked forward to this date, but as the time approached to board the plane in Santiago, the realization struck us at how simple and wonderful the beginning of our marriage has been.  To have that time to ourselves, to share the experience together has been unbelievable.  We are excited about beginning this new (adult) phase in our lives, but we so appreciated the chance to postpone it for just a little bit.  It has been a wild ride since last May: graduation/wedding planning/bar exam/wedding planning/moving/wedding/travel.  It has been a blur.  But the wedding, and these last four months, will always have a special place for Rebecca and me.  It was quite a journey.  And I’m grateful that she was willing to climb up and jump with me.

And thank you for coming along.  The blog was fun and I enjoyed it more than I even thought I would.  It fulfilled some need of connection with our friends and family, whom we missed terribly.  It gave me an outlet to describe our amazing experience and will serve as recorded memory of our travels.  I appreciate the support, and everyone indulging me and my incredibly long and detailed commentary.  It was fun, and it will be interesting to look back on later.  It made us feel like you were with us. 

We are excited about returning home though.  We can say with absolute confidence and clarity that there is no place in the world like North Carolina.  We love traveling and we love beaches and we love mountains and we love the wind at our backs and the deck of a boat and the back seat of a bus and the runway on a plane.  And we also know where home is.  We love the white sand beaches in Thailand’s Andaman sea and we love the feel of a motorbike in the Southeast Asian sun and we love the sound the waves make on the rocks as the sun meets the horizon.  And we also know where home is.  We love Northern Thailand’s mountains and the charm of Chiang Mai and the rolling green hills and the awe-inspiring caves and the roaring rivers.  And we also know where home is.  We love the Mekong River and the colonial charm of Luang Prabang and the rugged and naked mountains of Central Laos and the rainy border crossing to Vietnam.  And we also know where home is.  We love the beaches of Vietnam and the hills nearby and the wonderful people and the amazing stories and the vibrant culture.  And we know where home is.  We love the breathtaking mountains in Northern Vietnam and winding down the roads on a motorbike and seeing the little villages and sharing the dinner table and feeling so good at the end of the day.  And we also know where home is.  We love the delta in Southern Vietnam and wonderful tour guides and drivers and small boats and markets and life and hustle and canals and more life.  And we also know where our home is.  We love the jungle and the beaches and the blue blue water and the music and the people and Colombian hospitality and long walks and humidity and hungry mosquitos and crystal clear rivers.  And we also know where home is.  We love the mountains of Peru and the people and ancient civilizations and sunrise over Maccu Piccu and unlikely islands made of reeds and families on the island and spending time with them.  And we know where our home is.  We love the stark deserts of Bolivia and the honesty of La Paz and the splendor of the Salt flats and the resolve of the people.  And we know where home is.  We love the beaches of Chile and the new-world of Santiago and the raw energy of the jazz clubs and the pride of the people.  And we know where home is.   

She knows.  North Carolina knows we will never leave her for long.  But sometimes, we need the unknown, the uncertainty, and the feeling you only get when your toes are hanging free off of the railing.  And as long as my other love is willing, as long as Rebecca is willing to climb up there with me, we will keep traveling, and keep being uncertain, and keep challenging ourselves to grow and reach and leap and try and fail and succeed.  It is what life is about.  Moments of beauty and moments of stress and moments of uncertainty and moments of confusion and moments of happiness.  And we will enjoy those moments, and we will return home.  Together.

And because, who better to describe our home state than two Swiss guys who live in Wilkesboro, I leave it to Jens and Uwe Kruger to welcome us home:

“I’ve seen sunsets o’er the ocean, I’ve seen the desert bloom,

Drove the endless highways, beneath the prairie moon,

Yet the picture in my mind I see, when I think about it all,

Is the colors of the leaves in Carolina in the fall.”

We love you, and we will see you soon.      

       

The Southern Caribbean

We knew we were chasing the sunshine.  But of all the things one can chase in South America, well, it seemed safe and reasonable.  Fortunately, with little more than a two hour flight from Bogota, we exited the aircraft in wonderful, sticky, sunny Cartagena.  A lovely colonial-era city on the Caribbean, boasting nice beaches, tasty restaurants and, most importantly, fantastic weather.

