"I am involved in a freedom ride protesting the loss of the minority rights belonging to the
few remaining earthbound stars. All we demanded was our right to twinkle."
- Marilyn Monroe




Sitting at the airport terminal in Cali, Colombia, I'm trying hard to let it go, recognizing that unlike a good Argentinian Malbec, not every part of my trip is going to go down smooth. And yes dear reader, after six months on the road, I'm still shocked by my own naiveté. But is it too much to ask for a little warning when the city that bills itself as the "Salsa Capital of the World" decides to go on vacation.


So there I am in the middle of an abandoned Centro Historico with visions of shimmying in a skimpy, sequin gown straight out of Dancing With the Stars dangling in my head. Only to have it shattered at my two left feet after learning its a three-day weekend and every ones decided they need a break from hip swiveling and left their tourist trap for one the next town over.


Back at the airport, since its the only place open with food and wi-fi, its hard not to feel crappy and unforgiving. But that's what life does, presenting you with these moments your suppose to rise above or put crap into perspective or get you to appreciate things you'd rather take for granted or at the very least whine really, really loudly about. Like my damn salsa lessons with a guapo chico named Rico Gutierrez.


Yes, yes, yes I've learned to go with the flow and be zen through eight hour flight delays and twenty-six hour bus rides, and lost bags and terror provoking border crossings. Wondering if that spilled bottle of aspirins at the bottom of my purse will be taken for drugs by the Narco police. Nothing like being taken to the backroom to make you appreciate things like Miranda rights and one phone call's. That is if the war on terror hasn't stamped out those things in my absence.


With the eye-rolling exasperation of a teenager, its hard not to be disappointed that this and other promised adventures hasn't permeated my being with the purest, sweetest sensation of joy and fulfillment in the known universe, beating back the darkness of anxiety, self-doubt, and dread - you know the whirling chasm of emotional angst that's inside all of us.


Just as the Western world was destined to be disappointed in Obama after his earth-shattering, glorious, hope-fest march to the White House, my present dark, sullen, crappy realization about backpacking shouldn't come as a surprise.


But thanks to a lifetime of being spoon-fed every warm, comforting clichés known to man by an American culture that can't phantom a story without a happy ending, I'm having a hard time swallowing the fact that no matter how exotic the location you can't shake the same restless, depressive, emotionally detached state that followed you around back home. Meaning if your trying to run from your life, its cheaper to just stay home.


No matter where we are in life, at one time or another, your quest to simply get through the day will be replaced by a painful longing for more. The world is full of hope and heartbreak and lukewarm coffee, and speeding tickets, and scratchy contact lenses that don't fit quite right, and canceled salsa classes, and handcuffs and mug shots and you have to do something about it.


Usually, this is the point where I would offer you some positive, carpe diem, Jack Bauer type mantra crap to see you through. But lets go with this instead: Start everyday with the simple reminder that everything will go wrong today.

It will be filled with disappointments and hassles and petty insults and unfair slights and misunderstandings. Knowing this, maybe we should try to enjoy ourselves instead of wanting to hurl a folding chair at someone's head or lie flat on a dirty rug and shriek our heads off.


So go and walk outside and spend the day wandering around in the summertime sunshine. Pick your kid up from day care and take her to the park. Bail on that lunchtime meeting and go to the movies down the block. Get that pedicure, and then have a sandwich and a big glass of iced tea. Stare at the wall or out the airport terminal and let your eyes go unfocused. Knowing that while life may ask these questions of us their are no easy answers.

"Many people are in the dark when it comes to money, and I'm going to turn on the lights."
- Suze Orman

Some days you merely survive. Mostly Monday's, when the freedom of the two-day weekend finds you back at the desk of the soul sucking corporate gerbil wheel of a job that you loathe.

On those mornings when its all you can do to flat iron your unwashed hair or pull up your scratchy pants, your quest to simply get through the day shifts into a painful longing for more.

You ignore it - as you have before - slamming it shut in the unrealistic pipe dream drawer at your desk. Answering the phone, opening emails and mustering an appropriately chirpy yet professional response to your co-workers "Hi!" instead.



And then you log on to Facebook and theirs your insanely annoying, over-caffeinated, slightly neurotic friend blogging from some exotic location lamenting the choice between a seven-day river boat tour of the Amazon or climbing the Andes mountain in Peru.



Something in you snaps. If this chicken donkey can navigate the dark, murky streets of Colombia, alone, with nothing but a debit card and nickel of common sense then theirs no reason why you a check-book balancing, vibrantly charming, rationally-minded, savvy adult can't. At the very least you'll have the decency not to blog about your own awesome, vainglorious adventures including that sexy, swarthy Chilean you'll meet in that hostel in Belize.



