A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving. ~Lao Tzu

“Toyota is good for Jihad!”
- Grinning Al Qaeda fighter to British journalist while transporting him in a Toyota truck to an Al Qaeda hideout for an interview.

The dolphin, which got us here safely and with such style, our home for five months, has now proven to be an enormous block of metal and carpet which we cannot get rid of. In the US it is probably worth around $3-4000 at the most. Here, where car importation taxes are extremely high, it is probably worth $30,000 USD on a dealer’s lot. This, initially, excited us. Of course this only lasted until we found out that although the title is also in Jonas’ name, no one can nationalize a used car in Brazil. Even a Brazilian who has been out of the country for more than a year cannot bring in his own foreign vehicle. The only ones allowed to do this, of course, are high level government officials. We cannot donate the Dolphin either. This idea excited us too – the idea that it might become a traveling clinic for a medical NGO here for rural areas – until we found out that the car cannot stay in Brazil. Period. If it does not leave the country within 6 months of arrival I will be fined $4000 USD and the government will confiscate the car, nationalize it and sell it for their own profit. I also cannot stay in Brazil as a tourist for more than six months out of any 12 month period. If I overstay my visa, I will be charged $7 a day. To get a teaching visa I must find a school willing to sponsor me for a visa, meaning they have to prove to the labor dept of Brazil that I am more qualified for the job than any other Brazilian citizen. Very few schools are willing to go through this hassle. So, after Brazil’s loss at the world cup with a disappointing lack of pizzazz, many brick walls, dead ends and multiple downward spirals, we realized that I cannot stay in Brazil.

One evening Jonas opened the paper to an article on Mercosur and the opening of borders between South American countries for workers. He can now legally become a resident in most South American countries, including Argentina. He is allowed to bring in one vehicle and nationalize it in Argentina. So, for now, that seems to be an option. Doors close, doors open, life goes on.
There have been many afternoons over the past three months where I have gone to sit in the Dolphin, breathing in its rich homey carpety smell, running my hands on the walls, the photos, the ticket stubs from all the ruins we visited. I trace my fingers along the route on the map we have pinned to the bathroom door, our path, our road marked by bright push pins as we made our way through the Americas. I think back on moments as I touch the pins – a windy evening drinking tequila in a field by a deserted beach on the Yucatan; clouds covering the riotous setting orange sun in Nicaragua to form a perfect blazing red cross over the sea; a child’s wind-eaten face at a toll booth in Bolivia, staring in at me through the window with snot running from his nose and acres of hopeless future behind the fences of his eyes; toucans flying across the sky on our starvation road through the Pantanal, their enormous beaks like bananas with wings; so many Indian faces, swinging braids, swishing skirts and the strong smell of corn and sweat; dust, miles and miles of dust; roads of holes or maybe just holes containing bits of road; deep green mountains of coffee and mist and Mayans; teenaged cops with machine gun smiles and sticky hands; so many times we called out “amigo!” and so many times it was answered with a smile.
I think when we finally parked the car, our spirits had nowhere to land. They kept going, like bodies in forward motion after the car has hit the tree, continuing their journey, their motion endless and forever until gravity finally has its way. I think mine is still out there, roaming, watching, feeling the grind of an engine beneath her and the smell of wet palm leaves and orange dirt and Pacific ocean spray coming in through the window. Maybe when you step out that door, into the vast organic experience, you are lost. You can never go home again, can never pretend that underneath your skin, the atoms are not still moving, still sitting on a rumbling mobile carpet, still watching as snippets of the world come briefly into focus and then disappear. What did I learn from this voyage? What have I gained? What is the conclusion? The conclusion is that a journey, in a manner, is a one way ticket. You can never return to the place you originated. Your very fabric is imbued now with threads - song snippets, bacteria laden meals, hand shakes, the sand of a forlorn and forgotten corner, the sweat of fear, the freedom of letting go. Nothing can compare - no film, no job, no opera, no relationship. The journey is the greatest sacrifice of all. The world is the greatest addiction one can fall for, and it will never in its perpetual transformation, give up. The journey has entered your system and will, like acid flashbacks, continue to pop up at unexpected moments throughout life, coloring your decisions and reminding you that the moment you kick up that first bit of dust and step out, you can never really leave the long dirt road.
So now I face a fog bank. All three of our small caravan face the fog…Yoshi in Peru, Jonas and I in Brazil…None of us know where or what we will be doing 6 months from now, if we will move on together, apart, where and when we will next meet. That’s the journey. That’s the sacrifice.
That’s the dusty road.

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