As you may have noticed on the last post, I’m slowing this writing thing down and going more photo-essay style throughout South America.  This merciful decision was made for several reasons, and I am now going to lay them out in bullet points, using far too many words and going back on a promise I made just half a sentence ago:

a.       I’m lazy.

b.      Once I start writing I am too obsessive (you mean you didn’t want to hear about every bus ride?) and narcissistic (transfixed to the sound of my own voice.  Sad) to stop.  As you know.

c.       The parenthesis button on my keyboard has worn all the way through (God forbid they give a footnotes option on blogspot).

d.      I’m not saying I write too much, but I was starting to think about breaking individual entries into volumes (since I already tried chapters).

e.      Let’s be honest, if you wanted 2200 words on the Spanish presence in Cartagena, you could always go to wikipedia.

f.        I know damn well once we get home I’m not going to be spending as much time writing, because…

g.       I’m lazy. 

h.      I’m not saying I write too much, but even my Mom is getting bored.

i.         Even though the settings allow for 7 entries per web page, my last few posts filled the entire page (that’s actually true.  And kind of sad).

i.    It's beginning to feel like homework,  and Reba is making fun of me.

j.        Despite my semi-committed writing schedule, I’m still almost two months behind actual time.  And I plan on eating American food/celebrating/socializing/eating more American food/watching American sports/sleeping waaaayyyy too much over the holidays to write that much.

k.       I’m lazy (but realistic).

Don’t worry though, I’ve been taking way more pictures since Lillie came to visit, so you’ll still be getting way too much content.  It will just be easier to post and less work.  And if the pictures look great, it’s because we watched Lillie for two weeks, and now I’m a great photographer.  If they aren’t, I’m guessing Rebecca took them. 

We were not disappointed by the weather in Cartagena.  It was a balmy 83 when we touched down.  It is also a lovely, colonial city that is as pretty as any in Colombia.  Nice beaches, too.

This picture looks like it was lifted from a tourist brochure.  A brochure where they spent the whole budget on graphics, and had none left for the photography:

"Hey pal, yeah you.  You want to be in this picture for us?  We can offer you this half of a beer and most of this ham sandwich.  What do you say?"

"Do you have ketchup?  I'm in."

"Just lean against the wall, put on these glasses, and close your mouth as much as possible.  Thanks.  Does your head always look that big?"

The wall around the old city was great to walk on, and it seemed like something was always going on.  Like go-cart races.  You show me a go-cart race, and I'll show you a good time.  Gambling on 9 year olds anyone?  (And I have bet on less.  Drew and me once bet on a duck race at the State Fair.  And I won, and he still owes me).
.

"Hey!  Where's the john in this town?"  "I think it's that way." 

I'm guessing they couldn't find enough men that could dance.  Shocking, I know.

You don't know where you're going, do you.  And I'm following you.  Again.

I know, I feel like a voyeur.  He wasn't posing for me.

The wall even has a wildly overpriced bar open at night.  We are there!

This was one of Reba's pics.  I like it

 If you look closely at the menu I'm holding, you can see a picture of Anthony Bourdain on the back.  This little hole-in-the-wall Cevicheria was visited on No Reservations while Bourdain was in Cartagena.  Consequently, it is now the most expensive hole-in-the-wall in the Southern Hemisphere.  If my expression says anything, it says "Why does one portion of Ceviche cost more than our hotel room?"
We had an appetizer (that was fantastic ceviche, to be fair), and then went and bought pizza for $1 a slice.  I wish I were making this up.

This is the worst live music I have ever heard.  You have to believe me.  I know you, dear reader, hate when I listen to grainy Phish bootlegs, but trust me.  The "music" this band was churning out had the hippies covering their ears.  Just trust me.  When a crappy band has 4 different drummers?  Run in the same direction the dogs are.

I don't know what this expression means, but I definitely see it from time-time.  I'm pretty sure this was aimed at the band. 

After a few days in Cartagena, we took the bus north 4 hours to Santa Marta.  See, isn't this photo-essay thing nice?  You don't have to read 1000 words of complaints/observations/musings on our bus ride!  Santa Marta is a small, seaside town that usually acts as a base for treks to Ciudad Perdida and the lovely National Park Tayrona.  And with that, I'm done describing it.  Wasn't that painless? 

We planned on getting to Santa Marta and spending a day or two before heading north to Tayrona, a gorgeous and relaxing National Park, and then maybe heading out to do the wildly grueling Ciudad Perdida trek.  Needless to say, our first day in Santa Marta, we went by the trekking agency and the woman promptly talked us into leaving for the trek the next day.  After booking it, we spent the night packing and preparing for a five day hike.  Let's just say that might not have been the greatest night to be Michael Elliot.  I'm not sure my wife was as excited about the trek as I was.  Something about the way clothing/gear was slammed into bags may have indicated a slight inconsistency in our views towards the exciting trek to come.

