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Spanish Lessons

Spanish Lessons:
A Midlife Adventure in Search of Meaning

Frank J. Ferendo, Ph.D.


P ROCESS P UBLISHING C OMPANY
W ESTERLY, R HODE I SLAND

Copyright 2008 by Frank Ferendo All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior written permission of the copyright holder, except brief quotations used in a review. Published by Process Publishing Company 10 Sunny Dr. Westerly, R.I. 02891 Cover and book design by Jill Shorrock

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data


Ferendo, Frank Spanish Lessons: A Mid-Life Adventure in Search of Meaning By Frank J. Ferendo, Ph.D. p. cm. ISBN-978-0-9795180-1-0 LCCN: 2007936230 Library of Congress subject heading: 1. TravelSpiritual aspects. 2. Language Studies I. Title. Visit www.spanishlessons.com for additional information and resources on learning Spanish and finding meaning in life. Printed in the United States of America

This book is dedicated to my brother Ronnie and my sister Joyce. Love that transcends space and time, life and death.

A CKNOWLEDG M ENTS
I would like to thank Elvira Reber from Switzerland and Renata Ruetz from Germany for introducing me to hostelling in Mexico. I would like to thank Rocio Camino for being such a good friend and patient teacher in Ecuador. I would like to thank Graciela and Marina for touching my heart in Peru. I would like to thank my cover and page layout designer Jill Shorrock and my editor Arlene Prunkl.

C ONTENTS
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 1. The Mexican Riviera 2. A Day in Florence
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15 35

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3. Sorrento: Mambo Italiano . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 4. Ecuador: Want to See the Beaches? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 5. Ecuador: The Galapagos Islands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 6. Peru: Machu Picchu
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97 107

7. Ecuador: Surfing Montanita

8. Restless in Argentina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 9. Spanish Lessons at Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 10. Madrid: They Dont Speak Spanish in Barcelona. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 11. Panama: Its Latin America, What Do You Expect? . . . . . . . . . . . 143 12. Puerto Rico: Its Travel, Not Vacation Time
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173 187 205

13. Central America: Theyre Not Drugs, Theyre Vitamins. 14. Playa Del CarmenAgain

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Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

Whatever is to give light must endure burning.


Victor Frankl

Introduction
Mrs. Visgilio, Mrs. Visgilio! I can pronounce periscofono. I mean periscafano. I mean periscafanano. The class laughed as I had intended. I hated school and did my.best to have fun where fun wasnt meant to be. Frankie Muranohes dead now of a heart attack before he was fiftydid his best to keep the party going. To this day, the only words I remember from that high school Italian class are buongiorno a tutti. And thats only because Mrs. Visgilio started each day with that greeting. If foreign languages gave me problems, my own English wasnt any easier. Grammar completely confused me. For example, a verb expresses action, but the word.verb is a noun. Verbal is an adjective, and if you add ly it becomes an adverb. Only verbalize is a verb. You see my problem? It didnt get any better with adjectives. So why is noun a noun? They taught me that a noun was a person, place, or thing, but the word noun isnt any of thosehow can it be a noun? Why isnt noun an adjective? it seems to me that its describing something. All of this led to my problems growing up. I hated high school except for athletics. I wanted to be a professional baseball player. I graduated 208th out of 214 with a D-plus average. All that changed when I went to college (thanks to a soccer scholarship). University courses were much more interesting. I graduated, got a job, started a business, went back to college, kept working, and went back to college again. Finally, after one bachelors degree, two masters, and one Ph.D., I declared that I had enough of school. So while I waited for them

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to print up my last diploma, I made plans. I was going traveling.

I am a restless soul. I go crazy or get depressed without some challenge or calamity. I cant help itdrama makes me feel alive. Familiarity makes me shrivel and soften like the carrots left in the back of my refrigerator too long. When the December chill is about to turn to January frost, I want out of here. I know the snow is coming, and I know I will go crazy if I dont do something. I had just finished nearly everything I needed to do to get my Ph.D. in psychology. The papers, the seminars, the dissertation, the humiliation of working with a doctoral committeedone. Nothing left except some editing and submitting forms and waiting for the final approvals. And then I would be free. Free! Thank God, I would be free at last. I had also finished just about everything else I needed to do to make a living. While I was away extending my education, I discovered that my business ran just as well without me. I wasnt needed there any longer. In fact, profits actually rose significantly when I was gone. After six years of graduate school, after twenty-seven years of parenting, after thirty years of workingit was time for a change. I had done the school thing, the work thing, the family-raising thing. Now, what the hell was I going to do with the rest of my life? I was too young to be banished to Florida and too old to try being a baseball player again. Dreams of being a professional athlete ended with high school and my average batting average. Dreams of teaching philosophy ended with college and failure to learn French, my foreign language requirement. Marriage, children, and responsibilities ended any other dreamsperiod.

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But marriages can end, children can grow up, and responsibilities well, responsibilities can disappear one day when you are not looking. It was time to dream again. As I am not very good at sitting stillthats why I had to start my own business, and thats why I had to return to college. Now, thanks to a company that makes money without me, I am free to chart a new course, plan a new direction for my life. Being the kind of person that I am means two things. First, I have to travelmust move around. Second, I have to learn and learn and grow cant remain static. So, how would I go about satisfying both requirements? After very little reflection and a few Google searches the answer was obvious. That bastion of high intellect and education, the United States Senate, passed a resolution in 2005 designating that year as the Year of Foreign Language Study. Why not study a new language? There was a challenge. I decided to respond to the call of my heart and country. I was gone... I decided to listen to the still, small voice that still speaks to me when I take the time to listen. I would go to Mexico, then Italy, then wherever else I felt the pull. I would hit the road and follow my passion to learn a second language, maybe even a third. I would learn languages in the countries in which they are spoken and I would write about my wonderfully enlightening experiences. In January I would start my new life. Following is the story of where it took me and what I learned. Vamanos!

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Chapter One

The Mexican Riviera


We see the world not as it is but as we are.
Steven Covey

The Mexican Riviera, aka La Riviera Maya, is a wonderful place to learn Spanishespecially in winter. I traded in New England cold for Caribbean sunshine the day after New Years. When I considered the options for my three-week inaugural trip, the idea of a Mexican language school seemed perfect. I would spend mornings in class with new friends, afternoons at the beach, napping and reading, and evenings soaking up the local culture and color. Not a bad way to spend January. The Internet is full of web sites offering all kinds of classes, particularly the Japanese sites. (I dont know why, but they are always in English.) Just about every country in the world offers native language classes at amazingly low prices. This was particularly appealing to me since I wanted to go for three weeks and didnt want to go broke. Most schools offer some form of homestay with a local family or shared apartments with other students. To learn Spanish, I chose the language school in Playa Del Carmen. I knew the beaches there were beautiful and it was easy to get to. Flying into Cancun and taking a bus or cab for the one-hour trip south would

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be simple. All arrangements were made by e-mail. I would be sharing an apartment with a classmate and I would have a private bedroom. The school promised to be one block from the beach. Could anything be better? I flew into Cancun and shared a colectivo van with an American woman who was spending the winter on Cozumel with her daughter, who had married a Mexican. I was envious to hear her speaking Spanish to the driver. And already things were not going well; my plane had been delayed on the runway for three hours because of the holiday traffic. I arrived in Playa after dark and in the rain. I eventually found the school where a tall German girl on the staff took me to my apartment. That night I unwound under the soft Mexican starlight with a tropical drink and a long walk along the beach. I couldnt wait to start classes. However, back at my apartment, things were not so comfortable. My friends had forewarned me that Mexico is not America. There was no hot water to shower with, the only light in my bedroom did not work, and there was a puddle of water in front of the bathroom coming from the toilet. What had I gotten myself into? The next day I surveyed the nearby hotels, thinking maybe I had better move. However, they were all too expensive, and besides, I really did want to live in an apartment if I was going to last three weeks. Classes began the next morning; they were surprisingly small. In fact, my only classmate was Elvira, a twenty-five-year-old girl from Switzerland. She was staying in Playa for seven weeks, then traveling around Latin America, and hoping to end up in Ecuador in the spring, where she had made arrangements to work on a farm in exchange for room and board. I loved how our teacher pronounced her name: El-vee-ra.

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Elvira was smart, spoke better English than our teacher, and was very easy on the eyes. I didnt mind being in class with her and I liked the gentle way she smiled. Our teacher was Naptali Cruise, a college student who worked afternoons in one of the hotel laundry facilities. During the first week he subtly attempted to find out if Elvira had any interest in him, and when she said she wasnt attracted to Mexican men he noticeably deflated. (After I got home, Elvira e-mailed me to say that shed fallen in love with a Mexican during her last week in Playa, but it was not Naptali.) My first days were lonely. I missed my family and friends back home. I missed my daily routines. I began having second thoughts about spending three weeks here. How could this be so difficult? I was living three blocks from a perfect beach, the caretaker fixed the problems in my apartment, I had classes to attend every morning. What possibly could be wrong with this? I simply didnt have anyone to talk to, to eat dinner with, to hang out with. But all that would change by the end of the week. I started jogging on the second morning. I ran through the streets of the old town. It was a bit depressingtoo much poverty, too many people and mangy dogs. The next day I ran in the opposite direction, towards the expensive all-inclusive resorts. The scenery was much better and the run more peaceful. I ran past groups of construction workers. At first they were a little intimidating, not because of their size, but because of the grim expressions on their faces. (One thing I liked about being in Mexico was that my five-and-a-half-foot height makes me feel tall for a change.) I found, however, that when I said Hola or Buenos dias, they broke out into wide smiles and turned into warm, friendly amigos.

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Every day I woke at sunrise, meditated, did a little yoga, and then ran my five miles. After showering I still had time to get in a little studying. For breakfast I had fruit smoothies at the restaurant connected to the school. There was nothing out of the ordinary about our classes; we worked through the basics of Spanish at a relaxing pace. The classroom was an open-air thatched-roof annex to the restaurant. Warm breezes and plenty of shade welcomed us to our daily educational experience. Naptali taught out of a workbook that must have been self-published by the school. He was in no rush to make us fluent speakers of Spanish and often got sidetracked by what was going on with the other teachers and students at the nearby tables. Late mornings we always took a break. I noticed that several of the teachers ordered delicious-looking fruit bowls. For only $3 they were one of the best deals in town. I quickly incorporated them into my morning routine. Then, after savoring every bit of the fruit, I walked the short distance to the beach and thanked the universe for such a wonderful life. Break over, we returned for another two hours of class before calling it a day. I typically picked up a small sandwich, often the Cubano, changed into my bathing suit, and strolled to the beach. The scenes on the way to my favorite spot were repeated every day. German and Italian families in front of the large expensive hotels, Mexican teenagers closely observing the Germans and Italians, and this American watching the Mexicans watching the Germans and Italians. I tried really hard not to stare at the topless young European girls. Mostly I soaked in the colors of the Caribbean Sea as it gently stroked the white sands at my feet. Friendly waves teased and entertained me along

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my walk. The sun warmed my skin as it continued to darken it. Walking for half an hour, I reached the spot where Id been told some of the teachers and classmates would be. I stayed at the beach until late afternoon, napping, reading, studying, and swimming. I let the Mexican elements love my body and mind; they werent hurting my soul either. When Id had enough of all that, I wandered back toward the park at the center of town, which featured sand and street vendors instead of grass and trees. I watched the kids and adults playing soccer and usually bought myself a little treat of popcorn or fresh fruit from the little old Mexican ladies. That was my favorite time of day. My skin smelled sweetly of salt and sunburn, the sinking sun brought out the richness of the landscapes changing colors, and people seemed to enjoy one another more than at any other time of day. It was playtime. As the first week wore on, I began to make friends among my classmates. My roommate, Peter Tyroller, was from Germany. He was spending a few weeks in Playa to brush up on his Spanish, and then he planned to take another month to explore the rest of Mexico. We didnt spend a lot of time together because he liked the late nightclub scene and spent his afternoons and early evenings sleepingsomething which most of the twenty-somethings did.

Later in the week I met more classmates, nearly all from Germany. I was the only American. In fact, I hadnt spoken to an American since the woman in the taxi. On Friday morning Elvira introduced me Renata, another German student who was closer to my age. I had seen her before

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and loved her long red hair and spirited blue eyes. She clearly traveled frequently and had no fear of unfamiliar situations. They were leaving after class to drive across the Yucatan, their mission being to see several Mayan ruins and the capital city of Merida. Elvira asked if I wanted to join them. Sure! I surprised myself. I had no hesitation. We are going to sleep in hostels to save money, Renata added. Thats fine with me. Ive never slept in one, but Id love to know what its like. Renata had taken a year off from her job as a schoolteacher and was traveling throughout America and Mexico. Well pick you up in front of your apartment at two oclock. Id like to drive as far as we can get until dark. I was thrilled. I would be spending the weekend exploring Mexico with two beautiful European women. The Mexican Riviera was getting better by the moment. We took Highway 307 south past Tulum to Felipe Carillo Puerto, where we turned west onto 184. We hoped to get as close to the Uxmal ruins as possible before dark. However, we got lost several times, making up for it by driving later into the night. Finally, after two hundred miles, we called it a day. We found rooms in a motel for $10 a night; the nearby hostel was full. The next morning we drove the short distance to Uxmal and explored the ruined Mayan city. From there we found Merida, the Yucatan capital and center of Mayan culture. In the middle of the Yucatan Peninsula, 700,000 people live in a crazy and crowded city. The energy of the place and its people recharged us and we romped

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through the streets and open-air markets, taking pictures and buying veggies for next to nothing. We left Merida on Saturday afternoon and headed east again. I studied my Spanish in the back seat while Renata drove and Elvira navigated. That night we stayed in a hostel off Route 180, halfway between Merida and another major city, Valladolid. It was my first hostelling experience, and I wasnt sure what to expect. The house was clean and quiet when we arrived after dark. We each got our own bed, a lower bunk, in a mixed dormitory room. We slept side by side with a large fan circulating the air above us. I had no complaints about the living conditions. It cost us $7 each for the night and that included breakfast. In the morning we left for EkBalam, a newly excavated site. The abandoned city was enormous. I couldnt believe that so many people had once lived out here in these isolated jungles. On the way back to Playa we made two detours; one was to a cenotoe. Cenotoes are large natural underground caves formed from limestone with deep pools of water. We stopped for a swim, then continued on and spent part of the afternoon on the beach at Tulum. I thoroughly enjoyed my first weekend in Mexico. We returned to classes the next day in Playathe three of us now best buddies, having learned that we all traveled well together and enjoyed one anothers company. From then on we would meet each day at the beach after school and then have dinner together in the evening. I loved the companionship I was developing with Renata and Elvira. I wasnt lonely any longer.

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After being in Playa for a week my awareness of being a tourist wore off and I started to feel as though I lived there. Walking the early morning streets to class, I passed the same shops and restaurants; only the tourists were different. At night strolling Avenida Quinta, the main street in Playa, I became a part of the evening performance. Vendors coaxed wary foreigners into their shops, more play than work, more entertainment than enterprise. All done with performance smiles and practiced gestures. It didnt take long for me to incorporate a trip to the ice-cream shop into my nightly routine. At first I splurged on Haagen-Dazs, but as good as it was, I couldnt make myself squander $7 for a two-scoop sugar cone. I had to test the Mexican heladeria. To my surprise and delight it was just as good and creamy at half the price. On slow nights, which was every night, my date with Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup satisfied my need for companionship and pleasure. Late at night the water gently sings to the sand. The lights from Cozumel twinkle from the horizon. The energy from the day has softened but not dissipated. I relax on the beach by myself and wonder. What will I do with my life? It seems so easy to escape to Mexico and do almost nothing. Perhaps Ill become a missionary. Not a religious one, but a spiritual one. I could be loving and compassionate toward the people I meet in my travels and spread goodwill. The night air is still warm and I feel the dichotomy of both contentment and loneliness. Anytime I am near the water I am happy. Still, I am alone and my life is lived mostly in singular spaces interspersed with moments of shared presence. I live for both the quiet times of selfawareness and the bustling scenes of shared living. I need both to survive. Soon the tourists will finish their dinners, the kids will begin dancing

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and drinking at The Blue Parrot, the last ferry will leave for Cozumel, and I will walk back alone to my apartment. It is bittersweet. No obligations, but no intimacy either. It is not the life I would choose, but one that I accept. I must have been here awhile because the vendors have given up on me as I return home; I get only smiles without the beckoning gestures to come in and view the wares.

I spent every afternoon at the beach. I began to become accustomed to all the bare breasts. We would read, nap, and talk. I was always happy to have people with me, especially Elvira and Renata. I kept forgetting that Elvira was only twenty-five. She was mature and interesting to talk to, and I enjoyed her playfulness and sense of humor. Her energy and mischievous smile were invigorating. Renata was more laid back and not as easy to understand. She did everything with more purpose than I was used to. When traveling, she was organized and made sure to photograph everything. She could read for hours on the beach without becoming restless or tiring. Today I found myself sandwiched between the two women while I read Jimmy Buffetts new book, A Salty Piece of Land. Johnny Red Dust was speaking: Tully, there are no words to the song of the ocean, but the message is and always has been simple: not to forget where we came from. You are one of the lucky ones who holds the melody in your heart. But be warned: it is a wandering song carried by the winds and currents. It can turn you into a piece of driftwood that washes up on shore after shore, but one day, when you find the place that is meant to be, you will take root.

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I love it when a book speaks so directly to me, as if the author had me in mind while writing. Johnny Red Dust was a wise old Indian. Like Tully, I am continually drawn to the water; I cannot live long without hearing its song. I took his warning seriouslybeware of wandering too much. There is danger in becoming driftwood. Butthere is a promise that someday I will make landfall on the island of my heart. Hey! I exclaimed. Jimmy Buffett is talking about us. I mean, hes writing about some places very near to us here in Mexico. Well, actually, right here. HeI mean his character. Elvira and Renata opened their eyes. Yes, he actually mentions Cancun, Tulum, and Playa del Carmen. The girls politely smiled and went back to sleep. I thought it was a special coincidence. I love Jimmy Buffett. I connect with his way of thinking and livinga free soul, yet still responsible. Another bit of wisdom from the book I took directly aimed at me: Just remember that contentment is a quality best suited for cowsnot cowboys. The search for truth is a shared journey. Thanks, Jimmy. Ill remember that the next time I get restless.

I studied him smoking a cigarette and watching the kids playing soccer in the sand. Tall, skinny, dark hair, blue eyes, and stubble of beard on his face, he looked to be in his early thirties. Its a shame people still do that to their bodies. The lines markings wont be etched onto his face for another ten years or so. What was he thinking there, backpack lying next to him on the masonry wall, while I sat near by munching on a late afternoon snack of roasted peanuts and popcorn? Are you staying long in Playa? I asked him.

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No, just here for the day. Tonight Im taking the bus down to Tulum and then south to Chetumal. Where you from? He sounded French. France. Im working my way around the world. Im Florent Bouillet. Frank Ferendo. Im here studying Spanish for three weeks. Nice to meet you. We chatted for a while and Florent suggested that we go for a beer. Sitting in a waterfront restaurant, he told me his story. Im from Grenoble. Yes, we do a lot of skiing there. I flew to New York from Paris last September. I tried to take a boat but that wasnt possible it would have taken too long. But I hope to go the rest of the way around the world without flying. He revealed that he had worked in New York a few years ago, but had eventually returned to France. But he was not finished with his traveling. Naturally, leaving New York, the first place I went to see was Frenchspeaking Quebec. From there I traveled the Yukon and Alaska Highway to Alaska and then down through British Colombia to the States, New Orleans, Texas, California, and throughout Mexico. Now I am on my way to Belize. A friend of mine at the Spanish school has done nearly the same thing, I told him. Shes from Germany, but is just doing the US and Mexico. She is taking her timesometimes if she comes to a place she likes, like Playa del Carmen, she stays for a while. Not for me. I have to keep moving if I am going to make it. Its a day here, a day there. We smiled and drank our Dos Equis. I was feeling a little guilty about being an American and about all the nasty things I had often remarked

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on the French back home. I told him that it was a sad situation, the way things were going between our two countries. How he responded surprised me. The French are just as bad as the Americans. Both of our countries have their own self-interests. It is the politicians who make the problems. We French are just as much to blame. We lost those oil and other contracts when the Iraq war started. Thats why we were against it. Our leaders are crooks, but the French and American people themselves are not to be blamed. The blowing wind kept interrupting our conversation. He possessed much wisdom for so few years. And such courage to make this trip. Florent, you are a remarkable person. I am so glad we met. He told me more about his travel plans, then we finished our beers, exchanged email addresses, and he was off to the bus station. I continued to follow his adventure on his website. I am a little concerned at the moment because his last entry was posted six months ago. I know he made it through Panama and Columbia. His last pictures were from Quito, Ecuador. Wherever you are, Florent, may you be safe.

Days in the sun passed effortlessly, and my Spanish improved. I grew fond of eating at Senor Frogs, and practiced speaking Spanish there with my favorite bartender, Pedro. Quiero una carta, por favor. Then Pedro would say something back to me so quickly that I had no idea what it was. Hablas mas despacio, amigo. No entiendo. The restaurant sat perched over the beach. I had views of the Caribbean in three directions as I enjoyed my hamburger and french fries. It was an idyllic setting. At times like these I would become philosophical with myself,

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especially after a couple of cervezas. Usually I timed my dinners with the sunset. Seabirds floating in the air announced the ending of the day as they gently glided toward their night nests. The water took on a deeper color and became more soothing. I considered the meaning of life: Why am I here in this paradise while so many others will never have this opportunity? I know I have done nothing to deserve this. Those were the only rational thoughts I could have in such an exquisite setting. Mostly I stared at the rainbow of fading colors on the water below me and felt a deep sense of peace and gratitude. After dinner I walked down Avenida Quinta, and my tranquility transformed itself into fiesta time. The energy of the evening recharged me, and I delighted in watching the parade. On the streets, I was hard pressed to see any Americans; usually they can easily be distinguished by their loud, obnoxious voices, the men all sounding as if they were from Texas or at the very least, the kind of people whose favorite entertainment is watching the NASCAR race on Sundays. I cringed in embarrassment when our paths crossed. Germans and Italians made up most of the tourists in Playa. They are much more interesting. The Germans for their elegance, intelligence, and beauty; the Italians for their personalities and demonstrative emotions. I feel more comfortable among the Europeans than those people of my own country. The one woman I met from New England, a classmate of mine who one would think should have been more compatible with me, was there for one reason onlyto pick up Mexican men. The minute class was over she was gone. Once I saw her on the beach and looked the other way.

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The second weekend came and the three of us took a day trip to the nearby seaside town of Puerto Morelos. It turned out that there was very little to do or see there. We wandered around the village square; I bought a beach towel and lunch. Then we relaxed on an isolated part of the beach. Supposedly this was where most Americans had bought property and settled down, but I couldnt tell. The main attraction for me was the Alma (soul) Bookstore. That night we agreed it was time for us to have our own little tequila party. I bought a bottle of Don Julio, the girls brought the food, and we met at the Cozumel ferry dock. Alongside of the dock was a huge open-air pavilion. We climbed stairs to the second floor, where we would have a better view of the quarter moon setting in the west. Then we began the fiesta. I distributed special Don Julio shot glasses, explaining that they were to be kept as souvenirs of the night. A quart of tequila between three people can be quite devastating. Elvira fed the jukebox coins while Renata and I danced to oldies music. When the liquor was gone we abandoned the facilities and joined the nightly party on the Quinta. It was still early and the streets were filled with shoppers and sellers. My memory fails me at this pointtoo much alcoholI think we all just went home and passed out. The next morning we shared hangovers and stories of how badly wed slept. I promised myself, no more tequila for the rest of my stay.

The beginning of my third week in Playa brought a new group of students. Again, most of them were German, there was one Swiss, and no

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Americans except the black woman who would be my new roommate. Hi, she smiled broadly and extended her hand. I didnt think they mixed men and women in the apartments, but it didnt bother me. Hi, Im Frank. This might prove to be interesting. Im Catherine. How do you like it here? Oh, its great if you can stand perfect weather, perfect beaches, and nothing to do but a few hours of Spanish classes in the mornings. She was old enough to appear comfortable sharing a small place with a white guy. How long are you here for? I asked. Just two weeks. Im brushing up on my Spanish and then Im heading south to Campeche where Ill stay for missionary work. Im bringing some computer hardware for the local church that Ive adopted. This might prove to be really interesting. She must have noticed the look on my face. Oh, dont worry I wont try to convert you. Oh, no. No problem at all. I love religious discussions. I only go to church now for weddings and funerals, but I do have conversations with God every now and then. I even had a major religious experience in college that Ill tell you about sometime. Catherine told me that she has a doctorate in business administration and had recently retired. I was curious because she looked too young to be retired. She explained that years ago she had invested her money in rental properties and was now living off the income. Catherine considered herself a freelance missionary just doing Gods work wherever he sent her. We didnt see each other much. I was in the beginners group, she the more advanced. I still had dinner every night with Elvira and Renata;

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she explored and came home early. Most nights Catherine would be in her bedroom with the door closed by seven oclock. I could see the light was still on. I assumed she was praying or reading. Near the end of the week I took her to dinner. She usually ate in our little kitchen, saving money to give to her adopted community. I wanted to hear more of her story, share my experiences with Jesus, and give her a little treat since she was unwilling to treat herself.

The new Germans added another diverting twist to our afternoons at the beach thong swimsuits. I work very hard at paying attention to my thoughts. I believe in being as mindful as possible; self-awareness is very important to me. I dont like to be controlled by my more basic instincts. But, like breasts, naked bottoms can be distracting, especially when they are right next to you. The wonderful thing about being in a resort town that is filled with Europeans is that nakedness isnt even noticed. Unfortunately for me, I am Italian-American. Sitting and lying on my towel I felt as though I was driving a sports car whose motor was revving up, but I had to keep one foot on the brake. Eventually it ran out of gas, thank God, and I could get back to napping and reading. Lets go to Babes tonight for dinner. I heard that they have great Thai food. Elvira suggested. Its somewhere on 10th Street near a tattoo shop. Everyone agreed. When evening came we had to wait before we could be seated, so I decided to investigate the tattoo place. They were busy working on some persons back and side. I browsed the catalogues, if thats what you call

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them. I had been considering getting a tattoo at some point while I was in Mexico. The Margaritaville song by Buffett, where he only has a tattoo from Mexico to show for his time there, had been on my mind and I thought it would be great to return home with one. However, there were no pictures of anything that appealed to me. I was looking for a compass rose. Eventually we all got seated, ordered, and dined on excellent noodles and tofu and other Asian food. Most importantly of all, we consumed a good number of Mojitos. I think we should check out some of the beach bars, said Elvira She apparently had taken over the roll of entertainment director for the evening, which was fine with me. But after an hour of encountering nothing but empty clubsthe serious partying doesnt start till midnight we decided to call it a night. Evidently none of us were in Mexico for the nightlife.

My time in Playa was coming to an end. Renata left for Palenque. I was beginning to miss my children and spent more time at the Internet caf writing home. Even Naptali seemed to be running out of energy. Elvira, who was staying, planned on asking for another teacher when I left. As for me, I was ready to go home. My plane would be leaving on Sunday. I spent all day and evening Saturday mostly alone, thinking about this whole traveling thing. On the beach I watched the American college kids doing their mating rituals, and the local kids trying to be just as cool, which they were. I watched the older tourists spend their money on Avenida Quinta and was glad that

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I could relate more to the kids and the mating rituals, if not in actions, at least in awareness and intention. It takes a lot of effort to leave home alone and come to a place where you are a stranger; to live in someone elses town with people from so many different cultures all mixed together. The hardest part is not having the safety and comfort of family and friends. Life, brief as it is here, becomes a new beginning and a chance to be someone else. At times I felt desperately alone and at others completely joyful at having the opportunity to share life with human beings who had never stepped foot on the land where I grew up and have spent nearly my entire life. I cherish the smile on Pedros face as he pours me a beer and brings some Mexican munchies. I remember the coy look on Elviras face, chin pulled down near her chest, looking up and giggling as we share an inside joke at Naptalis expense, yet still respecting his ambitions to become more than a hotel worker, appreciating the influence of his well-read grandfather on him. I warmed at the thought of Renatas crinkled up face as she smiles. Her nose scrunches and her eyes sparkle and I know how genuine her love is for all of us. The rest are minor characters in this winter adventure of mine, but their lives add depth to the picture I bring home with me. Even including the beat-up, weathered but notso- old man at the bar with his deformed hands, walking the streets shirtless but always smiling and friendly to all of us as we drank the beer that made the day and early evening a little happier. I know more now than when I got here that we are all brothers, sisters, part of some nonlocal family extending beyond boundaries of skin and sand. I will leave Mexico knowing I have friends in low and high places.

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Elvira will leave in a month and go on to South America. I will get her e-mails from Ecuador, Argentina, Peruwhere she will fall in love againBolivia, Chile, Brazil, Costa Rica, and on and onher plans change and she will remain in the Americas longer. Renata continues in Mexico, calls me when she reaches Texas, and we agree to meet in New Orleans. I fly down there and we spend a week in hostels, first in the Big Easy, then out to Cajun country where I take her to my favorite dance halls and teach her the twostep. Before she returns to Germany, Renata visits me in Rhode Island and we renew our friendship. Weather.com says there is a big snowstorm hitting southern New England tonight and that it will last into tomorrow. Maybe I wont be able to get home. Im booked to fly out in the morning but get only as far as Ft. Lauderdale. I spent the night there, and then arrived home to a blizzard-covered Rhode Island the following day. I am home again. Cant wait for my next road trip.