Having made up your mind you feel a jittery energy in your bones. That feeling of loathing and dread starts to melt as the light of being emancipated from the unwieldy chains of the corporate gulag starts to flicker in the dark, barren cave of your soul. With a pep in your step, you go to lunch.



While ordering your daily ($8) smoked salmon with dill mayo sandwich, at your favorite deli, kicking in a big glass of ice tea and sweet potato fries for ($4) more, you start to wonder how your going to finance this soiree with Javier in the Belizean jungles.

Back at your desk, you check your savings account. After dusting the cobwebs off the account, you find theirs just enough in there for a good coffee-maker and a house plant. Chewing on your nails - which is badly in need of your weekly ($29) mani and pedi appointment with Ming-Sing Lee at Nirvana Nails and Beauty - you thrash yourself for having not kept that promise to have 10 percent of your paycheck directly deposited into your savings account like Suze Orman told you to.



Your head hurts and mercifully its time to go home after winning that ($28.50) bid on Ebay for a pair of Elvis Presley salt and pepper shakers. Leaving the office, you find its raining and you forgot your umbrella. You don't want to ruin your ($56) blow-out from your Dominican hairdresser, so you jump into a ($23) cab. Sitting on the couch ($150 if sold on Craiglist), breaking another promise to go to the gym ($65 a month), your too tired to cook ($48 worth of groceries from Whole Foods rotting in the fridge) so you order Thai ($16 plus tip) and watch that show you hate on cable ($53 a month) instead of reading those used books ($12) you bought at that library side-walk sale.



Logging on to that crazy, mouth breathing traveler friend's blog you learn she financed her trip by giving up her gorgeous, well decorated loft apartment ($1250 a month) to sleep on her sister's couch rent free for five months, after selling all her possessions that wouldn't fit into 5 X 10 foot storage unit. You blanch unable to believe that this ($250) Prada sunglass wearing,($56) night cream buying, buppie wanna be gave up shopping ($95 monthly average habit) completely and started doing her own hair (which probably showed), wearing the same clothes (in creative, yet imaginative ways) dumping all her friends to avoid weekly dinner & movie night ($35 average tab), and started packing her lunch (saving 3 trillion dollars).



It also helped that in a fit of late-night, Trader Joe wine swiveling haze, she followed Suze Orman's advice to start a 401k three years ago. By the time she cashed it out, thanks to that incompetent jackass, frat boy running the country it was enough to buy three rounds of pisco sours at a Colombian dive bar and eight days at a hostel that makes Guantanamo Bay look like the Ritz-Carlton but I digress.

By now dear reader, you, probably, get the point. There's no big surprise here on how to finance your own dream trip around the world. Short of winning the lottery, or a dead relative leaving you a lil' sumthin sumthin" in the will, or a really happy "customer" leaving a big, wad of sweaty cash on your nightstand, it'll take some good old-fashion scrimping and saving to party it up with Javier.



At any rate, with the credit crunch and a collapsing economy, now maybe the time to give the Suze Orman approach a try. On your next weekly "window shopping" excursión through DSW Shoe Warehouse, hold up that $85 pair of "the perfect red" Charles David pumps and ask yourself would Suze O approve? Is this worth sexy, swarthy Javier groping and kissing you in the Zapotec Civilization wing of the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City? I know for me it wasn't.



Now drop the pumps and walk home to your cable-tv-less, ramen noodle pantry pack, furnitureless apartment. Stare at the walls and let your eyes go unfocused, letting Suze O bathe you in her marvelous penny pinching light. Which you would if you hadn't had your gas & light service turned off saving ($70) a month! See you in Argentina, donkey!

Travel Lesson #23

"Paradise is exactly like where you are right now... only much, much better. - Laurie Anderson, artist

Look at it - the turquoise jewel water, the effervescent sands, the saffron sun - paradise no? And who hasn't. Whether at home or at work changing your Windows screen saver; daydreaming about your next vacation while slogging through the rut of another ordinary.



I know I did, routinely, while wasting the better half of the work day rewriting inter-office e-mails so that they were less a reflection of my bitter, dying soul. Needless to say, my professional persona was beginning to crack and it would take more than a week's vacation to repair the facade.



In a fit of caffeine-induced impulsivity, I quit my job, sold all my worldly goods and went in search of my Shangri-la by the sea. Already, dear reader, you can probably see where this is headed.

