“If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there”
~George Harrison
In the Jesuit Mission of Santa Ana we take a look at the map and conclude we will have to return to the mission of San Rafael in order to be able to reach San Miguel. While we are discussing this, Flora, the caretaker of Santa Ana’s Jesuit Mission, chimes in and says there is another road.
It is a short cut.
I have fallen in love. Again. It’s been a while, but boy, does it feel good. I look at Coen and I know the same has happened to him.
Yet, we haven’t fallen in love, again, with each other.
We had been driving all day through the rainforest and couldn’t find a place to camp because there weren’t any clearings.
Until we came upon a fork and, in the distance, saw an antenna, which indicated habitation.
What were we going to do with 100 limes? An hour ago we thought we were going to be stuck with a bottle of cachaça and a kilo of sugar which had become useless as the main ingredient for our favorite cocktail had been missing: limes.
And now we had 100!
I can’t remember ever having seen one before. No matter how I turn the bottle, this water creature keeps its head turned from me. Later the opposite happens with another one and I figure that maybe they prefer facing` towards the sun.
In wonder I am staring at a gray-colored seahorse.
…the only normal way to begin speaking in a new language is to begin speaking badly ~Greg and Angela Thomson
Learning a foreign language may seem like an obstacle impossible to overcome.
It isn’t.
Anybody can learn a language.
“Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.” ~Rita Mae Brown
When Coen and I started traveling, in 2003, everything was new and exciting. Having our first conversations with strangers with whom we didn’t share a language was a challenge.
“I have some chicken on skewers left. Would you like one?” Marcel asked.
I looked at Coen. We just had noodle soup for dinner and aren’t hungry.
“With peanut sauce,” Marcel’s wife Sandra added with a smile.
“We would leave on Monday, be gone the entire week fishing in either the lakes or if there was not enough water we’d go out on the ocean and return on Saturday. We’d have one day at home and we were off again.”
With his six brothers and parents, Marinaldo lived on fishing. Day in, day out.
“The sound of silence”
~Paul Simon
My parents had an album by Simon & Garfunkel. I loved listening to it and when I started learning English in high school, one particular song triggered me: The Sound of Silence.
The rustling of leaves brings peace of mind. It slows me down and makes me aware of my surroundings: nuts and flowers, delicate mushrooms, fabulously twisted lianas, colorful leaves. I spot butterflies, crickets, leaf cutter ants. I take note of the soothing sounds of humming insects and scurrying lizards.
A forest is hardly ever silent.
“You know, for me, this is what travel is about.”
“What?” I asked.
The sunset?
The rough camping on this white beach of the Tapajós River?
Is he looking at some birds?
Enjoying his cup of coffee?
Yesterday I came across a post by Leo Babauta, the Illusion of Control.
The article describes exactly what has been happening in my life these days: Going from the illusion of control to letting go of control.
Interesting detail: it turns out to be surprisingly simple.
The Land Cruiser crawls through potholes, jolts over bumps, and carefully drives onto wooden constructions called bridges. Hour after hour, day after day, we drive at a turtle’s pace on the infamous, 800-km-long BR319.
Welcome to the main highway between Manaus and Porto Velho, in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon.