IN CONCLUSION

I return to Seattle, and on cue it rains, which I hear it hasn’t done for weeks. I feel the cool from the Northern Pacific Ocean, which is different than the cool of the Andes. That cool comes from altitude. This cool seeps up from sea level and into your pores. Seattle Chill indeed.

Below is a poem/essay that I wrote on the journey home. Thank you so much for coming with me on this journey. It means a lot. Happy Travels!

To travel is to be like a child

Probably awash in a language you don't fully understand

Largely ignorant of the customs and culture

Yet trusting that somehow things will work out

You can simultaneously lose and find yourself while traveling

Be Alone, yet still feel held by the world around you

Travel is as profound as it is trivial

As mundane as it is exciting

And often the most amazing things are not the tourist attractions

But the incidental moments

When the traveler's Fresh eyes come into focus

To see beauty where the familiar ceases to see at all

And this is how the days are spent

grabbing fistfuls of new experience like a hungry toddler

Blundering along without pretense

Not reveling in one's ineptitude, but leaning into it

For that is the innocense needed to be truly present

Travel is temporary

but the memories last a lifetime

A 7 month trip to Europe 37 years ago seems almost as fresh as it was when it was happening

It is a mythic map that overlays my entire life

I can close my eyes and again hike the Cornwall Coast from Bude to Tintigel, or the walls of Old Jerusalem, or steal that cowbell off the neck of a cow while drunk in Interlocken with Darryl, or recover a thousand unremarkable moments that provide the texture of recalled experience.

And each subsequent trip is another map that overlays that one

Each one enmeshes and enriches the other

This trip to Mexico City and Colombia has opened a whole new dimension of experience, and made the once exotic more my own.

The cultural richness of Mexico City with it's treelined streets. The colonial tropical heat of Cartagena, with mango and arepa stands on every other corner. The jungle lushness of Guachaca, sleeping amidst the throb of insect drone. Swimming in a paradisical waterfall pool. The cosmopolitan bustle of El Poblado in Medellin. Clouds off the Andes. The Welcoming colors of Guatape', the kindness and pride of the people.

Open to the daily diet of wonder, the distance between souls feels less when one is traveling. The people you meet fleeting, but intense; fellow sojourners seeing their quest in the other, compressing a crucible of life experience into a few weeks.

But I also remember the faces of those wearied by the endless stream of tourists: who scrape jaded dollars from our relative opulence. I remember shocking poverty and litter; streets that one should not go down, a gun shot and the police chase. I remember dire warnings on offical websites, but mostly... I remember the warmth of the people. Tranquilo. Let life come to you. There is enough time, my friend. We are all in the same line.

My son Giacomo reminds me that whenever I use the word "adventure" what I really mean is that something is "inconvenient"; and I suppose inconvenience is an integral part of any travel adventure. Getting out of ones comfort zone, leaning into the world, like a child hanging hard on the arm of an adult, trusting they will be held.

And while I do feel held... by the world and the kindness of others, I also feel buoyed by the wings of my own appreciation

Which is the closest thing to magic that I know.