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Chapter Two

A Day In Florence
The pain that you create now is always some form of nonacceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is.
-Eckhart Tolle

A month after returning home from Mexico I was off for Italy. I booked myself for four weeks at the Koine Center in Florence; this time I will be studying Italian. All of my grandparents were born in Italy, and once I learned the language I planned on finding parts of my family who never made the migration to America in the early twentieth century. I know my moms relatives are living in Sicily and my dads in Calabria. The school has a room for me in an apartment that I will be sharing with another studentjust as I did in Mexico. I anticipate four weeks of spring-like weather surrounded by renaissance culture and beauty. This is the home of my artistic hero Michelangelo. Years ago I stood awestruck at the feet of his Pieta in Rome and speechlessly observed something that could not have existedliving beings made by a man out of marble. The sculpture appeared to be literally alive! From that moment on Michelangelo became my inspiration to do something more with my life.

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A few years earlier Id spent several days in Florence visiting the David, the Uffizi, the Duomo, and most importantly, the Basilica of Santa Croce where Michelangelo, Galileo, and Machiavelli are buried. That was early fall, and the weather was perfect. I enjoyed drinking wine and eating olives in the piazza in the afternoon. Florence was much different this time. For one thing, the weather had changed. I wrote my intentions for this trip in my journal. To experience life from another perspective, to let life teach me, mold me, change me. It certainly would do that. Before leaving I had a strangely strong sense of calm. I expected there to be ups and downs, peace and pain, but I was determined to be open and available. In fact, I couldnt remember being this open to see what would happen before a trip. I felt ready for an adventure and I was completely malleable. There was no urgency to get somewhere, no worries, no real goals or deadlines, and I was perfectly convinced that everything would happen as it was meant to nothing by chance. In my mind was the idea that I wanted to be as aware and alert as possible of what was about to happen on this journey. Again in the journal I wrote: May I not judge events, people, and circumstances. Just let me accept and wonder. Everything is perfect, now and now and now and now. But then, sitting on the bus waiting to leave for the airport: Do I really want to do this? Its a lot of work. Wouldnt it be nice to stay home and live a quiet life? I pushed those thoughts aside, the bus took off, hours later I had taken the Lufthansa plane from Boston, and landed in Frankfurt, when the question arose again. Again I deflected the thought, spending half an hour running through the airport trying to find the

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right gate. It was morning in Germany, but my body felt like I was back in Rhode Island. There was one consolationlooking out the window of the plane and seeing a full moon follow me across the Atlantic. I finally arrived in Florence, which triggered a recollection of the last time I came to Italy. I had met Helen at a seminar in Denver; we fell in love and planned to meet again in Assisi. I came but she didnt. It was springtime in Umbria, the flowers announced the truth of beauty and love, but for me the home of St. Francis was just one more difficult lesson to learn.

The taxi took me to my apartment. It was Sunday morning in very Catholic Italy, and people everywhere in the streets were dressed for church. The weather was colder than I expectedmuch colderand damp and cloudy. I should have brought warmer clothes. I rang the bell but no one answered so I waited on the sidewalk. Eventually someone came to let me in. She was the owner, a nice older Italian woman. Signora was obviously a woman of wealth, from an old Florentine family. She showed me to my room and introduced me to Shawn, a Korean fellow, with whom I would be sharing the apartment. Is it always this cold in here? I asked Shawn. Im afraid so. Italian law allows landlords to keep the thermostat set at eighteen degrees Celsius. He smiled, and I thought, eighteen degrees Celsius, thats about sixty degrees Fahrenheit. The air felt much colder than that; maybe it was the dampness. The bathroom was the only warm place in the entire apartment because of the heater in the small room. How long have you been in Italy? I asked.

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Six months. And Ill be here another six. He showed me around the kitchen. There was a small television on the counter. We had no living room; this would be the place for social gatherings. My parents are arriving today for a visit. Ill be out showing them the city. Oh, thats nice. We couldnt talk much because his English was not as good as his Italian, and my Italian was pretty poor. I certainly didnt know Korean. I was getting colder by the minute. Well, I guess Ill unpack and shower, I said, shivering. Okay. If you need anything let me know. Shawn went to his room and closed the door. The shower felt wonderfully warm after Id become so cold in this place. But back in my room it was freezing again. I started unpacking, keeping my jacket on to stay warm, but even then I was cold. My room was large, cold, and hard. There were no rugs, only cement walls and tile floors. Thank God I had slippers. I was exhausted and took a napwith my jacket on I buried myself under the covers. Exposed to the air, my face almost frosted up. Maybe it would be warmer if the ceiling were not so high nor the room so big. The heater was as small as the one in the bathroom. It could not possibly warm this room.

I barely slept and finally got up. Perhaps it was warmer outside. I walked along the Arno, crossed the river, and came to Pont Vecchio. The vendors were out in force on the bridge. As I neared the Boboli Gardens, I encountered more and more people and opened shops. I needed to get something to eat.

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I entered a little trattoria. The menu didnt look very appealing. I could recognize bruschetta, a kind of bread covered with tomato and oil that my dad makes back home. I ordered some, but I wasnt sure what kind of topping I had asked for. I was starving. When it finally came, I realized I had ordered it with a thin covering of solidified pork fat. It tasted as bad as it sounds but I ate it anyway. Back in my freezing bedroom, I wrote in my journal: Why did I come to Italy? To learn Italian. Why did I want to learn Italian? To spend time in Italy. Why did I want to come to Italy? I was miserable and I had only been here for a few hours. I seriously began questioning my decision to make this trip. What was I going to do? I knew I would tire of all this art after a few days. I missed the beach and sunny weather of Mexico. And everything here was prohibitively expensive. The dollar was not faring well against the euro. My lunch of bread and water cost me $10. I wanted to go home desperately. I decided I had better make some friends at the school tomorrow, otherwise I was going to get awfully bored here. I decided to go for another walk. This time I went over to the Piazza della Republica and then to the Duomo. Things were not getting any better. Ive already seen all of this. It was exciting the first time, but not anymore, I thought to myself. What am I doing here? Its freezing. The sky is covered with clouds. It looks like its going to snow any minute. I found an Internet caf and checked Weather.com to see what the forecast was. A bad situation was becoming much worseno change in the weather for the next ten days or more. Freezing cold and snow showers for as far as the forecast would go. I was out of there.

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Back in my room, I wrote in my journal: So what does this mean for me? Am I done with Italian? I am giving up finding my relatives? What am I looking forwarm weather, beaches, love, friendship? Latin and South America have to be better than this. I am crazy. Why do I want to live in a foreign country in the first place? Am I crazy? Am I just looking for something in a way that guarantees not finding it? My room was still freezing. I snuggled under the covers of my bed, fully clothed to stay warm. This was ridiculous. Was this how I was going to spend my time in Italy in bed and chilled to the bone? I could not even read because it was too cold to keep my hands out from under the covers. I was too cold to sleep, and about as miserable as I have ever been. That was itI was leaving. I made up my mind. I decided to leave Florence the next day, and immediately went out to look for a hotel room for the night, one with heat. It didnt take long. Yes, they had a room for one night. Fortunately it was not too expensive. Please wake me up at five a.m. and can you call a taxi too? Back at my ice cave of a room, I packed all my clothes as quickly as possible. Next, I looked out into the hall to see if anyone was around. No Shawn. No Signora. I slunk out of the building and quickly down the street dragging my suitcase behind me. My new lodging was not far away. I got to my room and laid there long enough to get my body temperature back to normal. No matter whatI was leaving Florence tomorrow.

It was now late afternoon and I was starving. The memories of my bread and water lunch were barely beginning to fade. I was tired. I was

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defeated. I felt like a madman. Slightly rested, I ventured out into the cold; I was ready to try eating again. I walked along the streets looking for friendly faces, but everyone appeared preoccupied, their expressions like walled fortresses, saying: Dont even think about talking to me; in fact, I prefer that you look the other way. I was hurt. These were supposed to be my people; after all, I was Italian, too. My genes, my blood, my passion all evolved in this country. I was only recently American. I thought, See, dont I look like you? It didnt work. I walked down into a dark, barely visible restaurant finally some warmthand the young waitress smiled at me. Suddenly I felt warm all over. Yes, I would like some vino di casa. She brought a pitcher that must have held a liter of wine. That should do the trick. Yes, the wine tasted good. The pretty waitress came back and I ordered some pasta couldnt go wrong with thatcould I? The wine really tasted good. I took out my journal and began writing. The wine put me in a better mood. What the heck? If I couldnt get a flight out tomorrow I would give it another try. Perhaps Id been a bit hasty. If I went home now, what would I do for the rest of the winter? Id already booked another trip to Italy for April. Would I cancel that, too? Should I just stick to the US? What would I do with the rest of my life? I was so tired. I just wanted sunshine and rest. Was I trying to do too much? Maybe just heading south for the winter would be enough. This European trip was a bit much. Especially doing it alone. I didnt want to be by myself, cold, tired, paying too much for everything (although that wine wasnt expensive). I was eating poorly. I wanted sunshine, warm

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water, friendly people (the Mexicans were much more friendly). Europe was too much like the US, only more expensive. But the wine really tasted good. I thought Latin America would be more my style. My mood had changed. Was it the wine, or the catharsis of writing in my journal? Now I began to think I might like to stay and give Florence another chance. Was it the pleasantness of the waitress? She was awfully cute. In my journal I wrote: Now the language sounds like love on a stick. No, love and joy on a stick. No, love, joy, song on a stick. A Chinese girl and an Italian young man are having dinner next to me. They appear to be students. Full of laughter and smiles. Do I really want to leave Italy tomorrow? The kids were enjoying life, but what was I doing? I was here but where was everyone else going? Its not important. I should have gotten a little more drunk before trying to go home. What was waiting for me at home anyhow? I listened to the Chinese girl speaking Italian to her Italian boyfriend. Why was I leaving? Why was I here? When we get older we think about these things, wishing we were still in the game of love instead of just watching. But I was not that old. I still wanted to play. The wine tasted delicious. Where was true love? I wanted to stay. I wanted to experience life, not run away from it. What was I doing? More journal: Okay, heres the deal. If I can change my flight I go. If I cant, I staybut somewhere where there is heat! I wandered back to my hotel, scarcely any idea of what I was doing, a twig adrift on a raging river.

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Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps we think too much? My thoughts have a way of running my life. Who is in control here? The problem is that I identify with my mind, my thoughts. The only way for me to salvage this fiasco of a trip is to look at myself, examine my thoughts. If I can disidentify from my mind and simply observe what is going on, perhaps I can get something out of this. Over the years I have learned to watch my thoughts. Its something I learned while studying psychology. The minute I do this, strangely, some kind of higher consciousness kicks in. I feel it immediately. I have learned to just be there, and most importantly, be there as an impartial listener. I dont judge what Im thinking or what is happening. Its all grist for the mill. The interesting thing is that as soon as I do this, those thoughts for some reason lose their power, their energy. The moment I stop identifying with my mind, the energy of my thinking deflates. I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts. I can do this with my emotions too. Our emotions arise at the intersection of the body and mind. Emotions are the embodiment of our thoughts. Again, if I watch my emotions and become an observer, these emotions lose their energy and power over me. Now I have my emotions; they dont have me. What was interesting about what happened to me in Florence is that I was bouncing back and forth between being controlled by my thoughts and emotions and just observing them. In my moments of detachment and observation I was able to write down what I was learning from this experienceand experiment.

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About midnight a car alarm went off. It stopped for two minutes and started again. I was sure someone would come out and fix it. I dozed off until the alarm woke me again. Five oclock comes, Ive not slept, and the alarm is still going off. Then the wake up call came. Thank you. I was out of there. My body was dead, but my head was clear. I arrived at the airport at 6 a.m. I was desperate to get home; my thoughts of staying completely forgotten. Was it the wine? Just get me the hell out of Italy. At the check-in counter I said, Id like to change my ticket so that I can leave today. The woman looked at my paperwork and gestured to another counter. You must go to the ticket counter over there. They will change it for you. I raced across the floor. Id like to change my ticket, per favore. I want to go home today. The man studied my paperwork. I cannot change this here. You must call Lufthansa in Frankfurt. Their office opens at 8 a.m. I was dismayed. But the flight from here to Frankfurt leaves at 8. Ill miss the flight even if they agree to put me on it. I was panicking. I had completely forgotten about my plans the previous night to give Italy another chance if I couldnt get a plane out. All I could think about now is going home. What else can I do? Can I call anyone else now? No. There is nothing I can do here to change your ticket. You could buy a new one. How much would that cost? He did some calculations. One way to Boston is $2,500. More dismay. My round trip ticket had cost only $588. I am screwedit appears this was how the airlines made their money.

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At least I knew they had room on the plane. I cant afford that. How much is it to Frankfurt? Again the dreaded calculations. $790. Well, that was a whole lot better. But then that would only get me to Frankfurt. What if I had to buy another ticket there to go to Boston? At this point I didnt careI just wanted to get out of there. At least I would be in Germany, with a chance to get on a flight home that same day. On the other hand, I could be stuck there in even colder weather. Ill take it. Back to the check-in line and another problem. I can only check your baggage to Frankfurt, sir. I dont care. Just get me there. I finally made it through security and sat down for the long wait. I had two hours to sit and worry. What if I couldnt get on the plane to Boston? What if I could but they make me pay $2,000? Why hadnt I just stayed in Florence? I was so impossibly tired. I just wanted to go home. It was boarding time, but they didnt call us to board. Fifteen minutes went by. Twenty minutes and I was beginning to panic. I didnt have all that much time in Frankfurt to get my ticket changed and then board the plane. Each minute that passed made my chances of going home slimmer. After a half hour, I began to realize that all was hopeless. They announced that there was something wrong with the plane and we would be delayed for a little longer. At that point I gave up and went to the boarding desk. Im going to miss my connecting flight in Frankfurt because we will be leaving so late. Id like to get my luggage off the plane and stay in Florence since Ill be missing my plane.

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The tall Italian stared at me with a trace of sadness in his face. I am sorry. We cannot take baggage off the plane. It is nearly ready to leave. Wellwhat am I going to do in Frankfurt? Ill be stuck there. I wont have time to get my paperwork changed to get on the plane to Boston. He looked at the computer for a while. I will call ahead and they will take care of everything. There is room on the plane. They will be waiting for you. I was sure he was kidding. That was it? I was all set? This seemed like a great stroke of luck. They were going to take care of everything? The plane was delayed even longer. Now I began to wondereven if they had everything taken care of, I would probably miss the plane anyhow. Finally we boarded. We flew over the airport but kept going. We were on a very long extended downwind leg of the landing pattern and too many planes wanted to land at the same time. Now we would never make it in time. Everyone around me was muttering in worried tones. But I hoped that the more people who missed the plane the better the chance that they would delay it. We landed in Frankfurt and all raced to make our connections. I got to the Lufthansa people, but they didnt have any record of a call from Florence about me. Nevertheless, they sent me on through to the boarding area. I went to the check-in counter near the boarding door. No, they didnt have anything either from Florence. So what am I to do now? They sent me here and I am left stranded. I gave the young woman my saddest look. No anger, just dejection. I have only one seat available on the plane. It is a window seat in the first row. Do you want it? It is very nice. The only problemI cant get

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your baggage on the plane in time. Yes, yes! Ill take it! I was going home. Yeah! She punched out my ticket. I gladly took it and joined the rest of the passengers already boarding. As I settled into my seat on the plane, I thought to myself, Either I am unbelievably impulsive or very quick to correct my errors. I make mistakes faster than anyone I know, and this trip to Florence was a mistake. But why should I stick to something that is not working? Am I kidding myself and just avoiding the unpleasantness of adventure? No. From now on for me its going to be only warm countries!

In my journal I write: This is what I have learned on this trip: 1. I dont like Europe as much as I thought. The languages are pretty, but the people and environment are not so different from home. 2. I really dont like Italian food all that much, at least the way they cook it in Italy. American Italian food is much better. 3. I hate the cold, damp, concrete of European cities in February. 4. Ive seen about enough art to last me a lifetime. I much more prefer looking at the ocean and sand. 5. Id rather be around Latin Americans than Europeans. 6. Mexican food is not that bad. 7. Flying to Europe is a lot of work. Being in Europe is a lot of work. 8. Latin America is cheap and Europe is expensive. 9. I really dont like cities or city life.

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10. I dont want to work hard to have fun. 11. Id rather wear shorts and sandals than jeans and jackets.

I was really going to look stupid when I arrived home after only one day. I didnt care. It was my life and I would not waste a day somewhere I didnt have to be. BesidesI had something to say, a message to bring back. It aint much different over there. Why go through all the effort and expense to get to Europe when Latin America is easier, cheaper, and more fun? The money had been well spent to learn those lessons. I also learned that if I was going to do difficult traveling, I should not to do it alone. It would have been much better to have a warm womans body to snuggle up to in that cold bed. And if I was going to do difficult travelingdo it when the weather was forecasted to be excellent! I thought of a quote by Goethe: We are shaped and fashioned by what we love. I love the sea. I love boats and sand and soft warm winds. I would stick to hanging out there for a while, or even a lifetime. I was more like Jimmy Buffett than European traveler and TV host Rick Steves. And if I was going to be shaped by the sea, I would be flexible, calm, raging at times, soft, deep, colorful, caressing, giving, and teeming with life! I was alive and I loved the sea because that was what and who I am. Back in my journal I write: Life is a series of expansions and contractions. We sometimes expand and sometimes contract and thats fine. The whole universe expands and contracts. To be healthy is to keep both in balance, to make both a part of our lives. This trip has taught me to contract from Europe and to expand to Latin America. Maybe I can be more useful there.

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My suitcase didnt make it on the plane with me but I didnt care I was going home. The plane arrived in Boston and I was happy to return to more New England cold. At least my house was heated. We got off the plane; the rest of the passengers got their luggage (I had only my small backpack), and proceeded to customs. I knew I was in trouble by the way the officer looked at me. Was it my shaved head? Did I look dangerous? What? Please step over here, sir. This was interesting; Ive never been searched before coming into my own country. Please give me your passport. I hand it to him and he read it carefully. So, what were you doing in Italy? I attended to a language school. He looked down at my passport again and without looking up, in a disbelieving tone, said, For one day? I had forgotten. No, that decidedly did not look good. I got there and it was too cold so I came back. He didnt believe that for a moment. Okay, put your knapsack on the table. He started looking through what few things I had. Then he pulled out my little journal. Ohread that. Youll see why I came back, I said. All my frustrations were right there in that book. He flipped through the pages, skimming as he went. Then he began laughing. See what I mean? Okay, get out of here, he said, still laughing.

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I am convinced that I create suffering in my life by not accepting what is. Most of the time Im not even aware of it. I make an unconscious judgment about my life or the circumstances of my life, and there is pain. I experience this also on an emotional level. I become depressed or negative because I have made a judgment about something. But more and more I realize that nothing happens by chance. What would happen if we all believed that completely? We would stop making these judgments, and I believe, by defusing our resistance to what is going on at any given moment, we could be free of so much of the pain we cause ourselves.

I was free. Waiting for the bus to take me back to Rhode Island I was relieved to be almost home, but my future plans for travel were ruined. I had already booked a flight to Italy again for April and made reservations at another language school in Sorrento. But I didnt careI wasnt going back. I hated Europe. I hated travel. I would find something else to do.

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Sorrento: Mambo Italiano


The true profession of man is finding his way to himself.
-Herman Hesse

Here we go again. I must be crazy, I thought as I sat in the Boeing 767 taking off from Bostons Logan Airport. I have always believed that I was good at learning from my mistakes. This just proved how dumb I must be. If I turned around again after one day everyone would know I was crazy. But I knew I wasntand no matter what happens, I would stick this out. Even if I had to get drunk every night to survive (which I very nearly did). The plane sped on to Italy. I felt a cold chill roll up my legs to the pit of my stomach. Was that my nerves or the air conditioning? After I had gotten over my horrible one-day experience in Florence, I decided to give Europe another chance. It came down to thiswas I a coward or what? I couldnt let myself give up after all. I had to live my life as an adventure because if I didnt what was left? Staying home and watching TV? Learning how to play golf? In the end I didnt have a choice. I had to make this trip or give up on life. I arrived in Naples. It was a chilly, rainy morning, and I had an overwhelming feeling of dj vu. I ignored it; I was ready for anything. I called Olga, the head of the Italian Language Department at Sorrento

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Lingue, and she gave me directions. I found the Curreri bus waiting. The one-hour ride to Sorrento was a short moviescreen cliffs and the dark sea below. Along the way, we passed an ominous looking Mount Vesuvius shrouded in cloud cover. Olga met me at the bus stop. She was tall and she spoke English well with a strong, exotic Italian accent. Her dark hair and blue eyes, I found, were common in the Compania region of Italy. Her boyfriend carried my suitcase. We walked through narrow alleys until we found my apartment. She handed me three keysone to get into the courtyard of the building, one to get into the alcove, which opened to my apartment, and one to actually enter the apartment. Olga showed me how to use the space heater, checked to see that everything was in working order, and gave me a folder containing all the papers and information that I would need, and told me she would see me tomorrow morning at the school to sign me in.

Well, this is much better than Florence, I thought. Its cold, but the space heater warms and drives the dampness from the apartment quickly. I have the whole place to myselfbedroom, kitchen, living room. There is even a washer and dryer and cable TV. I can do this. One thing that I hoped would help was that I had lowered my expectations. I had brought books to read, I was going to focus on learning Italian, I would simply stay there no matter what. I reminded myself that I was there for personal growth. It was not all about having fun. I wanted to learn more about my heritage. I was going to try to be more Italian. I would even drink wine with dinner. Evening came. I had made it through my first day back in Italy.

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In my journal I wrote: What am I doing? This is a lot of work and it is not fun spending all this time alone. Traveling by myself is lonely, no matter who you meet up with. But, this is the home of my family, my roots are here. Im happy.

My first morning in Sorrento. It was raining; the apartment had a definite chill. I turned on the space heaterthank God it worked. Despite the starkness of my new home, I was comfortable. The living room and kitchen were downstairs, bedroom and bathroom up. I even had a balcony, both inside the apartment and outside overlooking the narrow street below. Sorrento Lingue had everything that the school in Mexico didnt have. We assembled in the students lounge for introductions and directions. On one wall were computers for our use for e-mail and web surfing. A large table in the middle of the room was used for eating. There were about twenty students and five teachers crammed into the room. Everyone was smiling and excited. I was assigned to the beginners group. We filed outside onto a rooftop terrace and across to a series of small classrooms. There were eight of us altogether. The group had already been together for a week. I didnt mind missing the basics since I already knew some Italian. We were all Americans except for Jelena, who was from Australia. There were two teachers. I liked their system. Rosa would begin the day with grammar for two hours, and Luana would teach us vocabulary for the final two hours. It was still misting rain when class was over. I spent the afternoon getting

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my bearings and doing a little food shopping. Most of the streets in Sorrento are too narrow for normal cars, but that doesnt stop the smaller ones from squeezing through while pedestrians are forced into shop doorways. I found this annoying, but its just life in an ancient town. At several small stores, I picked up some bottled water, cheese, fruit, and fresh whole wheat bread. As my first full day ended, I felt comfortable enough to think that I could last the month here. I wasnt going to be frozen out of my apartment as long as the propane lasted, the weather wasnt quite as cold as Florence, and the forecast was for warmer temperatures and sun in the near future. My only sadness came from feeling a little lonely. Hopefully that would change as I made some friends.

In Ernest Hemingways A Farewell to Arms, situated in Italy during World War I, grappa plays a significant role. I kept asking myself, What is this grappa? In one of my early food shopping trips, I noticed a bottle on a shelf and bought it. The liquid was clear and came in what looked like a wine bottle. Please add this to my provolone. The shopperkeeper smiled, knowing what I was in for even if I didnt. I had time to kill before going to dinnerthe Italian restaurants dont open until sevenso I began writing in my journal and poured myself a glass of grappa. I did not expect the kick it gave me; it was strong, kind of like tequila, but sweet. I found out later that its made from fermenting the skins and seeds of grapes left over in winemaking. For a while, grappa became my early evening friend when I was lonely. It was only my third night in Sorrento and I was feeling happy after

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my introduction to the art of Italian drinking. I was wandering the narrow back streets, looking for a place to eat. The sign Buon Convento hung above a door, pointing to a small trattoria below ground level. The good convent, it meantit couldnt be a bad place to eat. I walked down the stairs, a tall waitress smiled, Buona sera. Buona sera, I answered back. She seated me near the door, close to where a musician was setting up his guitar and microphone. I wasnt sure if it was the restaurant or alcohol, but I was feeling good about the place. Another waitress, very young and not afraid to display her sexuality (that is, her breasts), smiled and brought me bread. Id brought my language book with me to do homework at the table. She noticed it and smiled again. Studente? Si. Thats about all I could say at that moment. I was in no rush; I had no plans for the evening. Finally I ordered grilled chicken and a salad. As I studied my Italian, the music became more interesting. Hey Mambo! Mambo Italiano! Hey Mambo! Mambo Italiano! Go, go, go, you mixed up Siciliano. All you Calabraise, Do the Mambo like a crazy! Now were rocking! More people came in and I was enjoying the bottle of wine that is mandatory at every Italian dinner. I had to put my little book down and listen to the music. I was stunned by the words. My grandparents are all from Sicily and Calabria, making me Siciliano and Calabraise. Of course, Pietro, the musician, could not have known this, but he saw me smiling. He had everyone in the trattoria focused on his singing.

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With a-Hey Mambo! Dont want a tarantella, Hey Mambo! No more mozzarella, Hey Mambo! Mambo Italiano! Try an enchilada with da fish-a-bacala and then, hey goombah! Could life be any better than this? The music continued. The wine was flowing, the atmosphere was charged with festivity and food. And then Pietro played an instrumental rendition of a sad old Santana song. The emotion and feeling stopped us all. I found myself crying. I definitely had too much wine to drink, but hed hit a raw nerve with his guitar. I was home. Id come a long way to be with these people and in a small basement restaurant in a cliffside town on the Bay of Naples, I fell in love with life.

The school organized an afternoon field trip into Naples. Six of us and my teacher Rosa were on the train, with me sitting across from Rosa so I could practice my Italian. It was raining again but we were all excited about seeing the city. John and Louisa are from Los Angeles; Louisa is a film editor and John runs a restaurant. We were in class together every day. Also with us were Paul from Brooklyn, an Italian American; Burkhart, from Germany; and Peter, from Denmark. Rosa made conversation, but I wasnt following her very well. She had to keep repeating her questions in English. The atmosphere in Naples was different from any other city I have visited. The only word I could think of to describe it was the Italian word for ugly: brutto. The people were ugly, the city was ugly, and the air smelled ugly. We nearly got run over trying to get on the bus.

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Pickpockets, we were warned, were everywhere. Maybe the overcast and rain had something to do with it, but Naples reminded me of New York City without the skyscrapers. Ugly. That night back in Sorrento, Peter, Paul, and I went to Buon Convento for dinner. What would you like to eat? the huge, rotund owner of the trattoria asked us as we studied the foreign menu. No, put down the menus. Do you like fish? We all looked at each other. I cook you up a nice sea bass. Come with me. We left our table and followed him into the kitchen. I cook this up for you, the owner said as he took the large fish and placed it next to his face. I could see the resemblance. I asked for the grilled chicken instead. Peter and Paul went for the fish.

I ran every day after school; I began to follow a familiar routine. Classes in the morning. I would then pick up some cheese and fresh bread on my way back to the apartment and have lunch. Then I napped. Then I ran. I found a nice route out of the city and along the coast through Piano Sorrento and out toward Meta. Once one is out of the city, the scooters and cars are not as dangerous, but I still needed to be careful. At least once a day I nearly got killed. After running I would study a little, go to the Internet caf, take a walk and get a gelato, and then head back to the apartment to rest up for dinner. Sometimes Id catch a little news on television, but it was difficult because everything was in Italian. I had only been in Sorrento a few days when I noticed that every time

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I left my building, an old man across the street would wave me over to his store. I just smiled and kept going. Finally, I gave in. He made tiles of wood with inlaid designs. Not at all my kind of thing. You like? Very nice. You buy? No. No, Im off to school. And I rushed off. But he was persistent. Every day, every time I went out he would call me over to his shop. Id just smile and wave. By the end of the week, I had an idea. You help me with my homework and I will buy something. He looked at me as if I was crazy. I pulled out my workbook and began reading him the sentences and answers that I had prepared for the next day. I read and then looked at him. Well, is this right? He half smiled, half frowned. Then he nodded his head yes. I wasnt sure if he was just trying to humor me or if my answers were actually right. I didnt care, I kept going. I guess I had them all correct. Next I walked around the store, picked out a tile and negotiated a price. At ten euros, it wasnt as bad as I thought. He was happy and I thought I was happy, too. I told him I would return the next day. He grimaces.

It was Thursday and I had made it through four days. School was going well on the whole, but I was having trouble with prepositions. Before studying Spanish and Italian, I didnt even know what a preposition was. Now that I knew, I wished I didnt.

