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.