I started a journey. I have

walked about Hannah's house in Portland smoking a cigar thinking of what would come.



I have sat in snowy Chicago drinking a beer with the business men.



I have been helped by a Colombian in rainy Copenhagen.



I have been freaked to death about midnight Madrid. I have felt like maybe this wasn't a good idea. I have felt better after sleeping off a long two days. I have gotten onto a train that I had no idea where it would take me. I have looked over at my friend and wondered what we were doing.



I have played Ukulele in sleepy Jaen streets. I have partied with Americans at the Faria Primavera. I have argued with my friend about tomorrow and what it would bring. I have seen tomorrow and you must take it like today.



I have ended up in unnamed towns and slept in their ruins. I have wondered where I would sleep and when I would eat. I have stumbled upon celebration. I have sat with stranger families and stood next to waving parents to children in parades. I have drank wine, sitting in the dirt, in the city, under the windy sky. I have sat in front of the monument and not gone in. Instead I have played Ukulele and sang and laughed and not cared about what the passing priests thought.



I have picked places on maps that felt like a good idea. I have walked cobbled streets and wondered where I would sleep and when I would eat. I sat with old men and children while my friend has asked shopkeepers to look after all our worldly possessions. I have seen the processioners and I have seen the Nazareños and I have been in awe of their candle light and sweat. I have scoured a city for a place to sleep and I have felt broken inside for barely finding refuge. I have slept with one eye open. I have slept in a cave, through a beautiful night, to a beautiful risen sun. I have eaten Chinese food in Spain. I have been given a place to sleep in an empty house by a man who makes ice cream. I have felt so deeply grateful. I have traveled to a city where I know I would not find a roof over my head.



I have sat in a 200 year old park and brushed my teeth in the silence of the morning. I have talked with a girl from Rhode Island at a bus stop about Judaism. I have rode buses that took me to wrong places and walked back sulking. I have prepared myself for a sleepless night of walking, processions, picture taking and conversation. I have argued about capitalism and choice and accountability and freedom in front of a Starbucks during one of the largest festivals in Spain. I have thought hard and long about what it means to experience a culture and celebrate something you know nothing about. I have sat on curbs and climbed up light poles and snuck around barriers and made my way through crowds. I have sighed with exhaustion through the middle of the night. I have made googly eyes at Spanish girls in cafes at three in the morning. I have never been so happy to see the rising sun. I have never felt so exhausted in my whole life. I have fallen asleep in a 200 year old park at ten in the morning. I have never been so relieved to have met a stranger, snuck into their hotel and enjoyed the fruits of hospitality.



I have been to Cadiz for an hour but wanted to stay for longer. I have arrived in Algericas and known that it was dirty from the start. I have walked past prostitutes in order to call home to my parents. I have avoided fake ticket salesmen and I have avoided Tangier. I have ridden ferries across channels and into new continents.



I have bartered with Taxi drivers and ridden next to screaming children through green lucious mountians. I have seen the Blue City. I have no idea who to trust in new cities.



I have yelled at taxi drivers in Fes to "Allez! Allez!" I have walked the Medinas and I have passed the rug sellers and spice hustlers. I have smelled the terrible aromas of the tanneries never to smell the same again. I have lost my train ticket on the overnight Marrakesh Express.

I have been tapped on the shoulder by monkeys. I have been awoken many times by the first call to prayer more melodic and beautiful in the passing weeks. I have wondered where I would sleep and when I would eat.

I have eaten dinner with and slept on strangers floors. I have caught Giardia and I have been my own doctor. I have swam in the Atlantic with a setting Moroccan sun and I have passed the Camels in the rising tides. I have also riden the ones through the Sahara and climbed Morocco's only dunes.

I have walked through the wild and camped with sheep and their hearders. I have been rained upon, sun shown and frozen. I have hitchhiked out of the wilderness in the freezing rain and yelled at the drivers who did not stop. I have been thankful for the promise of warmer and drier times around the corner. Then I have slept on the first beach I came to out of Morocco and swan in it's baptizing waters.

I have seen much and certainly have more to do. I have a second part to write.

Jump! (for my love)

From East London I continued my journey along the coast through the Wild Coast and Garden Route. My one stop before Cape Town was a village of a community called Storms River. My intentions were to experience the serene mountain range of the Tsitsikamma, with it's incredible light and quite hum of nature. Also to jump off a bridge.

Storms River is home to the highest Bungee Jump in the world (216m , 709 ft) above a profound gorge developed by the Bloukrans River. I stayed in completely deserted bungalow located right next to the jump. Due to the low winter season I felt a bit of post-apocalyptic vibe the whole time considering the size of the chalet and being alone. Just another pleasure of traveling solo I guess.

