Travel update 5 years after
Saludos,
I began this, the second half of my life, on 1 October 2003 when I became unemployed and homeless. I began rambling around the world and trying to find out, for my self, what it was that made life real.
Well I thought "oh, I will take 3 months off and then get a new job somewhere like Las Vegas or maybe on a Cruise Ship as a chef"...After 3 months, I bought a one year round-the-world ticket with Star Alliance and my travels really began in earnest! I thought, "well this will get the "travel bug" out of my system..." So...
Well about 6 months into my round the world trip, about June of 004, I definately knew i wasnt going to stop after this year was up. I switched around all my finances to earn higher dividends and sold all the remaining "stuff" I had in storage, and I have been like the energized bunny...I keep goin´ and goin´and goin´....
I am in Ecuador. just kickin back reading books by Bo Yin Ra, meditating, climbing the hills, chatting with the ex-pats, making friends among the locals. The plan is to go to colombia next and then venezuela and then Trinidad/Tobago ( I really like the steel drum music they are famous for...)
Renting a cheap room in a rooming house has its advantages and disadvantages. I love to have a kitchen i can use. I love to go out in the mornings to the little tiendas and buy enough food for the day and return every day visiting the same three tiendas and gradually becoming a " regular" that the workers/owners recognize and greet and show me the nicest zuchinni (calabaza italiano), fabulous purple camotes (sweet potato) crazy sweet little mangos, which potatoes to use for "papas fritas" and which for "al vapor". Fresh peeled peas (guisantes) that I cook up with quinua. I make 4 liter batches of "refresco" with lemon grass (hierba luiza) and ginger (gingibre) and panela (raw cane sugar). Shaaahhh the boy lives like a king!!
Pero por el otra lado(but on the other hand) I sit down at my escritoria the other night para una toca chica de mi pipa, but then, when I get up and sit on my extra bed which I use as a sofa I notice about 6 inches to my left, there is an 18inch (about a third of a meter) long snake sitting on top of my folded up pants...Aye Zukes!!
I confronted the little chico with my escoba (broom) and he seemed quite docile. I dont know a poison snake from a hipopotamus and so i tried to call on my neighbor Bosco thinking "if he doesnt know he can at least light an incense and consult the I Ching"... But he wasnt home so i shouted over jardin valla (the garden fence) and got Neil the South African crystal reader dude to come and help me evict the culebra (snake).
We HAAAHHH I mean HE got the snake with two sticks and put him in an empty basurero (waste paper basket) and we (there I go again) tossed him over the other fence into the medow where Bella Vaca (the Vecino´s cow) grazes.
I consulted Orland the zoologist who owns Rumi Wilco eco lodge and also the internet and we both have concluded that it was a small constrictor like a boa or python who was there looking for mice or lagartias (lizards) and was no threat to my person.
Last night I had more nocturnal visitors. I was out side with my light on and the door open in my room. When i went to bed and shut the light I discovered there were a bunch of fire flies in my room who had aparently been attracted by the light. Now while I was trying to sleep they kept blinking on and off their bright green little buttocks glowing in the dark...
So I went home from the internet testerday and discovered on of the neighbors gallinas
a big white hen, was in my kitchen!! She had aparently wandered in looking for stuff to peckat, and the wind must have blown the door shut. She must have freaked out a little and got nervous. There was chicken shit on the floor counters and kitchen table. I love this country. Really I do.
They say bad luck comes in threes and if this is so, I gues bad luck with animals in the house is over for now. I suppose I should consult the I Ching to be sure but who has time what with the international financial market meltdown the presidential debates and ...and...Well this morning out in front of my place there is the most lovely purple pink flower you have ever seen. It was all covered in beads of dew and just glistening in the early morning rays of our luminous "giver of life", the sun. I sat down next to it in the wet grass and just stared at it for about 20 minutes. Bosco came out and I showed it to him.
He changed the subject to astral projection. He read me a passage of Lobsang Rampa´s book "You Forever" a buddhist classic that dicusses, among other things out of body experiences. I know looking at dew covered flowers and getting my trousers all wet first thing in the morning is not an out of body experience...but It sure is a miracle, dont you think?
Here then are a couple of quotes to think of until I see you all again.
Peace and Love,
Rambling Robert
"In politics stupidity is not a handicap." Napoleon Bonaparte"
"In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then beleive them to be true." Buddha
"You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself." -Galileo.
