addendum : puerto natales

Okay, you've had the sober post, now comes the drunk one.

Now this is verbatim what i wrote in the bar, before i met some friendly French/Columbian/Chilean folk.

I'm gonna give this shit to you pure and simple.  And yes tash, i am writing exactly what is down in my notebook.

I quite often question whether it is me doing these things that I do.  Not particulaly because they are such outlandish things to do, more because it is in my nature.  Am I me?  Am I here, cycling in a vast plain?  If a bear shits in the woods, with no one there, does it smell, etc.

And so this leads, ineluctably on, to the question, why am I doing this?  Admitedly it involves some very obvious pleasures; that of arriving at a city after days rough camping, new places, women, warm food, all these things are obvious.

But hell, I'm a solitary person by nature, unless I'm amongst friends or family.  I have tried to put about the notion that I am some kind of introvert, and friends rebuke this idea, probably thinking I am either deluded or trying to carve out a mysterious stranger motif for myself.

But when I'm by myself, in situations such as this (before i started talking to people, yeah?), I am an
introvert.  I don't try to make friends in a hostel, unless the other person has something obvious to recommend themselves to me, ie looks, charisma, humour.  I'm selfish, and will often immerse myself in books/laptop and headphones, to avoid the old routine of 'where do you come from.....' and will feel mild annoyance when an unwelcome spirit passes my boundaries.

Much like anyone else I suspect.

But yeah, reasons for this trip.

1. To do something epic that I can point to, mostly to myself, that I achieved something.
2. Boredom.  If not with a career, but with the idea that a career is the only way to function today.
3. Fitness. Manhood.  Surviving in the great outdoors. The Ray Mears method.  Climbing.  Hunting.  Fishing.  Spear fishing.  Doing tai chi in forset glens (haven't the foggiest how to do tai chi in any circumstance, let alone forest glens).
4. Finding something.  Don't know what.  Medallions in the Altiplano in Bolivia, enlightenment with the ayahuascas in Amazonia, elves in the deep forest of Chile, something else. 
  
I'm nothing if not a realist.

 Let me know if there's anything missing, my comments page looks a little dry.  And one question - do I need an Indiana Jones hat?  Because I want one.  But it's a goddam unaerodynamic thing to carry.



Oh, and in case you think I'm typing this later, and un-drunk, I have the following thing to say - "Oh, and Jons (? possibly Jos) If you're reading this, please why a Blainte chops, makes me think of you.  Think I need it on the Chenodenel.

My writing is illegible.  Drunk or undrunk.  After this i go on to talk about how pissed off Creedence Clearwater Revival must have been that the Stones wrote a much better apocolyptic song in
Gimme Shelter than Bad Moon Rising.  But I don't really think anyone needs to hear that (they apparently came out at the same time).  I was hitting a pretty scattershot approach at that point - if a song came on in the club, I'd write about it.

Take care.