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Life outside of school was changing. I had become a part of the daily acts taking place on Sorrentos medieval stage. Scene one: The afternoon walk along St. Cesareo to buy my bread and cheese. I always smile at the Vietnamese girl selling watches. I know she thinks Im strange. Then there is the beautiful girl selling shoes: dark hair, dark eyes, a strong-looking, robust woman, but alas, she smokes and has a boyfriend. And then there is Paulo. He stands in the alley across from where I buy my bread. Welcome. You hungry? Come in, we have you food. Eat. As he almost grabs my arm, I smile and insist, No grazie, and dash into the bakery to see the lovely Rosaria. Ciao, Francesco! Ciao, Rosaria! Oh, the way she says my name! Rosaria greets me like an old friend. My heart beats rapidly as I try with all my mental powers to remember the Italian words for I would like and whole wheat bread. As usual I point to the pan integral. Si. She rewards me with another big smile. I desperately want to say more and stand there awkwardly smiling. Rosaria is about thirty-five years old, with long dark hair tied up in the back. Her beautiful smile is only slightly marred by several missing teeth on the side. I pay and walk toward the door. Ciao, Rosaria. Ciao, Francesco. Out the door and down the alley I have my lunch and head to my apartment, trying not to look too happy. Scene two: After a brief nap I have my running shorts and shoes on and Im back on St. Cesareo. This time I feel a little self-conscious; I dont run until I am past the city center and out of heavy traffic. I run past more small upscale shops, then down toward the cliffs where I can look out and see Mount Vesuvius and Naples to the north. Skirting Sant

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Agnello, I encounter more winding streets, soccer fields, stores, and always beautiful girls on their scooters. One hour and five miles later I walk back through my little neighborhood, soaking wet with sweat. The Vietnamese girl looks at me with her half smile-half grimace, and I hurry past the tourists who are always blocking my path while they sample the liqueur made from the huge locally grown lemons. Then there is the woman selling dresses. I try not to stare. Scene three: Having showered, Im out to check my e-mail and have an ice cream. I tread cautiously through the cobblestone alley, careful not to be hit by passing scooters. Their exhaust and noise an unwelcome part of my life in Sorrento. Everywhere are scenes being acted out in front of me. The young male in a white wife-beater shirt eyes every girl walking by as he pretends to be selling limoncello, the liqueur made from lemons and sold everywhere in Sorrento. The waiter across the street entices tourists into his eatery. I am neither hungry nor thirsty. All at once I feel the need to connect with friends and family back home. I need to know if the Red Sox won last night. Back on the Via Tasso and walking uphill to the main street where my favorite ice cream shop is, I take in the energy of the scene and smile at anyone who acknowledges my presence, even those who dont. The weather warms and becomes sunnier as April brings spring into full blossom here in southern Italy. Out on Corso Italia, I turn right, passing the travel agency, clothing shops, and restaurants. My steps are directed to ice cream like a baby to its mothers breast. Soon I will have my lips on my favorite flavor bacio. Occasionally I cannot resist and come back later in the evening for a second round. The counter clerk is still working;

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she gives me a knowing wink and a smile. Scene four: My sweet cravings are satisfied along with my need to connect with family back home. I change for dinner and make my now customary stop at De Nicola Carlo & Sons. Francesco waits for me every night sitting near the door of his shop. Ive brought you a present, I said. He looks at me with interest. No words. No smile. Grappa. I thought we would share a drink before dinner. Francesco lets go of a half smile, and then puts his hand on his stomach. In broken English he says, No good for my digestion. My doctor says I have to wait. Maybe tomorrow. Im a little disappointed. Ive brought two glasses. You drink, Francesco says. The grappa warms me quickly and Im feeling even happier than before I sat down with my new friend. Francesco keeps one eye on the street and one eye on me. I know that if a potential customer walks by, my lessons are on hold. But he has become increasingly interested in our conversations. I take out my Sorrento Lingue homework and begin giving him my answers for approval. I am either brilliant and get all my homework correct today, or he is just pacifying me, nodding yes, yes, yes all the time. I try to slip him up by putting in what I know to be the wrong preposition. Thank goodness, he corrects me. At least I know hes paying attention. Ciao, Francesco. Time to go to dinner. You come back tomorrow? Sivediamo! And tomorrow you drink with me, no? Forse. Maybe he will, but I dont think so. And thats all right.

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I enjoy his company anyway. Time to walk over to the Buon Convento. Scene five: I walk down the stairs to greetings from Natali, Caterina, and Pietro. Pietro has his guitar out. Natali seats me at my table in front of Pietro. Caterina brings me bread, oil, and wine without asking. Last night I had chicken so I know that tonight I will have the pesto pasta with grilled vegetables. I take out my language book, Caterina comes over to see what Ive done today, and I check with her to see if my homework is correct. First of all, I still dont entirely trust my friend Francesco, and secondly, well, I enjoy Caterinas attention and smile. Pietro is singing with a passion that makes me love the same Italian songs that back home I was embarrassed to listen to, never mind enjoy. Ive never taken pleasure in Italian music until now. Arrivederci Roma, Non Dimenticar (dont forget me), Come Back to SorrentoI am soaking up the emotions that emanate from Pietros singing. Isnt this why I have come to Italyto get in touch with my roots? And it is working. I feel my ancestors blood running through my veins. We are family here and I feel accepted and loved.

After a week, life in Sorrento has taken on its own rhythm. The first week of classes ended. It was still cloudy, but the rain was beginning to let up. Friday night a dinner was arranged for students to meet and mingle. We entered a cave-like place built into the side of a deep crevice at the edge of Piazza Tasso and descended at least five floors. At the bottom it was cold and damp, but about a dozen of us still managed to enjoy the Italian food and wine. On Saturday morning I took the train to Pompeii. I spent several

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hours walking through the streets of the excavated city. I could not believe how enormous it wasso many people living crowded together so many years ago. Twenty thousand buried alive in a sea of ash in a day. I wandered through the forum, the amphitheater, the miniature coliseum, and miles of streets. I finished my first full week in Sorrento with a trip on Sunday to the island of Capri. The clouds darkened and the rain returned along with colder temperatures, but I just couldnt stay home by myself. I took the hydrofoil into Marina Grande and joined a tour group to see the rich and famous and enjoy the view from Capris highest point. A small cramped bus took us to Anacapri, the town near the top of the mountain. Most of the trip involved looking over the edge of a cliff as the bus weaved its way higher. I tried not to sweat, but it wasnt working. I am rewarded for my bravery with a view of the Amalfi Coast, Sorrento, and much of the Mediterranean. Back down in the town of Capri, I traipsed through the streets, quite frankly not at all impressed with the island. I would rather have been in Mexico, but at least I could say Ive been there.

Monday afternoon and the sun was out, but clouds on the horizon warned me that rain wasnt far away. I went for a run outside of Sorrento, feeling fortunate that Id found a route that was relatively flat. While it was still dangerous, I wasnt constantly assaulted by cars. I admit, Im addicted to running. I was still in college, recently married, when I started running to get in shape. I think I had begun putting on pounds. The first time I ran, only about a mile, I came home coughing and breathless.

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I coughed for at least an hour afterward. Now I run five miles every day and Im not even out of breath when I finish. Whatever it is, something compels me to runafter thirty years, I still run every day. If I dont, I feel dirty somehow, as though Ive missed my morning shower. Running is like a car wash for the inside of my body, the sweat washing away all my dust. That Monday in Sorrento was like most others, I was lost in my runners worlduntil an Italian runner passed me going the other way across the street, turned around, and started running with me. Okayhe looked friendly. He smiled. I smiled back. He smiled more; it was almost like Id picked up a stray dog and he wanted to come home with me. He said something in Italian. I told him that I was American and my Italian wasnt yet very good. The conversation went something like this Im not exactly sure because I didnt understand everything he was saying: How far you run? he asked me. In my head I calculated miles into kilometers. Eight kilometers. I wasnt sure but I gathered that he ran more. Then he said that he runs from Sant Agnello to Sorrento and back. Do you run every day? I asked. No. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The Italian was really friendly and wanted to make more conversation. I strained to think of what else to say in Italian. He evidently knew almost no English. Do you live or work near here? Si. I work in a small market. I told him that I ran through here every day and we agreed to look for each other on Wednesday. With that he turned and continued in his original direction.

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I couldnt find the right bottle of water. I was in the largest food market in Sorrento, which was quite small compared with back home, and I was trying to decide which bottled water to get. Can I buy one of these or do I have to buy the whole package? A man standing nearby asked me this as if I lived there. I think you can buy just one, I told him. His accent sounded awfully familiar. Are you American? He smiled. Yes, you too? Yeah, Im from Rhode Island. Surprisingly, he was too. Then he brought over his wife. We enjoyed the coincidence and agreed to meet together that night for drinks at their hotel, which was about a block from my apartment. They were traveling with a group and only in Sorrento for two days. Later that night we shared a bottle of wine outside in their courtyard and discussed Italy, Rhode Island politics, and all the food they were being forced to eat on their trip. We agreed to have dinner together the next night before they left. I wasnt sure whether it was because of meeting people from back home, but I began feeling even lonelier. I was definitely homesick. Where are all the lessons in this? I thought to myself. I just wish I had friends to hang out with. I was about a third of the way through my month in Sorrento. What could be so difficult about living in Italy for a month?

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I took my Rhode Island friends to Buon Convento for dinner. They loved the place. Afterward I had to leavethe school was having a wine-tasting at one of the restaurants that I didnt want to miss. I knew absolutely nothing about wine except that I had decidedly been enjoying my nightly liter of vino di casa with dinner. I hate it here. Kate was a young, plump woman clearly seeking some companionship. She wasnt all that attractive either. Ive been in Sorrento since last October, she continued. The weather until recently sucked. The Italian guys dont want anything to do with me. I wish I could go home. Yikes! I was thinking, I dont want anything to do with you either. I was really enjoying the wine, however. Not that I was learning anything, but after a few glasses Im usually good to go and Im guaranteed to have a good time. The Japanese girl from my class was much more fun. Inga was with her Italian boyfriend, which I think made Kate even more depressed. I tried to make conversation with the boyfriend; Inga didnt include him when she talked with us. Kate was twenty-three, carried a few pounds too many for the young Italian guys. In Italy, the extra pounds were allowed only once you got married and had one kid. Absolutely all of the unmarried Italian girls were model thin. Kate didnt stand a chance. After that night if I passed Kate on the street, she barely acknowledged my greetings. Other than that incident, I had a great time at the wine-tasting. Basically, I just got drunk and listened to the complaining. What were my alternatives? Usually I went home after dinner, read and studied a little,

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and went to bed. Kate provided a little entertainment, and I promised myself I would never spend a winter in Sorrento.

My Italian classes were going well. After two weeks I could speak well enough to ask for most of the things I wanted at restaurants and stores. I made a few more friends at the school. Sigi, a thirty-year-old German woman from Bavaria, and Elizabeth, an Austrian about my age, invited me to come with them to Mount Vesuvius on Saturday. Yes, anything to keep me from being alone, I thought. We took the train into Ercolano, where the archeological site work is still going on. At the train station we were greeted with an offer of a bus ride to the top of Mount Vesuvius, which we took. Views of the valley below and Naples made the ride enjoyable. We were taken three-quarters of the way up the volcano, and left to walk the rest of the way up a gravel pathway. The air was cold and damp, and clouds threatened to enclose us, but we reached the summit without too much difficulty and were able to look down into the crater. I thought it would be a lot more interesting than this. I said to the girls. Sigi leaned over and sighed, Its just rock and dirt. There was a sense of danger there on Vesuvius, but mostly of something that was dead. In fact, that was the entire atmosphere of the volcano everything up there was dead. Elizabeth was quiet and matter-of-factly just nodded in response to everything. We ate some fruit and left.

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Saturday night and Buon Convento was crowded. I took Sigi and Elizabeth there with me. Pietro was singing and he had help that night an older man dressed with a scarf around his neck to make him look moremusical, I suppose. The two were strolling from table to table. When they got to ours I told Pietro that Sigi was a trained opera singer. Si? You must sing with us. What do you know? Sigi looked at me as if to say, Did you have to? But she was smiling and I could tell she wanted to sing. The older man was at the table talking to her and they agreed upon a song. It was a moment in my life that I will never forget. Her voice was powerful and childlike at the same time. Her expression was shy but determined. The entire trattoria, customers and staff, gave her their full attention. Francesco, do you realize what a fortunate man you are? the voice somewhere between my head and heart asked me. You are thousands of miles from home. You have journeyed to the land of your ancestors. A stranger in a not-so-strange land, yet you find love and joy all around you. Let this moment carry you when loneliness creeps back into your life. The song reached its climax. The older singer was playing the part to the hilt and loving every minute of the attention, but the attention was on Sigi, who was sitting at the table with us. If pure innocence of soul and the power of song could merge, I was sure this is the form they would take. I was grateful to have a front-row seat at such a performance. Then the song was over and the restaurant erupted in applause. Sigi was beaming and relieved. It was a moment of triumph and joy seen so rarely that it could never be forgotten. Francesco, where did you find this woman? Pietro asked playfully. Sigi looked for her bread. Elizabeth was congratulating her. All eyes

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were still on Sigi as she tried to hide, but this was her moment. Pietro, I didnt think you could sing that well. Thank you so much! After dinner I walked the women to their side of town. We stopped on the bridge that crosses a deep gorge near the city center. There was a full moon over the clear April sky, and the light cast shadows on the abandoned monastery below. We were so high above it, and even with the railing that allows us to lean over, I was a bit nervous. At the same time, the scene was magical. Was it the damp air that made me shiver or the fear of falling?

The train wasnt all that crowded. It was early Sunday morning and we were on our way to Calabria. Monday would be a holiday in Italy and I asked the girls if they wanted to come with me to try and find my relatives in Acri. I had a step-grandmother and an aunt who was younger than me living there. In my grandfathers old age, he left America for the old country and married an eighteen-year-old girl; they subsequently had a child. I met them ten years ago on a previous trip. Now that my Italian was better I wanted to see them again. Elizabeth spoke up. Were going to go with you as far as Cosenza, and then take the train to Paola and stay at the beach there. I thought she was kidding when she said that, so I just smiled. But then I realized she was serious. We were going to have an adventure together, and now our plans had suddenly changed. We were now on the train to Naples, after which well take the high speed to Cosenza, and then well go our separate ways. I was seriously disappointed, but I tried to hide it.

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The train pulled into Naples and we ran to find our connection. Track 18, but it doesnt leave until two oclock. Now I was considering not even going. We wont get to Cosenza till dinner time, I said. What else can we do? I thought to myself, I can go home, thats what I can do. I left late this morning because of them, and now theyre not even coming with me. I would be getting into Acri, where my relatives lived, late at night, then Id have to find a place to stay, and then Id have to leave early the next morning to get back for school the following day. This was not going well. I think Im going to go back to Sorrento. Ill get in too late tonight for me to find any of my relatives. I might as well just go home. I was hoping theyd at least ask me to come with them. Paola was closer than Acri and going to the beach wasnt a bad idea. They just looked at me. I walked around a little, looked at the train, and said goodbye. What were you expecting, Frank, I said to myself, Some kind of romantic trip with two unknown women? No, but I thought it would be fun, us traveling together and finding my family. I just didnt want to go alone. These European girls are really hard to figure outnot at all like American women. When they travel, they travel, and its all about travel. I was depressed. Now I was in disgusting Naples again, my travel plans ruined, and a whole day to myself with nothing to do. Another day by myself. What the hell. I decided to walk around Naples on my own. It didnt look any better than it had a couple of weeks ago, even on a Sunday with the sun shining. The streets were still dirty, but the people

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at least looked a little nicer. They were still not friendly like those in Sorrento, however. I checked out a large open market where vendors were selling cheap merchandise. Then I walked down a residential streetboring. Ill head back, I thought, and go for a run. That night I got drunk on grappa with Francesco and wrote in my journal: Its not easy being me. I have too many options and I keep trying them all in an attempt, a futile attempt, to find happiness. Of course, it cant be found, it can only be given. You can give happiness, but you cannot take it. Surrender is still the only path, the only way. I live in a fantasy world, dreaming up ways to find what Im still looking for. Every time I find it I change my mind and want something else. Why cant I just let life teach me? I was ready to come home. One minute there was ecstasy, the next minute I was utterly bored and miserable. It was a good thing I brought books to read. I was halfway through my Italian adventure. Two more weeks to go: I can do this.

Monday morning I awoke and reminded myself that I was supposed to be here. I would let go of my loneliness and try to enjoy living in Italy. I had to do this. I had to let go of the sadness. This was crazy I was in Italy!! The following morning I was meditating when I had the thought, Surrender is not just a negative, it is a surrender to something, something more beautiful and grand than we could ever imagine or create or manufacture. I realized that I had been trying to surrender and let go, but without replacing it with something, without replacing the

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wanting. I have desires and try to let go of them, but I do not look beyond them to the wonder of the moment, the present beauty of life! I could surrender to the present moment and receive the gifts that surrender brings.

It must have been the gift of surrender, because that afternoon I discovered Marina Grande. By walking down what looked like a dead-end, narrow street and descending all the way down to the sea I found the little fishing village where Sorrento was originally settled. Upon first setting sight on the boats and marina my heart jumped a little. Yes! This was the refuge Id been seekingthe peace and the pleasure of being so close to water, fishermen, and their vessels. From the moment I set foot in Marina Grande everything changed. Often I struggle to understand what it is in life that makes me happy. Where is my passion? What is it that I am truly looking for when I travel? The answer came to me sitting on the dock watching as fishermen unloaded their catch. I love being around boats, water, sand. I love the smell of low tide, dead fish, and seaweed. My soul finds rest in the gentle boundary between land and seathe intertidal zone. In Marina Grande I had found my home in Sorrento.

I went into the bakery every day for my fresh whole wheat bread. And almost every day Rosaria waited on me. I looked forward to my Ciao, Francesco! She told me that her husband had been killed in a motorcycle

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accident several years ago and that her youngest son died of cancer. The love of her life was her remaining son. She worked two jobs and didnt have much of a life outside of work. Would you like to go out with me Friday night? I asked her in my best Italian. Rosaria looked confused at first, then she brushed her hair back from her face and began to blush. The other woman who worked with her understood and smiled, waiting for her answer. I stood there feeling like an idiot. Oh, I dont know, she said, but she smiled and looked excited. I took this as encouragement. Rosaria was not going to be the love of my life, but I thought it would be a lot of fun to go on a date with a real Italian girl. We could just go to dinner or something. Rosaria looked at the other woman for approval and appeared to get plenty of it. Okay, she says, seemingly relieved and surprised at herself at the same time. What time? How about seven oclock? Ill meet you in Piazza Tasso, under the clock. Okay, she said, still embarrassed. Okay. I was as embarrassed as she was, and as excited. See you then.

I was feeling a bit burned out from all the classes and studying. While I had begun to feel more at home in Sorrento, the class work was losing its thrill. Fortunately, Rosa and Luana were great teachers and my

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classmates were good people. Rosa made plans to take us on a bus trip to Positano, where we would get to see the Amalfi coast. Our departure was held up while a bicycle race sped through town. Then, as the bus wound its way along the cliffs, all of us took delight in seeing the water from up high while at the same time feeling scared that we would go over. Rosa assured me that buses seldom crash. The city was built completely on a mountainside. We were let off at the top and had to walk all the way down to the sea. The beach was absolutely ugly. There were far too many people and it wasnt even high season yet. Even though the views were breathtaking, they did nothing for me. What really made the afternoon were the conversations with Rosa. She continually talked to me in Italian and I learned a lot of new words while having fun at the same time. The bus was full on the way back and we were several of the last ones getting on, which meant we had to stand in the aisle. I felt safer there anyway.

The third week of school ended and I was sad and bored. By Friday I was just so tired of studying Italian that I wanted to go homeagain. One more week to go. In my journal I wrote: I have to learn this lesson: happiness cannot be attained through direct effort, peace must be found within first. I had my date that evening with Rosaria, but first I stop over to see Francesco. He wants to meet her. I told him we were going to Buon Convento for dinner and we would stop by on our way there. He was more excited than I was.

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She was a half hour late. Rosaria had thought I meant to meet under the clock on Corso Italia and she had waited for me there. She pulled up in a car that most likely would not have been allowed on the roads in America. I didnt think Id ever seen an automobile this banged up and still running. Ciao, Francesco! Ciao, Rosaria! Please, get in. There was not a part of that car that was not scratched, dented, or missing. She parked at the bus stop so we had to move, but the car wouldnt start and she swore something in Italian that I havent yet learned. Ill call my sister to come and jump-start the car. We waited beside the car. It was Friday night in Sorrento, we were in Piazza Tasso, the center of town, and the energy of the place and people permeated everything. Rosarias long dark hair was down and she was dressed casually, but quite well. We made small talk for a while. I learned more about her life. She lived in her own apartment; her mother watched the child while she worked. The car was used only for special occasions; she drove a scooter to work every day. Rosarias sister arrived and we got the car started. I pointed the way to Buon Convento and she parked on the street. I just hoped the car would start later on. We walked into the trattoria and Natali gave us a warm welcome. I asked for a table more toward the back instead of my usual one. Caterina brought us bread and wine. Our dinner was fine, and the conversation went well. Rosaria knew more English than Id realized. I got to practice my Italian. Despite her attractiveness, I kept in mind that she was much younger than I was and

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that I needed to keep this on a Platonic level. We both enjoyed learning more about the lives we lived in our respective countries. Do you want to go for a walk? I asked after wed finished. Sure, where to? How about Marina Grande? We walked down the steep path to the village and enjoyed the warm air, then Rosaria suggested we drive to Marina Piccolo on the other side of town. That meant another trip in her car. This time it started and we went on our way. We walked around a bit more and then drove off again. Now we were heading toward Sant Agnello, where she lives. I thought she was going to take me home with her. It was already near midnight. What was she planning here? It turned out she was planning on getting some gas and dropping me off back in Piazza Tasso. She gave me the big Italian kiss on both cheeks and flew home. I stood for a bit in the square wondering what that had all been about. It was a very strange ending to a very interesting evening. Women can be so beautiful, and so dangerous, I thought as I walked back to my apartment along the crowded streets filled with young people in love and looking for love late on a Friday night. Its too late for an ice creamI should just go to bed, another familiar voice in my head considered.

I decided to try another restaurant tonight. It was Saturday and I needed a break from Buon Convento; besides it would be crowded because of the weekend. I wanted some peace and quiet now. Eating outside would be nice, so I walked down to Marina Grande. If I hurried I could

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make it before sunset. At the bottom of the landing into the village was a small trattoria with a deck on the water. That was where I decided to eat. Yes, Id love some vino di casa, I told the waiter. Im in the mood for the mood that wine will put me in. And some bread, too. Per favore. Waves from the sea were crashing within feet of my table. I looked across the bay and saw Vesuvius slowly turning purple as the darkness descended. The lights in Naples were coming on and a slight chill was in the air. I cherished this moment by the sea. French vacationers were sitting at the table next to me, English were one table over. I thought I heard German being spoken nearby to my left, and I knew there were Americans there too. Considering that Italians ran the little restaurant, we could have acted out World War II just for the fun of it. That was a weird thought to have in the midst of all the peace and quiet. One thing was for sureI wasnt in Kansas, or Rhode Island, that night. I took a moment to think about my traveling so far this year. The Italians are the best-looking. Im sure I must be biased, but other than the Neapolitans, they are attractive. They are also the most alive and passionate. The Germans definitely travel the most and take the most pictures. The English talk the most and the French look the most arrogant. We Americanswe just look uncivilized.

The sun was so strong that I wasnt sure if I could make the walk back to Sorrento. I couldnt imagine living here in the summer. I decided to walk to Metta. It was the same route that I run every day, but it was my

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last Sunday in Italy and I wanted to take some pictures and buy fruit. By the time I got to the beach at Metta my feet had blisters and I was having trouble walking. I took the bus back. After three weeks, I was doing my best to make Sorrento feel like home, and for the most part, it worked. I tried to keep busy with reading in the park, my studies, strolling the streets people watching, eating gelato. My last weekend here was almost over. I had only five more days of school to get through and I would be going home. My friend Francesco had been very talkative throughout the week, and very possessive. Every day he pressured me to come by and sit with him. While I enjoyed our times together, sometimes I just didnt know what to talk aboutId used up all my Italian words with him. When his friends dropped by he introduced me with pride as his buon Americano amico. I would have liked to see some of my American friends at that moment.

On Tuesday I met up with Ciro, my Italian running friend. We were joined by another runner. We had a great time; by now I could converse with him much better than I could in the beginning. My days were dwindling and I was ready to go home. Id hit a plateau and was feeling as though I wasnt learning much anymore, everything seemed repetitive. I think three weeks of school would have been enough; I could have used a week to travel a bit. By Wednesday I was dying to get home; I was practically counting the hours. I was bored and tired of the same old thing. I wanted out of there. I didnt recall the last week in Mexico being so bad, but then I had Elvira and Renata to play with. I was even tired of my daily trip to the ice

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cream parlor. Life was just life wherever you were. I am sad, however, that my nights at Buon Convento were coming to an end. Dinner there on Thursday night felt ineffably sad. It was the last time that I would see Pietro and hear his Italian love songs. That had been the best part of my Italian trip and it had all happened by chance. But then I thought, Nothing happens by chance. Love comes when and where it will. When I asked for my check, Natalie came back and said dinner tonight was on the house. It was their way of saying thanks. I was deeply touched and appreciative.

I finished my last class on Fridayyeah! I was going home the next day.

Ive been home for a couple of days now. I feel rested and ready to enjoy springtime in New England. What did I learn from my trip to Italy? I learned that four weeks is too long to be away alone. I learned not to go to Europe until the end of April when the rain stops and the temperatures rise, but to get there before the summer onslaught of tourists. I also realize that anything good that happens to us comes our way not by our own effortswe cant make it happenbut by an unseen universal force. I learned that if I am going to be away from home Id rather be around beaches, boats, sand, and sun. And finallyI learned that there is no place like home. So, when is my next trip?

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Chapter Four

Ecuador:
Want to See the Beaches?
If one desires to discover new lands, one must consent to stay away for a very long time at sea.
Andre Gide

Could I see a menu, please? The waiter gave me a blank look. Una carta, por favor. Still no sign of life. Hamburgesa? No hamburgesa, solo pollo. He looks over to the other customers. I follow his eyes. Chicken, rice, more chicken, more rice. Wait I see some french fries. Papas fritas? Si. I finally connect. Okay, pollo, arroz, papas fritas, and a coke. I have to ask myself why had I wanted to come here. Now, within hours of arriving in Manta, I can think only of how many days left before I can go home. This seemed like Florence all over again. I thought I had prepared myself well. Low expectations, plenty of books to read, lots of writing I can do. Ill do some writing all right. Ive got tiny bugs, hormigas, crawling all

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over my notebooks, not to mention my toothbrush, clothes, and pillow. They had even infested the sealed bag of granola Id smuggled into the country. To learn Spanish. Yes, that is why I came to Ecuador. But why did I want to learn Spanish in the first place? To experience other cultures, to get to know people who live lives much different from my own. Thats funnyI feel invisible at best and an unwelcome oddity at worst. Do they really want me here? Im sure they like the money being spent, but what about me? Perhaps it would be better to simply mail the donations with a nice letter.

My trip to South America began early in January with a few days in the capital of Ecuador. I arrived at midnight in Quito and my hostel family greeted me at the airport as planned. We had exchanged several e-mails and I knew they would be wonderful. Rocio, the mother, greeted me first with a big hug and kiss. Then daughter Cintia gave me another hug. I got a warm handshake from dad Marcello. Quito is nearly ten-thousand feet above sea level, nestled in a valley in the Andes mountains just south of the equator. The climate is advertised as beautiful spring-like weather year round. The only problem is that spring is usually cold and damp where I come from, and so it is here. I shivered under four heavy alpaca blankets the first night. Ecuadorian homes have no heat; nor do they have running hot water. Their showers have an electric element attached to the head and if you run the water slow enough it does come out warm. At such a high altitude the air is quite thin. I had been warned about

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altitude sickness in the literature, but I thought that my good health would spare me. Instead, I barely slept at night. Every hour I awoke, my body craving more oxygen. I found myself every few minutes taking several deep breaths trying to get more air into my lungs. It is an odd feeling not like suffocating, but a little panicky. For some reason the altitude made me have to pee every two hours at night. In the three days I spent in Quito, my body could not accustom itself to the lack of oxygen. The high altitude is not the only concern in coming to Ecuador. Yellow fever, malaria, typhoidall require their shots or pills. My doctor insisted on flu and tetanus shots too. The US consulate had also prepared me for a country much more dangerous than mine. Travel at night should only be done in taxis and one must constantly beware of the pickpockets. Overnight buses tended to be robbed by armed bandits. And above all, one must avoid all insect bites, especially sand flies that carry leishmaniasis, whatever that is. I want to go home! I hate this place! My first day in Ecuador. Dragging my oxygen-deprived body out of the house, I made an attempt to explore Quito. Every street either went up or down. Several hours later and I wanted to die. I was exhausted and frustrated. Old buildings and churches no longer excite me. They all look alike as far as Im concerned. Finally, early in the afternoon, I decided to take a taxi to Mitad del Mundo, where I could stand on the equator. I had the thought to test my hypothesis that on the equator draining water does not swirl but empties straight down into the pipes, but my oxygen-depleted brain forgot to check this out. I did use a bathroom on the equator, but never watched to see which way the water went. I lasted three days in Quito. I was not sure if the sick feeling I had

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was from a lingering cold Id brought from home or if the altitude was to blame, but I struggled the whole time I was there. The best part of my time here was talking to Rocio. She apparently didnt work much; she was often at home and enjoyed talking with me. My brain became almost as tired as my body, trying to translate so many words. I left Quito on another cold and cloudy day. One thing struck me people are the same everywhere. My hostel family could have been any middle-class American family. Quito could have been New York City. Life is the same here as in America, except for the lack of running hot water. One thing they have here that I will miss is the chicharrones; similar to Louisianas cracklins, they are fried pig fat and skins. Rocio made them for me as part of a going-away lunch.

