The Flying Dog

There's a certain number of things that you have to come to accept if you engage in a life on the road. The first is that somehow somewhere you will be screwed out of money. Buses overcharge you because you are a gringo, cabbies do the same and often, airlines take a bite out of you nealy every way they can. Vendors shortchange you in hopes you dont check what they give you. Street urchins will nick your cigarettes while selling you candy and then sell them to your friend next to you. This is not an inditement against South America. It's happened to me in the States, Ireland, France, Spain, Italy, etc,.

Nearly eveyone I've met on the road has met with some loss. An Ipod stolen, a passport lost, a strange sickness, a cancelled flight. But its something you come to accept and in time understand, and it bothers you less. You become part of the experience, no longer an observer. And you laugh about it sooner rather than later because if there's anything you learn out here, its that life's too short to let the small stuff bring you down.

I recieved my tickets finally yesterday, and though I was charged an obnoxious fee and had my time utterly wasted, I've nearly put the entire thing behind me. Something I can't say would've happened 5 years ago. And though bad things happen all too often in life, out here where your safety nets are gone you have to reverse the instinct. Have to revel in the accomplishment of living to see another day, making another friend, seeing a sun set on a sleepy city you may never see again.

And that brings me to friends and family. There's nearly nothing as important to a traveler than remembering home, but what you find is a strange world here where the adventuring homeless find each other, all on different paths that occasionally link before parting again. Here at the Flying Dog, it is as true as anywhere I've ever been. From my partner in sickness, Angie, to the legenday Sinead and her quest to save the streetkids, from cards with the boys from Jersey to Michelle at the vaccination center trying to score a great deal on Malaria pills. The DC couple of Jim and Lisa, Duncan and his journey across the Atlantic in a rowboat, Dutch Tamar, the rowdy Irish trio, the Finn, Karla the Amazonian, and of course the irrascible and kind trio of Beto, Chicho, and Danielle.

But at the end of the day, life is a series of trials. Out here they rear their ugly heads often enough, but its how you choose to respond that defines your character.

- c