Journey Into The Interior

I'm in Wyoming.
Jackson Hole since you ask.
I'm too busy to keep filling this in so I'll catch up when I reach San Francisco.
I've covered a lot of miles, been lashed by the winds of a passing tornado, seen a grizzly with her cubs, watched prismatic hot springs bubbling out of the earth, and it's pretty obvious to me now that my life has travelled far too far from Nature. All that empty sound and fury of the artificial concrete world really does clutter up the mind...

Notes From The Interstate II

Illinois... Chicago. The Skydeck on the 103rd floor of the Willis Tower at sunset. A Picasso in the street. Riding the L. The Art Institute: Nighthawks, American Gothic, A Sunday On La Grande Jatte... Catching a game: White Sox 5 - Angels 6. The city where Nelson Algren nailed Simone de Beauvoir. My kinda town...
Wisconsin... Milwaukee. The Harley Davidson Museum. Shhh, but I still prefer my Suzuki. Camping by the banks of the Mississippi, not so mighty up here but still a little bit Tom Sawyer.
Minnesota... The Spam Museum. Need I say more? Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam...
South Dakota... It's flat. Very flat. When I say 'very flat' I mean 'very, very flat.'

Notes From The Interstate

New Jersey... Didn't stop.
New York... Niagara Falls again. The Canadian side is better.
Pennsylvania... The Amish. Didn't see any. Aren't these people supposed to be attention seeking photo whores?
Ohio... It's easy to miss Cleveland as it is so bland. In fact, I recommend it.
Indiana... I saw some farm land. When I say 'some' I mean 'a lot of.'
Illinois... I'm in Chicago. Last night, I had a pizza as thick as my arm. Probably thicker, I could barely pick it up.

Some Corner Of A Foreign Field

I’m in The Big Apple. It’s shinier than since I was last here but the taste is the same.
So my time in Costa Rica is over and have I made a difference? Have I left a mark? Well, there’s some corner of some concrete floor in some poor village in the middle of nowhere that has my name written in it. I paid for it, I mixed it, I laid it. And yes, I struggled with the proselytising Evangelical church aspect. It may be preying on the vulnerable but at least it gives those people some hope in a life which is otherwise devoid of any. If the main alternatives are the bottle or the needle then I view God as the lesser evil.
I didn’t make the world a better place but I did make a floor.
As for me, well, I came here to get away from a life lacking life in a culture in thrall to the superficial and to experience something more raw. The standard cliché reasons of the restless with Kerouac fantasies. But I got it. I got more than I hoped for. I haven’t ‘found myself’ or patched any gaping voids in my life but my experiences have definitely made me think about what keeps people going, about why we do the things we do, about hope…
So now I’m in a country which idolises distraction and the superficial.
I leave tomorrow en route to San Francisco overland. I have time to think this through…

Final Note From Managuacita

I'm back in the capital San Jose for my last few days. I fly to New York on Friday for the start of my American road trip.
Today, I went back to the slum to say goodbye to Father Felipe and to see if the work I did was still standing.
I expected it to be sad but not as sad as I found him.
His wife was very ill. She was in bed in what passed as their bedroom while she waits for an operation.
He had spent what little money they had on medication for her and hadn't been able to pay the electricity bill. This morning they cut the power.
'It's a test from God,' said Father Felipe.
I said goodbye to her as she lay in bed, in a shack, in a slum, with no power, and no money and I fly to New York on Friday.
Tonight I will drink beer and try not to think about any of it.

Notes From The Side Of The Road

'I cut skin cancer off the faces of old people,' she said.
We were sitting in the cockpit of a Fairchild C-123 transport aircraft. We were drinking beer.
The plane had been involved in the Iran-Contra affair but had been converted into a bar overlooking the Pacific ocean.
Some situations you just can't make up.
...
´Look, there´s a Jesus Lizard,´said the guide.
I was kayaking in a mangrove swamp. Everything was still and tranquil.
I looked at the little beast, squatting on an exposed root. ´Why is it called that?' I asked.
The guide splashed his paddle and the lizard ran across the water.
It ran across the water.
'Oh,' I said.
...
Sometimes I think that everything here wants to eat me.
My body has more bites than Butch & Sundance must have had bullet holes.
The other night I was sitting in my hotel room, right next to the fan, drinking a lukewarm beer, looking for the UK election results on the television and pulling ticks out of my legs.
That was a fun night.
...
I was in the Corcovado national park and it really was like something out of Jurassic Park (and bits of the film were shot not far from here). It was dense, lush, and primeval. It seemed to grow straight out of the Pacific. The sounds of birds, monkeys and waves all mixed in the air. The sounds of Kevin from Montana, ex-mortgage salesman, also mixed in the air. I wasn´t that interested in American college basketball but I reckoned that if a snake bit me at least he was there to go for help.

Into The Wild

So I´m on the road. I´m heading south near the Panamanian border.
It´s a succession of bus journeys, new towns, and new places to stay.
Sometimes I meet people, sometimes I'm on my own. It´s the first time I´ve been on my own in a while. For someone who spends a lot of time living in his head this is usually not a good thing (and I must be putting on weight as my neck is beginning to hurt), but it is giving me time to reflect on some of the things I have done and the people I've met.
One discovery I have made is that this internet cafe stinks. I'm outta here...

She´s Beautiful

It´s nearly midnight and I´m walking along the beach.
It´s hot and the mosquitoes are busy. Out over the Caribbean sea, distant lightning warns of a coming storm.
I´ve been walking for over an hour, and I´m hot and tired and frankly fed up.
Then I see her. A break in the clouds and the moon lights her up. God, but she´s beautiful.
She´s lying still on the sand. I stand well back to admire her. I don´t want to get too close.
She´s about my age, about two meters long and about 300 kilograms in weight the guide reckons. Then she starts to move her rear flippers. She´s digging a hole to lay her eggs. We watch her work. She lays about 60, then she covers them up. She circles a few times, flipping up sand to cover the nest and hide her tracks.
Then she crawls awkwardly back towards the sea. A big wave comes and she is gone.
Leatherback turtles have been coming here for millions of years.
I feel like I have just watched a dinosaur.
This is quite simply one of the most amazing things I have ever seen.