Backpacking By Bus
Eight Months On The Road
By David Rice
Eight Months On The Road
By David Rice
Backpacking By Bus, Eight Months On The Road in South America
Traveler by Bus, Central and South America to Antarctica
Traveler by Bus, Central and South America to Antarctica
Backpacker and Ardent Traveler
David Rice Leaves his Home in
Missouri for Eight Months of
Backpacking Through South
America
David Rice Leaves his Home in
Missouri for Eight Months of
Backpacking Through South
America
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Backpacking Pages Index
Confessions Of A Traveler: Eight Months On The Road
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Chapter One, Africa
I live in Missouri where I care take a 100-year old house in the
countryside. I tend a small garden while caring for the 100-acre farm
and take a small rent from my house in the city.
I have always loved the hills of Springfield in late winter and although
I live comfortably in the rural house for most of the year, at times I get
restless and feel the need to travel. Since this account is a
confession of sorts, to tell you the truth, travel is more obsession with
me than need.
You Pisceans and Sagittarians will, I hope, empathize with one born
under the sign of the compass rose. I have been around the world
more than once and would love to do it again, this time staying
completely on the ground. My tale is one of the traveler. While I
neither boast nor apologize, this is my story and for convenience
rather than contrition, I will call it the confessions of a traveler.
Planting
The warm winds across the prairie in March usually start the feeling.
I will be out planting a vegetable garden and it comes on like a soft
caress at the back of my neck, the suns warm breath like a kitten. I
know, however, that before June ends, this kitten will become a tiger
that will claw up the dust in my dooryard and scorch the grass and
garden beyond my toleration. By July, blistering heat will smother the
hills and I will long to be somewhere else. My thoughts will be all
about air conditioning and unfortunately, my old house has none.
A hot afternoon in April had me sitting on the porch wondering
where I was going to go next. I have made many long trips
throughout the world and I know that to make an extended trip, I
would need to arrange many details. Africa kept coming to mind as I
read the guidebooks and I started to make plans for a trip to the
southern parts of Africa.
Details
First I arranged to visit a doctor and get the needed shots. Rabies
topped the list because of the wild dogs in Africa and it was
followed by yellow fever, hepatitis, and tetanus. I called friends and
asked them to collect my mail and to look in occasionally on the two
houses for me while they harvested my plot of onions, carrots, and
corn. I needed a new passport and ordered one right away realizing
that there could be a waiting period. After many nights through April
on the porch looking over itineraries and Lonely Planet guidebooks,
I made up my mind; I would soon be hiking in the southern parts of
Africa.
The month of May smothered the land with sticky heat and as May
neared its end, I had made all arrangements to leave. On the first
day of June, I went to the Greyhound bus terminal and bought a
ticket.
Changes
Change rules a traveler and a traveler rules change. Freedom is like
the air that I breathe and the world seems like my back yard. My
mother must have swaddled me in a Rand McNally bunting because
a map brings me new life. Change is part of that excitement, new
places, new people, new customs, new dress, new food, and new
music. And the freedom to change itineraries is at the heart of it all.
I leaned back in my seat on the bus watching as Missouri sped by
the window and I thought back to those nights on the porch of the old
farmhouse planning my trip to Africa. As it turned out, I did not need
the rabies shot, Africa had faded from my plans. For the next eight
months, I would take a very long bus ride. A drastic change of plans,
yes, but this is the confession of a traveler and that is what a traveler
does; a traveler is free to change plans at any moment.
Yes, I would leave the hot winds of Springfield behind me and travel
for the better part of the next year but I would not be going to Africa, I
would head south instead and take an extended trip aboard
countless local and long-haul buses on an eight-month tour of South
America and I vowed not to stop until the roads ran out. Indeed the
road did end at a dock in the southern reaches of Tierra del Fuego
but I kept on south by boat and fulfilled the dream of every traveler,
planting my hiking boots on new turf. No turf crunched beneath my
boots an landing, however; I found only icebergs. Antarctica’s
treasured stamp on my passport would elude me, at the southern
end of my journey, only the penguins greeted me and they had no
customs inspector.
I live in Missouri where I care take a 100-year old house in the
countryside. I tend a small garden while caring for the 100-acre farm
and take a small rent from my house in the city.
I have always loved the hills of Springfield in late winter and although
I live comfortably in the rural house for most of the year, at times I get
restless and feel the need to travel. Since this account is a
confession of sorts, to tell you the truth, travel is more obsession with
me than need.
You Pisceans and Sagittarians will, I hope, empathize with one born
under the sign of the compass rose. I have been around the world
more than once and would love to do it again, this time staying
completely on the ground. My tale is one of the traveler. While I
neither boast nor apologize, this is my story and for convenience
rather than contrition, I will call it the confessions of a traveler.
Planting
The warm winds across the prairie in March usually start the feeling.
I will be out planting a vegetable garden and it comes on like a soft
caress at the back of my neck, the suns warm breath like a kitten. I
know, however, that before June ends, this kitten will become a tiger
that will claw up the dust in my dooryard and scorch the grass and
garden beyond my toleration. By July, blistering heat will smother the
hills and I will long to be somewhere else. My thoughts will be all
about air conditioning and unfortunately, my old house has none.
A hot afternoon in April had me sitting on the porch wondering
where I was going to go next. I have made many long trips
throughout the world and I know that to make an extended trip, I
would need to arrange many details. Africa kept coming to mind as I
read the guidebooks and I started to make plans for a trip to the
southern parts of Africa.
Details
First I arranged to visit a doctor and get the needed shots. Rabies
topped the list because of the wild dogs in Africa and it was
followed by yellow fever, hepatitis, and tetanus. I called friends and
asked them to collect my mail and to look in occasionally on the two
houses for me while they harvested my plot of onions, carrots, and
corn. I needed a new passport and ordered one right away realizing
that there could be a waiting period. After many nights through April
on the porch looking over itineraries and Lonely Planet guidebooks,
I made up my mind; I would soon be hiking in the southern parts of
Africa.
The month of May smothered the land with sticky heat and as May
neared its end, I had made all arrangements to leave. On the first
day of June, I went to the Greyhound bus terminal and bought a
ticket.
Changes
Change rules a traveler and a traveler rules change. Freedom is like
the air that I breathe and the world seems like my back yard. My
mother must have swaddled me in a Rand McNally bunting because
a map brings me new life. Change is part of that excitement, new
places, new people, new customs, new dress, new food, and new
music. And the freedom to change itineraries is at the heart of it all.
I leaned back in my seat on the bus watching as Missouri sped by
the window and I thought back to those nights on the porch of the old
farmhouse planning my trip to Africa. As it turned out, I did not need
the rabies shot, Africa had faded from my plans. For the next eight
months, I would take a very long bus ride. A drastic change of plans,
yes, but this is the confession of a traveler and that is what a traveler
does; a traveler is free to change plans at any moment.
Yes, I would leave the hot winds of Springfield behind me and travel
for the better part of the next year but I would not be going to Africa, I
would head south instead and take an extended trip aboard
countless local and long-haul buses on an eight-month tour of South
America and I vowed not to stop until the roads ran out. Indeed the
road did end at a dock in the southern reaches of Tierra del Fuego
but I kept on south by boat and fulfilled the dream of every traveler,
planting my hiking boots on new turf. No turf crunched beneath my
boots an landing, however; I found only icebergs. Antarctica’s
treasured stamp on my passport would elude me, at the southern
end of my journey, only the penguins greeted me and they had no
customs inspector.
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