Beauabram’s Travels

Oh what a difference a day makes. (Or a month…or a year…)

Yesterday I was sitting in a café on one of the many tree-lined streets of Mendoza, Argentina. The sky was shining and blue, the locals all around happy and busy at their tasks around me as I sat and reflected on my station in life. To the east not a day’s drive lay Chile, a little after that of course the Pacific Ocean, a body of water I had not seen or experienced since my first weeks of my trip lounging and partying on Fiji’s many idyllic islands. Alas. Now I am on a bus, its 12:26 am and I have now officially been apart of this trip since 9:27 pm yesterday, making it one minute short pf 27 hours. I still have another 9 to go and I will be in Porto Iguaçu, on the northeast border of Argentina next to Brazil and Paraguay. As soon as I am done writing this I will try my best to catch a few hours of sleep because tomorrow I have to get my hustle on and see as much as Iguaçu Falls as possible in a day—the day after tomorrow I fly from the Brazilian side of Iguaçu thru Sao Paulo then north all the way to Salvador, Bahia. I mean it’s almost surreal how much traveling I am doing. A year (14 months, actually) is a long ass time to be sure to be on the road, but for most of the time I’m on this bus or that plane rushing, trying to see as much as possible before I have to catch the next ferry of taxi or train and it all starts over again. In no way is this man complaining, it’s just more like a pause to take notice and maybe look forward to a change—which I am going to make so when I touch down in Salvador. For a week I will be going bananas with the rest of the world as we celebrate Carnival, then I will recoup and do regroup—Portuguese classes and regular diet and days on the beautiful beaches of Brazil’s famous northeast coasts. For about a year, since I had this trip planned, I have been looking forward to taking everything I owned out of my bag and just living life for a few weeks or a month. It will be a pleasure and a much needed break for me. All of February I will be doing very little other than eating, learning and practicing my Portuguese, getting in shape and trying to play as much soccer as possible. Then in March I’ll travel and backpack again back down the coast to get to Rio by the end of the month to chill on the beach again and see the sights and sounds—before I fly out to Chile and Easter Islands and then, for April, May, June and July work up through Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia and finally Panama before I fly home. It’s a lot in front of me, but as I keep thinking, it has been a lot behind me as well. I can’t believe its January 26, 2008. One month ago I was in London celebrating Boxing Day, going to soccer games and freezing my boys off in the England winter. Now im in the tropics planning the next 2 months on some of the world’s most beautiful beaches. Two months ago I was in Tokyo partying it up and getting ready to fly to Africa for 3 weeks of safari. The more I write, look at pictures, talk to friends from the road and generally reflect on my life the more I have to stop and think about how all this came about.

One year and 26 days ago my father passed away on New Year’s Day. A couple weeks or so before that my grandmother (his mom) passed while pops was dealing with his terminal cancer, putting the end of his life in order with our house full of friends and family holding each other’s hand and glancing occasionally at the clock that kept counting down. I had talked with dad in one of our many sessions in the garage—him wrapped in blankets smoking, listening to me talk and complain about the smoke. I told him I would use some of the money from his mom’s and his inheritance to see the world for a year like I had wanted to for some while. Dad hadn’t traveled outside of interstate road trips with the family and years ago in the East for the Navy. He disagreed with my decision, thought I should save all the money and work, go to school, something responsible I guess. But the more my travels have gone on, and the more I have thought about and learned about my father, the more I think this was something I had to do. I’m asked almost daily about how I can afford to travel to so many places for so long. I tell people the short answer of a long story. It has gotten easier to say but it well never be easy to just share something like that. I have my dad in ash form in a flask with me that has gone all over the world with me. At sunset in the clear waters of the South Pacific in Fiji I took some of his ashes and spread them in the water and felt some peace about the gesture. I have yet to spread any more of his ashes—I like having him near me and feel comforted by it. Every day I make new friends and every day I say goodbye. I rarely am in a place longer than a few days. Relationships condense and intensify and then im off again. But my dad is always with me in my bag sitting next to me on the plane, the bus, the taxi, the ferry. I loved him every day I was alive and was lucky to be able to spend so much time with him before he died. Every day I think about him and every time I talk to him, even if it’s just a few thoughts in my head looking out at the passing countryside. In six more months I will be home after this adventure and I think a part of my mourning will catch up to me when I enter the house again after having been away for so long. Part of thinks I will want to leave again to work and travel abroad, and this could very well happen. But I look forward to seeing my mom and friends and my dog and all the trappings of home that have been missing for these so many months living out of my bags on the road. But I wouldn’t trade it all in just yet. Not yet.

