"What Are You Searching For?" -- Grand Junction, Colorado

I'm starting this post from the living room of "The Stoop" (Boy always names his homes. Like I always name my backpacks. And my headlamps. And my cameras. And, well... everything else). The lamp beside me casts a warm glow into the dim room, illuminating several old lady couches, a chess board near the window, several New Yorker magazines, and Boy's favorite mug (named Mortimer). I've got a glass of shitty boxed wine (and am pining for France) and a piece of homemade banitsa (and am pining for Bulgaria). My ukulele, Teal Cecile lies neglected on the table beside me, paint nearly worn clear off her first six frets. 

I've been playing Teal Cecile for two months now. And have a vast repertoire of songs so lugubrious they actually sound rather ludicrous when played on a ukulele. Which is fine with me. 

Life happened and plans changed. When I wrote last, the plan was to get a working holiday visa for France. That didn't pan out, because I'd need to spend about six months in Canada in order to get the health insurance I needed prior to departure. Then my friend Max told me about a longstay visitor visa I could apply for, but that also fell through, for one reason or a menagerie of others. 

So I settled into feeling lost. Directionless. Defeated. 

"Maybe I should just go to Spain and do my walk..." I would bite my lip on Monday. 

"I think I'll go to South America and teach yoga," I would ponder on Tuesday. 

"Greece sounds nice. They have some good Work Exchanges in Greece. I could volunteer on a sailboat!" I would furrow my brow on Tuesday afternoon.  

"I dunno... I've been wanting to do the Camino for so long now..." I would shrug my shoulders Tuesday afternoon-two-minutes-later.

When I flounder, I flounder BIG. Epic big. I settled down and sent out Workaway requests to Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. I even asked my friend in Bulgaria if I could stay with him for a bit. 

I'll just send out feelers and I say yes to the one that responds with the most enthusiasm. 

Of course, I wasn't sending out feelers willy-nilly. I had a few prerequisites.  

I'm tired of moving so quickly. I need to be in one place for a while. I need to build community and feel like I'm a PART of something. I need to plant something and see it grow. To fill out punch cards at cafes. To get to know the tamale lady. Or the banitsa lady. Or the boulangerie lady. I need familiar faces. I need to BE a familiar face.

I need to be doing yoga. I need to be learning and teaching. 

I need to be in a place with no winter. Zero winter. Nada. Girl hates winter. Ain't got time for that.  

I want to be learning a language. It doesn't have to be French. It just has to be a language. 

Guatemala responded with the most enthusiasm, offering me a three to six month gig teaching yoga on Lake Atitlan at the Yoga Forest. 

Guess life is leading me south again. Here we go.

I've been using my short time in the US well. I've visited family, irritated roommates with my incessant ukulele playing, volunteered at Telluride Film Festival (where I saw Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Angelina Jolie, Gary Oldman and Francis Ford Coppola), and witnessed the total solar eclipse in Wyoming. 

The sky got so dark that the streetlamps came on and the temperature dropped twenty degrees Fahrenheit. It was uncanny.

 I've also been baking with the bedeviled doggedness of a hobo foodie who hasn't had her own kitchen in 15 months. I've learned how to make ciabatta, puff pastry, focaccia, scones, pizza crust, pull-apart bread, ravioli, and cinnamon rolls.

When I'm not baking, floundering wildly, roadtripping to Wyoming or noticing that Christian Bale doesn't look so great in real life, I'm painting.

"Krista," I mused to one of my many roommates. "I think that the only reason I make so much shit is that I'm such a stressed out person.  But I'm a high-functioning (some might debate this) stressed out person. Because I know that painting soothes me. Knitting soothes me. Baking danishes and playing the ukulele soothe me. Yoga soothes me. So I do all these things ad nauseam. If I weren't so stressy, I probably would never make anything."

That being said, the US makes me immensely artistic.

I've also been getting my health taken care of. Like the responsible, paranoid human being I am, I applied for Medicaid the day I returned from Canada to Grand Junction, and was approved about two weeks later.  I suppose that when you haven't had any sort of income in over a year, even the US government begrudgingly realizes you might need a little help.

I've been to the dentist, had another unhelpful CAT scan of my throat, and been to a gynecologist. A gynecologist I like so much that I nearly invited her to our themed dinner parties after she'd finished poking around at my lady parts.

"Can I have a hysterectomy?" I asked after I'd explained my years of painful periods and polyps. "Please? I don't want babies. I never want babies. I mean, if I wanted babies, I could at least see a purpose to this bloody inconvenience, but I will never, ever make a baby. So this is just... useless suffering."

