Indie Travel - Day 30 - Where in 2012?

Where are you going in 2012?  Why is that place great for indie travelers? 


For a very long time, I've wanted to go to Thailand. I'm not sure why, maybe it's the wonderful food, or the ranting of my friends who have been there, or the Golden Buddha, it's just some place I need to see. Who knows the why of wanting to go some place? It just has a pull, a hidden meaning, a need to be seen. 


There are many other places, but Thailand feels like a place I could settle into, much like I settle into Mexico. Thai is probably a more difficult language to speak than Spanish, but what the heck? If I learn a few hundred words I ought to be able to get around at least. 


My impressions of Thailand is that it's warm (right!) and friendly, not too expensive, full of opportunities, and there's a lot to learn. It's a very different culture, yet there are many expats so I wouldn't be all alone as the only English speaker. 


One has to go where the pull is greatest. There's no way to cover every square inch of the world,  and no point in trying. And if it's raved about by others, there must be good reason. 2012 will be my year to find out. 


(Today is day 30 of the Indie Travel project. Whew. I did actually post one for every day, like I promised myself I would do. Now if I would make a goal to write 1000 words a day on my novel, maybe I could actually finish it!)


Thanks for reading along with me. It's great to have an audience, otherwise, it feels like I'm just talking to my self!

Indie Travel - Travel....in one word

What does travel mean to you in one word?  


ALIVE


That's my one word. Any kind of travel, I feel alive. Even on a little weekend trip across my own state. I am more conscious of the environment, of my body, of what I say to others, my emotions.....in other words I feel more alive. Interestingly I also think about death more, how sad I will feel one day, to say good-by to all of this. To leave the people I love, to say good-by to sight and color, to no longer hear music, to end my existence on this planet. 


Lots of people believe there's a beyond. I don't. It's not an empty awful feeling to think there's nothing beyond this. It's not the end of hope or depressing. It makes NOW more important because someday there won't be a now, for me anyway. And if they are right and I am wrong, then there will be NOW beyond this life, and I'll deal with it the same way I deal with this life, with intense attention and as much love and joy as I can muster. 


Some people say I'll be in hell and it'll be horrible for all of eternity. Makes you wonder if they have ever really thought about how long eternity is. And why on earth they would believe a God can be all love, have created this incredibly beautiful world, and yet hate so viciously that he/she would condemn someone to pain for all of eternity? It makes no sense to me. If that is the kind of God that's out there, then I am a better person than God, because I'd never do that to anyone, for any reason whatsoever.  


Clearly I'm not a better person than God, so the God most people believe in can't possibly be the real God. That's my logic, and I'm sticking to it. 


Thanks to having traveled, I'm not stuck in a little mind-frame about God, the nature of people, or reality. That's not to say I have it all figured out, I'm just not stuck in my own thinking.  

Two Georges

George Mason and George Washington

Gunston Hall, viewed from the river side.

Gunston Hall, the home of George Mason, was just down the road from the state park where I was camping, the night after visiting George Washington’s home, Mount Vernon. I had no idea what Gunston Hall was, there was just a sign pointing towards the river. What a treat to follow curiosity in that direction and experience yet another beautiful home, and learn much more of my country's history.

So who was George Mason? Was he the Mason of the Mason-Dixie Line that separated North from South and delineated the States who joined the Confederacy? Perhaps he was the inventor of the Mason Jar, that wonderful technology for preserving foods that allowed people to survive many an ugly winter with all the bounty of summer at their fingertips….

Wrong on both guesses. He was way more important to history.

