Confusion

Ever since I got the package from home, I hit a brick wall. For whatever reason I was sick of being in cities. I hated the inability to eat a consistently good diet (thank you rest stops and the fact that 95% of things you can order here are deep fried) and the constant feeling of not really doing much of anything. My problem with cities is that they do lack a certain something. Beyond trees.

I guess what I feel, and I’m sure you may disagree, is that a city is a city is a city. Sure the people may have a different colour skin, there may be different holidays to celebrate, different sides of the street to drive on, and different smells, but at the end of the day they are still strangely barren to me. The lack of vegetation in particular.

I also struggle with cities to an extent, because the bigger they are I find the more devoid they are. By that I mean, it’s not really like you are experiencing something new in a city. It’s just a slightly modified city to the last city you were in. For example, back home I could go eat humus, go for a walk in a “central park”, take day excursions to natural sites nearby. I could go to a bar, I could go kickboxing, I could go DO things. And more importantly I could go do these things with awesome people, like my friends and family.

Instead I am doing them with strangers. And sometimes, that is a great thing. You meet some cool, crazy, wonderful people while traveling. But sometimes, I hate starting from square one. I hate going through the “who are you? Where are you from? what did you do back home? how long are you traveling?” bit. It gets old.

The farms are great because you have a month to connect. Even staying for a week in a hostel is an interesting shift of people. But at the end of the day, I’m not a fan.

THUS, this led me to think that perhaps my time had come to head back home. Or at least to something familiar. In my mind this amounted to a cross-Canada roadtrip or volunteering on a permaculture farm in Hawaii.

But I had an epiphany of sorts post-Volcano boarding. I realized that life is about the thrill. And when in your life do you get to be so selfish as to leave for eight months and blow your money on hostels and stupid things like volcano boarding. Traveling is about pushing your boundaries.

While I know that my time here has been incredible, I also know that I am ready for a new challenge. I felt like I had seen what Central America had to offer and had a great experience living with the locals and getting to know them. But I wasn’t ready to turn back home for something “normal” either.

I felt like the first part of this trip can be summed up to my epiphany moment just past Santa Cruz. But I know that I’m not quite done yet either. I have more space to grow and expand. I just need a change of scenery.

Thus on March 9, 2012 I will arrive in Bogota, Colombia. Ready for a new continent, a new set of rules and customs, and a totally new experience.