18 de Febrero

I started my trip one month ago. Such an event surely deserves a post. It’s been one month here and I dont feel at all liked coming back as many people, myself included, thought. I just feel pletoric and I currently think of myself getting to Bogota, Mexico or Boston if necessary. I am more and more aware I am living an unique experience and my world in Madrid can wait as much as required. I guess many factors contribute to this state. Basically I can say I am doing very well, there wasnt any serious problem and I hardly spent any time alone. I moved from a sitting in front of the pc 8 hours a day routine to a life in which every day is different from the previous one, every day I meet new people and get to know new places. Coming back to normal life is going to be hard.

There are some things I miss of course, my family, my friends, my “luxury” stuff in my flat in Madrid etc… but, at the same time you realize you are growing up as a person in certain aspects. Starting with the ability of been alone plenty of time. Even when I am meeting so many people I still spend a lot of time with my only company, in buses or just walking around places. And it does not get too long or too buring. A 30 minutes subway ride in Madrid used to be enough to piss me off, here I take these local buses for hours and I am there before I even realize. I listen to music or just thing about what to write here. It is a pity nobody invented a mechanism for putting your thoughts straight to the computer, otherways this blog would be really long.

More things, concerning the “luxury” stuff I was mentioning before. I am really surprised about how fast I got used to life without them. My huge house, my big TV, my bed, my cachimba, my car… All that stopped been so precious for me. I loved that house I had built up in Madrid and thought it was gonna be hard to replace that with an endless series of cheap hostels and people’s sofas but it is not been like that. I perfectly crashed everywhere and been moving from one place to another so often is not a big deal.

Talking about that, I also found out that writing here, even though it takes some time I could spend in enjoying more my trip, is a neccessarly discipline. We could say this is currently my only must-do and I think is good to have one. Writing here gives me the feeling that I am not just enjoying myself without doing anything productive but I also have a sort of “work” that demands some time from time to time. Sometimes is hard to write but when I manage to do it I enjoy it. I dont know if this will ever be useful to anyone or not. In fact that is not the very important thing, what it matters is that it provides me with a motivation, a goal and something I enjoy doing. Besides, it saves me the pain of telling everybody the same stories.

So we could say that, in dispite of my former doubts, I perfectly fit in this full time traveller business. And I feel it every time I get into a bus that will take me to the next place. It gives you an euphoric feeling, you feel very alive just thinking of the new stuff waiting for you. I am right now enjoying Brazil but if I look at the future everything looks promising there: Argentina, Chile, Bolivia… Maybe this is something I still have to change, this typical attitude of myself of having my mind in what is coming rather than in what is happening right now. I surprise myself already thinking of captainflint/asia or captainflint/africa.

We will see if this current state of mind is going to last the six or seven months I need to complete my “mission”. Currently it is like that but maybe this constant travelling I am doing will get this feeling away and in a couple of months I will be writing something totally different. Maybe things stop going so well and I dont get too know so many people. Maybe I run out of money. Time will tell. For the time been I will confess you something, all this time I have had something I call “return joker”, a B plan to go back to Madrid in case things would not work out so well. The thing is that,l before my job situation changed so dramatically, I had already booked a plane for going to Rio in carnival. 8th of March was the return date of that trip. Later on, the plan evolved to the big trip I am currently doing, I extended the itinerary and bought a new plane ticket but I made sure I would still be in Rio for the carnival and therefore for my first return ticket. Taking that flight would have meant to cancel the trip after a month and a half, more or less the time I was expecting myself to feel like doing this. Yesterday I canceled this flight, yesterday I destroyed my “return joker”. There wont be quick return to Spain, the next return point is Lima, in Peru, around two months travelling ahead from today. Lets go for that…

Tags: Personal