Cartagena

As far as I know about Caribbean cities, this one must be the most beautiful. Though the cruise ships are now stopping in this port (saturating the place with tourism and altering the culture), the people just outside the main tourist drag are just as impossibly friendly as the rest of Colombia. This place is laced with bright colored buildings and colonial style churches. This used to be where the Spanish hid their extra gold, so the whole place is an old fort complete with 20 foot high sea walls and cannons to fend off pirates. I’ve been spared with cloudy and windy weather here for the past few days. It is said that when the sun shines in the dead of day, the breath of the sea will stick firmly to your face.

One thing I must comment on about Colombia is that their fruit selection puts ours to shame. America , I have learned whilst abroad, is the land of choice and convenience. There isn’t another place on the planet where you can find 100 types of morning cereal. But when it comes to fruits, Colombia makes America seem more like Australia (the land where you will be hard pressed to find more than 4 types of shampoo in the biggest city). I consider myself a cultured eater, but there were over ten fruits that I had never seen or heard of in the market the other day, I felt like a child. I took the liberty of trying each one of them.

The streets are are crowded with both taxi and horse drawn carriage. The place can seem to be a bit of a circus at times. But as interesting as this city is, who I met, was about to change my life forever. Before I go on, I must say that even after traveling for 13 months, I still meet people who can teach me something completely new.

Chris is a normal, unsuspecting guy. Always with a bit of a goofy smile and his large earphones around his neck; his sustained eye contact probably makes most people a little nervous. I met him at my hostel in Medellin and again in the airport on the way to Cartagena. His story is so incredible that if he told it all at once, you’d probably never believe him. Over a 10 hour period, I was able to pick what I believe is a large piece of it out of him.

Just as I thought that I have achieved a lot for my age, comes along Chris. I realized that I was dealing with someone different when he pulled out his passport. It looked more like an overstuffed wallet, the kind George from Seinfeld had, than anything else. It had had extra sets of pages sown into it 3 times already. “Wait a second! How many countries have you been to?” “About 90, but that’s not the point….”

As I flipped through his novel of a passport, I could count that he had been to many countries multiple times. He had been to China 5 times alone and had already lived in Japan for a year. Chris is 25 and has more or less been abroad for the past 6 of those years. 2009 was his longest time home (he spent 6 months). He had been to everywhere, even Iran. Of course, when I asked him if there were any places that he hadn’t seen that he had on his list, he said “Oh of course. Tons of places.” His first time abroad was when he was 18 years old (mine was 2). This could quite possibly be (for his years) the most cultured person I’ve ever met.

“But how did this all start? How did you get so motivated to travel?”

As it turns out, Chris was on a “semester at sea” ship when he was a sophomore in college. The ship was a mid range sized cruise liner which sleeps about a thousand people. Leaving out of BC Canada, it was set to make stops in 10 countries around the world in the course of 3 months. During it’s crossing of the Pacific, Chris’s boat was caught in the middle of 3 converging storms. In 7 short days, his life was changed forever. It started by an intense rocking for the first two days. Motion sickness pills began to loose effect on the 3^rd day. The seas were getting worse. One week into the trip, people had not slept a single night. The ship was rocking so violently that people were being thrown into the walls. Bolted down pianos had been tossed loose. Millions of dollars of damage had been sustained. The seas were a sustained 30 feet. On the end of the 5^th day of the storms, a rouge wave white capped (broke) directly in front of the bridge. It smashed through the thick windows and flooded the electronics (critically injuring some of the captains men). Within seconds, one of the 4 engines had shut down. Minutes later, the other three failed. They were dead in the water, with no ability to even steer the boat into a favorable angle to combat the crashing waves.

The captain gave the order for everyone to put their life jackets on. This is the last order that comes before an abandon ship. For 2 days, 1000 passengers would remain in the life jackets, waiting to die. The cranes which lowered the life boats into the water had also been destroyed by the surging waves. “Something on the 6^th day clicked, and has not changed since.” “I realized that I had better make the most of my life if I ever made it back.”

On the 8^th day, an un-named crew member was able to get one of the engines running. The boat eventually limped into Honolulu.

Chris has spent the rest of his life traveling. He has received both a bachelors and a masters degree whilst abroad.

Like a kid, I asked him all the questions that people usually ask me. But in the wake of our conversation, I realized that in most cases, travel outside of 60 countries, is a lonely place. After you have been to the most popular 60 spots, the only people you run into are usually researchers, guide book authors, and the occasional scientist. The game will change significantly for me if I continue to new destinations. It will soon turn into quite a lonely planet.

Something I had never even thought about until I met Chris. By the age of 26, I have been to almost all the places that people go regularly. A huge part of what drives me to travel was about to dry up if I continued to find new spots.

Most interesting and peculiar; it was a lot like when the computers approached the year 2000.

I am off to on a 6 day trek to “The Lost City” which should be amazing. One day longer than “The W” . We will see how I fare in prolonged jungle survival. Perhaps I will weigh in on my Patagonian treks VS my Colombian.

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