"Well," the nurse smiled at my, err, unbridled vehemence, "a hysterectomy is a major procedure. I can see why you want it and I'm not going to try to tell you what's right or wrong for you, but if something that's free on Medicaid and isn't a major procedure would work just as well, would you like to try that first?"

"Well," my vehemence faltered, "what do you suggest?"

"I think a Mirena IUD could work for you. It releases progesterone locally into your uterus, and keeps the uterine lining from thickening. So your periods should be lighter. And it's free with Medicaid."

"For now."

"For now."

"Okay... let's try it."

So I have surgery next week. To remove that polyp I discovered in Slovenia and to insert an IUD.

I still would just like to have the whole thing out, I grumbled to myself on the way home from the gynecologist. Being a lady can be the worst. Holy bananas. I can't even imagine what it would be like to NOT be in agonizing pain and slightly anemic two days out of the month. 

The days are cooling in Colorado and autumn is creeping in. The temperature's dropped from eighties and nineties to sixties and seventies. A single leaf on our backyard shrub is a vibrant, defiant yellow. And the Grand Mesa is glittering with golden aspens and sparkling snow.
 

This. This is what I'm nostalgic for when I leave Colorado. Crystal clear mountain lakes, golden aspen trees, snow speckled pines. The crisp air and the smell of snow melting into damp earth. This is the part of Colorado I could say feels like home. 

I stared out the window on the windy road home, watching the colors flash by.

Part of me is already antsy to move on... to be in a community of traveling hippies, teaching yoga and grinding my own corn with a bicycle grinder... 

But I'm afraid. I'm much more afraid than I normally am before taking off on an adventure.  This last trip did a real number on me. Being constantly sick and usually alone. And the... errr... not small part of me that's afraid just wants to stay here. Wants to keep painting birds and drinking wine on the porch. Watching the neighbors walk their dogs and saying hi to the mail lady every afternoon. Giving the occasional Thai massage and perfecting my focaccia. And always having clean laundry and hot showers. I'm not ready to give up hot showers yet. Not... yet... oh god... I'm not ready for a glorified solar powered hose. 

But I'm going. I'm going to Guatemala anyway.

"You're courageous," an old friend and mentor commented over a panini the other day. "What are you searching for?" 

"Searching for?" I wrinkled my nose.

I don't feel like I'm looking for anything. 

"Joseph Campbell. The hero's journey. The hero is always searching for something. What are you searching for on your journey?"

I stuttered something meaningless and gracefully buried my face in my panini.

Am I supposed to be searching for something? Huh. Guess I missed that memo. Someone shoulda told me that six years ago before I put on my hobo boots. 

I... I think I always thought of my traveling... my life... as an effort to strip things away. Strip away my fear of getting lost. Strip away my fear of spontaneity. Strip away my fear of people. To simply live in a way that makes SENSE with who I am absent of the expectations of others. Life is so fucking painful. It's beautiful, and unique, and precious, and joyful, and PAINFUL. 

I guess I've never seen the point of enduring all life's pain to then live one that doesn't resonate with ME. 

Maybe that's what I'm searching for. Resonance. Harmony. 

But I don't like the word "searching." To me, it implies that there's a sort of finish line. I don't think there's an end-date to this "hero's quest." There's just... passionate, curious, open living until there isn't. 

I fly from Denver to Guatemala City on the 26th of October. I take a bus from the airport to Antigua, spend one night in the old capitol of Guatemala, and then take a shuttle the next day to Lake Atitlan. Where I will return to the Yoga Forest (up the million stairs) and step into my yoga teacher shoes.

I don't feel ready for these shoes. It's been ages since I've worn them. But then again, I never feel ready for ANY shoes. I think a big part of my life is not feeling ready, but doing it anyway. Giving myself an occasion and rising to it. Trusting that it'll all be okay. That I'll be okay. That things will work out as long as I'm living with resonance. And if it doesn't work out, well, maybe I'm supposed to be somewhere else, doing something else, with someone else. 

And that's okay too. 

I Should Probably, Definitely Stop Eating You... Quebec City, Canada

Quebec City is somewhat of an anomaly in North America (North America north of Mexico, that is), in that it was designed long before the advent of the car. The Old Town of this four-hundred year old city is a UNESCO World Heritage site and still has its original walls. Which it needed, as the capital of New France in the 17th century. 

Quebec City was founded in 1608 by Samuel de Champlain, as France's "dibs" on the New World. It was named "Quebec" because this aboriginal word means, "where the river narrows." And Quebec City is situated right where the Saint Lawrence dramatically (you guessed it) narrows. 

