Timeout!
Hi there. Sorry for the long delay in posts. Actually, it wasn’t so long – three weeks, but unbeknownst to me this web site managed to lose everything after August 18th. Luckily, Google caches the site and I was able to manually retrieve the entries minus your comments.
I made it back physically to Vermont and California, but mentally I was a mess. I was sick again in the Congo, but managed to blast it well enough with more Cipro. I came home limping with more respiratory problems. Same illness and I think I really had it all the way back to Uganda from living in the closed up home with other people coughing. It never really totally interfered with the trip and I am grateful for that. My body finally fought off the jet lag and illness last week and I checked out fine by my doctor. Unfortunately, my first two weeks back in America were in a total haze. It took five long travel days to get to Vermont from the Congo so I was exhausted. And let me tell you about real culture shock!!!
So I get to California all in a hurry to get to South America. I was told how incredible the Pantanal is in Brazil for wildlife by fellow travelers in the Congo. It starts to rain soon in the Pantanal leading to six months of flooding and I was gung-ho to get there right away. But then a number of realities kicked in including my desire to re-connect with friends, winemaker friends that need help during a challenging harvest and I don’t need to be in such a hurry – South America isn’t going anywhere and if I miss the Pantanal this trip then I have a good reason to go back another day. I also felt horrible about being back here without my home and cat and everything else that made my life just a few months ago. I realized if I leave feeling horrible about Sonoma County then this might cause me some real issues later. So, I am taking a timeout from the trip and have targeted departure for South America around November 1st.
In the meantime I have a number of blog entries to post and more to write and I have thousands of photos and sixteen hours of video to process in order to close out the great African adventure. My head is still in Africa. I am seriously considering going back to sub-Sahara Africa next summer rather than hanging out around the hot Med as well as the previously planned trips to North and West Africa and Ethiopia. I truly loved the peoples of Africa and of course the animals and lands were truly amazing.
So give me a couple of days and I will post the entries that I have already written and give me a couple of weeks to write the remainder. Also, I will contact those of you who have asked and I will email promised photos. Photos… I can say that I am ecstatic about a lot of photos that made it home, but 4-5 CDs worth were damaged without the iPod backups. I’ll make some more small copies and post them like I did with the gorillas. The missing photos… oh well, I know they are still in my mind’s eye.
Lastly, it has become apparent to me that I can’t go around the world. I am too tied to friends in California, Sonoma County and family in Vermont to say goodbye for two years. This has bothered me, but then I realized that I can see the world by breaking it up into pieces and coming home (yes, my DNA may remember Africa as my home, but the mind knows America is my real home) for visits in between. I have lost a lot of my previous life and gave up just as much, but I do not want to lose my friends and family while looking for something that as of yet I can’t even describe. Oddly, I think that something is right under my nose as I type here in Windsor, California, but I am still convinced that I need to see more of the world to recognize it. I’m sure there is a good chance I will feel stupid when I do find it 🙂
Tags: Travel
vagabondrick
Rick,
It was great to get your latest article. Glad that you are safely back and look forward to the photos you will send. I am sending you an email with some thoughts…
Marion
Rick!
Glad to see (er…. read) that you returned home in one piece! I’ve been enjoying your blog, and from the sound (er… words?) of it, you have had quite an adventure. Get some rest, have a bite, and get back out there! 🙂
Oh, also, your most recent post sounds like you ought to listen to U2’s “Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For”. Either that, or the entire Warren Zevon album “The Wind”. 😉
-Trevor