After a few stints in the mountains in Spanish school, hiking a volcano, back-breaking farm work, and eyes-glazing over the tenth colonial town with its baroque churches dedicated to yet another angelic, congenial saint, it was time to head for the beach.



But not just any beach, it had to be the beach. Where my mind could finally relax and stop making to-do list, obsessing over where to go next, or the looming apocalypse of finding a job in this economy.

After grilling the hostel staff and half the Mexican people of Oaxaca (Wahaca) Jack Bauer style, forcing them to spend hours gazing at my laptop screen saver, screaming "Where is this?"



The consensus was El Mazunte. A quick perusal of Rough Guide Mexico, assured me this wasn't another overrun tourist trap. After learning that Anita Roddick, founder of the The Body Shop, has a co-operative in this sleepy, little village, I packed my bags and was out on the next thing smoking.







After a dreary, butt numbing nine hour bus ride, 30 minutes of which mandated a ride in the back of a pick-up truck crammed between a crate of cackling chickens and three bubble-gum popping, giggling school girls, I'd arrived. But to what? Looking around the place, it was everything I'd been told, except, something was off. Like being offered candy but the wrong kind.



And as troublesome as it is to continue, knowing instead of being compassionate and understanding, you dear reader, are probably tittering profusely trying to bite back that told you so. Not just because your an insensitive sea donkey, ruthlessly waiting to rub my nose in my own naivete, but mostly because your bored and it sounds like fun.



But when the British couple packing up beside my floating-hammock bed, ask if I was a light sleeper - it should have resounded in my lumpy, exhausted, sullen brain like the hand of God striking the earth. Light sleeper doesn't begin to cover it.

On a road trip with a dear friend, after three hours trying to ignore their snoring, the only solution I could come up with was to smother them in their sleep. Reaching for the fattest pillow I could find, the only thing that stop me was my sister's hand on my shoulder and the Nyquil she shoved in my face.



After finding that the only way they could sleep was to down two bottles of wine with their fish tacos the night before; Jean and her boyfriend were leaving for fear of becoming alcoholics, they told me.



But I reasoned that I was so mind-numbingly exhausted, that sleep like peace in the Middle East was inevitable. But I underestimated the awesome force of the ocean, cresting its majestic waves 40 feet from my bed.



Throw in the mosquitoes and humidity, two days later I understood why Cortez had to burn the ships to keep his crew from fleeing the Americas. Lying in the darkness of my bed, drenched in sweat and insect repellent, gingerly patting my passport and credit card, feeling disheveled and defeated, wondered if maybe it was time to go home. But home to what?



When the dream of paradise you harbored in your heart and on your desktop fails you where do you go from there? My dream may seem atomic and naive, but then aren't most dreams. Which is why most of us keep ours hidden, safe from scrutiny and contempt. Why risk failure, or being called delusional, or a loser if you don't succeed. In a moment of self-doubt, struggling with my emotions, it hits me - maybe the dream is besides the point.



When your moods and perspectives shift as rapidly as the tides, how do you trust that any of your decisions make sense? The answer - you don't. What I've learned is that if you desire the ends more than the means, you may be dooming yourself to failure.

But if you can retrain your mind to find joy in the process, in enduring, improving and learning everyday - then you'll find paradise in almost anything, even in the most mundane of your travails. Or in my case, in "places that are made sweeter because you worked so hard to get there. To places at the very edge of your dreams".



And it doesn't hurt to find a room with a fan and some walls....




Or after a long walk along the beach a church steps from the ocean...

Travel Lesson #8

"I have opinions of my own - strong opinions - but I don't always agree with them.
(Former President George Bush Jr.)



From our birth to our death, we continually crave comfort, warmth, and security in whatever form we can find it and no matter how unhealthy. Like in the job we hate but won't quit, in the jerk we're dating but won't dump, in material goods we don't need but won't stop buying. And judging by the rate of obesity in our country, the biggest won't of all, is in shoveling our faces with enough deep-fried, gut-busting, greasy, fatty foods which is sure to drive us to extinction. You know, much like how the asteroids did the dinosaurs in. They don't call it comfort food for nothing.




I know, I know in this economy to look for a job that would fuel your soul and nurture your talent is crazy talk. You can't fight the biological instinct for security much less take arms against the blood sucking vermin that is student loans. And after one too many Friday nights, alone, watching another episode of the roundly insufferable Suppernanny, that belching neanderthal you met speed dating doesn't seem so bad after all. And by the way, who am I to judge you, dear reader.