I left Quito for Spanish lessons in Manta. The owner of the language school, which I will be attending for the next three weeks, greeted me at the airport. He picked me up in a new SUV and we stopped by his condo to get keys to my apartment. He lives in a new gated community, protected by guards and walls. When we arrived at his home, he offered to show me the inside. It was similar to most three-bedroom condos in America except that it had an extra room for the maid. I had to ask him again to be sure Id heard him correctlyyes, they all had servants here. I thought this was a third-world country. Back in town, we found the building that housed the school and student apartments. It takes five keys before we eventually got into my room. Why were there so many locks? Why the bars on all the windows? I felt as if I was entering a prison. The apartment was stark; the lights

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were bare bulbs hanging from the ceiling. The tiled floors were dark brown from dirt. My bedroom had no widow. No lamps were to be seen anywhere. I nearly electrocuted myself in the shower. There was a short somewhere in the hanging wires, and when I turned the water off I got a wicked shock. I wanted to go homeI got that familiar panicky feeling. How would I last three weeks there? I reminded myself that I was there to learn Spanish. Then I had to remind myself why the hell I wanted to learn Spanish in the first place. It was Saturday night and I left my prison to go out for dinner: Okay, pollo, arroz, papas fritas, and a coke. The whole meal costs me $2.40. (Ecuador uses the US dollar for its currency.) That makes things a little easier to take. The sickness that I had in Quito is gone. Maybe things will be better tomorrow.

The freaking bugs were everywhere. They were as small as pinheads and moved in random directions as if they were crazy. I sprayed the table, dresser, and sink with Deet. I brought it to keep the mosquitoes away; apparently it works just as well on these things. My panic has dissipatedmaybe I can last this thing out. I brushed the bugs off the toilet seat, grateful that at least they hadnt gotten into my walnuts. It was Sunday and I still had a day before classes began, so I decided to go to the beach. But life in Manta refused to improve. The waves were too large to go swimming. The wind blew sand so strongly across the beach that it made lying on a blanket impossible. I decided to stay in Manta for one week and then leave.

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The school week started with my surfing lesson at 6:30 a.m. I was nervousI was too old to be doing this. The water would be cold. Actually, the lesson went wellI didnt get up on the board, but I did have fun trying. And the water was warm. Classes began soon after I showered and had breakfast. At least now I had something to do. But my apartment was chokingly hot with no ventilation. The school had arranged for me to catch a boat tour of the Galapagos Islands the following Thursday, and I planned to use this as an excuse for an early getaway. For the first time in my life, I used an ATM machine. There was something enchanting about learning Spanish in a third-world country. But that was about it. I wanted some camaraderie, but there was only one other student in the school. Other than the four hours of class, I was utterly alone in Manta. Not exactly what I had been hoping for. Anyway, I planned to leave on Wednesday, stay overnight in Guayaquil, then catch the flight to Galapagos. I pass the rest of my time in Manta uneventfully, taking classes and eating chicken.

A four-hour bus trip got me to Guayaquil by early evening. I was overjoyed to be in a hotel with running hot water and air conditioning. I immediately felt the energy of Ecuadors second-largest city. The riverfront, called Malecon, is a pedestrian walkway more modern and attractive than any I have seen in America. I got lost in its beauty.

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On the streets, local vendors besieged me. Louis was one of them, but was willing to settle for just practicing his English on me. I was happy to obligeI could practice my Spanish in return. He gave me a tour of his part of the city and I offered to take him to lunch. He led me to a hidden second-floor restaurant that tourists would never find. We had a typical Ecuadorian lunch and I paid the owner$3.60 for both of us. We agreed to meet after dinner, when Louis would show me the nightlife in Guayaquil. After dinner Louis showed up at my hotel. You want to see the beaches? Arent they a long drive from here? I asked Louis. No, a half hour at most. Maybe twenty minutes. I was skeptical, but we were in a taxi and the driver assured us that they werent very far. I was certain my Lonely Planet guidebook had said the coast was at least two hours away. Twenty minutes later, the taxi stopped in a seedy part of town, and I was sure that I was in for trouble. Then I looked up and saw the sign we had arrived at a strip club. Louis was not intent on taking me to see the beachesrather, it was the bitches! I didnt want to insult him or appear stupid, so I pretended to know what hed meant all along. I paid the fifty-cent cover for both of us and tried not to look too uncomfortable. A naked woman finished up her routine and I gawked at the eighteen- year-old girls lining the walls, all dressed in nighties. I tried not to look at the pornographic movie being shown on a large overhead screen. Lets get a beer. The hall was filled with men looking as though they hadnt changed clothes or shaved in weeks. Surprisingly, they didnt

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appear all that interested in sex. Most were drinking beer and talking to one another. I paid $1.20 for two beers and we got a table. I met a really nice girl here two weeks ago, Louis informed me. I just smiled. How nice could she be? And what kind of nice was he referring to? For $7 you can have sex with any of those girls, he said, pointing over toward the wall. Every ten feet or so there was a door, where I assumed there were private rooms. Anal sex costs more. I looked over at the girls, and then at the filthy men. If I were ever going to harbor a thought about being with a prostitute, it was not going to happen here. I see, I told Louis. I think Ill pass tonight. Im a bit tired from all the traveling. How about if we head back into town and you show me the discos? We finished our beers and left. The taxi dropped us off at the riverfront, where we found a little bar and had another couple of beers. Later Louis took me to a few places that he tried to convince me were discos, but when I looked inside they were nothing more than expensive strip clubs. I refused to pay the $20 cover charge and called it a night. Louis told me it was too late for him to take a bus home and that he needed $5 to get a taxi. I realized I had been scammed. This wasnt about two guys going out for the night. I pulled a dollar in change out of my pocket and said goodbye.

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Chapter Five

Ecuador:
The Galapagos Islands
The winds of Gods grace are always blowing, but you must raise your sail.
Sri Ramakrishna

I planned the trip to the Galapagos Islands as a lesson in natural history. Like no other place on the planet, it was possible to see evolution in action; unspoiled landscapes populated with plants, animals, and marine life not seen anywhere else in the world. The language school where I was supposed to stay for three weeks made all the arrangements. From Guayaquil I flew the six hundred miles to the archipelago. Of course, I would continue studying my Spanish while on the islands and hopefully practice on the crew members. Champion, the tour guide for the trip, met me at the airport on Isla Baltra. I would share a sixty-foot trawler-style boat with fifteen other passengers and a crew of seven. We boarded a bus and soon arrived at a dock where a large inflatable dingy waited to shuttle us off to our home for the next week, the Darwin.

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Already on board were five oceanography students from California, an older German couple, two teenaged girls from England, three Australian girls of Indonesian decent, two gay guys also from California, and Joep, from Holland, who will be my roommate. We had lunch while the boat took us to our first landing, a beach on Santa Cruz Island. My first guided tour. Im not sure what I expected, but little red sally lightfoot crabs, being the guests of honor, were not all that exciting. I became a bit frustrated because Champion had a way of drawing out explanations of what we were seeing as if he were competing in a high school speaking contest. We did manage to see a couple of sea turtles cruising the shore just outside the softly breaking waves, killing time until darkness would allow them to waddle toward the dunes and lay their eggs.

I awoke Friday morning to the soft sounds of the Darwin being cradled upon gentle waves just off Plaza Sur Island. Lying in bed, I thought to myself againwhy do I travel? I could study Spanish at home. It is not for fun, even if it appears that way. Most of the time this is anything but a vacation. Again I reached the conclusion that it was for the experience. Not the experience of travel, but the experience of more life. Kurt Vonnegut said that the primary benefit of practicing any art is that it enables ones soul to grow. I hoped for this effect as I practiced the art of travel. Or was I just rationalizing my wanderlust as a vague need for more out of life? I dont know. If I had stayed home, what would I be doing? I would never meet so many diverse and interesting people, people who tell me

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things, teach me things, expand my life. Traveling makes me think, gives me more time to think. My cabin was about eight feet long by five feet wide. Joep slept in the upper bunk. I was amazed at how easy it is to live in such a small place, even with another person. I heard sea lions calling and a new landscape to explore beckoned us. I was thrilled to be at sea. I loved the sounds of the wind, the waves, the seagulls. This is where I felt the happiest. We snorkeled off the beach. Sea lions swam right up to us. One made right for my face, diving underneath me at the last moment. Another tickled the feet of one of the English girls. Later we walked the island, encountering various land and sea iguanas. Snorkeling off Santa Fe Island, I saw a small ray and then a large one, a few lumbering sea turtles, and a pair of white-tipped reef sharks. Champion told us that no one has ever been eaten by a reef shark; I took him at his word and looked for more. Our first full day on board ended with pleasant exhaustion. The Darwin quietly headed out into the dark, guided by GPS, to our next destination. I was happy to be in the company of so many adventurous people. I loved the camaraderie that had begun to develop. I loved the extended conversations with my mates from around the world. Okay, I had to admit, this did feel like a vacation. At last. Between meals and hikes and snorkeling I studied my Spanish. I had my Manual de Gramatica, by Dozier and Iguina, the absolute best textbook on Spanish grammar. I had my flash cards. And I had my electronic dictionary, so much faster than any bound book. My studies filled in the few times of respite we were allowed on board during the day. Breakfast was usually at 7 a.m. As soon as wed finished, we were off

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for the days exploration. We hiked in the morning and snorkeled in the afternoon when the air had warmed up. On our second day we began our explorations on Isla Espanola, the southernmost island in the archipelago. We landed at Gardner Bay. It is a wet landing, which meant we had to jump off the dingy into the surf. We spent most of the morning at the east end of the island trying to avoid the numerous California sea lions. Before returning to the boat, everyone went for a swim, and some of us snorkeled in the strong current off Turtle Island. After lunch the boat took us to Punta Suarez on the western side of Espanola. The hike inland was one of the best of the entire adventure. The waved albatross has usually left the island by December, but we were fortunate to see the one family still there. Farther on, we happened upon a colony of blue-footed boobies, the fascinating and famous seabirds of Galapagos. Beyond the boobies was a blowhole, carved into the rock cliffs, driving seawater sixty feet into the air. The pace was relentless and by the third day I was beat. But I loved the boat, the air, the water. I was tired and I was happy. Even the food on the boat was satisfying. My roommate took to sleeping on the upper deck under the stars, and I had the cabin to myself. The evening came and I was too tired to study Spanish. I was asleep earlya sound, dreamless, contented sleep.

Sundayday fourfound us anchored off the island of Floreana, officially known as Isla Santa Maria, also known as Charles. All of these islands have more than one name. In the morning we had a wet landing

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on Punta Cormorant, where there are no cormorants but the beach sand is a beautiful green formed from crystals of olivine. We saw more sea lions and iguanas. A short distance from shore a flamingo lagoon lured us to stop and take pictures. Across an isthmus of white sand, we came to another beach where a very latesleeping sea turtle was working her way back to the water. Usually they lay their eggs and are back in the sea before sunrise, but we were fortunate to witness this remarkable journey in daylight. We did not go into the water ourselves there because of the numerous stingrays patrolling the surf. Back at our landing site, we all go snorkeling around Devils Crown, a halfsubmerged volcanic cone. The marine life made for an interesting swim as we tried to avoid the sea lions and sharks. After lunch we made another landing on the island at Post Office Bay. There was a makeshift shack made of driftwood, where past visitors leave postcards and new visitors pick them up and put them in the mail when they fly home. I had none to leave but took several to mail myself. Half a mile behind the post office is a lava tube. Wed brought our flashlights and descended into the cave. Past the narrow entry, the tube opened up to a large underground cave. As we went farther in we hit water, which got deeper the farther we descended. Half of our group went for a swim. Holding my camera, I decided to go only waist deep.

As the evening of our fourth day approached we left Floreana and made our way to the main island of Santa Cruz. On the way there, we observed several large manta rays with spans of over ten feet. Most of

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us took this time to socialize. I craved conversation. More and more I was coming to realize what a social animal I am. I long for intimacy, love, playfulness, sharing adventures with others along the paths of my travels. That night the English girls, Alice and Gemma, were with me on the bow of the Darwin as we watched the horizon and the outline of Santa Cruz take shape before us. They were drinking their tea and we shared crisps. That is what the English call potato chips. I was content just to be on the water, as the boat rolled through waves, the sound of its engine softly droning. When we arrived at Puerto Ayora, we found the harbor to be alive with color; iguanas and sea lions playing throughout the inlet. On Monday morning eleven of our group were leaving. They had signed on for only four days. We would pick up their replacements later in the day. But first we visited the Darwin Research Center to see Lonesome George, the only surviving tortoise of the Isla Pinta subspecies. Researchers were trying to get him to mate with a female of a closely related subspecies, but at well over one hundred years, George didnt seem all that interested. This was the first time wed spent any time in a town since the previous Thursday. I took the opportunity to check my e-mail and call home. We picked up our new passengers, who were decidedly older than the other, mostly college-aged kids. I suspect I was not going to enjoy their companionship as much. Most of them were American Rotarians in Ecuador visiting the poor suburbs of Guayaquil, where they had contributed money for several projects. My new roommate, who appeared to be a used car salesman, was not someone with whom I would care to hang out. During the night we reached Isla Rabida, also known as Jervis, just

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south of the big island of Santiago. The following morning we made a wet landing on a beach of dark red sand. The older group made for painfully slow going as we hiked inland, but a few of us more energetic types went off ahead on our own. More snorkeling and we spotted another reef shark. Later that afternoon we landed on Santiago at Puerto Egas, in James Bay. Mostly we spent the time there in the water exploring the black lava shoreline and playing with fur seals. I spotted a moray eel, which was a little frightening.

One of the best hikes made my last full day on the islands one of the most memorable. On Wednesday we anchored off Isla Bartolome. We made a dry landing and walked the footpath to the top of the islands highest peak. The summit is more than three hundred feet above sea level. The lava landscapes seen from the top appear moonlike. Later we did some more snorkeling and saw penguins for the first time. After lunch we took off for Sombrero Chino, followed by a school of dolphins. I was sunburned red even though I have been covering myself faithfully with sunscreen. I figured I should probably take a break from hiking or doing anything out in the sun for a while. It was likely a good thing the trip was almost over. On the morning we left Galapagos, we stopped for one more hike on Isla Seymour. The main attraction was a colony of frigate birds, but since a number of them had been following the boat from day one and they hardly seemed exotic anymore, I decided to stay on board and study my Spanish.

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That also gave me time to think about some things that had been bothering me. I realized that often I judge people too hastily and decide to dislike them before I even get to know them. A long, philosophical talk with one of the Rotarians made me aware of this. This was a person I had already written off as someone not worth knowing, yet the two of us had a good conversation about life, and by the end of it I could see that, appearances aside, we were very similar in many ways. One of these days I will learn to accept all people just as they are.

I was ready for another adventure. In the air on the return trip to Guayaquil I was feeling a little remorse, having said my goodbyes, but there would be another experience waiting. I thought I would book a flight to Peru or Bolivia.

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Chapter Six

Peru: Machu Picchu


Who comes into a persons life may be the single greatest factor of influence to what that life becomes.
Robert Kegan

Back in Guayaquil I booked a flight to Peru. I had to spend a night in Lima and then catch a very early plane to Cusco, which is the closest city you can fly into near Machu Picchu. For the most part I feel invisible when I travel; people are going about their own business and uninterested in a lone tourist. But standing on a street corner in downtown Guayaquil, a taxi with three girls in the back seat slowed at a red light. The woman in the middle leaned forward and, smiling at me, she puckered her lips. And then they were gone. I didnt feel quite so old or invisible after that. Thank you, whoever you were. At 3 a.m. in Lima, to get to the airport, I shared a taxi with an older woman. It was her taxi, but she offered to share it with me, saying that when we got to Machu Picchu I might be of help to her. I accepted her offer. Lima looked just like the United StatesDunkin Donuts, Blockbuster Video, Kentucky Fried Chicken, even a TGI Fridays. The people look more European than Indian. Not long into the taxi ride the woman began to complain. I discovered

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she was a land developer and contractor, owned homes all over the world, had money to burn, and was completely miserable. She complained that the driver wanted to charge her to see a museum. For some reason, she then expected me to pay for the taxi, and she planned to use that money to visit the museum when she got back. I didnt say anything. She then started arguing with the driver that he had made an agreement with her. Finally I reminded herspeaking of agreements, since she was so keen on keeping themthat we also had an agreement. At that point she became upset, since she had already made a deal with the driver. I really wished the ride to the airport was shorter, but it was quite long. I finally gave in so I wouldnt have to hear her motor mouth anymore and agreed to pay the taxi. Why are the wealthiest people often so miserable?

I arrived in Cusco early Sunday morning. Flights in and out were only in the early morning when there was less wind and the air was cooler. The city was situated high in the Andes and the altitude made for poor take-off performance with these large jets. I was glad to have safely landed, although I was already worried about leaving, which would be more dangerous. A taxi took me to my hostel, I checked in, and decided to explore. The weather was cold and rainy. The high altitude again made it difficult to breathe. There wasnt much to do, so I bought some fruit for breakfast. Later I found a popcorn vender, which made me very happy. I attempted to nap, but the room was cold, with no heat, and the air was thin. Outside, a casual walk impressed upon me that walls made of large granite blocks dominated the city. No mortar was used; instead they are

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chiseled to fit together perfectly. This was the city of the first Inca ruler and has been called the Archaeological Capital of the Americas. But I would fall in love with Cusco for another reason. The Inca people are extremely beautiful. I found them to be warm and friendly. Numerous times they stopped to talk and give me directions. I got plenty of practice speaking Spanish. A palpable feeling of sacredness permeated the streets. The sheer beauty of the mountains surrounding the city made everything special, despite the rain. That evening I walked down to the Plaza de Armas, the heart of Cusco and the main square. Many locals were enjoying a small break from the rain. I found a comfortable spot to stand in front of the cathedral, and soon I was approached by two young girls, probably each about twelve years old. Would you like to buy our handmade finger puppets? they asked in surprisingly good English. No, no gracias, came my standard reply. Oh, but our mothers made them. Thats nice. The two girls were adorable. We stood and eyed one another warily for some moments and eventually they let me know that they could recite the names of the American presidents in English. I smiled. George Bush, before Bush was Clinton, before Clinton was papa Bush, before papa Bush was Reagan, before Reagan was Carter, before Carter was Ford, before Ford was Nixon, before Nixon was Johnson, before Johnson was Kennedy... They continued on in unison in this fashion until Hoover. Im not sure why they stopped with Hoover. before Roosevelt was Hoover. They paused and then added for good measure, Bush is bad, Clinton is good.

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Fine, fine. Im very impressed. Okay, Ill buy the finger puppets, but not for ten pesos. Ill give you five. Oh no, must be ten. No, thats too much. The girls looked at each other. We will go and discuss this. Stay herewe will come back. I watched as they crossed the street arm in arm. They huddled their heads together. I expected them to go and consult with whomever was giving them the puppets, but they walked down and around, making a large square in front of me. They clearly were having a serious discussion. Then they returned. Okay, well sell them to you for five pesos. I was impressed by their determination, but more so by their friendship. No, Ive decided Ill give you ten. Big smiles. The three of us remained in front of the cathedral for about an hour. They asked questions about my life, and I gave them ideas on how to be better entrepreneurs. I suggested that instead of selling the puppets, they make use of their excellent English and offer guided tours of the plaza or act as interpreters for a small fee. I thought the tourists would appreciate those services more than the puppets. By the time I left them I was feeling somewhat attached. As I walked away I thought of getting their e-mail addresses, but it was too late; they were gone and I needed to get to bed. I planned on leaving early in the morning for Machu Picchu. I hoped I would see them again.

The next morning, attempting to board the train for Machu Picchu without a reservation was crazy. Either the computers were down or their

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system was prehistoric, but either way I nearly didnt get on the train. I arrived at the station at 5:30, thinking I would have plenty of time to get my ticket. I was third in line. The train was leaving at 6 a.m. By that time I was still at the counter. Finally, the man in front of me let me go ahead of him; I just barely got my ticket in time. As the train was leaving Cusco I felt around for my passport, something I was in the habit of doing. It was missing. Panic. At the station I had been talking to a German traveler who, besides English, also spoke Spanish. He told the conductor about my passport plight and radioed back to the station. They said they had found it and would hold it for me till I got back. At least I hoped that they would. The German, Hiener, and I chatted most of the way to Machu Picchu. He was on a four-week vacation in Peru and Bolivia, concluding it with a business meeting in Lima. We arrived in Aguas Calientes after four hours; this is the small town at the base of the mountain upon which Machu Picchu sits. We got rooms in a nearby hostel and decided to hike the mountain rather than take the bus. According to my Lonely Planet guidebook, the bus takes twenty minutes and the walk takes an hour. What it doesnt reveal is that the walk is a hike straight uphill. The hour was probably measured walking down the mountain, not ascending it. Hiking up to Machu Picchu was the most strenuous thing I have ever done. It must have been the equivalent of walking up the steps of the Empire State Building. Making everything even more difficult was the lack of oxygen in the thin mountain air. It took about two hours and I was completely covered in sweat by the time we reached the lost city. The views of the city and the mountain were naturally beautiful. Exactly like the pictures I had seen. To be on the mountain is a stunning

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experience. Cliffs and steep drops everywhere provide for a fascinating vista. One walks and comes to the end of a row where they planted crops, and without warning it ends and one is gazing down a three-thousand-foot cliff. Nothing there to stop someone from just going over. I sat down by myself to see if I could experience anything spiritual after all, this is supposed to be one of the most sacred sites in the new age. I closed my eyes, paid attention to my breath, but there was nothing absolutely nothing. This cant be, I thought. I came all this way to experience the magic and mystery of Machu Picchu. At that moment, the only thing that came to my mind was that someone had done an awfully good job of selling this place. It was beautiful, and as an archeological site it clearly had tremendous appeal, but spiritually, it had nothing going for it. Then I thought, If this place is so special, why did the Incas leave it after only a hundred years? Anyhow, I loved the views of the mountain peaks surrounding the city. The mountains here have a look all their own, unique from any other Ive seen. Fortunately, I got some good pictures; the following day would not be so nice. I took the bus down the mountain, back to Aguas Calientes, and spent the rest of the day resting. The following morning I took the first bus back up at 5:30 with a few other people, all hoping to see the sunrise. However, it was rainy season and we saw nothing but clouds and mist. I waited up there and chatted with a young English girl who had been teaching in Buenos Aires. Finally, after four hours, I gave up and went back into town.

Back in Cusco, with Heiners help, I reclaimed my passport. The

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weather turned colder and continued to rain throughout most of the day. I studied my Spanish infrequently; the hostel was too cold and damp to sit there and read. Mostly I walked around the city. I considered going to Bolivia and Lake Titicaca, but Id been told that it was even colder there. In frustration, I took a taxi to the airport to try to change my flight tickets. They told me I had to go to a travel agency in town. While there I stopped to get some cash at an ATM machine. I left and got into a taxi. As we were leaving, one of the airport police walked toward us and signaled us to stop. I thought to myself, now what? He asked me if my name was Frank. How did he know my name? Yes. I believe this is your credit card. And he held it up for me to see. Oh my God. Thank you. Thank you. I could not believe that I had forgotten it in the machine; even more astonishing was that this man had seen me do it and brought it out to me. Later, I regretted being so excited about getting my card back that I forgot to give him some money as a reward. I can scarcely believe how honest and helpful the Peruvian people are. At the travel agency, I changed my departure date to return to Ecuador in two days. There was nothing for me to do now but walk around the city and avoid all the street vendors, one of whom wanted to trade me a small guitar for my sneakers. If Id had another pair of shoes I would have. Back at the Plaza de Armas I ran into Graciela and Marina, my finger-puppet friends. I told them about Machu Picchu and asked how business was going. I suppose they hadnt liked my idea of them becoming guides and interpreters because they were still selling their wares. And no, I didnt need any more. Being summer in South America, it was school

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vacation for the girls, so they spent their days and nights working the Plaza. I asked them if they wanted to have lunch together tomorrow; it turned out they had never been to a restaurant before. So, my last day in Cusco I spent mostly with those two charming local girls. We ate at a lovely place overlooking the Plaza. They ordered hamburgers and french fries. We all had cake for dessert. They ate most of my lunch as well I had ordered chicharones, but there was too much fat on them for me. After lunch I went back to the hostel for a nap. I had seen a sign for massages, only $20, so I went for one after resting up. Emerging from of the building, a Peruvian woman about my age with extraordinarily green eyes smiled at me and then said hi. I returned the greeting and we struck up a conversation. While we were talking in the street, Graciela and Marina found me again. Then their sisters, who were also best friends, joined us. In the end, the Peruvian woman asked me for a loan so she could come to America and, with my assistance, hopefully find a job. I liked her, but I didnt like her that much. The girls asked to see my hostel, so off we went. Then they wanted to see my room. I opened the door and let them rush in and sit on the bed. I stayed outside. I did not want anyone to see me with two underaged girls in my bedroom. I dont think they understood the implications; they were just having a ball. While we walked back to the Plaza, I told them I would be leaving in the morning. I exchanged addresses and e-mails and promised to write. I said I would be taking a taxi at 6 a.m. Just before I went to bed, a knock sounded on my door. The girls were back. We hugged again. Then they gave me presentsthe only thing they could give memore finger puppets. The following morning they were both at my door when I left the

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hostel. I asked them if they wanted to ride with me to the airport, which they happily did. At customs we said our goodbyes. We hugged and shed tears. As I walked to my gate I had to fight back a flood of emotions. I would have taken them home with me if I could have right then and there, no questions asked. I knew I would see them again and was determined to help them out with their schooling and other ways that might present themselves. Since then we have communicated regularly by e-mail. As well, I have contacted the woman who owns the hostel where I stayed, and she has offered to help me get money to them.

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Chapter Seven

Ecuador: Surfing Montanita


If everything were to turn out just like I would want it to, just like I would plan for it to, then I would never experience anything new: my life would be an endless repetition of stale successes.
Hugh Prather

I flew back to Ecuador and took a bus directly to Montanita. Elvira, my friend from Switzerland, had told me that Montanita was the most fun place she had visited in all of her South American travels. I had to see it. It was on the beach and was known for its excellent surfing. The bus ride took four hours and was brutal. There were several connections that I missed, but somehow managed to find the right one at some point. I thought Id read that the bus system in South America was supposed to be new and comfortable. I was completely wrong: it was dirty, rundown, hot, and crowded. I had no reservations when I got to Montanita. And I had no plan. I figured I would take a taxi into town and find a hostel, only to discover that there were no taxis. I dragged my luggage over the dirt roads. Only

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the main road was paved, but it too was mostly covered with dirt and water from recent downpours. Fortunately, I didnt have to walk too far to find the main drag. There, much to my relief, I found numerous hostels so I walked into one that looked decent and got a room for $8 a night. I was quite happy with it until I realized that the only window and source of air faced the main street and it was loud and noisy. The room was stiflingly hot and humid and small. But it did have a private bathroom. After a sweaty unpacking session, I took a walk down the beach as the day was making way for night. In about fifteen minutes I reached the point break where the surfing is best and you cant walk any farther. There, facing the water, was a resort with a good number of units close to the beach. They looked expensive, but knowing that the dollar went a long way in South America, I decided to check them out. The young man working the desk told me they were $30 a night. If I stayed a week there would be no tax. Ill take a room, and Ill be here for two weeks, I told him. This place was so much better than my room in town, and for $20 more a night I could thoroughly enjoy my stay. I walked back to the hostel, repacked my things, and moved into the resort. The beach bar was nearly deserted that night; I sat down for a beer anyway. Victoria, a young Argentine traveling for a few years, was serving drinks. She was making enough to get her through a few more months. The hours were long, the pay minimum, but the housing was free. Another Argentine woman was sitting at the bar. An hour later, the three of us were relaxing in the resort swimming pool and I was thinking that this place was great.

