Hiking/backpacking « Yummy Wakame

Dec8

Forward the (r)evolution

About a month ago I was really lucky to meet these guys. They shared a few meals with the family and I at Hospedaje Central, the hostel where I’ve been living the past month. Forward the (r)evolution is two couples who are living and traveling the world without money. It started as a fun idea to do for a few months and now they have gone past their end date and are now living a life of travel without money. They aren’t bums. They aren’t trust fund kids. They are respectfully dressed, clean, ordinary people like you and me who live with little to no impact on the earth, catching rides that were going somewhere anyway and eating good food that would have gone to waste anyway. All the while they are giving talks on how other regular people can do the same. How ultimately we could all live in a world without money and evolve to a new system.

I’m not quite ready for this drastic step and all that it implies, like letting go of my career which I love, and the vulnerability of a single woman traveling alone without money worries me. But a seed was planted. And I admire them so much. I have a feeling I would do this for a few months, and then never want it to end. Who knows…

If you’re curious, check out their amazing travel blog, and the links where they give full information on how they did it and how you can too.

More in Traveling Without Money

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Nov6

Wide Wings Fly Solo

This morning I woke up in Cristiano’s loft, packed my stuff again after a lovely week there, still stuffed from the handmade French crepe made by tres sexie “no, is not a pancake! Is a crepe.” Arturo last night, and joined my El Zopilote friends for a last game of cards while others peeled fresh roasted cacao.

I hugged them goodbye around 10:30am and headed down the winding path to the main road. Heavily slept, huge smile on my face, feeling absolutely deliciously contented I caught two buses to Moyogulpa. (more…)

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Sep14

Trusty Ole Shoestring

I’m halfway through the 3 month stint here at InanItah. Pfft… I don’t even know what to think about that. Its all too quick really.

Thinking, all the time, about Cape Town, Terlingua TX, Peruuu, the Gobeeeeee Desert, Bisbeeeeeeee Arizona, Austin Texas, Steel City Pennsylvania, Sierra Leone, The Land of Ports Oregon, The Land of Thai, San Fran, and not a cent to rub together to make anything happen. haha! yet. YET! Yet yet yet!!!! Yet it WILL happen. It will ALL happen! ALL. On my own shoestring.

And that’s final.

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Aug30

Truth waits on eyes unclouded by longing

Truly, one may gain by losing;
And one may lose by gaining.
~ Lao Tzu

Something permanently changed in me tonight after I took this photo. I walked home in the dark instead of using the headlamp, with acute awareness of my footing, living the present moment, using all my senses, praying I wouldn’t unknowingly squish any frog princes. All the vivid colours that come out at night would have blackened out with a light. I wondered, why do we automatically switch them on without realising this huge tradeoff?

A few hours later while sitting on a rock in the pitch dark, watching a massive lightning storm light up the bellowing clouds circling the volcano, I felt the click happen.

All these years I’ve been desperate for a sense of home, some soil to call my own. The desperation pushed it ever further from my reach until finally I was completely without even a place to return to.

(more…)

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Aug28

Bringing a World of Worries to Paradise

The water supply is still down after two days and I think I caught something really nasty yesterday, there’s Guardiasis going round. But I was on it with Olive Leaf Extract and woke up just fine today. The many troubles on my heart and mind last night sweated away with all the toxins and the rainstorm and I woke up bouncing.

I’ve been thinking for days now about how funny it is that you can come all the way out to paradise, leave everything behind, travel across half the globe, and still all your worries follow you. Fretting about money and broken computers and boys and bills… I limit to a few minutes here and there, ever since I have become acutely conscious of this fact. I am here. Right now is what I have right now. What I have, even though it is at times quite brutal and hard to live out here, is AMAZING. I am living completely consciously for the first time in my life. Feeling everything. I haven’t had a joint or a drop of alcohol since I got here.

Almost everyone has gone swimming. I was standing on the edge of the temple eating some pineapple for lunch, looking at the incredible view of the lake and volcano, the clouds swirling fast around it, the grasses sweeping in the wind. Chance is doing somewhat the same in silence. Munching on a slice that’s just dripping sticky everywhere. The pineapple looked like sunshine and I imagined it filling my belly with its rays. I don’t know why. But these days I just let myself imagine things that feel good and my body responds.

I’m thinking about how stupid it is to bring your troubles to a place like this, when you can just bring yourself.

“Paradise.” I heard slip out of me.

“Yeah.”

“I just realised… I have never been more broke in my life and I don’t think I’ve ever been happier. Or more content.”

“Neither have I. I have five dollars.”

We laughed. Then went back to silence. (more…)

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Aug27

Naked in the jungle

The Internet has gone down but I have to document this for posterity and somehow get it up later. It’s 9pm thursday night. A massive lightning storm has hit. The rain is so hard it’s coming through the roof of the temple and blowing in from the sides. A search party went out to assess the situation. The roads are washing away. There is a river where the road was, so strong you can go rafting on it. We’re on the side of a volcano. You can hear rocks landsliding boom boom boom! The lightning stretches across the entire horizon and is constant. It feels like we’re in the middle of a giant version of those weird electric zappy balls.

We’re all huddled in the centre laughing and hanging out waiting for the storm to clear a little so we can clean up the outdoor kitchen and go to bed. A scraggly joint is being passed around eliciting wild and amazing stories.

As if all this isn’t strange enough, young, natural, strikingly beautiful women have slipped out of their soaked clothes and are running around stark naked in the rain trying to get a tarp up, laughing and squealing. And my belly is full of local dark chocolate and giggles. I LOVE this lightning.

I really am in heaven.

—

Update: the roads washed away leaving canyons and boulders from the volcanic landslide. The “municipal” water pipes also got smushed so we have no water. But the Internet is back up! And Kalima made some beautiful art on me today.

“La vida no es esperar a que la tormenta pase… Es aprender a bailar bajo la lluvia”

(Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.”)

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Aug25

Running on Emptiness

I’ve been out here 3 weeks now and it has been gob-smacking. In the way you’d expect yes, but far more in unexpected ways. Every day I have to let go of control and the desire to control my life more and more.

My laptop, my tool of trade, died in the first week. I lost a wonderful client because the delay was too uncertain and too long, understandably. And along with that, the $2000 I would have earned out here and used to start a new life when I come back home in 3 months. That was my fantastic unstoppable plan! But now I have no plan. Some of you may not know this (more…)

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Aug24

Paradise has its price

I just successfully navigated 4 faffing very grumpy, premenstrual women who doubted my sense of direction the entire time through thick and winding jungle in pitch dark, torrential rain, close lightning strikes and screaming, on paths that had become rivers and steep boulders to climb down the volcano for over an hour each way… to civilization and pizza. This was after I’d already walked 4 hours to the beach in rubber boots and rubbed all the skin off my ankles.

(Reminder to self: this is why I usually backpack and adventure with men.)

Though I have to hand it to them. They are all pretty brave for girly girls. Got muddy, sweaty, climbed through barbed wire fences and risked all for pizza. And I love them. I hang out with these people 24 hours a day and never get bored of them. And they’re always up for a hug.

It’s time to crash. I have an eyeball growing between my big and second toe and ankles to lick. I think saliva might help? Good night!

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Aug8

InanItah – The Kitchen

This is our temporary kitchen setup. Its such a cute little shack but its going to be torn down once the big one is complete so I wanted to capture it for posterity.