"Aren't you excited, honey?  We are going out into the jungle to find the Lost City!"

"It's not lost.  It's right there on the fu*&^% map.  I can show you where it is.  From right here."

"But there are animals, we'll be with a great group of people, rivers, mountains, it will be great!"

"You do realize we were told to bring both a mosquito 'soap' and spray right.  Because there are so many mosquitoes.  Plus, we're going to have to listen to the Australians say 'mozzies' for 6 days.  You do understand that."

"But honey, the bonding, the companionship, the communal goal."

"I hate you.  I will go on this trek, but I will not be excited about it, I am not in a good mood, and your rationalizations are pissing me off.  And oh yeah.  You're acting like your Dad again."

And with that, we prepared to set off into the Colombian jungle.

And at least one of us was excited...

Bogota Days

It was hard leaving Southeast Asia.  We’ve had more time to reflect on it now, and some of the differences have crystallized.  It’s nobody’s fault, and it’s no knock on Colombia or South America, but, quite simply, there is no place in the world so kind to backpackers as Southeast Asia.  The region is cheap, it’s well organized, moving around is easy, the food is great, the people are unbelievably friendly and all speak English and, of course, motorbikes are inexpensive and make independent travel simple and accessible.  It was hard to leave. 

Compounding the difficult transition (difficult is relative, of course.  I do realize we are on an incredibly rewarding and enjoyable four-month trip) was the marvelous time we had in North Canton, Ohio at Ben and Tracy’s wedding.  We got more than a few quizzical looks when running through our itinerary:  

“So, we’re doing two months in Southeast Asia, then we’re flying into Northeast Ohio for a long weekend, and then down to Colombia.”

Apparently, Northeast Ohio in late October has managed to hide itself from the backpacker’s trail.  We had an incredible weekend, and the wedding itself was fantastic.  It was a bit bizarre however, going from the Mekong Delta to Ohio, and the weekend seemed to kindle a homesickness in both of us that took us a few days to shake.  It was like going home: seeing all of the stores, hearing everyone speaking English, familiar food and friends, noticing people get angry about stupid things again (I told Ben that they never get visibly angry about anything in Southeast Asia, and he said he had to go.  Anyone who knows Ben understands how well he would fit in, and how much he would appreciate that quality).  But it was not like home: obviously, we didn’t get a chance to see many of our friends and family, and the weekend was so short.  It was with mixed emotions that we boarded the plane on Monday.

We did not have mixed feelings, however, when we arrived at the Cleveland airport to find that our flight from Toronto to Bogota had been cancelled and we would need to spend the night either in Cleveland or Toronto.  These are the things it is nice to know before you reach the airport (and we found it interesting that cheaptickets.com deemed it acceptable to flood our inbox with deals, offers, and even several updated itineraries over the preceding weeks but could not find the time to let us know about our flight being cancelled.  After a few minutes of back and forth on the phone, I did get them to put us up in Toronto, though.  And Toronto: underrated city.  Sneaky underrated.  Ethnically diverse, lively, clean.  We loved it.  They even have a few new, good microbreweries).

The next day, after a surprisingly short 6 hour flight from Toronto, we arrived in Bogota.  We weren’t sure what to expect, but I did know we were coming from one of the safest regions in the world: Southeast Asia, where you don’t even need to lock your doors; to South America, which, by reputation, requires a keener eye.  We would come to find that Colombia in particular, and South America in general, has made great strides (through very hard work) over the last several years to transform itself into a safe place to travel.  One finds military presence everywhere in Colombia; in Bogota, literally on almost every street corner in the more touristy areas.  We had our guard up when we arrived, but we quickly realized that the intense efforts of Colombia to clean up its image have made a huge difference.  These efforts have also made it one of the favorites of backpackers and families alike: a national pride and desire to put the cocaine-infested, guerilla-run past behind it have engendered a wonderfully cultural and friendly, festive atmosphere in its cities.  You can also sense in the people that they want people to realize that Colombia is a different place now. 