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Were going to go into town to eat and party. Come with us, Victoria said amiably. It was about ten oclock and I had been traveling since six this morning. Okay. Im going to take a nap and hopefully Ill see you later. I fell asleep and woke up at 1 a.m. What the heck, they were kids, the party had probably just started. I put my clothes back on and walked into town. Sure enough, the two women were just finishing dinner and dragged me along to a club. The town was more alive than in the daytime, barefoot kids everywhere drinking out of forty-ounce bottles of beer. I ordered my own bottle, tried to dance, tried to blend in, tried to make conversation with Victoria, who seemed to be the party queen for the evening, and then got drunk. Three of those big bottles were a bit much for me and by four oclock I was wobbling back down the beach in search of my room. That was the full extent of my partying in Montanita. For the next two weeks I was usually in bed by ten, which was well before the serious drinking began. Had there been anyone my age things might have been different. My plan was to find someone to give me surfing lessons and another person to continue with my Spanish lessons. At a great pizza place I found both. Francisco was the owners brother. Mostly he waited tables at night and surfed during the day. In between, he picked up girls. When he brought me my pizza that first night, I told him what I was doing in Montanita and he said that he was setting up a language school. He would also give me surfing lessons. So, for $10 an hour, we met every day out on the beach and Francisco taught me how to surf. Our meeting times depended upon the tides, an incoming tide being better. My first lesson almost ended in disaster. We

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were in the water and before I knew it, I was over my head being sucked out to sea, and Francisco was near the shore watching me go. What the heck? I try to swim toward shore but cantIm caught in a rip tide. To make things worse, I was flailing exactly where the huge waves were breaking and they were pounding me. I was rapidly losing my strength. I clung to the surfboard, realizing I was in serious trouble. Then it dawned on me that I wasnt going anywhere unless I could somehow get on the surfboard and let a wave take me in. The first try got me nowhere. The second time, though, I caught the wave, held on for dear life, and rode it all the way to the beach. I was a little more than scared. We sat on the beach and went over what had happened. Overall, it had been a good experience, teaching me to be more careful and not to panic. When I got my breath back I told Francisco I wanted to try again, and back we went. This time I stayed closer to shore. Francisco pushed me after a wave would break and I would try to get up on the board. Fine, no problem. I could do this. Indeed, it took a while, but after a few days I got the hang of it. But not until I broke toes in each of my feet. I had to take several days off while the swelling went down. When I eventually got back in the waterit was time to learn how to catch a wave. Big problem. Catching a wave meant paddling out to where the waves were crashing and getting on the other side of them. It looked easy, so I started paddling toward a wave, a big wave. Smash! It drove me back to where Id started and drained me of my strength. No! You have to learn how to do the turtle, said Francisco sternly. The turtle meant going upside down under the surfboard just before the wave crashed down on you. So I paddled like crazy to get out as far

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as I could before the wave broke. Then, totally out of breath, I went underwater with the surfboard on top of me, held my breath, waited for the wave to go by, then flipped the board over, came up for air, started paddling like crazy again to get out past the waves, then came another one, back underwater, hold my breath, flip the board, paddle. Come on, man! Dont be a pussy. Paddle! yelled Francisco from the beach. This was not fun. I was dying. Eventually I got out there but I was too tired to surf any longer. That meant sitting on the board and trying to balance myself, which was impossible in my condition. I sat on the board for a few seconds and then fell off. Up again, down again. By this time I was totally humiliated. Francisco paddled out on his own surfboard for encouragement. Finally I recovered enough to try to catch a wave. Francisco directed me and I tried to time it right. I was in front of the wave, paddling like mad, the wave breaking over my head. I was moving along, when suddenly I was buried in an avalanche of water from the curl of the wave. This is surfing? I thought to myself. Francisco, these waves are just too big for me. By the time I finally get out there I am too tired to surf. Lets just stick to me surfing the white water after the waves crash. Back in Rhode Island the waves are much smaller. Ill be fine there. I could tell he thought I was a wimp, but I really didnt care. I was here for fun, not to be brutalized. I could learn how to catch a wave with smaller waves back home. My Spanish lessons went much better. Later in the day we would get together to study Spanish, but Francisco had a hard time paying

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attention. We would sit near the beach bar on lounge chairs and do our work. There was no real planit depended on what I was in the mood for. One day we talked about common phrases, words used to ask for things, how to speak to waiters, use the computers. Another day he brought a book in Spanish and had me read from it; I had to interpret it, and he would translate words I didnt know. However, as the days went on, I noticed that Francisco was increasingly paying more attention to the girls strutting by in bikinis than on my lessons. To get his full attention, I moved the lessons to the area behind my room, where there was a view only of the dirt hills behind the resort. Still, whenever one of the female guests walked near, we had to stop everything. I decided I needed another teacher.

I e-mailed Rocio, my hostel mother in Quito, asking her to come down to Montanita and give me some Spanish lessons. It could be a vacation for her and she could earn some money at the same time. She agreed.

My surfing lessons Francisco were going better than the Spanish lessons with Rocio. (Francisco wasnt bad as a surf instructor, but Rocio was one tough Spanish teacher.) One morning I thought of a metaphor comparing surfing competence and living. Above all, in surfing, balance is essential. Surfing is all about balance and so is life. You begin your surfing lessons and work on paddling, standing up, catching a wave. It is nothing but work, training, learning. Then at some point you catch a wave and the

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work stops and the fun begins. Now the ocean is doing the work and you are enjoying the fruits of the training. All the while balance is essential. In life, we have to learn our lessons, and that can be painful. But if we do the work, there comes a time when we reap the benefits and everything comes much easier. The trouble is, often we dont want to pay the price, we want a magic pill, we want to blame other people, our childhood, anythingbut we dont want to do the actual work of growing up. With surfing, we have the freedom to do many things, have our own style, choose our waves, to go in the water or not. And so it is with life.

At the resort I couldnt help but observe a number of older, not so good-looking men, all with younger women at their sides. One even had two. I would think, Whats up with that? Next to me on two of the lounge chairs were a beautiful woman and an older fellow from Mexico; he kept getting up to supply her with drinks. They looked as though they were on their honeymoon. Francisco came by for my lesson. Whats up with all the young girls and older guys? Is that how it is in South America? Francisco looked back up to where we had been sitting. No, those women are paid companions. Sometimes they just dont have any other way of making money. The men rent them for the weekends. That made me feel a whole lot better. The Ecuadorian people are kind of funny, Francisco said. We Argentines come here; we are ambitious and we want to work. We want to have thingsnice things that money can buy. The Ecuadorians dont want to work. They have few things, but they are very happy.

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They work a few hours and are done for the day. I guess the women are looking for a little more than the men, I thought. After five days in the same place I started to feel homesick. I dont know how people stay in one place without friends; I suppose working helps. The rains were coming with more frequency. Then I got diarrhea.

Rocio arrived late Friday night, and we began lessons the following day. She was brutal, everything that Francisco wasnt. Rocio had no problem correcting me and demanding that I work hard. If I hadnt had four college degrees, I would have felt like a complete idiot. It seemed that everything I said, especially my grammar and sentence structure, was wrong. I was constantly humiliated. When she would ask for examples, she would first give me the rule, I had to find the right words, incorporate the grammatical rule, and form and construct the sentence. Each phrase was unique and rarely corresponded to the English translation. The Spanish lessons with Rocio at times were pure hell. I decided I had to find a way to make them more fun. (In the end, I couldnt.) Then I began to become restless. I had been in Montanita now for ten days. I kept reminding myself that I was here to learn Spanish and to learn how to surf. Thats it. But increasingly I was looking forward to going home. Several of the people at the resort were happy to let me practice my Spanish on them. Virginia, the bartender, would have many conversations with me throughout the day. Whenever I passed the beach bar on my way to the water, I stopped to chat with her. Another bartender at the pool

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bar, Jaime, also wanted to talk. It was just as important to Jaime and Virginia to practice their English as it was for me to practice my Spanish. While the Spanish was not going so well, the surfing was not much better. I am not a brave man. These huge waves scared the hell out of me. What was I doing here trying to learn how to surf in a place like this? These waves were relentless; I needed some nice small ones like those back home. I had come to hate these classes, and come to think of it, I hated my Spanish lessons too. Everything was far too much work. I needed to eat some healthy food too. I just wanted to go home.

I had a recurring dream last night of a special Shangri-La. Every so often infrequentlyit comes to me. It is a hidden body of water somewhere between a river and a mountain. It could be a lake in Arizona, surrounded by weeping willow trees. I love it, wherever it is. We were washing my uncle Daves boat

I realized again that people are really the same everywhere. It was my last full day in Montanita, and it struck me how we all want more money, more sex, more fun, more of whatever it is we are lacking, or that we think we are lacking. I was no different. Was it not possible to surrender and let go of all this wanting? Can we not follow our own paths without constant wants? I would like little by little to replace the wants with enjoying the pleasure of being in the present moment. Every place is the same anyhow. Some are just hotter than others. Some just dirtier. Some

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just drier. It doesnt seem to make a difference what people have, some are happy and others are not. Its all the same.

It was time to start heading back home. On Thursday Rocio and I caught the bus to Guayaquil; I felt happy to be leaving the heat and humidity of Montanita. On Friday we flew back to Quito, where Rocio made a wonderful going-away dinner including chicharonnes. We celebrated my coming birthday with an ice cream cake and popcorn. In the morning I would fly back to the States. I got little sleep that night because of the high altitude, the dogs barking, and the incessant police whistles. At the airport I checked the Rhode Island weather and learned that my home state is expecting a blizzard. I made it at far as Miami, where I was told my connecting flight had been canceled. Not only that, but they had no idea when I could get home because all planes were grounded for two days. I decided that I did not want to stay in MiamiIve had enough of the beaches. My best alternative appeared to be renting a car and driving to New England. I knew I was driving into a snowstorm, but I figured I would go as far as I could and when I hit snow Id find a hotel with cable TV. By Saturday night, Id gotten as far as South Carolina and checked into a hotel at 11 p.m. I slept for three hours and got back on the road. The snow gods were with me; I made it as far as New York City before I hit the blizzard. New York had experienced a record snowfall. This close to home, I drove the rest of the way in the snow. I was home by suppertime. Surrounded by snow, I was kept warm by memories of my South American adventure.

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Chapter Eight

Restless in Argentina
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will gradually, without noticing, live along some distant day into the answers.
Rainer Maria Rilke

I spent ten days back home in Rhode Island and on February 23 I flew off again, this time to Argentina. This time, I had no plans for a language school. This trip was going to be more of an adventure, more spontaneous. I would practice my Spanish along the way, but there would be no school, nor any firm plans. I wanted to experience the freedom of traveling without an itinerary. The only firm plans I had were to fly into Buenos Aires, stay there for the weekend, fly to Ushuaia (the southernmost city in the world), and work my way north from there. I had reservations for hostels in both places. That was the other thingI wanted to stay only in hostels and meet lots of other world travelers.

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I was homesick before I even left home and was sad about leaving. The old contradiction surfaced againI wanted to go, but I didnt want to go. Again, I asked myself why was I traveling. What was the purpose in all of this? Was I simply bored being home? It felt like I was being pushed out the door; something was making me leave home again. I felt no excitement whatsoever. Maybe I was doing this to be around people. Throngs of people crowd international airports. The hostels will be full of people to hang out with. I dont knowI just have to do something and traveling seems as good a thing as any. And despite my difficulties with Spanish and Italian, I truly want to learn how to speak another language.

I arrived in Buenos Aires and was completely miserable the first day. Should this be a surprise? It was raining. It was a cityI hate cities. What was there for me to like? Maybe Argentina was a mistake. Why didnt I just book a flight out of there and head to Mexico, or Rio? Rio wasnt very far. I wanted a beach, I wanted sun, and I wanted warm weather. So, where was I going next? Ushuaia, not that far from Antarctica. I was now in Buenos Aires for the weekendI would get drunk tonight. Thank God for the steaks in Argentina. (I have since become a vegan.) I left the hostel and went for a walk in search of something to eat. I found a parilla where I could have some famous Argentine grilled steak and I was not disappointed. Lunch cost me only $8, and I had the best steak of my life. Couldnt even finish the fries. The restaurant was filled with the polluted air of people chain smoking. Between the steaks and the cigarettes, how did these people live to

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old age? Maybe its what they drinkthat mate tea. The women were still beautiful, even the older ones. They werent skinny, but neither were they fat. They looked healthy and hot. Later in the afternoon, I went for another walk. I ended up in an English pub and decided to have a few beers. I wasnt interested in food after my big lunch. I ordered a Guinness. I hated Guinness, but what else did one order in an English pub? Oh, it tastes like charcoal. As I slowly got drunk I reminded myself that the first day of a trip was always the worst. Tomorrow will get better. Things were already looking better they served popcorn here. Saturday morning and I was still not doing well. I decided I was through with traveling alone. From now on it would be either a beach or surfing or sailing or I would go on a group tour. No more alone in cities. I hate cities! I spent a few hours walking the streets of Buenos Aires. Boring. Nothing at all interesting. What did people see in all of this? Rome has the Coliseum and the Vatican Museum; Paris has the Louvre and Notre Dame. If you have been there, what else is there to see? None can compare. Buenos Aires is like a huge city with nothing special other than great meat. I entered another parilla and devoured a larger piece of steak. The full stomach made me feel better. Back at the hostel, I found a good reading spot on the rooftop terrace. I had been reading a novel about Marian apparitions. I got stuck with a fuzzy thought. Again, I was thinking about why I was here. What was I doing? What was I seeking? I felt as if I was seeking something but never able to find it. And then I thought Id found it, but not in the form that I was seeking. What was I seeking?

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I sat and watched the setting sun. For some reason a thought came to me to look for a sign. What sign? Why did I need a sign? I was confused, surveying the sky and then the horizon, looking for some sign. Then all of a sudden I became keenly aware of dozens of spires pointing to the sky. Church spires, antennas, spikes on roofs, the horizon was eerily filled with fingers everywhere pointing heavenward. The answer to a question I hadnt asked is God, or heaven, or the universe. I was confused but I sensed something important going on here. I felt as if someone or something was trying to tell me something. I realized that I had been driven by my wants. I want, I want, I want. I thought of the quote from St. Augustines Confessions: Our hearts are restless, O Lord, until they rest in you. Again I let go and opened to the voice that knows. Peace returned to me. I remembered some long-forgotten truth. I remembered why I was there. Not for what I had thought, but to learn the lesson that you cannot seek out happiness. It was already there inside, waiting for release. I needed do nothing, go nowhere, find no one. I am complete. There are no problems. Nothing by chance. I am exactly where I am supposed to be. All I need do is see what is already there in front of me.

My flight to Ushuaia on Monday was delayed eight hours. I had read that Argentina has a problem with union strikes and this was one of them. I spent the entire day at the airport. I had lots of time to people watch. In Italy I noticed that the women carried their beauty in their facestheir eyes, their mouths, their hair. In Argentina the women expressed it in their bodies. They were so physical, appearing athletic and

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strong. Must be from all the meat they eat. My plane didnt leave until 10 p.m. and I arrived in Ushuaia at two in the morning. The temperature was freezing and there werent enough taxis for all of us. Finally one came. I got to the hostel and was shown to my room. It was small with three bunk bedssix men in one room. The air smelled nasty, and clothes were strewn all over the floor. One guy was snoring. I curled up in the bed, covered my nose, and fell asleep quickly. I spent my first day at the bottom of the world just exploring the city. It felt and looked like Alaska. It was cold and windy. Beagle Channel dominated on one side of town and the Tierra del Fuego National Park on the other. Snow-capped glacial peaks rose everywhere on the horizon. The hostel had a large common area where many others gathered to read, relax, and talk. Since the dorm room was so small, I spent most of my time out on a couch, reading. That night I made friends with a Swiss man; we were both drinking beers and reading. Then a young Israeli and a Dutch couple started a conversation about everything from taking LSD and secret parties in Buenos Aires to life in the Israeli army. Eventually we all joined in the conversation and by midnight we moved over to a nearby restaurant. The smoke was so bad, though, I had to call it a night before too long. My dorm room smelled much better on the second nightI had opened the windows earlier in the day. I had a good night sleep and the next morning decided to hike up to Glacier Martial. Walking from town, I entered the national park and followed the path up the mountain. Midway up I noticed a young boy following me alone; soon he asked me in Spanish if he could hike with me. I welcomed the companionship and opportunity to practice speaking on him. Fernando was from Buenos

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Aires, staying with his mother and grandmother. It seemed that I was always around kids or young people. More and more I had the feeling that I was supposed to be teaching; if not now, then someday. After four hours of hiking we reached a point where we couldnt go any further. The mountain was cloud covered, allowing us to see only its steep sides and many small waterfalls. The glacier was hidden from us, but fortunately the view of the city and channel below still made our hike worthwhile. Fernando and I walked back down and met his mother at the chalet halfway point.

I spent three nights in Ushuaia, where I found the experience of staying in a hostel dorm room to be actually quite enjoyable. In the end, once I had opened the windows, I decided sleeping with a bunch of other people wasnt so bad. On the last night, we actually had two women replace a couple of the guys. When Id first arrived in Ushuaia, my plans had been to take a bus out and work my way slowly back to Buenos Aires. However, the buses were full and a long wait was inevitable. I went to a travel agency and was able to get a plane out, thereby avoiding the barren wasteland of Tierra Del Fuego while flying north to El Calafate. Because Ushuaia is surrounded by steep mountain ranges, our flight out required the plane to make a tight spiral upward until we reached an altitude high enough to fly north. The constant banking of the plane and buffeting of strong winds scared the hell out of me.

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El Calafate is still southern Patagonia, but from there it is easier to go north. Another problem with the union in Ushuaia caused my plane to be delayed six hours. This time I left the airport and spent the day in town while I waited. Arriving in El Calafate, I discovered another problem with taxis: there were not enough for all the people. I ended up sharing one with an Italian couple. We had an interesting conversation on the way to townI got to practice my Italianand agreed to have the taxi driver take the three of us tomorrow to see the main attraction of the areathe Perito Moreno glacier. Perito Moreno did not disappoint us. We drove eighty kilometers to Parque Nacional Los Glaciares. The glacier was truly a river of ice. Pushing down from a gap in the Andes, snow accumulates and recrystalizes into ice, eventually dumping into Lago Argentino, the largest body of water in Argentina. While we were there, large chunks of the glacier broke off and fell into the water. The sounds of the glacier cracking were just as awe-inspiring as the sights. The morning sunlight brought out a spectrum of brilliant colors and visual treats. Before leaving, the three of us took a boat ride for an up-close view. The hostel where I stayed had absolutely no character. Thankfully I had a private room, although the accordion door provided little privacy. And alas, it was impossible to meet people here because there was no common room. The town of El Calafate reminded me of the typical New Hampshire ski village. Lots of rustic shops and of course the parillas where I satisfied my growing hunger for Argentine meat.

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Ordinarily, I dont like to write about dreams; I also think its boring to read or hear about another persons dreams. But I want to include the one I had in El Calafate because it was so damn strange. I dreamed I had a girlfriend who had only one problem: she was a bear. A real bear, a wild bear, not tamed or domesticated. I was dating a wild bear. (Would a psychologist say that I have a subconscious fear of women?) In the dream we were at my house and I was feeding her popcorn. My fingers were in her mouth and I was wondering if she was planning to bite them off. Later in the dream, I had a party at my house. The bear was still in the dream. Then we were all cleaning up afterward, but my son refused to help. As I approached him to do some work, I looked into his eyes and saw that his irises had been blown away. Instead there were big black holes, like a cats eyes. It scared the shit out of me and I woke up.

On Saturday I took a four-hour bus trip to El Chaten. In 1985, Argentina had made it into a town in order to claim the land before Chile did. The town is the entrance to the northern sector of the Parque Nacional Los Glaciares. The big attraction there is the Fitz Roy mountain range. Argentines claim that it is one of the most majestic areas of the Andes. People come from all over to trek and explore. I endured the trip to El Chaten by having a long conversation with Ana Harlap, a psychiatrist living in Buenos Aires who happened to sit down next to me in the bus. Buenos Aires is noted for having more psychiatrists per person than any city on the planet. She knew very little English so I was able to get lots of Spanish practice. When we got stuck for a word, I pulled out my little Franklin electronic dictionary.

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We talked the entire way, mostly about psychology, culture, and a little politics. In terms of deep conversation, it was the closest encounter of the female kind in all my travels to date. We exchanged numbers and e-mail addresses and agreed to meet up in Buenos Aires during the last two weeks of my trip. I had never met any women my own age, or anyone whom I might be interested in; Ana was the sole exception. Unfortunately, I never made it back to Buenos Aires (other than to fly home) and never saw Ana again. Apparently Fitz Roy is a beautiful peak; however, I only know this from what people told me. I was never able to see it. The day I arrived, Fitz Roy was covered in clouds. Nevertheless, I found the entrance to the trail and did my best to see what there was to see. The wind was blowing at least thirty to forty miles an hour. It was much colder on the mountain and I was not dressed for it. Wearing only a T-shirt and sweatshirt, I was freezing. My goal was to hike for two hours, which should have gotten me to the first lookout location. At around the two-hour mark, I ran into my Swiss friend from Ushuaia. He told me I had long past the lookout point, so I gladly turned around and hiked back to town with him. Daniel and I spent the afternoon drinking beer and talking about his future. He was a banker back in Zurich but didnt want to spend the rest of his life in an office. I had three hours to kill before the bus would return to take me back to El Calafate so I gave him plenty of advice. More and more the idea and feelings come to me that I have a calling to teach and write and even work as a therapist when I get home. I need to be helping people.

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My next stop was Bariloche and amazingly, the flight was on time. Bariloche was the center of the Lake District. Paul from work had told me that this was one of the most beautiful places in the world, not to be missed. Indeed, I found the lake to be gorgeous and the mountains framing it made it all the more stunning. But, it was miserably cold, and the wind had not stopped blowing since I arrived. The sun seldom showed its face and it rained with annoying regularity. I made arrangements to attend a language school for one week, possibly two. My close friends from home, Mark and Gerre, were currently in the northern part of Argentina; we had previously made plans to rent an apartment in Buenos Aires and spend the last two weeks of the trip in the city together. My private room in the hostel here was as small as my closet back homeno, its smaller. I stayed there one night. The school had a local family I could stay with but they were far from the city center so I decided to stay in a hotel. The hotel was cheaper than the hostel and right around the corner from the school. The language school in Bariloche was well run and there were lots of students. I was happy to be working on my Spanish again. I decided to stay there for the full two weeks. My two classmates were from England and Australia. My teacher was a twenty-eight year-old girl from Buenos Aires who insisted on wearing tops that reveal her stomach, which made it difficult to pay attention when she wrote on the blackboard. Strange I dont remember that ever being a problem in high school. Monday evening, after my first day at the school, we had free salsa and meringue lessons at a nearby bar. It was a blast. I enjoyed it so much that I got information about where more classes would be taught the following night. However, that didnt go so well.

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The weather turned even worse the next day. More rain, wind, and cold. Isnt it funny how the weather can affect our lives? Salsa class was a disaster. These people were born dancers. I was in the beginners class and still felt like a fool. To make matters much worse, they had a full mirror on the facing wall. I had to look at myself while trying to master this dance. I looked fat, old, and awkward. Perhaps the mirror was the last straw, but I ducked out halfway through the lesson. That was the end of dancing in Argentina for me. Again, I was aware of the familiar refrain running through my head: Why was I here? Why was I learning Spanish anyway? I was lonely yet again and I felt like an old man. Everyone in the school was half my age. Id rather have been in Florida, where at least there Id be young compared with all the retirees. I was totally out of place here.

My sister Joyce e-mailed me with the news that my father was going to have an operation. I knew he was in the hospital but they had said it was just gallstones; now they were going to remove his gallbladder. Joyce told me she was exhausted from driving my mom back and forth to the hospital, and I quickly decided that I should get back home just in case things did not go smoothly. I was not sure what it was, but I felt that I was supposed to go home. Maybe it was the worrying about my dad, maybe it was just a feeling that I wasnt supposed to be in Argentina, or maybe that something else was going on at home. Throughout the trip, I have been reminded that nothing happens by chance. Even the airport delays had served their purpose. I see an unknown hand at work here, and increasingly I sense a need simply

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to surrender to what wants to happen and accept what does happen.

I have learned a few things here in Argentina. Places are places, cities are cities, mountains are mountains, people are peopleand home is home. Things dont change. For some reason, sightseeing leaves me empty. There is a difference between being a tourist and travel itself. I learn from traveling, but the tourist attractions I seewell, what is the big deal? Mostly I feel invisible being in other peoples countries. Traveling alone is hard work, never mind the loneliness. What I need to do is travel less but make the trips I do take more enjoyable. I need to stick to the warm weather and beaches. Maybe I would be happier going with a group like Adventure Travel. I have learned that I can be just as miserable traveling as I can be at home. Not that Im generally miserable, but whatever was lacking in my life at home will still be lacking on the road. Certainly I have few regrets about the trips; Im glad for the experiences. Ultimately, the bad times have outnumbered the funtimes, but I feel richer for it all. Where am I going nextwhy not Spain?

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Spanish Lessons at Home


Experience is not what happens to you, its what you do with what happens to you.
Aldous Huxley

My journey into the land of new language acquisition began as an excuse to go places and have fun. I needed to do something and I needed to get out of town. It began as an attempt to fill a needsomething that was missing in my life. Im still not even sure what that was. What I thought was simply learning how to speak another language became a means for learning more about my life and myself. I wasnt just learning the meaning of new words; I was learning the meaning of new fears, new behaviors, new desires. It was as if someone was tricking me by telling me Id be going to one place and then it turned out to be another one Id had no intention of ever visiting. Instead of the lands of fun and ease, I ended up in countries and cities that continually brought me face to face with facets of myself that had been comfortably hibernating. However, upon arising and some introspection, I was discovering a deeper and more rewarding form of existence. I was being led to a richer life.

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Even in between my travels, learning Spanish was becoming ever more important to me. What had begun as just another thing to do was becoming a meaningful part of my life and had worked its way into my daily routine. Every morning on the treadmill while jogging, I also studied my Spanish textbook. That was just the beginning. On the Internet I found a website, TryingToLearnSpanish.com, that contained a number of podcasts covering various topics on how to learn Spanish as an adult. I found suggestions for grammar books, the use of flash cards to learn vocabulary, recommended immersion schools, audio magazines, and my favorite, a website containing video with Spanish and English transcriptions. All of this inspired me to work harder and made the work more fun. One resource I found was a PBS series called Destinos. This is a video instruction soap opera in Spanish that is available for downloading from the Internet. Developed as a beginner learning tool, the story was enjoyable while it also developed my listening and comprehension skills. Besides being educational it was also addictive. One of the benefits of travelingmeeting new peopleresulted in numerous pen pals; that is, e-mail pals. I now send and receive e-mail, in Spanish, to and from all over the world. Rocio in Ecuador sends the most, but I also hear from Graciela and Marina in Peru, Ana in Argentina, and Elvira, who could be anywhere in the world as she continues her adventure. Gradually, I noticed myself understanding more of what I heard and read in Spanish. The more my comprehension grew the more I loved the language. Back home in America I found myself craving to hear Spanish. I looked forward to my next trip, which would be to Spain, just so I could

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become immersed in the sounds of that culture again.

At this point in my quest I need to ask myself: How have I changed as a result of all this travel and learning? Am I a different person? What exactly about me is different? What precisely have I learned? Certainly I am different. I view myself differently. My little world is much larger now. I know what it is like to live in Argentina, Peru, Mexico, Ecuador, and Italy. I know the hardships and the joys there. The Spanish-speaking world is more my world now. I have found a new family there. The closeness with a number of people I met along the way has made me feel a part of their world and they, perhaps to a lesser degree, a part of mine. A part of me still resides with my girls Graciela and Marina in Cusco. Their smiles radiate in my heart. The deep friendship with Rocio continues to evolve even at this great distance, thanks to the Internet. Yes, I am different now; I live in a much bigger world. Something else is also going on here. It has something to do with pushing myself out of my comfort zone. When all of this started, my only travel experiences had been basic. Regular hotels, touristy places, everything very safe, no risks. Along with Spanish lessons came traveling alone, staying in third-world apartments, hostels, and budget hotels, seeing the underside of life far from America. I learned to live a much different life than I had been accustomed to, and while it was not always enjoyable, I survived and learned from it. In this kind of travel, a lot of work is involved as well as a lot of loneliness, but in the end the effort is worth the reward. And what is that

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reward? Simply, it is a richer and deeper life, and the growth of ones soul. The lesson for me is that pushing myself a little, by taking risks, by being a little adventurous, by stepping into the unknown, I have made the quality of my life something it could never have been if I had just remained in my little world at home. Interestingly, when I left Argentina I was so tired of travel that I couldnt wait to get back into my own bed. But now, even though Im content to be home and know that my next trip involves settling into a city for three weeks, I look forward to the challenge that awaits me, knowing for certain that it will not all be fun, but there is an enormous reward at the enda richer and more interesting life.

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Madrid: They Dont Speak


Spanish in Barcelona.
Those who enter the gates of heaven are not beings who have no passions or who have curbed the passions, but those who have cultivated an understanding of them.
William Blake

People do not speak Spanish in Spainthey speak Castilian. Spanish is spoken in Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean. But in Spain, true Spanish is Castilian. An elegance and reigning superiority infuses even the simplest speech in the comfortable capital city of Madrid. In Europe, unlike in America, native citizens of any countrys various regions use dialects that are so unique to their particular location that they are not even considered the same language. In Spain, other dialects besides Castilian, include Catalan, Galician, and Basque. In Italy, I was surprised to learn that in Naples people dont speak Italian, they speak Neapolitan. Romans cannot understand Sicilians. In America, most English speakers can understand other English speakers, except perhaps the African-American ebonics and the southern drawl. This makes learning Spanish all the more interesting. Caribbean

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Spanish is different from Argentinean Spanish, which is different from Ecuadorian Spanish, which is different from Spanish Spanish. It suits me well, now that Im aware of all the different dialects. It doesnt matter all that much that popcorn in Ecuador is called conquil, and in Mexico it is palomita just as long as I can get my popcorn.