George Mason was a boyhood friend of George Washington, they were, after all, neighbors. Both Georges were well educated planters, wealthy in their day like the Walton family (WalMart) is today, influential, and very involved in forming the new nation that would become the United States.  Mason wrote Virginia’s statement of human rights, some 19 years before the revolutionary war. When the Continental Congress was convened to create a national government for the fledgling country, instead of having it be a consortium of powerful but confederated states, he pushed for rights to be included because he felt the government that was being proposed was too strong, too powerful, and would eventually no longer be by the people and for the people. The list of rights was not included so he refused to ratify the constitution, thus alienating himself from most of his friends including George Washington. But a while later, James Madison introduced the language, based almost verbatim on Mason’s Virginian list of rights, that were eventually amended to the constitution, and are now our bill of rights. His name has passed from most people’s view of history, yet what he did assures us that we can speak our minds, worship as we please, own firearms for protection, assemble peacefully to protest, etc. The current “Occupiers” are part of his living legacy.

Indie Travel - Gear

The right gear can make or break your trip. What is your favorite/must-have gear item? 


I am not now and probably never will be a gear-head. My interest in gizmos is in what they can do for me as a tool, not in the details. My camera is a complex and rather heavy Canon D40, and I know enough about it to take good pictures. Beyond that I don't care. It can have 11M pixel photos, (I think it does) or only 9 and I doubt I'd know the difference or care. It has a number of wonderful features like focusing and light metering on several points or only one, depending on how you set it up. It lets me focus or it'll do it for me. Most of the time, with my fading eyesight, I'm happy to let the camera do the work, I'll focus on composition. 


I have another Canon, a small light weight one that takes great pictures, and videos, but at the moment it can't read the disk, so it's out of commission. I sure hope the problem is with the disc and not with the camera. The problem with the little one is there is no eyepiece. The shots must be composed looking at a rather reflective screen on the back of the camera. I don't have much control over exposure, or composition, so must rely on messing with the photo when I get it downloaded to the computer. But it's light, back-packs well, and if it fell into a creek, I might cry but it wouldn't set me back financially. 


Because photos are about color, composition and subject matter. All the other stuff is fluff.  And I'm so grateful to be living in a time of digital photos and laptop computers, because I can follow all my passions with just those two items. I love to take pictures, I love to write. I love to post stuff for other people to read and look at, so that's all I need in the world to make me happy, a good camera, and a good computer. 


My laptop is a MacBookPro. 'Nuff said. It's perfect and has none of the ridiculous problems that other laptops offer. At Brenda's house, I plugged my Mac into her printer, printed out some stuff, and then unplugged it. I didn't have to install, reboot, diddle with a setting, or curse at anybody. A tool that works. That's all I ever ask. I don't need to know the techno-weinie details, and in fact find them pretty boring. Though I know most of my geek friends would cringe if they knew that. I guess they can cringe-away now, the jig is up. 

Indie Travel - Wanderlust

Share a photo or video that just makes you want to GO. RIGHT NOW.

One of the andadores, walking streets, in
San Cristobal, Chiapas, in the late afternoon.

San Cristobal is my next big destination, as soon as this Eastern Seaboard trip is over, and Christmas has come and gone. I'll be spending the winter in Mexico, six months of speaking mostly Spanish, taking fluency classes, and traveling around Oaxaca, the Yucatan Peninsula, and perhaps Guatemala and Costa Rica too. This is one of my favorite Mexican photos. It captures the ease of people, the laid back atmosphere, features gringos, Mayans, and Mexicans of Spanish descent. The andadores are beautiful walking streets with no traffic, not even bicycles are permitted, though many people still ride through slowly. The Mayan women walk around trying to sell their handiwork, always made by their mothers or aunts (but actually most of it is from Guatemala), and the shops are open till late in the evening, restaurants fumigate the area with wonderful cooking odors, wine bars serve tapas and a glass of wine for about $30p ($3 US), and people gather to visit, the favorite Mexican past time. 


It makes me want to be there NOW. But I have to wait. Damn.

Indie Travel - Photo

Post a photo of your favorite place and tell us what you love about it.


What??? Only one photo??


As a photographer who travels for the SOLE purpose of getting those great shots, it would be impossible to pick only one. 


But since Mexico is one of my favorite destinations, I'll post a few shots from the places I've visited. (I'm cheating.)

Little girl washing
her dolly in a spring in Uruapan.

Final moment for the bull,
in San Miguel de Allende

Tiny Purehepecha woman weaving fibers
for the hat making industry, Arocutin.

