Basket of Thoughts

“Well, he’s goin’ down in history though, eh?” That was a quote from Grant yesterday. The discussion was about a guy operating a crane for a beer commercial who had accidentally broke a chip off of one of the ruins at Macchu Picchu. I had said “I bet his ass got fired!” and that was Grant’s response. I got a damn good laugh out of it cuz it’s true. Still no word on my luggage and I’m getting quite antsy. I need to get things lined up so I can experience more than just Peru. I want to see Macchu Picchu myself but Cuzco is booming right now as the sun festival of Inti Raymi nears. I don’t want to risk the travel there without my backpack in case I need to set up my tent for a couple nights. I will feel much more at ease once I get my backpack. It’s really starting to piss me off. The lack of caring by the airlines and the stupid fat lady who sent me to the wrong line to wait in for 20 minutes, thus causing my late check-in and the reason for my lost luggage. All I care about really, is it being found. I almost don’t care if they send it back home at this point. I just need to know when I can head out and experience some more territory. I hope my dad got my birthday message yesterday. It’s weird… I don’t have a huge sense of missing people yet, maybe its because it is early in my trip and I’m eager to see more. I have to leave the Backpacker’s Inn tonight as they are expecting a large group to come in. The lady who runs the hostel is very nice and is allowing me to check in to see if my backpack arrives tomorrow or the day after. Well, my hand is cramping so I am going to write sometime later.

Grant had that quick witted humor that I’ve always liked and related to. Perhaps that was why he was so memorable to me from my trip. I can recall my carefree feelings in the beginning which caused me to not really miss anyone at first. My head was in a totally open space at that time anyways. Truth be told I guess it was what John Mayer calls a “Quarter life crisis” in his song Why Georgia. It was the reason I was going on such a completely random and relatively unprepared journey. It’s like you may have heard, “everything looks good on paper.” I believe I first heard those words from my dad along with ” No good deed goes unpunished” both which seem to be often more true than false. I had “planned” what I was doing about a month or two in advance before going. I had the whole thing pretty much mapped out of where I wanted to go and the places I wanted to see. Mind you no reservations were made whatsoever, which was why I was worried about going to Cuzco during the sun festival as I did do a lot of reading up on South America before I went. I was concerned I wouldn’t be able to book a room anywhere, therefore creating the possible need for my tent. I also went on this trip with, let’s just say, not a whole lot of money…. To be honest, I had a going away party where a lot of my friends and family came to see me off and there was a donation jar, that was honestly a majority of the money I had to bring with me along with my last paycheck. In retrospect, I guess I may have been one of the first GoFundMe assholes except without the use of the internet. Thanks to all that donated! If it wasn’t for friends and family I would’ve been in much more dire straits than I already was to begin with financially. The lost luggage was just a precursor to what was to be a roller coaster ride. As Hunter S. Thompson put it “Buy the ticket, take the ride.” The ticket had been bought all that was left was the ride.