When the time came, I didnt really want to go to Spain. (So what else is new?) It was the middle of April and the weather in Rhode Island is warming up. I made these plans back in December; it seemed like a good idea at the time. I would stay Spain until just before Mothers Day, by the time I returned it would be time for the sailing season to begin. My plan was to spend a few days in Madrid, stay three weeks at a language school in Barcelona, then take another week to see southern Spain. The only thing was that I hated cities. Why dont I remember these things when Im making the reservations? I was also still tired from all the time Id spent with the kids in South America. However, the flight was booked and the reservations made. I might as well go. Upon my arrival, the Lonely Planet guidebook indicated there were blue buses that would take me from the airport to the city center for $2. Unable to find one, I wimped out and took a taxi. The ride into town normally takes about an hour, the driver told me, but everyone had left the city for the Easter holidays, so the time was cut in half. I took the opportunity to practice my Spanish. The Spanish reminded me of Italiansthey have similar physical characteristics. But the resemblance ended right there. The Spanish were all business. At least in Madrid, they were sophisticated and well

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educated. My taxi driver could have been a schoolteacher. He informed me of political changes and problems, various historic places that we passed, and in general was well spoken. So I didnt think he was ripping me off when he added another $10an airport supplementto the meter price when I reached my hostel. Later I found out that he had. My expectations in Madrid were minimal. This was a working vacation, an oxymoron if ever there was one. I was working on my Spanish, and there was no vacation if you were traveling alone. I was here solely for the educational experience. Didnt expect anything else. Thus I tried not to feel too depressed when I checked into the hostel and saw that it was filled with college kids on spring break. I chose the Los Amigos Opera Backpackers Hostel because Lonely Planet said that it was far and away one of the best budget options in the city. It was also located near the Puerta del Sol and the city center. I tried to take a nap after checking in but I was too wound up. Instead, I explored the neighborhood. Just outside the hostel was Plaza de Oriente. The area was designed after Napoleon had conquered Spain and his brother Joseph had taken over the government. On the west side of the plaza stood the famous Teatro Real opera house, which has been burned down, bombed out, and torn down numerous times, but now lives again in all its glory. I didnt care all that muchI just wanted to find a good hamburger. On the other side of the opera house was the enormous Palacio Real, containing all of 2,800 rooms. Next to it the royalty had built a lovely garden, which was open to the public and where I went daily for a dose of nature. Most kids went there to make out or eat ice cream, which I did only once. Eat ice cream, that is.

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The neighborhood was decidedly beautiful; both the grounds and air were clean. In fact, all of the Madrid that I saw was like thatthe most livable city I have ever visited. But by evening I was homesick again. Here we go. How quickly Id forgotten about this being an educational experience and a lot of work. Id completely forgotten that I was here just to learn Spanish. All I could think of was that I didnt want to be there, that I didnt have to be there, and that I could go home if I wanted to. So, wimp that I am, I e-mailed my travel agent and asked her to get me on the next plane out of here. I reached the conclusion that its just not worth all the loneliness, the work, the inconvenience. I am utterly tired of traveling. Im bored here already. I hate sightseeing. I want to go home. Within an hour Lori e-mailed me back saying that I could return home on Monday. That would be perfect. Five daysenough to see Madrid, but not so long that I would be totally miserable. It cost $200 to make the changes, but I dont careI could learn Spanish just as well back home. Okay, I will admit a secret. I had met a woman back home and I was dying to see her again.

Most paintings in a museum look the same. Nine out of ten are of a biblical theme, a landscape, a battle, or a portrait. So, I didnt expect much when I entered the Prado early on Thursday afternoon. I slept late, had fruit for breakfast, walked down Arenal past the Puerta del Sol to the Paseo del Arte. Madrids top three museums are located on this boulevard. I surrendered my backpack at the security point, bought my ticket, and began inspecting Spains artistic treasures.

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The vast majority might just as well have been wallpaper to me. I looked for something to attract my eye. It struck me that there was little that was original. Most great paintings are of themes and scenes that have already been done before. Then I came upon Velazquez. Diego Rodriquez de Silva Velazquez. He is arguably Spains greatest painter. He is known to have painted a portrait of his slave and forced him carry it around to some of his influential acquaintances. Staring at the painting and the original, they did not know whom to address. It is with that skill that he created Cristo Crucificado, the masterpiece in front of which I now stood. The painting is simple and to the point. The dirt and blood and death are stated in stark reality. The broken body of Jesus is dead, nailed to a piece of wood; I could almost smell the air surrounding the scene. I stood still, captured by history and its reliving. That is what art should be all about. There are few paintings that have caused me to pause and feel, but this takes my breath away. Maybe that is why a bronze statue of Velazquez stands at the entrance to the museum. If all of those great artists and creative geniuses mostly just copied one anothers themes, sometimes improving on them, then why should I expect so much of myself? Perhaps all of us put too much pressure on ourselves to be outstanding, unique people, when it is impossible. Perhaps I dont have to think up something entirely original to make a creative contribution to society. Perhaps I just have to write about something timeless, but put my own personal stamp on it. None of us are really very original, but we are all unique. The other thought that strikes me is how prolific these men were. How could they have possibly painted all that they did in their lifetimes? Did they have time for anything else? What kind of social lives did they

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have? It is certain they were committed to their art. Is it too late for me to do anything worthwhile?

On my second day, the weather in Madrid was perfect once again. I explored more of the city and made my way back to the hostel by late afternoon. I found my room filled with new roommates. In the bunk above me was Graham, an Englishman from Manchester. He appeared to be in his late thirties and was traveling alone; like me, he was here for five days just to see the city. Graham smoked cigarettes hanging out of the window (No smoking allowed in the hostel, thank God.) and drank Coke for breakfast. In the beds across from me were three Hispanic college girls from California. On spring break, they were trying to see as much of Europe as they could in ten days. Along with all the traveling, they would not have been disappointed if they were also to fall in love with one of the multitude of traveling males they encountered. One of the girls had her eye on Pablo, who worked the night shift at the hostel. The adolescent chatter and youthful romantic aspirations did not interest me. I spent as much time as possible outside the room. But it was impossible to get away from the kids. They were everywhere and so was their music. At 11 p.m. the dinner parties continued even though the lights were supposed to be out. The music was finally turned off and gradually the noise died down. By midnight it was quiet enough to go to sleep. I pretended that I was back in Rhode Island where it was only six oclock earlier that evening.

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The most difficult thing about traveling alone is that you have no one with whom to share your adventure. I spent most of the next day in the Retiro Park. It was the largest garden in Madrid and home of the Crystal Palace and a large boating lake. I wished that my hostel were closer; I could have gone running there. Instead I sat and read and watched other joggers getting their runners highs while I was beginning to put on the pounds. I felt a growing certainty that a chapter of my life was ending. It seemed as though I had done all the solo traveling I was capable of doing. (Wasnt it obvious, Franco? After all, you lasted only one day before you begged to come home?) Yes, something was changing, something had to change. I wanted to continue learning Spanish; in fact, I was more committed to learning the language than ever before. I just didnt want to spend so much time away from home and alone. I wanted to either travel with a companion or find a community, a group of people my own age, with whom I can live while I travel. I simply could not live this traveling life by myself any longer! Besides the push away from traveling, I felt a strong pull to be back home again. It had little to do with the new romance; rather, it was as though there was something more for me to be doing, although I didnt know what. I had started writing a psychology book that I was excited about, and that might lead to teaching a course on holistic perspective. I could begin counseling again. And, of course, summer was coming along with beautiful beach weather and sailing. Yes, it was clearly time for a change.

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Going to the movies in Spain was a completely new experience. I loved movies and thought it would be a great way to kill some time, so on Saturday night I went to see V is for Vendetta. Not the kind of movie I would see back home, but I didnt want to waste a good movie just in case I could not understand a word. In Madrid you buy a ticket with a seat assignment, unlike in America, where you sit wherever you like. I was early; the seating was a little high up but in the center. More people came in. There were now two guys to my left. A little later a couple seated themselves to my right. As show time approached and everyone had taken their seats, the theater still remained only one-third full, everyone all scrunched up together around me. I thought this was very weird. The movie began and, of course everything was in Spanishit was dubbed in. I could understand a few words here and there but had no idea of the overall meaning. However, I did my best to follow the plot through the action. It was a strange movie based on a comic book series. I wanted to leave but I noticed that not one person had left their seat since the movie started. In fact, even when it ended, no one had gotten up to use the bathroom or buy popcorn. How strange is that? I prefer movies American style. I came home to new roommates. The girls were off to Paris and we now had two more girls and another guy. They were all from Mexico City, on their way back from the Sahara where they were filming a documentary on the plight of those living there. They too were just kids, my sons age. The director is Natalia, a feisty woman in her late twenties; she is sleeping across from me. It was early but they were all in bed. I was glad for some peace and quiet.

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So much for a good nights sleep. Graham snored like a sputtering go-kart. I reminded myself to wear my earplugs the next evening. That would also help eliminate the noise from the kitchen. Today is Easter Sunday; its the first time I have ever been away from home at Easter. It feels all wrong. When my parents were younger and healthy we had an open house every year, and my dad cooked a huge breakfast for family, friends, and neighbors. It became so big that eventually we had to rent a hall. Now, even though dad can only cook for the immediate family, it still seems strange to be away on Easter Sunday. It was my last day in Madrid, and I hadnt much to do except walk the streets and people watch, so I decided to explore a different part of the city. Eventually I encountered a huge square with lots of venders and free entertainment. A small classical orchestra was playing Vivaldi in the center of the square. Even though I was alone I didnt feel lonely. The city, more than any large city I have been in, makes me feel comfortable and a part of its life. It is sunny and warm and I spent most of the afternoon at the Plaza de Armas and its Placio gardens. When I returned to the hostel, Jorge was lying on his bunk. He wanted to talk about his experiences in the Sahara. He had come away with a great appreciation for the people and a desire to help them in some way. His beaming face was evidence that he had found inspiration to do good. He wanted to make a contribution. I caught his enthusiasm and though of how I too could be useful. I asked Jorge how we could help people without turning things into a big mess like weve made in Iraq. Maybe we simply cant help people;

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maybe they need to do it themselves. We can help people, he responded, but we have to ask them what they want, not barge in and do what we think is best for them. I hadnt thought of it like that; he was perfectly right.

I woke up on Monday with the thoughts of another metaphor, another life lesson. When we travel, most of us have the choice of staying in the comfort of a nice hotel with a private room or staying at a hostel and living the communal life with other travelers. The hotel has plenty of creature comforts, but it can be lonely and there is little interaction with people. In the hostel life is more difficultmore noise, little privacy but we are exposed to lots of interesting people that we otherwise would never meet. In other words, the choice is between a more rewarding experience and more work, or fewer experiences and less work. Life is just like that. We can hide away, take few risks, try to find comfort. Or, we can make our lives an adventure, push our boundaries, face difficulties, but ultimately live a more full life. It seemed I kept choosing the latter. I left the hostel before most people woke up so I didnt get to say goodbye to my Mexican friends. In my heart I wished them well and a wonderful life. This time I took the subway; it cost me only a euro to get to the airport. I was on my way home again. Summer is approaching and I had at least seven months before winter would again set in and Id plan another trip and more Spanish lessons.

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What Do You Expect?
Some people complain because God put thorns on roses, while others praise Him for putting roses among thorns.
Anonymous

The United States wanted to build a canal across the isthmus, bridging the Atlantic and Pacific. Colombia wouldnt give Teddy Roosevelt the concessions he wantedso he just took the land. Or thats what he said. A Panamanian junta was encouraged to declare independence from Colombia and on November 3, 1903, Panama did so. US battleships made sure they succeeded. Shortly thereafter a treaty gave the United States sovereign rights in perpetuity over the Canal Zone. Its legality was questionable. Eventually the US paid Colombia $25 million as compensation. Eventually, the treaty of 1977 gave the canal back to Panama. It was rumored that General Omar Torrijos threatened to blow up the canal if President Jimmy Carter didnt sign the treaty. Despite years of friction, the Panamanian people for some reason really like Americans. And Americans are retiring there in droves.

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Photographs of white sandy beaches and palm trees got my attention and after a long summer of confinement in Rhode Island, I got on a plane in mid-October and headed south again. In the time since Madrid I had been studying my Spanish nearly two hours every day. While I still cannot understand it when it is spoken, my reading comprehension has increased considerably and my vocabulary is expanding. Ive subscribed to two new services. Once a month I get a magazine called Think Spanish. There are ten articles, each in Spanish, with definitions of many new words in the margins. In addition, it comes with an audio CD, where a native speaker reads the articles and I get to practice my listening skills. This is one of the best aids I have found at this stage of my learning. I read the magazine now every day on the elliptical trainer. Im off the treadmill because I cant run for a while, but thats another story. The other service that I get now is called Lo Mas TV. Once a week via the Internet, I get access to two videos of native Spanish speakers being interviewed about various topics and one music video. Each includes the Spanish subtitles and the English translation beneath. This is a great supplement to my reading because the videos are mostly conversational and quite fast.

Shortly after returning home from Argentina Id begun dating Henrietta Martin. Wed met a few months earlier at a Christmas party but had never gotten together because of my winter travel plans. This time, Henri was with me for the trip to Panama. We planned a four-week stay, busing our way across the country, mostly heading west

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and determined to find the best beachesboth Pacific and Caribbean. Bad weather delayed our landing in Panama City. We were stuck in a holding pattern over the airport. The pilot informed us that we might have to land at an alternative city. I didnt think Panama had any other runways capable of handling a 747, so I assumed we would be going to Costa Rica. The weather improved and we landed in Panama City after all. We were met by a driver from the Voyager International, a low-budget hostel where we planned to stay for the first few days. It was rainy season here, and the rain did not disappoint. I wondered if we had made a mistake coming in October. For all of the studying I had done, I could not understand what the clerk was saying to us as we checked in. So I gave him a hundred-dollar bill and after about ten minutes he gave me back $15 in change. I thought we had had just paid for three nights but I wasnt sure. In any case, he took us to our private room. The heat and humidity were intense but not as bad as the starkness, the dirt, and the cramped feeling of the bleak box we would be sleeping in. The bare light bulb was turned on by screwing it in. The bathroom down the hall was even filthier. We soon discovered that the hot water didnt work. From our window we could see the sign of the Marriott Hotel.

We started the next day early with no particular plans. First we walked toward the center of townthat usually works. The bus fumes became thick and we didnt see anything encouraging so we took a taxi to the bus station hoping that we would find a tour or something inspiring

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there to do. No luck. We took another taxi to the train station. It was closed. The train makes only one trip a day, at 7:15 a.m., and goes only to Colon at the other end of the canal. We got back into the taxi and directed the driver to the Miraflores Locks, where we had our first view of the Panama Canal. The locks were interesting but certainly not the eighth wonder of the world. We remained long enough to see a couple of container ships pass through and then had lunch at the restaurant overlooking the canal. The afternoon provided another touristy event. Casco Viejo is the old part of town that houses Panamas government. A tourist policeman on a bicycle stopped us and offered to be our guide; he said it was his job. We accepted, following him as he took us to see the Ministerio de Gobierno y Justicia, the Teatro Nacional, and the Palacio Bolivar. We walked through the building where George Bush Jr. stayed and got to see the replica of Simone Bolivars sword, given to Panama by Hugo Chavez, who has the original. Exhausted, we went back to our dump and made plans for the next day. I still could not understand what anyone was saying. I hope to find a tutor here.

At the top of Henris list of things to do in Panama City was to see the Embara people, an indigenous tribe that had immigrated to the Darien Province from Colombia and Ecuador. They practiced subsistence agriculture, grew some commercial crops, hunted, fished, and raised poultry. Henri was able to arrange a trip to see them on our second day. Guadalupe, the owner of the hostel, agreed to take us.

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Driving about an hour out of the city, we came to a river landing where we were met by two Embara and their cayuco (a rather long dugout canoe). The three of us and our guides motored up the Chagres River for about an hour, before taking a left into a smaller creek. We parked the boat and hiked up an even smaller creek until we reached a large, enticing waterfall. By this time we were hot and sweaty, so I jumped right in, clothes and all. After that refreshing break, we retraced our steps back to the boat and headed down the river until we reached the Embara settlement. As we climbed the hill to their village, tribe members emerged, running toward us to greet us with songs. It was embarrassing, yet interesting. They put on quite a show, and then disbanded as soon as we reached the villages main area. Evidently they had been taught to give tourists some kind of welcome. Guadalupe distributed candy to the children. The men wore only loincloths, the women only skirts, and nearly everyone was bare-chested. I tried not to stare. Many wore purple-colored tattoos, the stains made from the juice of jagua fruit, which is believed to repel insects. They lived in thatched roof, open-sided huts on stilts. The land the Embara lived on had been set aside by the government as a semiautonomous reservation. Shortly after arriving, we gathered in a large open-air building, where a young girl gave us a little talk about the Embara. Following the talk, all the young people demonstrated one of the tribes native dances. Each of us visitors was grabbed by the wrist and brought into the dance. Afterward we were treated to a fried fish and plantain lunch. Before we left, I had a chance to speak (in Spanish) to a young man about his life on the reservation. While their tribal world was fairly

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primitive, he disclosed that once a month he got away and went into Panama City, where his girlfriend lives. I wondered what that was like for them. As we were saying our goodbyes, I noticed several very young boys swimming alone by the river and having great fun. Back home such young children would never be left by themselves near the water. We had dinner that night at a hamburger joint frequented by expats. We met one, Mike, who has lived here for five years. Fleeing a bad divorce, and running low on funds, Panama was perfect for him. Now married to a Panamanian, he spent his days fishing and working real estate deals that, according to Mike, always fell apart. He was full of hope though; Panama City was exploding with growth. That night Henri got an e-mail informing her that her son had been in a bad automobile accident. Clint received a number of serious injuries, but none were life threatening. Now we didnt know if, after only two days in Panama, we would be turning around and heading home. Henri needed more information, but couldnt obtain anything further for a few days.

After two days in Panama City we were ready to head out and see the rest of the country. Since Clint didnt seem to be in serious danger, we decided to follow our tentative plans. As we were leaving the hostel, Guadalupes son David asked us where we were heading. When I told him Santa Clara, he said they were going right past there and we could ride out with him and Guadalupe. Santa Clara is not as nice as Santa Catalina, where we are going, he said. Why dont you join us? We looked up Santa Catalina in my Lonely Planet book, saw that it

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was on my list of places to goprimarily because it was a small surfing villageand said yes, wed love to join them. It was a sunny Saturday morning. Other than the rain the night wed arrived the weather had been perfect. Together the four of us hit the Interamerican Highway. It was late afternoon by the time we reached our destination. The long ride did have a benefit: I got to practice my Spanish with David and Guadalupe. I still couldnt put together complex sentences, speak in past tenses, or order a chicken burger at KFC, but it was much improved from only a few months earlier. Cabanas Rolo, frequented mostly by surfers, consisted of eight brightly colored cabanas. All shared a cold-water bathroomthe only drawback. Our room had a slight view of the ocean. It was a distinct improvement over the hostel. There was a constant smell of smoke in the air. The village was very small and very poor. While the beach was close by, it was dirty and strewn with debris. No place that we wanted to spend the day. We had been thinking of staying a week there, but besides the mess, it felt far too isolated. Henri tried to call home about her son, but the towns only public phone was not working. We went to the only Internet caf but the satellite connection wasnt working either. She spent the night worrying.

The next day, with David and Guadalupe, we moved on to Santa Fe. It was a very long ride and a late lunch including french fries was disconcerting. I was supposed to be watching my cholesterol, but traveling made it very difficult. We spent the night at a hostel owned by friends of Guadalupe. Their house was fascinating, the walls made of bamboo that

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you could see through, the windows with no glass or screens. We slept under a mosquito net with the smell of flowers so strong that it woke us in the middle of the night. Soon after, around 3 a.m., the sound of a hundred roosters woke us again. Although the air was cooler and drier, we decided to move on the following day and catch the bus to David, the major city in this part of the country. We had been in Panama for nearly a week and hadnt experienced any rain, which was not what I had expected. In David, we finally got a real room with hot water, air conditioning, and a TV. But it was just a stop over on the way to Boquete. Americans were retiring in droves in Boquete. The magazines showcased it as a place of eternal spring. I was fed up with the cold-water showers and found us a place far outside of my budget. Isla Verde had roundhouse cabins with a kitchen, dining area, and large sitting space. The grounds were covered with orange trees and we picked fresh fruit every day. We stayed in Boquete for five days. The cooler mountain air was refreshing after all the humidity near the coast. Volcan Baru, with its ten thousand-foot peak, set the backdrop. Although its name came from the word that means constant drizzle, we saw almost no rain. Boquete was smaller than we anticipated, especially considering so many people were really retiring there. The best part was that we discovered an excellent ice cream place where a cone cost only twenty-five cents. We hired a guide to take us on a hike to the top of the continental divide. From its peak, on a clear day, one is supposed to be able to see both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. The trip began in the dark before sunrise. For two and a half hours we trekked through the cloud forest,

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Henri particularly enjoying the many species of flora. Unfortunately, when we reached the summit we saw only cloud covering. Our return trip was accompanied by rain showers the entire way down. We spent lots of time in Boquete reading and relaxing. There just wasnt much to do, which was fine with both of us. One afternoon, stopping at Java Juice for batidosa fruit-based milkshakewe met Sean, the muffin man, as he was known in Boquete. Sean owned the little store next door where he made and sold muffins, something new here. He left Vancouver, Canada, four years ago, divorced, and looking to start life over. He began in Costa Rica, met and married a Colombian woman, and moved to Panama where it was cheaper and safer. We originally moved to Bocas Del Toro, and opened a hostel, he told us. But it was too hot for the wife there, so here we are in Boquete. His bright sparkly blue eyes and mischievous smile never faltered as he told us more of his story and life as an expat. There are great opportunities in this country. Buying a farm could be very profitable; starting a business would be easy. There are all kinds of incentives. He obviously loved Central America, but when he told us about the environmental pollution and how all streams and rivers are receptacles for wastewater, we lost some of our enthusiasm. Even here in Boquete, the town sewer gets discharged directly into the Rio Caldera. Its Latin Americawhat do you expect? I bought a couple of his chocolate muffins and we finished our batidos. My study of Spanish was aided by my collection of flyers and local newspapers that include articles in both Spanish and English. Reading the Spanish and then the translation is much easier than just studying grammar. I found it quite interesting, though, that the two versions of the

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article were different in significant ways. Some things left out, others added, meanings altered. I wondered which was the original and which the translation. All right, here goes my rant on travel guidebooks. Never, ever believe what they say. Prices of hotels are always twenty percent more than in the book. Most restaurants are no longer in existence so dont even bother to look for them. If it says rainy season, find out what exactly is meant by rainy. Never depend on their maps unless you have confirmed them with another independent source. Lastly, check into vaccinations and pills. Some state that, for instance, malaria pills are required, then you arrive at the place, and learn that no one ever takes them. What set me off on this tirade was a hike we took to Parque Nacional Volcan Baru. According to the guidebook it was only five miles from town, but after five miles all we found was a road sign informing us that the park was another fifteen kilometers! We turned around and walked another five miles home. I decided I would not walk anywhere else for the rest of this trip.

Finally it began to rain. As promised, it rained much more on the Caribbean side than the Pacific. We hit rain as soon as our bus reached the summit and the Bocas Del Toro province. I hated traveling over mountains, especially in buses, but that was the only way to get from Boquete to Bocas. The guidebook promised a white knuckle ride and this time, alas, it delivered. Half of the four-hour trip was spent either climbing higher into the continental divide or speeding down it. We took a water taxi from the mainland to Isla Colon and the town

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of Bocas Del Toro. It can be confusing; the province is called Bocas Del Toro, as is the archipelago as well as the town. At the dock a young man, Michael, pressed to guide us to a good hotel. Ive already made arrangements, I insisted, and I know where I want to stay. Where are you staying? he asked. Hotel Angela. They know we are coming, and it has a balcony overlooking the water. Ah, I have a better place for youand cheaper. Michael produced a small box that was loaded with the business cards of all the hotels in town. He flipped us the one for Hotel Angela and then one for Hotel Olas. Sure, sure, I said. And how much do you get for taking us there? Nothing, man. I get paid by the tourism commission. Really, you will like Las Olas. Let me take you. So, as we had done in Boquete, I left Henrietta alone with our luggage and went to check out some housing options. She looked around the park, not particularly liking the idea of being left alone, but agreed to let me go. Michael was right after all; Las Olas was better than the other two places I had marked as possibilities. The rooms there were brighter, windows opened to the water instead of other buildings, and it had a comfortable second-floor porch overlooking the harbor, where we could read and relax. I gave Michael five dollars even though he insisted that was not necessary.

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We spend the first two hours working on grammar. For you, at the intermediate level, we will study past tenses, imperfect, and preterite. That was enough to convince me that I did not want to spend my afternoons in Bocas in a language school. I had e-mailed the Spanish by the Sea Language School before coming to see if we could get in. Yes, they had room for both of us. My idea was that we could take classes in the morning and spend the afternoons at the beach while we were there. Maybe wed stay for two weeks if we liked it. Well, let me talk to my girlfriend and see what she says. We were hoping to have classes in the morning. I already knew what I wanted to do. No way was I going to chain myself at a desk studying verb conjugation. I could do that at home. What was it with these schools? Could they not simply teach comprehension and conversation? Thats it, I told Henri. No more language schools. I cant even understand the present tenses and they want me to learn the past perfect. We both felt relieved. My next school will be only for conversations, listening, and speaking. Now our time was all to ourselves. For the most part, I disliked being in school anywaywhat was I thinking? I hated sitting and listening to someone teach me something. With all the years of schooling Id had, youd think Id learned enough. I kept putting myself in places I didnt want to be. This time I cut my losses before it cost me anything. Besides, Michael spoke excellent English, and I was thinking that we might hire him to teach us privately. That would be much easier and more fun.

Traveling sounds so exotic and exciting. Almost everyone lists traveling

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as one of the things they most love to do. So why is it that on every single one of these trips Ive made, I couldnt wait to get home? It has been no different this time. (As I type thisat homeIm wishing I were traveling again. What is wrong with me?) As beautiful as Bocas was, I would look out over the bay with its beautiful mountain backdrop, the warm Caribbean breeze caressing me softly, and I would desperately miss my home, my family, my healthy food. It didnt even seem to make a difference that I had a companion on this trip. That was another problem with travelingthe food. My doctor informed me just before leaving that my cholesterol was climbing above normal. I needed to eat more healthily. At home, I have fruit for breakfast, big salads, and whole grain bread for lunch. Okay, Im a little bad at dinner, but no one is perfect. Traveling is another world. We ate junk and fried food almost all day long. If I was lucky, I might squeeze in fruit at some point. But good green leafy vegetables were practically nonexistent outside of the US. Henri and I were determined that after nearly two weeks of this we will eat more healthy foods. That remains to be seen.

It was Halloween in Bocas Del Toro. Surrounded by tropical water, living on an island in the Caribbean, picturesque skieswhy did I want more? It was happening yet again. I was ready to move on. Why did I continue to remain unsatisfied? On this trip I finished reading one book written by a Latino American revolutionary and began another about the American Revolution. In The Country Under My Skin, Gioconda Belli describes her life as a young Sandinista guerilla fighting to overthrow the brutal

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Samoza dictatorship in her country of Nicaragua. In this case, despite the United States support of the totalitarian regime, the rebels win. In 1776, by David McCullough, I was reading about the American Revolution and our fight to rid ourselves of the British. Isnt it odd how things change? We fought for our freedom from England, and then we became the empire seekers, enlisting the British along the way. Why was that? Why did people and countries always want more? Why couldnt we just be satisfied with our own freedom? As I sat at sunrise on the deck overlooking the Bocas Del Toro archipelago, I asked myself why I wanted more. Why did I want to learn Spanish? Why did I want a winter home in the Caribbean? Why did I want anything? Ninety-nine percent of the worlds population would be thrilled to have what I have. But, oh yes, how long would it be before they became as unsatisfied as I was? In all of my questioning there was one small bright shining ray of hope (besides the fact that I was not actually depressed). It was the questioning itself that offered me the possibility of a solutionthe very fact that I was aware of my situation, my unhappiness, my yearnings. Years ago I harbored this feeling that there had to be more to life, and back then I tried to escape the emptiness in the usual waywe all know what those options were. Tried that and it didnt work. I was still left with the emptiness, only now I had a hangover, or someone next to me in bed that I knew was just there to keep me from being alone with my dread. I wanted a purpose to my life. How I envied those revolutionaries who had a cause to fight for. I wanted my life to mean something. I didnt want to consume. I wanted to be consumed. I was completely unsatisfied with the pleasures of my solitary existence. I wanted to do something

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more with my life. (No, becoming a mercenary was not an option.) T.S. Elliots words haunted me: We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. Is that where all this is leading? Is that the purpose of my travels, my Spanish Lessons? Elliot ends the poem with a clue to my questions: All shall be well and All manner of things shall be well When the tongues of flames are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one.