Resort on the shores of Lake Patzcuaro

Janitzio Island with fisherman in the foreground,
Lake Patzcuaro

Squash blossoms sold as vegetables,
Erongaricuaro market

Artful display of peppers in the market,
San Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas

The weaver Pascuala with a chicken,
Zinacantan, Chiapas

Little Aztec dancer, part of a traveling troop.

Pyramid of the sun, Palenque

Splashdown at Misol Ha

Agua Azul waterfalls

Easter, almost anywhere
in Mexico. This picture was taken
at a little village in Chiapas

Purehepecha women doing embroidery on
the boat, Lake Patzcuaro, Michoacan

Bridesmaid at a wedding
in Tlaquepaque, Jalisco

Vending cotton candy at a rodeo
before a heavy storm.
Arocutin, Michoacan

Tarahumara family going home with
donated food (due to terrible drought)
Casuare, Chihuahua

Winding road to the bottom of Batopilas
Canyon, Barrancas del Cobre, Chihuahua

Unfinished desert home, Chihuahua

Ruins of mining center,
Batopilas, Chihuahua

Baleen whale, Baja California

Sunrise, Baja California

Carnival Sculpture, Mazatlan

Bishop's Cajones (testicles)

Dancers in the street, San Miguel de Allende

Looking down into a lake,
Lagunas del Montebello National Park, Chiapas

Hacienda on a coffee plantation, Chiapas

Indie Travel - Family

Family shapes who we are, but sometimes the family we create plays a bigger role in our lives than the one we were born into. Tell a story about how either of your “families” have impacted your life and your travels.  


Wanderlust has been part of my psyche for as long as I can remember, but I've often felt stymied by the impossible-ness of long term travel. Until the realization hit me: possible-ness is just a matter of choices. 


Do others guilt me into choices I don't really want to make? Does fear or lack of finances stifle desire? Am I so irreplaceable in my own life, I dare not leave it? 


Perhaps it was all those things that kept me from traveling sooner than this. But that's all over now. And family had a lot to do with both sides of the issue. 


Raising my son meant that I had to have a steady income, a job. And a job meant only so much vacation. We went lots of places, took 7 weeks off when he was 14 to travel to eleven national parks on a summer car-camping trip. It was wonderful. We often went around the state for short trips. I tried to give him the travel opportunities I didn't have as a kid in a family with three children and limited finances. 


My mother and step-father traveled a lot. Because they enjoyed it, and it gave them time away from the kids.  I would have liked to go to Denver and San Francisco too, and felt fairly put-upon by their trips, but in retrospect don't blame them a bit. They didn't let guilt prevent them from having a great time together.


My grandmother used to take me places all the time on trains, by car, and once in a while, by airplane. I lucked out being the only grandchild for five years. She was wonderful, always so kind and considerate. When I was four, a child on an airplane was fairly unusual. The Stewardess asked me if I'd like to be a Stewardess when I grow up. Having just sat on the Pilot's lap and touched many of the instruments, I responded emphatically that I'd rather be the pilot. It was 1958. She politely informed me that girls can't be pilots. I wasn't shocked. We couldn't be doctors or cowboys either.....

My mother and sister.

My mother's sister broke the stay-home mold by making the decision to travel full time. Against her sons' "better judgement" she and hubby sold everything, put stuff in storage, and bought a motor home. Two fifth-wheels later, they are still on the road after twenty years and now, approaching 80, they are thinking of settling down.

People tried to discourage me from going to Mexico alone, then again from living there. But starting this January, it will be home for six months. After that, Europe, then Australia, and Asia. At some point further down the road, circling South America is the plan, living longish periods of time in various places, and then after the wanderlust has abated, I'll come home to live in Los Alamos, NM again. Or maybe not. There is no crystal ball. I may run out of money long before that, or may find a way to make a passable living while living at large. Along the way, there will be people who will quickly become friends and some may join the ranks of chosen family. Because no place is wonderful without great people in it.