Alaska•Andes•Amazon: Letting Go.....going going GONE

I´m lost without Yvonne. She is back at her parents home recuperating from pneumonia and helping her parents with their ensuing move to Oregon, see previous post.

I awake in the steaming metropolis of Manaus Brazil after my return back to the continent. Thinking I must continue! After dropping off Yvonne in Texas I continued on our trip to see our Kodiak friend Michelle in Guyana. She joined the Peace Corps in 2014 and was sent to Guyana where she works with young children in a literacy program. Yvonne and I started planning a trip soon after she left Kodiak. Plans are good, but they will be broken on the road. So come equipped with a nice dose of patience and good nature.

I had 7 days to travel from Manaus to Georgetown Guyana, should be easy enough. I would take the overnight freezing bus to Boa Vista then catch a 2 hour bus to the Guyana border. In Lethem, at the border, I would catch a minibus up the dirt track towards Georgetown, drop off half way at Mahdia and work my way to the glorious Kaieteur Falls by finding someone with a boat that could drop me at the bottom of Oh My God mountain. After a night in a hammock I would hike up, spend the night at the falls and fly back to Georgetown in time to rush a visit with Michelle before being on my way back to Colombia to meet brothers Steve and Pat and hijo Connor. Holy Schnikees!--- that sounds like a lot when I write it down. Of course it was. I had to let go of it about halfway through a 6 hour wait for a bus in Lethem.

So what really happened is that what I thought would take 10 hours from the border took 20 hours. I got to spend the day in the jungle heat with a family of Ameridians whilst I waited for the bus to "fill up." Then a 4 hour ride across a very African like savannah before spending 5 hours in my hammock waiting for the national park to open the gate so we could pass. This was followed by a vehicle ferry across the Kurupukari River and 10 more hours of a very rough dusty track.

So next time when the bus driver says we would arrive at 9, I should ask "AM or PM?"

I am simultaneously humbled and thankful for the lessons I get to learn and relearn while travelling. The patience of the people around me, The stoicism in times of what I might find unbearable circumstances. The gratitude for the privilege to be amongst others that are not like me. Is this the definition of grace? Gracias.