I could see Henri fighting back her emotions. It was the kids; she was missing her kids. We had planned to go sailing and snorkeling but the excursion was canceled, the boat had been trashed from the previous days outing and not cleaned. We were both disappointed. Instead, we took the bus to the far west end of the island and spent the day at Bocas Del Drago. It was the best beach wed seen so far. While we were waiting for the bus, a man, the bus drivers assistant for the day, offered to fix my watch when he noticed it was set to the wrong time. I told him I didnt know how to change it. I thought there

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was no way the guy could figure out how to do itI couldnt, and I had a Ph.D. Well, he did correct the time. At first Id thought he was just a little slow, but as we talked I realized that it was just his gentleness. I am a massage therapist, he said. I used to live in Costa Rica. I would have to do nine or ten clients a day just to survive. Here in Bocas the cost of living is so cheap that I only have to do several a day, on the days I feel like it. Im saving to buy a house here. We passed the house he was renting with his wife and noticed a big welcome sign that appeared to be meant for some Buddhist or Hindu teacher. Now it all made sensehe wasnt dumb, he was just at peace with the world. Not only could he fix my watch, which I couldnt do, he had found lifes answers, which I couldnt do either. Can we exchange lives? I thought to myself. The beach at Bocas Del Drago was empty and perfect. Gentle, warm water and soft white sand. A half-hour walk ended at Star Fish Beach, where we found many large colorful starfish in waist-deep water. We spent time swimming and alone on a deserted beach. Later that day, back at the hotel, we met Jungle Jack. Now there was a man following his passion. Jack was a Texan who was developing an island resort community, ecologically sound and environmentally friendly. Every time we saw Jack he was sitting in front of his laptop doing something or other concerning his Starfish Reef Resort. Jack had discovered Bocas a few years back, but his then wife hadnt been taken with the place as he was. Now that the old wife is gone, replaced by a new and much younger model, he is living his dream. Jack did his best to sell us on the project, but while the expat community sounds great, it is not something for me. If I were going to live here Id want to live closer to

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the locals, who are a lot more interesting. After three days in Bocas, we were finally settling in and feeling at home in our hotel. The experience of meeting two very different kinds of men, each doing what they love, was helping me to become a little clearer about my own future. Each of us must follow our passions, and only one thing is certaineach path is as unique as our genetic makeup. So, what the hell was I passionate about? Learning, reading, writing, water, beaches, family, friends, chocolate ice cream, healthy eating, exercise. Geez, that was good start. And Id almost forgottenmost of all, I longed to do something that was useful and meaningful. I wanted to make a contribution. Ah, but there was the problem where was the passion for that? Or was it just something that I thought I ought to do?

The sailboat had been cleaned and was ready to go. Marcel had owned the boat for twenty years. He was a German in his forties, living in Bocas with a young American wife and their two children. He fell in love with sailing as a boy, saved the money he made as an engineer, bought his boat, and was living his dream. After living on the catamaran for ten years, he decided to rent a small house built over the water with his boat tied up at the end of the dock, only a few feet away from his bedroom. We were the only Americans. There was also a Canadian couple, women from Germany and Holland, and a researcher from Switzerland who was studying the migration patterns of raptors in Costa Rica. She explained to us how the birds migrated south for the winteror was it north for the summer? The idea struck me that that was what I had been

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trying to do all along. It was a natural instinct to move to better living conditions along with the seasons. I had been using my quest to learn Spanish as an excuse to head south. In reality, I was just following my own migratory drives and impulses. The day was a pleasurable one, especially for me. I got to go sailing without having to do any work or be responsible for the boat, as I was when I took my own boat out. We snorkeled some fine coral reefs and saw dolphins swimming in Dolphin Bay.

It was our fifth day in Bocas and I was now bored as hell. I desperately needed a job, a purpose, a mission. Have I mentioned yet that back at home, I really didnt have a job, other than to write this book? We were sitting on the deck of the hotel, ten feet above the harbor. A paradise of water. And I was wishing I were homewith a real job. There were laborers a few houses down from us who were shoveling gravel off a barge. They got paid $10 a day and they didnt seem bored. I didnt want to change lives with them, but still, I was bored. I decided I couldnt take these Spanish lessons any longer. I would give anything to be able to speak Spanish fluently, but it was the life lessons that were killing me. But right now, the pesky no-see-ums were upon me; I was going to have to go for a swim to get rid of them. Back from swimming and my arm was burning. Id been stung by a no-seeum jellyfish. The invisible bugs were back, and I couldnt wait for snow this winter. Now my arm was oozing some kind of clear liquid. Marcel on the sailboat had warned us of these creatures yesterday and said we would survive.

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Spanish lesson for the day, Saturday, November 4: According to the New Economics Foundation, a United Kingdom-based think tank, Central America was just about the happiest place on earth. The study, titled Happy Planet Index, placed Panama as the fifth-happiest country in the world. The United States numbered 150 out of 178. All the Central American countries, except Nicaragua (thank the Americans) and Belize (thank the British), were in the top ten. This did not come as a surprise. A significant lesson was in theresomewhere. What was the secret to their happiness? From what I could observe in Panama, it was the way people lived. They were not concerned with the kinds of jobs they had it was more to do with their attitudes. Id watched the bus helpers, the guys who collect the money from people getting on and off the buses. They had such mindless jobs, yet they appeared to have so much fun talking to people, playfully making conversation, moving around, watching things. They lived in the moment. Id thought that maybe I was needed in Latin America to help these people, it was clearly the other way around. They didnt need our help (other than keeping out of their business), we needed theirs. Which led me to a second lessonI was needed more in America than in Panama.

Hotel Las Olas appeared to be owned by a large Jewish family. Every day that we had been here, at least one Jewish man was out on our deck saying his morning and evening prayers. Dressed with an elegant white

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shawl, reading from a prayer book, bowing to the east. I remembered and missed my past devotions and prayers. Somehow my God had become too intellectualized. I lacked passion there, too. My beliefs these days centered around the idea that God was in all of us, we are all God, God is everywhere. That leaves me with the question: Who, then, was I to pray to when I needed help? One could not just pray to oneself or the guy down the street. God cant be both inside us and outside usor can he/she? I could always become Jewish.

We began our journey back to the Stateswell, sort of. We left Bocas and spent a night in David. As part of my preparations for traveling to Panama, I had come across a little book on Amazon.com, Dont Kill the Cow Too Quick: An Englishmans Adventures Homesteading in Panama, by Malcolm Henderson. He tells of how, at a time when most men are retiring, Malcolm fell in love with Panama, particularly Bocas Del Toro, moved there with his wife, and started a farm. I wondered if Malcolm was still living in Bocas and if Id run into him. On the Catamaran sailing trip Id asked Marcel about Malcolm. He described where Malcolm had built his house and said hed seen him in town just last week. I went past the large house, but a sign in front stated that it was the Red Frog Beach Club. Later in the week while reading the local newspaper, I coincidentally came across an article written by Malcolm; it contained his e-mail address. So I e-mailed him, asking if we could get together. Malcolm responded that he was in David for a while and that perhaps we could meet there. Now, here we were in David having dinner with this very interesting man.

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We learned that Malcolm now spent half his time in David helping a number of Panamanian children get an education, and the other half on his farm on the mainland near Bocas. The farm was organic and nearly self-sufficient. While this sounded awfully romantic, there was no electricity and the only way of getting to it was by boat. I wasnt sure this would be for me. We do our best to help our indigenous neighbors. When they need to get to the clinic, which would be an all-day trek, we take them there by boat. In order not to be taken advantage of, and to allow them self-respect, we charge them one hundred coconuts, which we use for many purposes on the farm. I loved the fact that Malcolm had just picked up and moved here and begun to make a difference in peoples lives. We shared many laughs over an Italian dinner; the best was over his purchase of a burial plot in Bocas. Apparently it required a four-dollara- month grounds upkeep fee. The termination of that fee would be something to look forward to when he dies, I said. It struck us all as funny and provided a big belly laugh. I saw much of myself in Malcolmhis search for adventure and the moving to another country, starting a new life relatively late in his own, and his interest in farming and education. Our conversation ranged from family, to finances and farming, to global warming (concern that a small rise in the sea level would put Bocas underwater). I was especially interested in his writing process and how he had published his book.

We spent most of the following day on buses. First the long one leaving David and getting to Divisa. From Divisa we took a small school bus to

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Chitre, then a small minivan bus to Las Tablas. Then another minivan to our final destination of Pedasi. The minivans would not leave until they had packed every space with a person. We eventually counted nineteen people in all in a vehicle not much bigger than a Dodge Minivan. By four in the afternoon we were in Pedasi and had checked into Residencial Moscoso, a very primitive motel owned by the uncle of a former president of Panama, who is from Pedasi. At $17 a night we were back to cold-water showers and a tiny cramped room. It didnt matter, however; we were only three kilometers from a beautiful Pacific beach. We planned to stay in Pedasi until just before heading home the following week. This is the ugliest beach I have ever seen! I exclaimed. Henri agreed. I wouldnt go in the waterlook at all the things floating there. No wonder this beach is empty. Miles and miles of crap, even the water looks like crap. I couldnt believe the guidebook hadnt warned us of this. Pedasi was supposed to be a pleasant coastal town. I was not even sure if it qualified as coastal. But it was hot and we were sweating from the walk so I decided to brave the water. It was so filled with silt that I could not see my feet standing in water up to my knees. Id never seen anything like it. I did go in farther, just so I could pee, but quickly returned to shore. The only good thing about the beach were the thousands of sand crabs and the amusement they gave me as I chased them around for most of the two hours we spent there. Now we know that all oceanfront beaches are not equal. I said to Henri, thinking about the land for sale in Panama. If it is all like this, Ill stay home. Even the scrub trees above the high tide line were ugly.

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What happened to all the palm trees in the brochures? The town of Pedasi itself was small and quiet. Absolutely nothing to do here except eat and read. Even the eating proved to be a challenge. For dinner I craved chicken, but Henri wanted fish. Every place we checked had either one or the other, but not both. We compromised on a pepperoni pizza. One day here was enough; we left for Panama City the next morning.

Im so tired of hotel living, not having a refrigerator, small rooms. Lets see if we can get a suite for our last six days, I said to Henri. Sounds good to me. At $77 a night the Suites Ambassador was far beyond my budget limitations, but I didnt really care. We both wanted to be home, and might as well make the most of our remaining few days. Besides, I was dying for a green leaf lettuce salad and the only way I could get one was to buy the produce at a market and make it in the hotel suite. It was marvelous, too, to have cable TV to help us while away the hours. First on our agenda back in Panama City was to take the Panama Railway Company train to Colon. The one-hour trip across the isthmus not only took you from the Pacific to the Atlantic, but you also got the best views of the entire canal. Besides that, Colon was reputed to be a bit dangerous, and not unlike an old Wild West town. Henri and I arose early to take a taxi for the only train of the day, the 7:15. The driver got us there quickly as there was very little traffic. We had been to the train station on our first day, but had missed the train, not knowing there was only one to be caught. This time we were

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there plenty early. What do you mean, its closed? Hoy es feriado. Today was a holiday. They had to be kidding. Panama has more holidays than you can imagine. It was only November 10 and that month alone wed already had Childrens Day, All Souls Day, Separation From Colombia Day, Flag Day, Colon Day (only celebrated in Colonthank God). Today was First Call For Independence Day. And the trains dont run on holidays. Youd have thought the driver would have mentioned this before he took us to the station. Soon we were back in front of the hotel. Quince dollars. Fifteen dollars. He charged us fifteen dollars for a trip he knew was for nothing. I was beginning to dislike this place. I stalked up to the room, Henri trailing in my wake. We could go to Isla Taboga, I offered after a quick look at the guidebook. Do you think the ferry is working? Being a holiday and all? Henri asked. I dont care. Lets just get our bathing suits and get out of here. We can spend the day at the Causeway if nothing else. The Causeway was a commercial area on the water where tourists could shop, swim, and eat. Fine with me. In ten minutes we were out the door again. Isla Taboga is pictured in the books as a charming village and an excellent place to escape the bustle of Panama City. A day at the beach would calm our nerves, and I still wanted to satisfy my craving for beautiful white sands and turquoise waters. We got to the ferry in plenty

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of time; lo and behold, it was running despite the holiday. A one-hour trip to the island reminded us of how much we enjoyed being on the water. The mood was festive and we were happy to have recovered from our earlier fiasco. We passed the Pacific entrance to the canal and got a good view of the dozens of ships waiting to transit through. It was still early when we arrived. We were ready to spend the day lying on the sand and swimming in the water. Unfortunately, like most of the other beaches we had found on the Pacific, this one was also covered with garbage that had floated over from Panama City. Checking our guidebook, we were warned to stay away from the beach on the far left, and the smell of sewage would tell us why. I think Id rather explore the town and maybe just sit off over in the shade, said Henri. Im with you, I replied. We walked first to the east of the pier and then west where most of the buildings and homes were. The sun beat down on us and it was an effort to find shade along the way. Eventually we found ourselves on the other side of the pier where the water didnt look quite so dirty. We encountered a family from New Jersey that had been on our boat, doing the same thing we were. Henri sat at a table with the wife and I relaxed in the water with the husband and children. Later we had lunch with them at one of the few restaurants on the island. Meeting up with other Americans and getting into the water salvaged our time on Taboga. Still, I could not imagine it as being any kind of refuge for Panamanians fleeing the heat of the city.

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In the chronicle of this travel adventure, I cannot leave out an account of Henris most beloved leaf cutter ants. We spent Sunday afternoon at the Parque Natural Metropolitanoa rainforest right in the middle of town. Not much of a rainforest after our adventures in Boquete, but it did kill time and we did see lots of leaf-cutters. Henri just loved those tiny, hardworking creatures. Maybe it was because, as a landscape architect, she could relate to them. I think we would all like to have our lives so simple and disciplined.

Later that night I went alone to the store to buy a book. Id completely run out of reading material. Returning to the hotel, I was stopped on the street by a young girl who asked me something in Spanish that I couldnt quite make out. No entiendo. I dont understand. I go with you? she asked. No, no, thats okay, I replied. I had almost forgotten that prostitution is legal in Panama. At least it was something amusing I could tell Henri when I got back to the hotel.

Monday was not a holiday, the train was running, and we finally got to see Colon. The train mostly follows the entire length of the canal. It was interesting to see huge tankers and container ships far inland. Our plan was just to see the Gatun Locks and the Gatun Dam once we got to Colon. I expected to see directions at the train station telling us

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how to get to these sites but there was nothing; most passengers appeared to have business in Colon or were with a tour. Henri and I were left to make our own way, so we walked toward what looked like town. Soon we found the bus station and with a little local help boarded one of the wildly painted former school buses, hoping to be taken to the locks. We made it there uneventfully, got a much better view of the canal there than in Miraflores, and caught another bus back to town. Instead of going to the bus station, however, we decided to explore the city, even though Lonely Planet warned that it can be a dodgy place even in the daytime. For the most part we felt quite safe. The outdoor market was fun, and I bought some bananas. We did begin to feel sick walking down the aisles of skinned animals (the pigs heads nearly did me in). At one point we were walking through the crowds when a small black child looked up at me, stared, and smiled, then shouted, Gringo! Startled, I smiled back and said, Yeah, no kidding, kid. Then I looked around us and realized that Henri and I were the only white faces anywhere in town. Despite this, we became a little bolder and began walking farther away from the market center. We discovered streets lined with old colonial buildings, five stories high, covered with moldthey were the homes to Colons poor. As we turned to walk down one, a policia stopped us. We waited while he found an interpreter, who warned us not to go down that streetit was too dangerous. At that point we decided to walk quickly and return to the bus station. On the way back, I was a little ahead of Henri when she let out a frightful scream. Frank! Youve just stepped on a mouse! For Chrissake, I thought youd been shot! I shouted back, quickly

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crossing the street. More street vendors: Veeaahgrah! You want veeaahgrah? What? What? Veeagrah, you want veeagrah? Henri, hes trying to sell me viagra! Look. Tell him, please, you really dont need it. I gave him a thumbs up, and walked away with a manly man stride, Henri at my side.

The four weeks were at an end. We killed the last day reading and counting the hours. I regretted all the ice cream and french fries Id eaten this month. I was desperately looking forward to eating better and exercising again. As usual, Ive learned some lessons:

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1. Peoples lives are the same everywhere; we live, work, eat, have some fun. 2. However, some people, especially in Latin America, are much happier and more content with their lives as they are. 3. Panamanians are much friendlier than Americans. 4. The grass always looks greener in the other country. 5. America has a much better infrastructure, which we take for granted. 6. Even traveling with a companion, I missed home. 7. When I am home, I want to be traveling. When Im traveling I want to be home. 8. I am a pain in the ass to travel with. I could be a lot more pleasant, patient, calm, and relaxed.

Four days after we got home, Henrietta broke up with me.

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Not Vacation Time
You will recognize your own path when you come upon it, because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need.
Jerry Giles (author and speaker)

Chapter twelve ends like chapter elevenHenri breaks up with me when we get home. Actually, we both reached the same conclusion at the end of this trip. Four days after getting back from Panama, Henri decided that I was not the kind of person she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. While on the surface everything looked fine, underneath it all we were each agonizing over our differences. Shes a scientist, Im a philosopher. Im a believer in the spiritual realm, shes an atheist. We couldnt talk about our experiences without becoming frustrated. I saw miracles everywhere; she saw random outcomes of chance. We had a fight over a butterflyevolution cant explain the massive varieties of species. Of course it can, she said, microclimates are the cause, among other things. I wanted to scream, she

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wanted to go home. After a few days apart in November, we decided to give it another try. We spent the Christmas holidays together and exchanged gifts. I bought her a ticket to Puerto Rico so she could meet up with me there in January. I planned to bring my family with me: I would stay for four weeks, the kids would stay for various lengths of time, and the last week I would have alone with Henri. When I got salad dressing and candy bars as Christmas gifts from her, I knew our relationship was not going to last. And after a week in Puerto Rico it was over.

It was the beginning of January. The dead of winter trip included my three children, Gina, Frankie, and Angela, Ginas husband Stephen, my two grandchildren Emelia and Eli, and my sister Joyce. Henri would come for the last week. Spanish lessons, family style. Id rented a house in Isabela, out on the northwest coast of Puerto Rico. Most of my family would stay for two weeks. Angela would stay for a third. We had all kinds of delays because of our airplane. Instead of arriving in Isabela in the afternoon, we finally got to the house in the dark. We were all exhausted. The rental house was large but plain. The town, in the gloom, was rundown and dirty. I didnt care because soon I would be asleep to the sounds of tree frogs instead of the furnace burning up oil. And, not least of all, I had my whole family sleeping under one roof.

Dos pizzas, por favor. Uno con queso y otro con cebollo y aceituna,

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said my son-in-law, ordering pizza. We are out of olives, the Puerto Rican cook responded in English. Okay, then just onions. Almost everyone in Puerto Rico was bilingual. Every time we tried to practice our Spanish, the locals, knowing we were from the mainland, spoke back in perfect English. Often that left us speaking Spanish and the Puerto Ricans speaking English. Not exactly what I planned.

Mick told Rocky that hell be eating nails and shitting bullets. Dont you remember that? Dad, I wasnt even born when that movie came out. Our first few days running were tough. We tried running on the sand down at the beach. That didnt work. Angela and I battled the heat and humidity as best we could running on the road. I tried to draw inspiration from my favorite movie. As the days wore on, whenever we were on the verge of walking instead of running together, Ang would remind me with, well be eating nails, Dad. It took us about a week to acclimate. By then we had a gang of dogs following us, each with a name we had given it. There was nothing like running along the coast to the sound of hard surf and Caribbean breezes. Add your youngest daughter for a partner, and what more could you ask for? Although we were eating nails out on the trail, we were eating lots of ice cream and cookies back at the house. I should add that that was only after we had eaten plenty of fruit, salads, and seeds. Not that I was checking too closely, but the end result wasnt bullets, just in case you were interested.

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One of the reasons for selecting Puerto Rico as a destination on this trip was the hope of finding plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. Everyone in my family is health conscious, so this was an important consideration. Mangos, avocados, pineapples, lettuce, and tomatoes were all at the top of the list. Unfortunately, mangos didnt come out until March, the avocados were large and tasteless, and the pineapples small and gritty. It seemed that we spent most of our time either going to the market or preparing food. I gave up early on and kept a supply of ice cream and cookies in the freezer (to which everyone helped themselves). I hated the idea that the lettuce we were eating had been shipped in from California. After a while, we realized that the local produce was to be found at the roadside stands and not at the supermarket. Eventually we scored one large watermelon, big bags of green leaf lettuce, some small mangos, more watermelon, and even papaya.

After a bit of exploration we all settled on one favorite beachPlaya Crashboat. It was the only beach that was swimmable and reasonably clean. The waves there were usually small enough for the kids to handle (with an adult) and there was the constant smell of pinchos (chicken or pork on a stick) being grilled by the ever-present vendors in the parking lot. I never did resist them, not even for a day. Last summer we had all tried the raw food diet. First Gina and Steve, then Angela. They looked so healthy and good that I tried to do it,

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with limited success. When Gina first told me about it, I thought that now she had really gone off the deep end. Its one thing to be a vegetarian, which she is, but another thing altogether to avoid eating anything that is cooked. But the results of her new way of eating were too dramatic to ignore. It turned out that one of the pioneers of this movement, Ann Wigmore, ran her institute less than an hour from where we were staying. On our second full day on the island, we couldnt resistwe paid a visit to the place. The premise of eating live foods is that cooking destroys the enzymes life force. But eating raw isnt enough, according to Wigmore; we need to prepare our food in a way that makes it easier for the body to assimilate. You might have heard of wheatgrass juice; Ann Wigmore invented it. We took the tour of the compound, saw how they grew the wheatgrass, sprouted seeds, and prepared their food. While I wasnt ready to promote the whole living foods lifestyle of the institute, I did think that many of the elements of its philosophy are legitimate and helpful to living a healthful life. (I bought a nut-milk bag before leaving. Gina bought several videos.)

For me, traveling is nothing like a vacation. A vacation is when you go somewhere and sit on a beach all day, go out at night, and have great meals morning, noon, and night. I dont like vacations. Traveling, on the other hand, is about learning and self-discovery. Often its hard work, painful, and frustrating. But in the end there is a rewardyouve grown and youre not the same person who left home only a few weeks earlier. Puerto Rico, with my family, was another learning adventure, and

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I was thankful for that. I was feeling energized and renewed with a sense of direction. Most of all, my self-discovery was all about my enjoyment at being productive and active. Over the past few years, I had tried to just hang loose and hang out. Strange, now, that in a place known for both, I was finding fulfillment in just the opposite. I was writing, putting ideas together for another book, and learning about the publishing business. I hadnt been entrepreneurial in about two decades, but I was feeling the urge, the passion, and the drive again. Hold on.

The days passed by like pages turned in a book, like the pages in my journal as I reread my notes. Hours passed hanging out at the house, Emelia and Eli coming into my bedroom to talk, sit on the bed and play, pretend to take a nap. I immensely enjoyed connecting with my grandchildren; their smiles brought pure happiness. I loved it when I was eating and they wanted to eat off my plate. It was not all peace and harmony at the house, however; we did get on each others nerves after a while. We would argue over where to go, what to do, who showered first, who sat where, who drove the two rental cars. Then wed make up. My sister Joyce, whom Ive always loved deeply, I now saw her in an even more beautiful light. She was one of the most loving people I knowshe took after our motherthis trip reminded me of what an incredible person she was. Gluttons for punishment, we did far more than we had planned. Originally the idea was to spend days at the beach relaxingmore of a vacation than real traveling. Instead, we took trips to Rincon, to the Camuy Caverns, and to the observatory made famous in the movie

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Contact. Trying to get nine people all together in two cars, doing the same thing, was often a major logistical problem. At the Caverns, a group of girls from Canada were staring at me. I learned from one of their chaperones that they thought I was the actor Terry OQuinn from the TV program Lost.

The first week was nearly over, and my sister Joyce was the first to go home. I hated to see her leave. Her presence made everything more peaceful. Frankie and his girlfriend Megan drove her to San Juan, where they stayed overnight to sightsee the eastern part of the island. Later that night Frankie called, relating how they were buying cigars and beer and enjoying an expensive ocean-view room. Meanwhile, the rest of us spent a quiet day at Crashboat. I had always believed that if I were just near the water, I would be happy. But here I was, within walking distance of the ocean, with perfect weather, yet I was still bored. Not entirely; perhaps restless would be a better word for it. Once again I was struck by the realization that I needed a mission, something to learn, to do, to achieve, to give. I was not much good at doing nothing. Even reading wasnt enough.

We had now been in Puerto Rico for ten days, and Frankie and Megan had just left. Their jobs in New York City were waiting for them, along with the extreme cold of the Northeast. The rest of us took a day trip to Old San Juan, where we had our best day yet. Old San Juan was

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very much like New Orleans or Casco Viejo in Panama, but with some really good old forts and walls. I took the opportunity to read about the history of Puerto Rico while waiting to enter Fuerte San Felipe del Morro, the fort that stands guard on the cliffs overlooking the entrance to Bahia de San Juan. I knew that Spain had colonized the island after Columbus discovered it on his second voyage. What I didnt know, or most likely had forgotten, was that Puerto Rico became a US possession because we took it from Spain at the end of the Spanish-American war. That would certainly be frowned up nowadays. Most Puerto Ricans, however, prefer remaining part of the United States and many others migrate to the mainland. On the way back home we got lost, then became stuck in traffic. The two-hour trip turned into four hours, but we made jokes and had a lot of fun despite being exhausted.

Our two weeks in Isabela were over, and I drove Gina and family to the airport. Angela and I then drove to Rincon where Id rented an apartment for the next two weeks. The second-floor apartment was much nicer than Id expected. Large, clean, and a wonderful western-facing view of the ocean. From the roof there was nearly a 180-degree view of the Atlantic. From my bedroom I could see Steps Beach and surfers. From the porch, the sun set right into the water. We found Rincon to be much more Americanized than Isabela, probably because of all the surfers. It happened that this week was the International Surfing Association World Masters Surfing Championship,

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so on Sunday we went down to the beach and watched the competition. There are surfers here from England, Italy, Ecuador, and France. The waves were larger than any Id ever seen. Despite the excitement, the improved location, and the weather, I missed the kids. And then things got even more exciting I have it all on the phone. Im going to kill him. Hes been screwing my wife for a year now! I was just sitting quietly on the porch, enjoying the ocean view, and reading, when the man from the house to the left of us began yelling across to the woman in the house in front of me. Stay away from me. Dont even try, he bellowed at her as she started walking toward him. They are friends from back home. His wife and her husband are on Long Island, apparently doing something illicit together. I couldnt help but watch as they exchanged words. He was ranting, stalking around with a club. She finally left, and he got on the phone with his wife. Do yourself a favor, dont be there when I get home. Then the woman came back. I heard him say, Just get me on a plane out of here in the next two hours. It was a surfing vacation gone bad. I discovered from the locals that three families had bought the large house on the left and another family had bought the one in front of me. Why would this guy want to announce to the whole neighborhood the matter of his wifes infidelity by conducting his business out by the pool?

Gina and Stephen had been home for two days when I received this e-mail from Stephen:

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When reading your travel log about traveling versus vacationing, I came to thinking and I agree with your ideas on both. Travel is work and then ultimately growth while vacationing is a relaxing party in a new or familiar place. I have been trying to concentrate a lot more on my intuition in the past months. Meaning I have been trying to read lifes signs and take lessons from regular everyday occurrences. With that in mind, while in Puerto Rico, I kept my senses open to the less obvious, more important things. Often I would thinkwhat is my (our, as a family) purpose for being here? I believe every new experience builds you as a person. So I was actively looking for the next piece in my personal puzzle (when I had moments to reflect, that is). I did have a suspicion I would not notice the monumental moment or building block until I was home and really had a chance to reflect on the lessons from a distance. I imagined the main reason the stars aligned for me to receive an all-expense paid trip to Puerto Rico was a time to step back from my not so enjoyable or inspiring career and really connect with my family in a place without regular everyday distractions. I knew going into this trip that it was not going to be a vacation. Gina and I both knew that staying home would have been easier, less stressful than taking your offer. But it was an offer that we did not pass on and I am glad that we did not pass. Once everything was locked in we just had to hang on and go with the flowlike a roller coaster car pulling away from the platform. Being in Puerto Rico was a roller coaster of emotion. When so many independent people converge and act as a community it means work for all. And travel with children who are not used to traveling is another example of how all nine of us had to work hard. At the start of the vacation I was really self-conscious about me being

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on display as a parent in front of people who matter to me. That slowly melted away as I realized that I was not the only father and parent in the household and that I was not being judged. Eli, Emelia, Gina, and I are constantly working our communication things out with each other, just as you are with your son and daughters. What am I getting at? I really dont know, but a thank you for the experience just does not seem enoughbut I will start there. Thank you for everything. You have made it very easy for me to be myself all these years. I appreciate you for giving me a chance to step away from the everyday me and to reunite with the true me. Peace and love, Stephen
Wow. I wished Id had his wisdom and awareness at that age.

