Come out the wilderness

Tell me how did you feel, when you come out of the wilderness?
How did you feel, when you come out of the wilderness?
How did you feel, when you come out of the wilderness?
Lean and lonely lord
(Traditional song, excellent version by The Be Good Tanyas)

If these past four months have been a testament to what I hope to be a lifetime of traveling, so has this last week reaffirmed my strong ties with nature. Yesterday I arrived in Taganga, a tiny beach town where I will learn to scuba dive, after camping for a week in Parque Tayrona on the Caribbean coast of Colombia. It´s sad to admit that after living my whole life in Alaska - land of the rugged outdoorperson - this is the longest camping trip I´ve ever undertaken. I camped with the four Argentinian guys I met in San Austin, which worked out perfectly because they had all the camping supplies and the know-how.

I spent all but one of the nights in a tent sans thermarest or blanket, waking up each morning with large quantities of rogue sand stuck to my salty skin. The additional night I convinced someone to swap me for their hammock, a simple luxury for those who live in hot climates, but something that I can´t get enough of. I´ve been imagining ways to make a hammock rainproof for use in Juneau, but it really wouldn´t be the same.

Our days consisted of perplexing questions such as: Which beach will I walk to today? Does it hurt if you get a crab to pinch your toe? Who owns this mule that just broke all our recently acquired eggs? Is it worth the icky chemical feel of DEET to keep the insects from biting? And my favorite - what is the best way to get to at the meat of a coconut? We settled for hacking at them with machetes and then slowly prying out chunks of white with a knife. Delicious.

There is nothing better or easier than going back to basics. For the entire week I was barefoot. I never imagined myself watching the sun set over the Caribbean after spending the day sunbathing and swimming at a nude beach, but there I was. Scrambling over rocks and swinging through tree roots brought me back to my childhood, as did watching the boys fake ninja fight and chase each other through the woods. We were struck with a sense of wonder for all the little things: the leaf cutter ants crossing the path with their little highways, the sounds of frogs singing after the sun went down, the sense of satisfaction one gets from finding one´s own food, even if it is only a coconut that fell from a tree.

I didn´t know that such delicious bread can be made with only flour, water and salt (or sugar) fried over a campfire. No one told me how much better music sounds when it´s a live jam session on the beach under a sky bursting with stars and a full moon, the waves crashing in accompaniment. I didn´t realize that tadpoles actually existed outside my third-grade classroom, and yet they were in the stream next to our campsite going through all stages of life. Most importantly, my week in Tayrona reminded me how happy I can be without technology or mirrors, how the simple yet overpowering presence of nature puts everything into perspective.

I feel like I could live like this forever. I think the biggest difference between life at home and life on the roads or in the woods is the lack of pressure in regards to money or consumerism. It´s a completely different set of values. I am, you might say, less of a slave to The Man. Of course, being in a third world country also reminds one of one´s advantages. Several times now I´ve been with people around my age, both fellow backpackers and locals, where literally a dollar can make or break their decision to buy or do something. I struggle between wanting to live like the locals do, on dollars or day, or to take advantage of how far my money can go here. I go back and forth, but I´ve at least come to the conclusion that the less ¨things¨ in my life, the better.

Lately I´ve been dealing with the knowledge that in less than three weeks I will be home again. It´s an odd feeling. I miss it so much sometimes, and I find the urge to nest quite powerful. But I know I have much more to see and many more adventures to undertake. I like the idea of journalism because I think it could marry together the various lives I envision myself in. In the meantime, I plan to earn seasonal money before hitting the road again. But I have no doubt that I plan to take advantage of the opportunities at home in a way I hadn´t before. After seeing how much there is to experience and all the people out there doing things, I think it´s a shame to not live every moment passionately.

5am is a good time to go to bed

I am no longer worried that I have become a social recluse, a fear I began to cultivate last summer when I pretty much stopped going out and would instead stay home and read a book. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I had previously enjoyed the company of large groups of friends imbibing beers, shouting, laughing and dancing until last call. But for one reason or another, the last few months that I was in Juneau I found myself more often than not turning down the invitation to go out. Even on this trip I haven't really taken advantage of the night scene very often. But Medellin turned it around to the point where for four nights in a row I went to bed at 5am.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday - every night a different adventure. Most began with a stop at the park in Zona Rosa, a club zone of Medellin, where myself and some friends I've made at the hostel would strike up conversations with whomever locals were around and go from there. Several of these evenings involved spontaneous group rapping/sing-alongs. Sunday night involved a stay at the farm of a local who personally fought against Escobar. I heard way more about those days and the drug trade than I am at liberty to share, and the whole time my friends and I were listening I was in awe of where I had ended up. When we woke up the next morning, the maid made us breakfast and we picked tangerines from the trees before being driven down to the metro stop.

Sticking with my trend of being the slowest traveler in the world, I have now been in Medellin for over a week, but will be leaving for Cartagena tomorrow. It's official - for the rest of my trip I'll just be in Colombia, which I couldn't be happier about. I get back to Juneau on April 11th. I spent almost a week in Bogotá before arriving in Medellin, largely in the company of an American Doctor (in psychology) from Texas who I met in St. Augustine and who has a house and a cafe in Bogotá. He is an old hippie and has been living in Colombia on and off since the 70s and has a lot of stories about how the country has changed. I truly believe that the tourism business will continue to take off once people figure out that Colombia isn't as scary as they think it is.

Once again I've taken too long since writing an entry, so it's harder to get into many of the little details, but suffice to say that I am having a blast. I think I'll go for some more literary snapshots to give you an idea of what I've been doing and experiencing:

*Homemade milk and fresh coconut popsicles, fruit smoothies and cups of fresh pineapples and strawberries - all for under a dollar.
*A professional soccer (futbol) game I attended where the exuberant Medellin fans sang cheers and jumped up and down for literally the entire game.
*Going to Mangoes with a group of ten guys from my hostel, a famous cowboy-themed club where barely-dressed girls (and some guys) perform dance routines on the bar. Midgets are also part of the attraction, and in the course of the evening we danced in a congo line in addition to bringing back the chicken dance and the macarena.
*Fly fishing in a nearby town with two guys from my hostel who are fishing guides in Northern Alaska in the summer. I never knew there was so much to talk about (or so many new vocab words) when it comes to fishing. Also, I suppose I didn't really fish - I just watched them. I'm also happy to report that I have discovered a love for seafood, my most recent fave being snook.
*Being given a homemade artsy rooster earring by a girl I met in the park so that I could report on how nice and not scary the people of Colombia are.
*Talking for hours about books with this guy about my age who I met in the cafe owned by my Texan friend. Meeting up with him and some local girls the next night and talking for another six hours. Note to self: read more e.e.cummings.
*Meeting a guy about my age from the states who has been doing independent journalism in Colombia for about a year and being re-inspired to really pursue journalism as a career.

So that's what I've got for you for now - alive, well and living it up in beautiful Colombia.