Well, my time in Bahia finally came to a close and I said my goodbyes to the life I had established in that town. One last meal at my favorite empanada stand, one last swim in the ocean, and one last night drinking beer around the table chatting about whatever the wind blew our way. Yeah, the last month had been good to me, but as with everything, it had to end. The girls came out to Bahia for my final two nights and it was good to see their smiling faces and catch up on the last month of our lives.
I was able to persuade them to make our next stop Puerto Lopez, my second favorite town on the coast. Here we are, staying in the same hostel I was in a little over a month ago, and life is just as sweet. Of all the new things I’ve experienced on this trip, the new people I’ve met, the places I’ve been, I don’t think I will find much that I enjoy as much as sitting and watching the sun stain the sky pink while it sinks into the ocean.
I don’t think we have the next step of this journey planned yet, or maybe the girls have that figured out already, I don’t know. What I do know is that we have ten days to get ourselves out of Ecuador and into Peru (our visa expires March 17th).
Temporarily stationary, I find my mind wandering back on the last three months of my life. The lessons I could only learn from this trip, and the self discovery you go through without even intending on it. I was talking to my mom a few weeks back, when I was still volunteering at the hostel, and I told her that the fulfillment one gets from traveling is broken down into three parts: 5% self discovery, 15% new culture, and 80% the people you meet. As a peer helper in high school we were taught to appreciate the saying “How can you judge someone if you haven’t heard their story?” So true I have found those words. Everyone has a story, not everyone’s story sticks with you as time passes.
I look back at my story, making mental cliff notes for the next person who asks, and I have to say it’s pretty much perfect. Not in the arrogant way of my whole life has been cars and money and whatever I want I get, not in the way that my story is better than yours, not even in the way of when I tell my story to people they will envy it, but in the way that whatever it was that lead up to this point in my life, it was plenty good enough for me to still have a smile on my face. Perfect. If I’m the main character then I have had one hell of a supporting cast up to this point. It’s had ups and downs, twists and turns, just like anything you would read by Dickens, Twain, or Shakespeare. How can anything be so bad if you still slap that smile on your face. I have no idea what the future will hold, for any of us, I’ll just try and enjoy the ride. Sooner or later the sun sets on everything only to rise again. Sooner or later the plot will thicken.
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