Angela and I were getting bored, so we decided to drive to La Parguera to see the bioluminescence in the bay there. I told her we needed to go at night, but she insisted that tours started at 2 p.m. We got there and there was nothing. Turned out that tours are given only on certain days. Besides, the water looked dirty and snake infested. The mangroves didnt look inviting at all. We drove to Cabo Rojo, our alternative. The guidebook promised a wonderful beach, and after fighting traffic and the heat we were more than ready for a swim. After paying the $3 entrance fee we expected a lot more than murky, mucky water. We stayed in long enough to pee and

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headed homeinto more traffic. The rest of the week was equally disappointing except for the surfing lessons of Friday. Ang really wanted to do it so I offered to pay and watch, but she insisted that I join her. I didnt really feel up to it. My shoulder still hadnt recovered from an earlier injury, but I went ahead anyway. The lessons were scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. I thank God to this day that the surf was calm and the waves for the most part were baby waves small enough that I didnt get hurt or too tired. The best part was the pictures we bought. Even though we didnt actually do any surfing, the shots taken by the photographer made it look like we were having fun and doing a lot. Most importantly, Angela enjoyed herself, and we had something to do for the day. The two girls from next door were surfing together on one board. We cant even stand up by ourselves. Our instructor tells us that they are semi-prosand they are only eleven. Their mom home-schools them. I see them leave the house with surfboards every morning just after sunrise. They live in their bathing suits. What kind of people they will grow up to be? What will their skin look like at forty? Two guys taking lessons with us from Long Island thought I was Terry OQuinn, the Lost actor. I insisted I wasnt, but they thought I was just saying that so they would stop bothering me. No, really, I said, Im from Rhode Island. That convinced them. They didnt know where he was from, but surely he wasnt from Rhode Island.

It was the beginning of my last week in Puerto Rico. I brought Angela to the airport and waited for Henris plane to arrive. It had been delayed

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by three hours, nothing new. I decided to spend the afternoon in Old San Juan. The highlight there was the discovery of a Cold Stone Creamery, the ice cream franchise that lets you choose what to mix into your ice cream. I spent most of the time watching people from the cruise ships. On Henris first day on the island, we watched the surfing competition and then just relaxed around the house. Actually, for the whole week we mostly hung out at the beach and house. One night we decide to go to a place called The Spot for drinks. The bartender said he could make anything we wanted. Can you make a good mudslide? I asked. Of course. Well have two. He pointed to us. Youve got it. We shared five altogether when it was all over. I had a headache before we even got home. That was the extent of our drinking for the week. Two nights later we went out to dinner, where we became embroiled in a conversation about integral theory and levels of development. I got so excited talking about how people grow though different stages and see things differently at each level that I fell over backward in my chair. I tried not to look like a fool as I got up. That ended our little talk. Henri hated it when I talked about people being at different levels.

We were back home in Rhode Island. As I said, Henri hated it when I talked about integral theory and all that stuff. You need a girl who thinks like you, who is spiritual, who you can talk to, she said. And that was how she broke up with me again. This time I tended to agree with her.

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Drugs, Theyre Vitamins.
The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.
Baruch Spinoza

It had been a little over two years since I began my Spanish lessons and my travels. The plan to conclude this part of my life was to fly into Nicaragua, work my way through Central America, and end up in Playa Del Carmen, where all of this began. I planned a trip of six weeks, giving me plenty of time alone to make more sense out of my lifeand learn more Spanish in the process. All of that changed when Angela, my youngest daughter asked if she could come with me. Dad, you never gave me a college graduation present. You were going to give me money so I could travel. Take me with you now instead, she pleaded. No way. Its too dangerous. They rob buses at night and take the women. You wont like it. Ill be staying in hostels and cheap hotels. I didnt think it was a good idea. I wanted to travel alone this time and

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think about things. Then I hesitated. Are you kidding? I thought to myself. Your daughter wants to travel and spend time with you and you are saying no? The other side of my brain had a point there. I probably would never have another opportunity to spend time with her like this again. I was concerned for her safety, but I couldnt allow fear to spoil this unique chance to bond with my daughter. The more I thought about it, the more I realized how fortunate I was that my daughter wanted to come with me. So Angela and I flew out of Warwick, RI, the day after Valentines Day and landed late that evening at the Augusto C. Sandino International Airport. It had been named after the man whod been the inspiration for the Sandinista revolutionaries who overthrew Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza, despite the American governments attempts to keep him in power.

The flight to Managua, the capital of Nicaragua, was made more interesting due to the fact that Samantha Brown, the host of the Travel Channels shows Passport to Europe and Great Hotels, sat in the seat directly in front of Angela. She was just as bubbly in person as she was on TV. The Nicaraguans must have been happy to have her there promoting their country because they took her directly through customs and immigration, avoiding any forms or lines. As for Angela and me, we did the red-tape stuff, and then met up with a representative from the Best Western Hotel where I had booked us a room (the only reservations I made for the whole tripafter that we were winging it). Next we waited for the shuttle, but it turned out the hotel was just across the street. We waited half an hour, when we could

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have walked there in two minutes. Why hadnt the agent told us? The next morning we went for a four-mile run before jumping on a bus for the colonial city of Granada. Fortunately, the airport area is on the outskirts of the city and we were able to run on backroads and into farmland. We had to take a taxi to the bus station serving points south. The station was little more than a wild marketplace where passengers were offered more food than at a Stop and Shop. The buses in Central America were for the most part used school buses from the United States. In the US we used our buses for only half of their manufactured lifetime, then we auctioned them off. Most were bought buy countries like Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Panama, and after extensive renovations and customization they were put back on the road. In Central America they were known as the famous chicken buses because they carried everything from bikes to barrels to various farm animalsincluding chickens. They were also known for getting into bad accidents and falling off the edges of cliffs.

According to the travel books, Granada was the oldest city in North America (but I also read that about Panama City). Along with Antigua in Guatemala, which we also visited, Granada was considered a backpackers meccathere were more Internet cafes and hostels than there were locals. Whatever the case, the city was hot and humid despite being on the shores of Lake Cocibolca, the largest freshwater lake in Central America. Arriving in Granada, we quickly found Hostel Oasis, a backpackers paradise according to The Rough Guide to Central America. I found it anything but a paradise. On our first night there, mosquitoes feasted on

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my blood all night long. It was a mistake to have taken a bottom bunk in the dorm. Not only was there no air from the ceiling fans, making it unbearably stuffy, the lack of a breeze allowed the hordes of mosquitoes to feed on me at their leisure. Angela somehow fared much better. The next night I covered myself in Deet and slept soundly. Our first day in Granada was spent wandering the city and seeing the sights. While walking down Calle El Caimito toward the lake, we passed Samantha Brown again. Apparently she was following us around Nicaragua. This time there was no film crew with her; she seemed to be simply enjoying the city. We kept on going. The next day proved to be one of the best of the entire trip. We took a shuttle to Laguna de Apoyo, a six-hundred-foot-deep lake formed from the crater of Apoyo Volcano. We spent the day at the Craters Edge, a hostel/restaurant/bar. For $8 we were allowed full use of the facilities, and we had a marvelously relaxing day just swimming and reading. Later in the afternoon I met a woman who had helped found an ecolodge/coffee farm/nature preserve in the mountains of central Nicaragua called Finca Esperanza Verde. In the 1970s she had been a peace activist in Nicaragua, worked in the Peace Corps, and then founded the non-profit to help farmers improve their methods and better support their communities. Granada was thronged with travelers, including many Americans and Europeans. Contrary to expectations we felt very safe, even walking the streets at night. After two nights in the hostel, the second being highly improved for me because of the Deet, we decided to move on to Ometepe, a volcanic island in the middle of Lake Cocibolca.

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Harold had promised us that the top of Volcano Conception would be clear and calm in the morning. It was neither. Wed hired him as a guide to hike to the top of the active volcano, with the hopes of smelling the sulfur gases, looking into the abyss. We hiked two and a half miles to the base and then 1,100 meters up to the tree line. Walking out of the wooded cover, we were blasted with winds so strong they nearly knocked us over. Since we were standing on a narrow ridge, the situation was a little dangerous and uncomfortable to say the least. It is not safe to climb to the top today, Harold informed us. Thats okay with me, I said with relief. Angela agreed. I couldnt imagine hiking another six hundred meters nearly straight up; it looked impossible from where we were standing. We have no regrets, though, because the views were literally breathtaking. The winds made it difficult to breathe. For future reference, I needed to remember that hiking was more difficult than it seemed when the day was in the planning stages. Five hours of hiking was doable, but ten was just plain crazy. As we wearily headed back into town, we were regaled with Harolds story of growing up under Samoza, the revolution, his exile in America, and his ultimate return to his country. Before coming to Nicaragua, I had read the story of Gioconda Bellis life as a Sandinista revolutionary and how oppressive the dictatorship was. Harold had grown up on the other side of that society. His mother had been a doctor and worked for the government; for their family, life was pretty good. But when Samoza was ousted, Harold and his family had to leave the country because it wasnt safe for them. They moved to the States, where Harold married an American, had children, got divorced, and returned

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to Nicaragua to find his life and his roots again. Now he worked in the tourism industry on Ometepe. He was very conscientious about his work and the safety of his clients. His mother would be visiting Nicaragua in the spring and he was hoping to convince her to lend him money so he could open his own office here.

We finally reached San Juan Del Sur, on the Pacific coast. This is what Ive been waiting for, clean white beaches, surf, and cool breezes. But brochures always look better than the real thing. Id read that this was the place that everyone flocked to. This was the beach in Nicaragua. The stark fact is that it leaves a lot to be improved on. In reality, the beach in San Juan is not a beach for sunbathing; the sand is hard packed and brown. The bay is filled with fishing boats and if you want the white sand and surf you have to take a taxi or shuttle for a half hour ride up the coast. We did that the first day in San Juan and we were not disappointed. Spectacular surf and surfing beckoned those with fortitude; beautiful beaches offered rocky coastal backdrops. Howler monkeys entertained us while we waited for the shuttle to take us home. We met Judy from Block Island, my favorite summer escape in Rhode Island, at the restaurant; she was renting a house on the beach. Coincidently, she had also rented the house next to ours in Rincon several months before we were there. We learned to our even greater surprise, that she had bought a car from my daughter Gina. Rhode Island is a small state. Angela and I rented a room at an inn for two days. The food was cheap and good. Plenty of kids in language schools crowded San Juans streets. I had some time to think about things. I was aware that I was

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learning to appreciate work since I had stopped working. Traveling and observing people without jobs, I wondered, how do they spend their days without going crazy from boredom? How could life be meaningful without something worthwhile to do? I had to ask myself the same question, but it was all the more difficult for me because I didnt need to work. Then I realized it was only that I didnt need the money. But I did need to work. I needed something useful to do with my life. Ironically enough, it was in Central America, while not working, that I saw the need to work. Not just for me, but for all people. We need goals, dreams, projects to throw ourselves into; we need jobs that will give meaning and context and purpose to our lives. The next morning we took the express bus to Managua and made our plans for the next phase of our trip. On the bus a young woman with two children threw up on Angela. Ang smiled and held one of the kids while the mother finished emptying her greasy breakfast onto the floor.

The second week of our trip across Central America began with a 4 a.m. taxi ride to the Tica Bus terminal. We were on our way to Honduras, a seven-hour trip. We arrived there at lunchtime and did not like what we saw. Our plans had originally called for spending the night in Tegucigalpa, the capital, and then heading east to the Caribbean. But the city looked so bleak and uninviting that we grabbed a lunch and boarded the next bus to El Salvador. It was five hours to San Salvador. At the border crossing I was asked to come outside and explain what the guards had found in my luggage. Theyre vitamins. A, B, C, D, minerals, fish oil, I explained.

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Oh, youre a doctor? No. Well, yes, no, not that kind of doctor. Now they were confused. They were thinking the thirty small bags of vitamins Id packed away were drugs. I resumed pointing out each one. This is zinc. This is awell, its for, um, prostate. That got their attention. First they raised their eyebrows. Then they all slowly began to smile. No, no, I dont have a problem, its preventative, for health. Prostate is a cognate in Spanish, but I wasnt communicating the rest of the story very well. Then one of the guards put out a finger, let it go limp, then straightened it out again. They all laughed and let me get back into the bus. It was a long day. We had breakfast in Nicaragua, lunch in Honduras, and late that evening we had dinner in El Salvador. By the time Angela and I got to San Salvador it was after dark. Wed spent fourteen hours on a bus in one day. We checked into the hotel above the bus station and walked outside to find a place to eat, but the armed guard at the door said it was too dangerous to go out on the street. We needed to take a taxi to someplace safer. Instead we decided to eat cookies and go to bed. Diesel engines and fumes woke us in the morning. We found a taxi to take us to the bus terminal; there, a bus will take us out of the city and to La Libertad, where our guidebook promised us clean Pacific beaches and surf. The crowded chicken bus let us off near the market and we were immediately met by a young local who wanted to help us find a room. To make a short story shorter, La Libertad was kind of a dump. The beach smelled, the accommodations were dirty with no amenities, and

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there was no white sand. The next morning we got back onto the bus to San Salvador. I made a mistake and got off the bus before we were actually anywhere near the city center. I asked a local for help and he kindly walked us to the correct bus stop, waiting with us until we boarded. After a couple of bus changes, and help from more people, we found the terminal so we could go to Guatemala City. Every person we met in El Salvador was very willing to help us find our way.

While the people of El Salvador were quite European in appearance, Guatemala is different. Most of the people that we met were very attractive and obviously of indigenous origins. From Guatemala City we took the local bus to Antigua, the jewel city of the country. Antigua was the prettiest and most comfortable place we have visited so far. It was once one of the most important cities in all of Central America. There was one problem, howeverearthquakes. There were numerous cathedrals to see, all of them now in ruins. But the colonial city had a relaxed atmosphere and a large market that made it quite attractive. Angela and I treated ourselves to full body massages, and in Latin America they really were full body. My therapist was not shy at all. First I was told to take a shower. Standing naked, waiting for the water to warm up, I froze as a cleaning lady entered the room for something; I quickly hid everything but my butt. Then I went upstairs to the table with only my towel for protection. All I will say is that she really worked over my body more thoroughly than anyone ever had before. Most of our time in Antigua was spent walking the streets and enjoying the peace and quiet of the city. It gave me time to think.

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What is a fifty-five-year-old man doing backpacking around Central America with his twenty-four-year-old daughter? I asked myself. The answer of course was, to find the meaning of life. But after all these years of searching you still dont know? Well, I want to refine my answer. Ive learned that we are here to learn our lessons, thats why we are on the planetto get an education. Then I learned that to be really happy, its not about myself, my needs, or my wants; rather, its about others and my relationship with them. But now I am driven to fine-tune the whole thing. What is my purpose, my reason for being here? What am I supposed to do with the rest of my life? The answer has slowly been taking root over these past two years. I was approaching the end of my Spanish lessons and the learning was coming to me with a sharp clarity. At the same time, I felt my restlessness fading away; I was more at home with myself. These were my thoughts as the sun was beginning to rise on Antigua.

Our minibus flew through the mountain passes, terrifying us as we peered over the side of the road to see the cliffs and valleys below. It seemed wed been speeding through those mountains for hours. Was this the only way to get to Lake Atitlan? Angela and I had left Antiqua for Panajachel to witness for ourselves the views that Aldous Huxley called too much of a good thing. Our first sight of the lake was from high above, in the mountainous town of Solola. My first impression was that of looking at the Grand Canyon and seeing not a real scene but some gigantic postcard. There was

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more here than the imagination could absorb and process. The deep blue lake was surrounded by volcanoes, making it a sight more beautiful than I had ever seen before. I admitted to myself that it was worth the terrifying trip. We were staying in Panajachel, one of the small towns on the lake, for just one night and then moving on and out of Guatemala. I bought bus tickets to take us to Tikal, the most famous Mayan ruins in Guatemala, but the trip required a long overnight journey farther north than I really wanted to go. (Also, night bus trips had been victim to some violent crimes in the past.) Checking my travel book, I learned that there were buses directly from Guatemala City to the Caribbean coast, which would bring us closer to southern Belize, our next stop. We decided to buy new tickets for Puerto Barrios. We left Panajachel at 6 a.m. the next morning. We changed buses back in Antiqua and then landed in Guatemala City. The five-hour bus ride to Puerto Barrios turned into seven, partly due to an accident, party due to road construction. The first-class bus had no air conditioning and the ride was punishing. Once we left the mountains, we spent a good deal of time in the central desert. The landscape changed as we neared to the coast, but the humidity kept things uncomfortable. It was almost dark when we arrived in Puerto Barrios. After ten hours on buses, the last thing we needed to see was this port city. It was dirty, dusty, and existed solely for the purpose of the Dole Food Company. Barely above sea level, the towns main activity was tractor-trailers hauling air-conditioned containers of bananas. Near our hotel was a paved, fenced-in area the size of about ten football fields. Stacked five high were thousands of these containers, their fans and air conditioning

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hard at work and making more electrical noises than a power plant. Huge container ships were waiting nearby. Miles of trucks were lined up waiting to be unloaded. This was truly the heart of the Banana Republic. First thing the next morning we took the ferry to Punta Gorda, Belize.

To use the toilet at the Nicaraguan border crossing 3 cordobas. Half a roasted chicken in the Honduras capital 29 lempiras. A Guatemalan headscarf, Antiqua30 quetzales. Spending time with my youngest daughterpriceless.

We crossed into Belize by boat at Punta Gorda, exchanged our Quetzales for Belizean dollars, and took a bus to Placencia. My friends Mark and Gerre described it as a fun and laid-back beach town. The village was famous for having the narrowest street in the world, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. It was March 1st, and so hot and humid that I was sweating buckets just sitting at the computer reading e-mail. Everything was much more expensive in Belize, especially using the Internet. We were informed that the water was fine to drink, which I did, and the next day I had diarrhea for the first time on the trip. The apartment wed rented had holes in the walls that allowed mosquitoes in at night. I was not particularly happy there. Besides being physically uncomfortable, I wasnt all that thrilled with the locals. Belize had once been a British colony. Many Belizeans were ethnically Creole, descendants of African slaves and British settlers.

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Unlike the naturally warm indigenous people of Guatemala, they didnt come across as trustworthy. I might have been imagining it, but they seemed to look at us with distain, merely tolerating our presence while at the same time calculating how best to take advantage of us. Within hours of arriving in Placencia I was approached four times and asked if I wanted to buy drugs. The per capita income in Belize is the highest in Central America, yet the people are in my opinion the least happy. It may be that Americans are buying up all the best real estate, forcing the native people to move away from the shore, and making it more difficult for them to practice their historical livelihood, fishing. According to the man who rented us our place (an American from Los Angeles, buying up property), Placencia is the hottest real estate market in the world right now. Considering the poor condition of the beaches, I remained very skeptical of this claim. And I would have to speak with Mark and Gerre about what constituted a great place to travel.

Examining the map, it was hard to believe we had done so much traveling. It seemed we had been gone so long and had taken so many buses. I was thinking I was ready to go home and we were not even in Mexico yet. Angela had been eating raw for three days now; I couldnt fathom how she did it. I just wanted to get out of the paralyzing humidity, so we moved on to Caye Caulker. At last, a place where we could stay awhile. Immediately I loved the vibe of this town. The people seemed a little nicer, and they offered you drugs a little more discreetly, as in, Hey man, if there is anything

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you need, anything at all that you need, dont be afraid to ask, even if you dont see it. You know what I mean? An old man with his dreadlocks tucked up under his hat said it so nicely that I almost said yes. Caye Caulker was a town with no cars, only golf carts. There was little noise here, only reggae music. No pavement, only sand. We were hoping to stay for five nights, but both of us were feeling increasingly homesick. On the third day the weather changed, and for the first time it was cold and rainy. When the following day began the same way, we hopped on the bus to Belize City and headed for Mexico, where I know the sun always shines.

My dear friend Helen in Denmark recently told me about the idea of loving what is. I have been working on accepting what is, but this takes it to a new level. I know it is the next step. Loving what is takes a more active approach to life. To do it I know that I must live more consciously, be more aware of myself, my choices, my thoughts. I think it is possible to love what is, to love all that life brings us, but I cant do it if I never stop to reflect, breathe, meditate, watch my thoughtsin essence, become more aware of who I am and what I have already spent a lifetime learning, often at great expense and pain. Right now Im loving the ocean; think Ill go for a swim.

It took us fourteen hours to get from Caye Caulker to Tulum. We started at 8 a.m. with the water taxi to Belize City. From there we climbed

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on a bus to Chetumal, Mexico. At the counter we had been told we would be riding in a first class, air-conditioned bus. What showed up, an hour late, was something truly third world. No air conditioning, no toilets, and sitting two to a seat, half my butt was sticking out in the aisle. Before we left, the driver told us a bigger bus would be coming in an hour. I didnt believe him, so we stayed. The driver was clearly hotsweating and frustrated. Hed allowed us on the bus without taking our tickets. We were then asked to pass them forward, which we did. After a count was taken it appeared there were two people too many on the bus. Too late now. The driver couldnt speak English, but he must have understood our pleas to leave. Finally, we were out of that miserable terminal. Half an hour later, outside of town, the bus driver stopped the bus. He wanted to know who hadnt paid. No one fessed up. The bus was so crowded that we thought theyd just got the count wrong. I suspected it was the guy sitting in the front seat; he looked awful sleazy to me, never turning around to see what was going on in the back. Essentially the bus driver was holding us hostage until he got all his money. Angela yelled out that we should all just give him a dollar and be on our way. I was more inclined to just drive the bus ourselves, the hell with the driveror wait him out; Im sure he had a schedule to make. Besides, he was really sweating. Finally, a kid in the back held up a $20 bill. Is this what you want? The driver nodded, took the money, and we were on our way. The rest of us gave the kid a couple of dollars each, that is, all of us but the sleazy guy in front who refused to turn around. It was a much longer ride to Mexico than wed imagined. We hit the border, went through customs (no one bothered me about my vitamins),

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and ended up at the bus station at 5 p.m. Our choices were to stay overnight in Chetumal, where there was nothing at all to see, or to take the next bus, which left in an hour, and go to Tulum (another four-hour drive). We figured wed rather travel tonight and get it over with, so we grabbed a quick dinnerAngela still eating rawand got back on the bus. By 10 p.m. we were in Tulum, a very pretty beach town, taking a dumpy room near the bus terminal. I went out for a pizza, Ang went straight to bed. I felt like a jerk. Id been thinking about how I reacted to the bus driver. Here was the situation. The guy screwed up, or someone did, it was his problem, not mine, so let him pay for it and lets get on. So I acted like a jerk. Then later that evening I reflected on it. Oh, yeah, the guy probably could not afford to lose the money, he probably sent it back to his family in Guatemala, he worked his ass off every day for a pittance. And here I was complaining that it was his problem, not ours. What a compassionate person I was. I didnt like it that it took me time to think about these things and see them in perspective. Why could I not see right away how things really were and act compassionately at the time? I was a jerk. What was worse was that later Id write about it in my journal, which made me feel better. As if Id atoned myself by admitting I was a jerk. I was still a jerk. I am still a jerk

We may have been in Mexico but the sun shone only for a few hours in the morning and then the rain and cold returned. Wed rented a cheap cabana on the beach, which Id never done before. It sounded so exotic, but it really was not. Basically it was a box with two cheap beds covered

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with mosquito nets. The cold-water showers and bathrooms were a long walk away. Angela and I had our first real argument. We were both tired and cranky, and we realized she needed her own room. Can you imagine staying in the same room with your father for three weeks straight? And for me this was really beginning to feel like a job. It was even harder than a real job because this one lasted twenty-four hours a day. I was really counting on our next stop, Playa Del Carmen, to be really nicevacation-like, even. I could not take this much longer.

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Chapter Fourteen

Playa Del Carmen Again


When you recognize that nothing is lacking, the whole world belongs to you.
Lao Tsu

After two years, I was back in Playa Del Carmen. This was supposed to be the halfway point of my trip. Three weeks of traveling in Central America, and then three weeks at a language school in Playa. Angela would stay until next Tuesday and then return home. I could hardly believe how much the place had changed in only two years. Almost every square foot of beachfront property was covered with hotels and condos. More people were packed in than I could ever have imagined possible. The commercialism and street vendors attacked my senses wherever I went. That was not what I remembered. The local supermarket was gone and a Wal-Mart had taken its place. So many people suffocated the streets that I felt lonely and wanted to go home immediately. The cold and rainy weather continued to depress us. Angela spent more time off by herself, and I was so overwhelmed by the tourists that I didnt feel like leaving the hotel. I fought the urge to go home. I recited a mantra my friend Denise recently e-mailed me: the obstacle is the path.

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S PANI S H L E S S O N S :

A Midlife Adventure in Search of Meaning

The following day I tried to adopt a better attitude. I was there to learn my lessons, learn some Spanish, see what happens. I needed to make the most of the next three weeks, accepting what is and trying to be more aware. I resolved to relax and let go.

Angela changed her plane ticket and left. She couldnt take the rain or me anymore. I suddenly found myself completely depressed; I was at the point of crying. Wed had a fight the previous night, and shed stayed out late at a bar. Meanwhile, I worried that something might happen to her. I totally wanted to go home now. All of a sudden I felt impossibly alone.

The rain was coming down hard. Id emailed everyone I knew asking them either for support to stay or to tell me to come home. Some responded by telling me to come home if I wanted to; others told me to tough it out. I had to think very hard about this. All the familiar old questions arose. Did I want to stay? Why was I doing this? Why did I want to learn Spanish? Did I really want to spend four hours a day in class? When I was first there two years earlier, I had mused that Playa would be a great place to have a winter home, but now, with all the tourists and shops, I couldnt stand it. Everything was changing. All I wanted now was to get home and start working on all the things I realized I still wanted to do. Id learned enough lessons. I wanted to go home.

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Chapter Fourteen P L A Y A D E L C A R M E N A G A I N

None of the places I had traveled to made me feel like Id like to live there, not even for as little as a month. The same question played itself over and over in my head: What was I doing? I needed to get back to work, to be doing something productive. Hanging around Playa Del Carmen with so little to do was killing me. Time was standing still. I completely hated being there alone now. I had to leave. I was tired, I was wet, I wanted to eat my own healthy food again and sleep in my own bed. I went online and purchased a new plane ticket. I would leave the next day.

Two years ago, in Playa Del Carmen, I started what I thought at the time was a project to learn Spanish. My business worked better without me and after a bunch of postgraduate degrees, I didnt think I could do any more schooling. So, I enrolled at the language school in Playa. I loved Latin America. I figured Id buy a second home; spend winters in a Spanish-speaking country. Maybe volunteer, do something meaningful. In those two years, Id been to South America, Central America, Europe, the Caribbean. I was not fluent in Spanish by any means, but I did have a decent vocabulary now. Id also learned a few things about my life. Like most people, the thought of having money, not having to work, and living someplace exotic sounded highly appealing to me. And it certainly was appealingbut it was not at all satisfying. Not satisfying. Interesting. If not that, then what? That, ultimately, was what my Spanish lessons taught me. Traveling and writing, as well as the insights of my friends, have slowly and

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painstakingly brought about several insights into what I found satisfying, and in turn opened a doorway to finding some sense of peace in my life. First, Ive learned that things and places are not satisfyingonly people are. While relationships at times could be painful and crazy, working through them was the only way to find happiness and lose loneliness. At no time in my travels was I ever happy to be alone and by myself. Even at the top of Machu Picchu I found a German man and an English woman with whom to share the moment. I was now much more aware of the richness and depth that my family and friends brought to my life. I could not live without them. No man is an island, or would be happy living alone on one. Second, Ive discovered that just hanging out is not satisfying. I envied people who are able to spend hours reading, or chatting, or lying in the sun. I could not do that. I needed to be doing thingslike Angela I become bored easily. I throve on challenges, obstacles, projects, learning new skills. It dawned on me that one of the happiest times while I wasnt working was, ironically, when I would go into my office and do a little work. Needless to say, I would now go back to work, although I was not thinking of it as work anymore. Not that I would give up writing and teaching and the other things I had planned. And I still wanted to travel because, as difficult as it was, I still had much more to learn about myself. I planned to do all of those things, but with a better focus on the process, the work itself, and not the results. The third Spanish lesson Ive learned is that I noticed while I was traveling, while on the move and there was someplace new to go, I was happy thinking about the future. It was always the next place we were headed to that would be better than where we were right then.

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It was the moving, the expectation of what was to come. I was missing what was wonderful about the right now, then and there, the present moment, the what is. And now, I could look back and see how beautiful it wasin the past. True beauty is in the now and what is there right before our eyes. I couldnt keep living thinking about what happened in the past or what might happen in the future. Life is happening now. Happiness is now. Peace is now. The true feeling of being alive is right now, not yesterday, not tomorrow, but now.

Im very happy right now. Ill be leaving Mexico shortly. Its still raining.

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Epilogue
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly.
Richard Bach

Ive been back home now for two months. Spring is bursting out in warm grasses and flowers, the Red Sox are playing baseball, the days are longer, and Im eating healthy salads and fruit. Im surrounded by family and friends. There is much to do. I am learning the book publishing business. I still only go into the old business office once a weekI couldnt make myself passionate about selling cabinets. I write and research in the mornings. Working in the garden and reading at the beach occupy my afternoons. Dance lessonssalsa, tango, swing, take up some of my evenings. Quality time is spent with my parents, children, and grandchildren. My life is full; I have everything I want. Spanish lessons are a pleasant memory, but learning the language is still an everyday commitment and joy. I can hardly wait till fall. Im thinking Id like to see Egypt and Israel, perhaps Thailand in the winter. Greece would be great in the spring. Or how about Chile and Bolivia? Itd be nice to go back to San Juan del Sur

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