Well, from the vainglorious, self-congratulating perch of my adventure travels, it would be too easy for me to lecture you on one of our deepest, most abiding fears: the fear of risk and freedom. And as much as it would amuse me, and at the very least, help pass the time in my dank, underground dungeon of a hostel - I can't. My fear of risk and freedom reared its ugly head when it came time to leave the fuzzy bear world of Spanish school in Xela (Shay-la) for the Chuckie Part One, Two and Three world of the United States of Mexico. Yes, that's actually their real name. Who knew Mexico had states?



Checking the State Department's current warning for Mexico, I find its on high alert with the drug wars and most recently the abduction and murder of two U.S. citizens in Chihuahua. While these attacks are tragic and sad, the anxiety they generate cause most travelers to exaggerate the threat and danger to their lives. Considering this incident happened 2,000 miles from my first destination of San Cristobal, it made as much sense for me to cancel, as some of my fellow travelers did, as it would canceling a trip to Orlando, FL because of a murder in New York City. Seriously folks, has the US War on Drugs stop you from doing anything? Short of not driving through Compton wearing red or blue, its a safe bet to say it hasn't.




But that's what fear does - it pounces on our rational selves, grotesquely pawing at our vulnerabilities like a jaunty, beady-eyed jackal toying with its prey before consuming its meal. The anxiety and dread that fear causes is to keep us focused on, well, fear. Its a bigger megalomaniac than Donald Trump and like the three ex-wives who fell for him, focusing on fear constricts our world, wrecking havoc on our sense of self. By believing that we're helpless, gullible, battered donkeys incapable of facing life's challenges, our fear of reality grows so great and our sense of self so fragile, that the only solution is to seclude ourselves in a world of illusion. As if bypassing Mexico for Belize will thwart danger - like theirs no guns there, chicken monkey.



And that goes for you too if you think that dead-end job isn't killing your spirit or settling for less then your soul mate or buying crap you don't need. I know, I know we are all chafing under modern life and as an adult there are compromises to be made - another illusion or maybe that should be delusion. Now here's the real stinker, we make these excuses unconsciously because we're all too scared to face reality. After three rounds of martinis, the best we can do is wonder why we're not happy. Paying the tab, staggering towards the door we're sure something or someone will come along and make us happy, we just need to be patient and stick it out. We need these illusions, right, like I need coffee and a manzana filled churros, just to make it through the day.



Right about now, dear reader, your head probably hurts wondering why this couldn't be a normal travel blog. I hear you. You want pictures of breathtaking vistas, ancient colonial ruins, scrumptious local cuisine and a few amusing anecdotes. Not to wrestle with the existential musings of an over-caffeinated, Kafka zealot. And by the way, if you do find my notebooks, please burn them, no one need read about how I almost peed on myself digging for 4 pesos in my day pack to pay for the toilet. When the old lady wouldn't break my 50 I rushed past her, unzipping as I went straight to the hombre baño. I kept my eyes closed and did what I had to do. See, I'm not a total pontificating tyrant.







Now back to your lesson which is this - stop being a moronic, emotionally lazy, whining, procrastinating, squirrel monkey, who needs a nap every 15 minutes. Find some guts and go wrestle that beady-eyed fear jackal into a bloody pulp. Whew. Now, tell me that didn't feel good. Still not convinced? Consider this - giving into fear, over and over again, only creates new fears, backing you into a corner, narrowing your options with each passing year, until you lose everything that makes life vibrant.




As your snacking on that Cheese Whiz in a can, these are your options, you can either cling to nostalgic glimpses from your past to get you through a mediocre present and a dim, uncertain future. Or you can go find yourself some boxing gloves.



As for me, I'll spare you the nauseating, sickening, candy-coated gushing over what has turned out to be some of my best travels throughout Mexico to places like San Cristobal, Mexico City, Morelia, Oaxaca and upcoming adventures to Tulum and Playa del Carmen. It hasn't all been roses but to think if I hadn't let go of my unbearable, airless, migraine-inducing fear of a drug cartel showdown with Tony Soprano in Mexico City barking "Where's my bake ziti?" - I would have missed so much.



The sultry caress of a hot summer wind, laughing with new found friends, discovering the smokey-sweet flavor of Mezcal, my new favorite drink, are just a few of life's rewards for daring to believe in myself, to take a chance. Walking back to my hotel, with the same street smarts I use in Chicago, Orlando, New York or Atlanta, I wonder what else fear has caused me to miss. In the heart of this beautiful country, Maya Angelou's lesson on life is finally learned: to feel fear and retreat, is to struggle against life itself.