Later within the day of my arrival I walked to main office to settle my lodging and came across a group of powder dusted smiles. It was a group of the bungee technicians covered in latex powder due to the giant strips being assembled for a new jump cord. A friendly group of guys, they especially made a point (all of them) to mention it was the same exact material used to condom production. My chuckles had them chuffed with the comical science before us.

I made my way over the registration booth. Handed over my cash-card and was weighed. I was outfitted in a full body harness. Our bungee guide was a riot, obviously a seasoned veteran of the Bloukrans jump. After the standard question of "How times have you jumped?" was asked, he didn't even look up but just smiled a toothy grin and shrugged his shoulders humming a noise sounding like 'Who knows.'

The whole experience of out of body. I am terrible with heights, despite my attempts at rock climbing I still get sowing machine legs at a little elevation above the ground. But this time around I was somewhere else the entire time. Just sort of floating away instead of letting the elements of the bungee preparation freak me out. Eventually it hit, right about when my toes curled over the edge of the concrete ledge.

I'm like so stoked. All the Bungee guys were real nice and incredibly laid back.

I was so happy to find out that you could jump without shoes! Totally added to the terror.

C'mere oblivion, I just want to jump into you. This is the part where my head came back into my body and I was all like, "What am I doing?"

The jump was fantastic. Felt like forever. I typically forget to scream and this was no different, on the re-bounce I decided to let out some real lung bursts. I'd totally do it again, maybe even naked. Upon returning home I can share the video of it. Great highlight of the journey for sure. It made space for great self portraits.

Okay Geographers, next installment: Cape Town Highs, Cape Town Blues, Cape Town Life

Molweni Ghost Town

Hello from Ghost Town.

I find myself flowing through the streets of East London in the arms of a family by the name of Gamiet. Their end of the city is called Buffalo Flats, yet is ever so cleverly nicknamed Ghost Town due to it's close proximity to a graveyard. Yesterday I made quite the trip jump from Durban through the Eastern Cast and down a little ways on the Wild Coast. Two words can describe the landscape of this part of South Africa, Other Worldly. I have had this feeling once before, when I looked over the rolling hills of the Guatemalan campo. Spirits of old Earth fill the air. A place that now is home to different people but has never lost the electricity of it's creation which one can almost see with their eyes. The countryside is simple and in it's openess comes an untouchable something, a something that poetry would only hope to capture.

Can you tell that I love the place?

East London holds no different a feeling though it comes in a different expression. Earlier in the day I had been picked up from a hostel in Central Durban called Nomads, a great place filled with travelers mostly out of Europe though I'm sure I got a scowl from an American girl. The host was a young English South African guy with kilowatts of energy, striking up multiple conversations between nursing his beer and finishing off various rounds of billards with an British fellow. It was built out of an old house that tourists would see throughout Durban, but rarely get to walk through. I had stayed at 3 other really great places in KwaZulu-Natal, and Nomads was the easily the icing. Yet the next place I could think about staying was in East London with the Gamiets, the family of a great friend of mine named Germaine.

Now, East London isn't nessesarily the backpacking hot spot of South Africa. If one is heading West then they are far more likely to end up in Coffee Bay or another hidden nook of the Transkei, and coming from the East it is just a stop off for supplies before elbowing North onto the Drakensburg or whatnot. Most other travelers I shared my destination with gave funny looks along with twisted heads, an expression of "Why there?" I have found that staying with people is far better than hostel jumping, yet my next stop showed me something very interesting. The bus I used dropped me off at another backpacking spot called East London Backpackers, only as a place for the Gamiets to fetch me. Though when I went inside I found it very different from Nomads, or anyother. It has the same interior setup of most backpacker spots, but the people inside were quite different. They were African. From various parts of Africa along with black South Africans. This is untypical of most hostels here. The chance to be able to sit and speak with people from the major culture in a more informal and laidback way is uncommon to the see-it-all, always moving western traveler. I was only able to say some Hellos and explain my quick passing. But to be introduced to a place with such contrast to everywhere before it breaks any bond I have with putting life on the road into simple organized boxes.

Lost boy on the far side of the world

Life back in Africa. It is different and it is the same. It is beautiful and it is strange. It makes me want to stay indefinitely and yet I want to be home and see you all. It was static but now vibrates with electric life giving mirth. I'll roll through the basics and do what I can to keep things brief.

