The Tides

Week 3 Costeno, Palomino, Dibulla

This probably should come as no surprise, but it needs to be stated all the same: There is a lot of time and energy involved in building two websites from scratch, starting a company, and biking across South America, and while I long to fall into the rhythm of travel and find a voice that speaks plainly and from the heart, finding this rhythm remains a challenge. I oscillate between 5 days filled with nothing but the peaceful emptying feeling that biking brings, and off-the-road periods with long days on the internet writing, researching, organizing, reorganizing, speaking, convincing, planning, staring at to do lists who’s heads grow back as three whenever they are severed—And while in moments, I do slip into that happy infinitude of consciousness when the struggle to relate and take part in the tumultuous, chaotic drama that is life’s illusion gives way, and peaceful acceptance of our lonely, fundamentally separate existences in this world sets itself within me—there is always so much more to do.

After returning to Santa Marta after an amazing 3 days in Tayrona National Park, I completed my work, and set out biking along the Caribbean coast at a leisurely pace, sleeping in hammocks for $5 a night along empty beaches and meeting travelers, locals—whose friendly generosity I enjoy but whose stories I cannot follow—and expat entrepreneurs like myself.  Comparisons between Colombia’s Caribbean coast and Costa Rica follow me.  I love this breed of man, conflicted as I, that start new lives in beautiful and remote places, who in one breath justify their investment with economic and social facts that point to the inevitability of further future development and who in the next, find themselves overcome with nostalgia for the place as it is in that moment, which will soon be past.

These Caribbeans towns are blessed with the incredible combination of beautiful white sandy beaches, warm water, and mountainous landscapes.  They are the very embodiment of natural beauty, sharp contrasts of rocky coastlines meeting clear blue water beneath blood red sunsets, all looked upon from beneath the shade of palm woven roofs as cool ocean breezes rock whimpering hammocks from side to side.  Yes.  This place will be developed.  Masses will flock to this place and others like it.  Communities of extranjeros will arise in what is now untouched jungles, where monkeys howl unseen, and jaguars hunt in silence and solitude.

I am not without hope for these communities.  Quite the opposite.  They are our best hope in many ways, for those who are arriving now, arrive with the vision and courage that such pioneering spirits always possess, coupled with all the knowledge and science that our post-everything era has to offer.  They are idealists, many of them, whose commitment to sustainable energy outweighs their desire for the growth needed to put them on sure footing with their business loans.  They want slow sustainable growth.  They want time to get solar paneled rooftops and butane powered refrigerators up and running.  They want time to protect the jungle from being severed by power lines.  So alone in paradise, they work long hours and fret over jobs left undone at nightfall.

And I pedal on, knowing that as long as I ride, I am free of these worries, and that all my care and concerns and count downs can do nothing to change things…

40km…
30km…
25km…

until I reach the internet in the next town.

As the sun sets, I say goodbye to the ocean and head inland, south.  I will see her again in Tumbes Peru, many weeks away.  I think of a girl I used to know, and smile as I think cryptic, meaningless thoughts like if she could only see what distances I travel for love…