BBB

Safaris and Sunshine.

Traveling anywhere in the world, from anywhere in the world, doesn’t take more than three days anymore. Even if you are in Outer Mongolia and you wanted to make it to a party in suburban Houston, Texas, it wouldn’t take more than 50 hours of traveling—it would suck, but you can do it with out too much effort in our modern era of long haul flights and pre packaged airline food. Speaking of which, I have logged a lot of miles recently. I have actually lost count of how many flights I have been on since May, but I do know that I have consumed my fair share of meals in a box, have been jostled enough peeing in turbulence that I have realized the importance of dedicating my whole concentration to the act of urination, and, most importantly, if I am hung-over from drinking all night the last place I want to be is in the middle seat in economy trying not to simultaneously puke and shit myself. But I digress. I have traveled a lot, and have covered a whole lot of ground to get here; The Dark Continent, the Cradle of Humanity, the place where such tales of Heart of Darkness and A Far Off Place have occupied my imagination since I was old enough to read and dream of Africa. On November 30th I left Tokyo on a two day journey from Japan, thru London, down to Nairobi and then a quick flight over the mythical Mt. Kilimanjaro to the seaside city of Mombasa. I didn’t sleep but a few quick sleeps here and there, aware that I had broken my streak of no missed flights when I slept/puked my way thru Toko-Incheon the weekend before. Well—I went out drinking in Tokyo before I hit out on the open road in the morning of the 29th, in near freezing conditions ripping thru my light pullover and sapping my remaining strength after a whole night at a club filled with models and foreigners trying to hit on said models. I remembering smiling to myself as my pack dug deeper into my weary shoulders and my head pounded and my sore throat cried out for water as I slumped in my bus seat heading to Narita airport—I was going to Africa. For years I had dreamt of the beaches on the Indian Ocean, the expanse of the grasslands of the game reserves, and of course, the wild animals that I had only experienced when watching documentaries on TV at home, in nice comfortable Texas.

Three weeks later:

I’m on the plane flying back from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. I’m brown from my time on the beaches and sunbathing on Zanzibar Island. I am now halfway through my trip around the world. Africa, a place almost more mythical than real to me for so long is now nothing but another memory. Like Australia. Like Asia. Like, Fiji and Hong Kong, like tubing down the river in Laos and drinking all night in a sandy beach bar in the South Pacific. More and more this trip is becoming past tense—“…Oh when I was in Thailand I drank so many buckets…Yeah man, Cambodia has some cool temples…Tokyo? Yeah I had some sushi…” And now I can say I saw Africa—or at least a little bit of East Africa. I flew into Nairobi 3 weeks ago. It seems like a long time ago, and it seems like no time at all. I left home August 1. Its now almost January. Time flies. I can barely keep up. I make friends and then move on again. I see sun and snow in the same day. This morning I was sweating through my t-shirt in Africa, now as I write this I am flying over the snow tipped Pyrenees Mountains in France, steeling myself for a London winter’s day. I know this entry is scattered but so are my memories. I feel like someone shook the file cabinet of my past out and the folders are all lying on the floor in a random pattern or jumbled memories, images, sounds and faces. Before I can bend down to pick something up from the past I am on another plane writing about another continent. I have 7 months in South America. It’s more than half my trip. I have nothing really planned. Some flights and ideas here and there. But first I am meeting old friends in London. It will be my 4th time in 3.5 years through England’s capital. I’ll see people I have met on this trip. Ill see people I met on trips in the past. Ill most likely meet new people. My life is a revolving door, living out of a bag, flying, driving and sailing across 6 continents. Drink coffee in Africa, have a beer that night in London. Why not? I’m young. I am healthy and open and ready. I still want more, I am not done yet. The lions and the animals of Africa, its people and oceans and bright blue infinite skies and searing sun were like nothing else. I can’t be done with my travels at the end of this one—I have to go back and see more Africa. I have 1 place down and 9 more missed every country I go. And my passport has no more room. I need more pages or maybe a whole new book. I have something like 15 more countries. I can’t stop, I wont try, ill make it back home and there’s no need to be shy.

One.

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