Landing in Johannesburg was quite the out of body experience. I saw myself sitting on the flight surrounded by Egyptians on holiday and returning South Africans, wondering what I was doing.

Am I back? Am I back in this magic place from long ago? It can't be, that place is a distant memory, rhetoric for anecdotes, foggy childhood experiences, unreal like a Dodo, just pictures in books.

But slowly as the day went on I dreamily walked around the Guthrie's garden and property and came to terms with my return. The Guthrie's kept me for about a week and a half, bringing me all the elements of their family and South Africa that I missed. Braai, terribly interesting and educational conversation about Southern Africa, stories about the last seven years and of course cricket and rugby. I have found that it is just a series of reunions. They occur everyday and in almost every moment primarily having to do with senses. The smell of the air, tastes of familiar foods and Rooibus, the colors of a late Autumn in Africa.

I've had to adjust back to the sun getting low around 3 o'clock in the afternoon. But I remember now the beauty of the sunsets here, somehow on the opposite side of where our sun sets. This having to do with how the whole culture orienting their homes facing north, making the best of the tilting world when their summer comes in October through January.

I stayed with the Guthries for a week and a half, then went on to Johan, my friend from Pretoria Boys High. Johan is in a very successful band, finishing up the end of his university career with only a couple of classes a term and generally doing what Johan's always done best, enjoy himself. So I hope it's easy to assume that I lived the rock star life over at his place. Up late everyday, making loads of food before running some band errands, then going out to watch a soccer match or have a "Little Saturday" on Wednesdays or play a show. His band 'kid of Doom' is quite amazing. I remember Johan being one of Pretoria's best drummer's back in the day, and it seems that time has only helped. 'Doom' seems to have a galvanised cult following and I certainly had much to hear about how amazing they were as the night went on. We'd get home around 2 a.m. every night to make more food (usually boerwors sausage, white bread, beer and powdered coffee) then play his 8-bit video games like "Battle Tank" or "Agassi Tennis Pro," until the early morning light. So after another week of this life I was a seasoned South African roadie, if anything, but was happy to catch up with another friend Ismail before hitting the road.

Ismail is a friend from another high school I went to called Lyttelton Manor. I stayed just two very short days with him, but was so thankful to sit and talk about life and what has developed over the years. Books, music, movies, art, both of our tastes have moved in similar directions with our own unique interests. Ismail has a beautiful family, that welcomed me and told me to come back when I returned to Gauteng. By this time I had connected with my great friends Tessa and Alisa from back Oregon side. They were heading to Swaziland, and I decided to boorishly invite myself along.

Tessa and Alisa are adventure cowgirls, running around the world for 11 months and soaking up culture and experiences like sponges with wings. They had connected with a girl from Swaziland named Nozizwe, who had a story and background as diverse and expansive as her home country. Nozizwe is an up and coming film maker out of Jo'burg, who grew up at St. Joseph's Mission around the most inspiring people. St. Joseph's Mission is a school, craft workshop, optometrist, dormitory and church. It is home to many people that Swazi culture has cast aside, the disabled. The mission has grown for over 30 years due to the "Raging Bull," Father Cionne, who had made sure that people of all disabilities gain opportunities for themselves through education, vocational training and their own faith. These children and adults would have no other place to work or receive education otherwise and as a place of refuge it many time saves them from homelessness or even death. So after spending a week there, you can imagine some of the sunshine that I'm carrying in my heart pocket.

Nozizwe was an amazing host, showing us an expansive taste of the Swaziland she knows. Glass blowing workshops, candle factories, craft markets, Parliament buildings and cultural villages. Despite the outlook to the disadvantaged, the culture of Swaziland is very interesting. Being a absolute monarchy, the King and the traditions surrounding him are baffling, if anything. Example: Once a year the King makes love to his first (of very many) Royal wife, in a ceremony that anyone that wants to can attend. The only requirement for the audience: One must constantly be in dance, never stopping rhythmic movement in order to maintain atmosphere and respect. Nozizwe, the genius that she is, was full of facts and information related to these sorts of everyday traditions.

The girls have moved on to Ethiopia, and I left Swaziland yesterday moving down the east coast through Zululand eventually stopping in Ballito, north of Durban. I am currently staying at a hostel called The Secret Spot, run by a family of surfers and is very reminiscent of my Rotary hosting days in it's familiarity. They throw surf camps, have an on site board shaping facility and are pretty stoked all around. I'll let you know how the surf lessons go.

I must return to the world of the living. Thanks for bearing with the dry spell once again. I have found my voice. But I also think that many experiences I've already gained here will take years to process. Much love to you Geographers.