I began this, the second half of my life, on 1 October 2003 when I became unemployed and homeless. I began rambling around the world and trying to find out, for my self, what it was that made life real.
Well I thought "oh, I will take 3 months off and then get a new job somewhere like Las Vegas or maybe on a Cruise Ship as a chef"...After 3 months, I bought a one year round-the-world ticket with Star Alliance and my travels really began in earnest! I thought, "well this will get the "travel bug" out of my system..." So...
Well about 6 months into my round the world trip, about June of 004, I definately knew i wasnt going to stop after this year was up. I switched around all my finances to earn higher dividends and sold all the remaining "stuff" I had in storage, and I have been like the energized bunny...I keep goin´ and goin´and goin´....
I am in Ecuador. just kickin back reading books by Bo Yin Ra, meditating, climbing the hills, chatting with the ex-pats, making friends among the locals. The plan is to go to colombia next and then venezuela and then Trinidad/Tobago ( I really like the steel drum music they are famous for...)
Renting a cheap room in a rooming house has its advantages and disadvantages. I love to have a kitchen i can use. I love to go out in the mornings to the little tiendas and buy enough food for the day and return every day visiting the same three tiendas and gradually becoming a " regular" that the workers/owners recognize and greet and show me the nicest zuchinni (calabaza italiano), fabulous purple camotes (sweet potato) crazy sweet little mangos, which potatoes to use for "papas fritas" and which for "al vapor". Fresh peeled peas (guisantes) that I cook up with quinua. I make 4 liter batches of "refresco" with lemon grass (hierba luiza) and ginger (gingibre) and panela (raw cane sugar). Shaaahhh the boy lives like a king!!
Pero por el otra lado(but on the other hand) I sit down at my escritoria the other night para una toca chica de mi pipa, but then, when I get up and sit on my extra bed which I use as a sofa I notice about 6 inches to my left, there is an 18inch (about a third of a meter) long snake sitting on top of my folded up pants...Aye Zukes!!
I confronted the little chico with my escoba (broom) and he seemed quite docile. I dont know a poison snake from a hipopotamus and so i tried to call on my neighbor Bosco thinking "if he doesnt know he can at least light an incense and consult the I Ching"... But he wasnt home so i shouted over jardin valla (the garden fence) and got Neil the South African crystal reader dude to come and help me evict the culebra (snake).
We HAAAHHH I mean HE got the snake with two sticks and put him in an empty basurero (waste paper basket) and we (there I go again) tossed him over the other fence into the medow where Bella Vaca (the Vecino´s cow) grazes.
I consulted Orland the zoologist who owns Rumi Wilco eco lodge and also the internet and we both have concluded that it was a small constrictor like a boa or python who was there looking for mice or lagartias (lizards) and was no threat to my person.
Last night I had more nocturnal visitors. I was out side with my light on and the door open in my room. When i went to bed and shut the light I discovered there were a bunch of fire flies in my room who had aparently been attracted by the light. Now while I was trying to sleep they kept blinking on and off their bright green little buttocks glowing in the dark...
So I went home from the internet testerday and discovered on of the neighbors gallinas
a big white hen, was in my kitchen!! She had aparently wandered in looking for stuff to peckat, and the wind must have blown the door shut. She must have freaked out a little and got nervous. There was chicken shit on the floor counters and kitchen table. I love this country. Really I do.
They say bad luck comes in threes and if this is so, I gues bad luck with animals in the house is over for now. I suppose I should consult the I Ching to be sure but who has time what with the international financial market meltdown the presidential debates and ...and...Well this morning out in front of my place there is the most lovely purple pink flower you have ever seen. It was all covered in beads of dew and just glistening in the early morning rays of our luminous "giver of life", the sun. I sat down next to it in the wet grass and just stared at it for about 20 minutes. Bosco came out and I showed it to him.
He changed the subject to astral projection. He read me a passage of Lobsang Rampa´s book "You Forever" a buddhist classic that dicusses, among other things out of body experiences. I know looking at dew covered flowers and getting my trousers all wet first thing in the morning is not an out of body experience...but It sure is a miracle, dont you think?
Here then are a couple of quotes to think of until I see you all again.
Peace and Love,
Rambling Robert
"In politics stupidity is not a handicap." Napoleon Bonaparte"
"In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then beleive them to be true." Buddha
"You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself." -Galileo.
posted by Rambling Robert | 10:29 AM
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