The last post (with revelations about my knees those fatcats don't want you to know about)
Home. As best as home can be aproximated for someone officialy having 'No Fixed Address,' I am home. In December of last year I put every material object I still cared about into storage and left Melbourne to drive across the Nullarbor. A month in Perth, another few weeks in Byron Bay, I returned briefly to Melbourne sleeping on couches to attend my brother's wedding, then I've spent the rest of my time and money in some of the countries in South America. I'm still couch surfing, but now antiquated concepts like Jobs and Rent become fresh again.
I told myself that I would write a final post about not what towns I went to or listing explosive hyperbole rendering some waterfall or another, but my observations about the act of backpacking itself. This is that.
South America was great. but.
Foremostly, tourists hate tourists. They are our looking glass, and we are ugly. Everyone we met expressed hopes that upcoming sights of places wouldn't be too 'touristy.' We discover, share, overcrowd and eventualy defile everything we go there to observe unspoiled. It's depressing. A site in Colombia which is 90% un-excavated will not dig up any new relics, taking them out of the ground for tourist pleasure is a recipe for degradation and destruction. The only way to preserve these 'attractions' is to never turn them into attractions, and despite the fact everyone knows this, we cannot help ourselves. Our hedonistic behaviour is dictated by the cold logic of game theory. We avoid that which is saturated with tourists, by doing so spread the saturation ever further into the outer reaches of each country. We become the avatar of that repugnance.
Fortunately this doesn't happen everywhere, or rather, this is not detrimental everywhere. The amazing, advancing glacier of Perito Moreno doesn't seem to mind how many people watch it, and the experience is not lessened. We made a deliberate decision to seek out the things in each country which were both amazing and undamaged by our seeking. We avoided most of the available nightlife, in part because we're lukewarm on the activity to begin with, but also because flooding anywhere with gringo sightseers, all you would see is a hundred drunken reflections of yourself. The character of each country is apparent by the smallest details, quite divorced from the disco scene. Argentinian baggage throwers on buses have their own system of tipping, their little handshakes an intricate set of unspoken rituals which fascinated us, we laughed when we bollocksed it up and thrilled when we got it right. This is no leser of an insight than watching a Tango performance in Buenos Aires.
An amazing thing about these countries is that the concept of legal is simply not that important. It's not that less things are banned, or people are more inclined to break the law, but that a lot of things the law simply doesn't come into it. The law is there to settle disputes, not to limit freedoms. We saw riot police joking around eating icecreams in LaPaz, Cops making out with their girlfriends in Peru, Soldiers in Colombia letting people play with their AK74 assault rifles in exchange for cigarrettes. No-one minds. Law isn't an inscrutable force of nature, it's a public utility. It's refreshing!
Three and a half months is a realy long time to travel, god knows how C+R are doing six. We met some american hippies in Columbia who were at the end of their trip, and their first question (instead of the usual 3 of 'where', 'what' and 'how long') was how are we handling the cabin fever. We made choking motions. I must confess there were some tense moments between H and I, but amazingly we never stayed grouchy for more than a short while. Sometimes I wanted to be traveling alone, but there's noone in the world I would prefer as a travel partner. People we met along the way rate as some of the friendliest folk I've ever come across, everyone is missing their own friends and thus keen to make some, exchange ideas and hear a new voice in english.
The language barrier was always a problem for us. Hannah's spanish is about 500 verbs better than mine, and by the end we spoke it well enough to converse about the subjects we needed, but who knows what we could have learned with a native fluency? Over three hundred million people speak spanish natively, and every one of them could know and try to tell me the Unknown Item* but I'd have no clue as to what they were on about. Getting confronted with a shiv in Bogota was made so much simpler for me because I was ignorant of whatever threats he said. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing. As much as I cringe to say it, next time I travel it really needs to be with a native speaker, or to one the mundane decadant nations who sprekken se engliss.
The intoxicating thing about backpacking is that is it so very purposive. The activity, whilst giving you freedom, gives you a rock hard reason and intent, a meaningful edge to every single day. Once we got over the halfway mark we stopped having so many 'hang around the town' days. I'd like to be able to live every day in my Australian life like that, but the secrets of doing so is fell witchery beyond my ken. What did I learn then to apply to my daily life? What was the benefit, what profit, what return did I gain on my investment of 4 months and 8 thousand dollery-doos? Why did I go and would I go again and was it worth it?
I guess in truth there is no applicable benefit, I have nothing to offer a future employer or boyfriend. Nothing I can use as a tool. I went because I wanted to go, I wanted to see and be and describe, to face the impediments both internal and external and to work them, falteringly, aside. I wanted it to be difficult, and it was. I went , ultimately, because I have the will to go, and did not want, when my right knee gives out (which even now, sitting here in my warm floor-bed I can feel slowly degrading to the rust of early-onset arthritis, a most awful creeping sensation of becoming crippled, my great meaty war machine of a body breaking irreparably before its time and (robotic implants?) stopping further adventuring (but, at least I'll have a sweet grouchy hobble just like that television doctor the kids are all talking about)), to discover that I had not used it, the knee, the body, for anything of value.