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

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