I was just answering a

I was just answering a mail from my travelling comrade Jason (we met and travelled together in south america), and in one of my unusually inspired moments a blurb about futility, dreams and travelling transposed itself onto the screen. here it is:

Its amazing, in the 3 years i've been back from SA, how entrenched in that consumer, working lifestyle i've become. It's frankly quite scary to come out here, and realize that all the ability to live in the moment, not worry about manana, and generally just have a good time, has vanished. I'm a bit of a control freak now i'm afraid, it's quite difficult to relax into the calm reality of backpacking, i keep worrying about the evenings bus, what are we going to do if there's no hotel room available when we get into town tomorrow morning etc.
And although it's getting better every day, and i'm sure in a weeks time it'll be quite ok, would it be so easy to shed if the 3 years had been 6? Is there a time when you get so entrenched into all those ways of life that seem so pointless on a clear-minded day, that there is no longer a way out? I don't know but the prospect is scary, and I will have to contimnuously remind myself of the idealist in me, the desire to make a difference to someone, to volunteer, or help out somewhere in the 3rd world, use my Internet skills, open someones eyes..... Or else i'm afraid i'll become a 60 hour work-week automaton.... The work i do and the opportunities there are are just so exciting and interesting, that I sometimes let it slip to the back of my mind, how ultimately futile and ungiving they are :-)"

Apart from that realization, that the easy flow of backpacking that comes after being on the road for a few months, doesn't just return because the language spoken is spanish, and the country latin american. it requires (at least for me) real effort to so suddenly relinquish that control that is paramount to succes in my day-to-day life in the internet business.....

Still in Oaxaca, we spent a glorious day at the ruins of Monte Alban. Spurning the commercialisation of the Tourist busses, we found the local, collectivo urbano, and took it to the near-by settlement of Colonia Monte Alban, from where we walked 35 min. up-hill to the site of the ruins. Once there we spent some wonderful hours at the beautifully located site. Walking around, enjoying the view, which results from some fabulous planning by the early zapotec culture, including the flattening of an entire mountain-top, to make way for a city of sorts.... A cool, and locally inspired siesta in the shade of a tree, book in hand, the summing of insects the only  disturbance, and then we were of on another half hour hike to get the bus back into town.

I must say, that while my spanish is in no way apt to be called impressive, it gets us quite far, once I get my act together and try it....

At the moment this internet cafe is probably the nicest place in town, as Oaxaca, has given way to it's rainy afternoon hour. After all, while the rainy season in some parts of the world is equivalent to constant downpours, floods, and floating animal corpses, here in Southern Mexico it means, a regular as clockwork downpour every single afternoon around 17:30....

And its 18:24 here now, so it's still raining.....
well, i've got to go, as i've got mails to write, as does Signe, and then it's dinner time, before we pack it in and spend another night on a bus. this time it's pacific coast time, as we're headed for Puerto Angel and the dangerous beaches of the roaring pacific.....

Hasta nos escribimos!