Thank You, Margaret

Since this journey has followed a circuitous path from the very beginning (flying to Spain to get to South America?), it is only fitting that it should end with a road trip from Miami to Massachusetts. It was mostly a question of cost. I found a one-way ticket from Santiago to Miami for $514. For comparison, the cheapest flights from Santiago to JFK exceeded $1000, and $1300 to Logan or Bradley. That information made me at least curious about the possibility of flying to Miami and renting a car. When I visited Budget's website, the sign there would not have been more clear if it had addressed me by name, "Special Offer: One-way rentals from Florida, starting at $4.99 a day!" For the first time in my life, an auto rental agency website gave me goosebumps. Too weird to be a coincidence, right? There's a perfectly logical explanation, of course. I imagine that between college students and old folks, a disproportionate percentage of Budget's rental fleet ends up in Florida in the springtime. $4.99 a day is a great price (it rose to $76 for six days after taxes and fees and small print), but I'm still paying them to do the favor of driving one of their cars back north. Everyone wins. Even including the cost of gas, I still save a bunch of money over the price of airfare, and I get to see the south in early May. I'll visit Florida, Georgia, and the Smokies for the first time (I know the coast of the Carolinas but not the western parts). It also seems only fitting that after four months spent exploring parts international, I should return home and discover with new appreciation the endless beauty that one can see without a passport. After I've returned the rental car in Philadelphia, my friends and Machu Picchu companions, Doug and Dave, will pick me up and accompany me on the very final leg of my trip.

The nearness of the end has me thinking about the things that I will most miss. Consistently writing for readers is something that I will miss. The positive feedback of friends, family, and complete strangers has been truly wonderful. I appreciate it. In addition to supporting and encouraging me, your comments have also helped to illuminate a shadow aspect of myself that had been invisible to me. When a particular entry garnered little, if any, praise, a self-deprecating voice was only too quick and happy to offer explanations. See? That entry sucked. Nobody liked it. It was too preachy, too personal, too impersonal. Nobody would even read your blog if they weren't being paid to sit at computers all day. Wait. How could it have been both too personal and too impersonal? Good question. That's quite an accomplishment, isn't it? You have to be a really bad writer to be simultaneously too personal and too impersonal. You did it, though. That's why only one person - out of some combination of politeness and pity - commented on that crap. After so many years of writing for grades, it's not surprising that my confidence as a writer is so dependent on external approval. And, of course, the ego is thirsty for recognition. In part because of my ego and in part because it gives me another reason to write, I'd like to maintain "el gringo andante" even when I'm no longer "andante". We'll see what happens when I have to deal with daily distractions like earning a living. Whether I continue the blog or not, I have to admit that it was a good idea and thank my mother for convincing me, with unrelenting reminders, to create it. I am grateful to her for being both the genesis of this project and such a consistent, loving voice of support.

I expect the next three days will be quite full, and so, this is likely it - my last blog entry from abroad. I'd like to take these final paragraphs to give credit where credit is due. (If I've already told this story, I apologize. It's gotten to the point now where I've written so much that I've forgotten what I've told you and what I haven't.) The inspiration for this trip came from an unexpected source - my life coach. Yes, you read that right, my life coach. If you are as skeptical of the term "life coach" as I was initially, you might be having a reaction similar to this one: "hahahahahahahahahahahaha!" I can't blame you. As part of the Semester Intensive curriculum, each student was required to work with a life coach for four hours over the course of the semester. When I discovered that the sessions had already been purchased with my tuition money, I visited my life coach's website to find out exactly how much of my money had been wasted in this way. And it was a lot of money. Then I made two decisions. First, I would make the best possible use of all four hours. Second, I would find out what it takes to become a life coach. The first time I called Margaret, my voice couldn't have contained any more skepticism if I had called Miss Cleo. I expected a conversation; instead, she assigned me an exercise, "If you had an infinite number of clones, each of whom could do whatever they wanted without worrying about making a living, what would they do? An infinite number! Think big! Go wild! Call me back. Click."

After four or five such exercises, my fingers had lost patience with the constant redialing - Sprint's 1-800 number, then 1 for English, then 1 to place a call within the United States, then my eight to ten digit PIN, then the area code and number I wished to call. "Wished to call" were Sprint's words, not mine; what I wished for was a full refund and a hand massage for my poor fingers. The exercises weren't going anywhere; each was the same as the one before it with a minor variation. Then I realized what she was up to. Margaret wanted me to think "outside of the box". My answers were all far too conservative, too safe, too boring. We would play this game of infinite clones forever or until I satisfied her with a sufficiently creative answer or until the hour was up. Pretty sure that my index finger would require amputation if the redialing went on much longer, I hatched a plan that would shock Margaret into speaking to me. I would tell her that I'd really like to travel, travel without an itinerary or agenda (how spontaneous!), from Santiago, Chile to San Francisco, California (how bold!), without flying (how adventurous!). That's exactly what I told her. She got so excited that she honked. She didn't seem to care about my idea one way or the other; what provoked her goose-like outburst was the excitement she heard in my voice. As badly as I wanted to write her off as a fraud, I had to admit it: I was excited. I actually liked the idea. I really wanted to travel, and not only so I could escape Margaret's tedious exercises. The rest of the hour flew by as we discussed the logistics of a plan that no longer seemed impossibly crazy.

By the time I hung up the phone for good, Margaret had fanned my spark of excitement into a raging bonfire of unlimited possibility. Needing either to jump on furniture or share the wonderful news with someone else, I called another Margaret, my mother. To protect my fragile infant, I gave her specific instructions, "Mom, I know this is going to sound like a crazy idea. What I don't need to hear right now are your doubts, fears, and concerns. Believe me; I have them too. I'm really excited about this, though, and I'm just looking for someone to share my excitement, ok?" I explained my "plan", and mom did her best to mask her initial reaction and support my enthusiasm. Of course, the only part of the conversation that I remember precisely, word for word, is the one sentence of reservation that escaped my mother's mouth just before she could catch it. "It sounds like another experience for the sake of experience," she said. The tone of voice left no doubt that experiences "for the sake of experience" aren't nearly as good as experiences for the sake of love, money, or professional development. Another year of experiences for the sake of money passed (honestly, I hope they weren't really experiences for the sake of money because there was precious little money involved) and in October of 2007, I decided to buy my one-way ticket to adventure. In the end, my trip bore little resemblance to the one I invented to satisfy my life coach's desire for irrational schemes and traveling clones. But I wouldn't be here without her, and I can just hear her honking with joy at the thought of flying to Miami to get to Massachusetts.

To see all my photos of Peru and northern Chile, click here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elgringoandante/