The irony is that the last time Colombia made such a huge push for recognition was during the World Cup in the U.S. in 1994, shortly after Pablo Escobar’s death and during the short golden age of Colombian soccer.  Unfortunately, that narrative ended with the murder of Andres Escobar after his own goal against the U.S., and every investigation led back to the Gallon brothers of the Medellin drug cartel, which had gained new prominence and importance in the chaotic underworld after the death of Escobar.  The murder was eventually pinned on their bodyguard, who did 11 years in prison after the conviction.  In another twist, by all accounts, the death of Escobar sent the Colombian underworld and perhaps the country itself into a tailspin, and the years after his death were marked by more violence and turmoil than his life itself.  His is an endlessly fascinating story, one we explored in detail at the Museum of Police History.    

In short, it took us a couple of days to adjust to the change.  The language barrier, the cold (it gets down into the 50’s in Bogota, a relative ice age for our tropical sensibilities), the altitude (around 8500 feet).  And, to be honest, we were tired.  Vietnam was a whirlwind, as was traveling halfway around the world, the wedding weekend, the trip south.  We had a fairly relaxing few days, and part of the week Rebecca was saddled with some bizarre altitude-stomach ailment, so we spent a couple of afternoons holed up watching movies.  It was quite nice, and relaxing.  I also took a few days to adjust to my newest source of self-loathing: not learning more Spanish (read: any Spanish) before spending two months traveling through South America.  I always tell myself we will make an effort before traveling the next time.  And then we don’t.  Luckily, Reba is pretty handy with Spanish.  We adjusted fairly quickly, however, and soon we felt right at home (except for the whole, not speaking the language thing.  I’m such an idiot).

Does this look too much like the one above?  Yeah?

Some highlights of Bogota:

Monserrate tram:

Not too much to say.  Bogota is a surprisingly attractive city (we hadn’t heard the greatest things) nestled in a valley with mountains on three sides.  Unfortunately, a tram whisked travelers up to the top of the nearest mountain hourly, so I couldn’t talk Reba into hiking it.  Great view though.  Only weird thing is riding a gondola without snowboard boots on and without a bunch of whiny skiers complaining (just kidding Rob).

Zipaquira/Salt Cathedral:

The small town of Zipaquira and the Salt Cathedral on its outskirts makes a nice day-trip from Bogota, a short 45 minute bus ride away.  The town itself is small and quiet, with a lovely square in the middle (this is a theme in South America.  Unfortunately, the square usually forms around the large cathedral that the Spaniards built over the indigenous sacred site.  But that’s another story).  The Salt Cathedral; we would learn in the 3-D film narrated by a talking, dancing, mining salt crystal; is the number one visited tourist site in all of Colombia.  Our guide was also very proud of the brand new neon-LED lights that had been installed a month prior, which gave the cathedral a nice disco feel.  The cathedral itself is an old salt mine that was converted into a cathedral.  For some reason, this didn't seem strange until I just typed it.

You try not licking the walls when they taste like salt.

Don't we all know how this feels?

Museum of Police History:

Awesome.  Although I think our young English-speaking guide was puzzled when every question we asked was about Escobar and his defeat, rather than the history of the automatic weapon, which we also learned of, or the timeline of the uniform of the national police.  Escobar’s story is incredible though, and even when told through the lens of the Policia Nacional, it’s hard to separate the myth from the facts.  Born poor, he rose from the ranks of the petty criminals in Medellin to become the most powerful man in Colombia and, arguably, South America.  At one point, he was listed in Forbes as the seventh wealthiest man in the world.  He was worth over 25 billion dollars and controlled over 80% of the world’s cocaine supply through his cartel.  He was elected to the legislature in the early 1980’s, and in the early 1990’s, before his downfall, he actually built his own prison in the hills to appease authorities, ostensibly imprisoning himself in the compound.  The most interesting thing to us was the reverence in older Colombian voices when they speak of him.  While unquestionably guilty of horrific crimes during his reign, without fail everyone mentions how orderly the drug cartels, the underworld, and the government was while Escobar was empowered.  He also gave back heavily to poor neighborhoods, especially in his native Medellin: building soccer fields, schools, and churches.  He was killed on December 2, 1993 by Policia Nacional forces, who had been intercepting phone calls in the Medellin area.  By all accounts, the country was absolutely rocked by his death.  We thank our wonderful tour guide, who fielded approximately 275 Escobar related questions from Rebecca and me.

Escobar's bike.  It wasn't for rent

You should have seen this little guy try to keep up with Mom

All in all, we had a wonderful first week in Colombia.  But something was missing.  We decided it was sunshine.

So we set off north to find it…