Backpacking Trip 2010

It’s 10:15pm, Panama time. I’ve gotten very little sleep since two days ago. Traveling to Panama City took about 9 hours and when we got to our hostel (http://www.lunascastlehostel.com/), we didn’t get any sleep. On the plus side, I got to watch the sun come up on the bay, which was understatedly beautiful. But, I still can’t sleep. I guess that’s good. I figure the best thoughts come when you are sleep deprived; the mind is loopy and thus languid and tranquil, pliable. I have thought about much lately. I have thought about humanity…I have been to several countries now (yes, I realize I have yet to only visit about 1%, maybe less, of the countries out there) and I have come to discover that people, no matter where they are located or placed, are the same. Humanity stays the same, no matter where the location. I hope to be proved wrong. I always hope to be proved wrong. However, in currently realizing this, I contemplate my own humanity. How do I relate to these faceless, nameless people? I want to get to know the mystery, I want to know their story (in turn and along with that, I want to know my own story). Where are they going? Where did they come from? Where did they stop along the way? How did they get here? How do we know where to go? What takes us places? What draws us to each other? What keeps us there? What tells us it’s time to move on? Time has no beginning, no middle and no end nowadays; no date, either. I am just here, somewhere in between. I feel like I am in the grey matter, somewhere between black and white. I want to be blue. Or red. I want to be some one. I want to be some thing. I know I am; I guess I am. I wish I could see myself from someone else’s eyes, someone else’s perspective. Not that it would matter, not that it would affect my opinion of myself, but just to know. I know I want to go somewhere. I am somewhere. I have been somewhere. I am going somewhere. I just want to know. And the beauty is, I may never know. I would like to say I probably won’t know, but I don’t fully believe that, at least, I don’t want to. I’m looking to my left, out of the balcony the computer is set up next to, and I see the bay and the Panama City skyline (I’m currently in Casco Viejo, just outside of Panama City). I’m really here. I’m in Panama. I’m twenty-six years old! Where did the time go? And I’m in Panama City! It’s hard for me to believe that I’ve (we’ve) already been traveling for two months…the time really does fly by. I think that I’ve got two months left and it doesn’t seem like enough time to see and do what I want to do. And I know, whatever time does go by, that that’s all I’ve got to hold on to: time. Time=life. Time=the time of my life. It’s what I’ve got. I’ve been living out of a backpack for two months and it has made me realize how little we all really need to survive, to get by. It feels so good to have simplified my life…I wonder why I thought I needed all that stuff before. In realizing that, I’ve realized what I’ve really needed, what’s really important. And, I have tons of that. I feel fortunate. No, not fortunate or lucky, I just wish there were an accurate word…I guess, I feel aware. Aware. There really is much beauty in the world. There is so much beauty that it becomes overwhelming; I know I can not fully comprehend it. It’s blinding, though. It burns the soul. The beauty of humanity, and the ugliness. And how beautiful the Earth is; how beautiful life’s processes are and how we make up our tiny, individual part of it. Aware…aware.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 8th, 2010 at 10:36 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.