The French lost Quebec City to the British in 1759 following the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. French nobility hightailed it back to France and the British took over governance of the region. They allowed the French city to keep its religion and language, which is why French is the first language of Quebec to this day. 

I arrived at Terminus d'Autobus de la Gare du Palais at three fifteen pm on the 12th of July. My host, a young, adventurous Canadian named Remi was still at school, so I trundled off to a cafe and messaged him from there. 

I sure miss having a working SIM card... where I could, you know, contact people from pretty much anywhere. But I also... I dunno... I like that I can MISS having a working SIM card. It's something that most everyone else in my life just takes for granted. But for me? It's, "HOLY BANANAS! I can call you while I'm on a walk!" or "WINNING! I don't have to borrow the phone of a strange Thai man while waiting for a metro in Bangkok to make sure the travel company doesn't give away my train ticket. I can just call them myself!"

I was thrilled to be staying with Remi. This last year of couchsurfing, I've met many people who have inspired me, energized me, helped me feel like my unorthodox journey through life was/is worthwhile.  

Remi will be another one of these. I'm sure of it. The stuff he's done... I'll listen to his stories and I'll have a hard time sleeping. I'll be too busy dreaming.

"I started my journey on June 21st 2015, I hitchhiked across Canada and all the way up North to the Arctic Circle until Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. I went all the way south to Chile and Argentina by bus, boats and trains. Then I crossed by plane to Africa and then Europe, and I went East, with a bike I bought in Spain, all the way to Ukraine, then to Turkey... I flew back to México after this and traveled with my bike again ! I'm back home now and I've been helped a lot on my way and now, that's my opportunity to give it back to the couchsurfing community."

He HITCHED to the Arctic Circle? Holy bananas. I thought hitching in IRELAND was cold. I would not survive on the side of Arctic Circle roads. Not for five minutes. 

Remi met me at Saint-Henri Micro Torrefacteur at around five pm. Brown hair, brown eyes, slim build, friendly smile. 

"Aimee?" 

"Remi?"

I love when I meet people and I think, "You. You are supposed to be in my life." I doubt I'll ever be the kind of adventurer who could keep up with Remi, but maybe he'd slow down a bit for me. Maybe we could hitch NOT in the Arctic Circle together. Because I have a feeling I will never be that badass.

Quebec City probably fell to the Brits because the French were utterly exhausted from walking up and down all the freaking hills. That being said, Remi led me to his house up one of those hills. While carrying my bag. Which is something I would normally protest (I feel like as a hobo, I should be able to carry my own things. It's part of the territory), however, under these circumstances, not one peep of protestation did I make. 

"I was thinking we could get some poutine for dinner," Remi suggested after we'd dropped my bags in his tiny home. A home with walls densely decorated with postcards, bookshelves lined with knickknacks from Mexico, and enough peanut butter to survive the impending apocalypse. 

Poop. I wonder if he read on my profile that I can't afford to go out to dinner...

"I saw on your profile that you can't afford restaurants, and I would like to invite you to dinner," Remi immediately put my mind at ease, as if he had been reading it the whole time.  

And my new friend bought me an Italian style poutine, of which I finished half. 

Poutine... you are unfathomably delicious. And addictive. And large enough to feed a hippo of respectable size.

...

I should probably, definitely stop eating you. 

Remi and I spent the rest of the evening watching documentaries and chatting about our travel experiences.  We could have kept going all night, but Remi had school in the morning, so he retired to a mattress on the floor in the living room and I took his bed. 

"Are you sure?" I shifted my weight uncomfortably. "I don't want to take your bed... I'm  happy to sleep wherever. As long as I'm horizontal, I really don't mind." 

"No, this is really easier," Remi reassured me. "Since I'm leaving early in the morning, it just makes more sense to be in the living room." 

"Okay... if you're sure," I drew the curtain to Remi's room closed and threw myself onto the large, comfortable bed. "Bonne nuit, Remi." 

My host had gone to school by the time I woke up and wandered into the kitchen the next morning, but I spotted a note on the table, wishing me a wonderful day. 

What a sweet guy, I thought as I helped myself to a cup of coffee. Remi had also told me I was welcome to whatever food he had around. 

I will live off of coffee and peanut butter. And it will be beautiful. 

I spent the morning sipping coffee, eating spoonfuls of peanut butter and writing. The afternoon was spent walking. The evening was spent wandering and chatting with Remi. And sneaking into the top story of an obscenely expensive hotel and glimpsing a piece of the sunset over the Lawrence. 

 

"The Old City is gorgeous... but I think I like Montreal better," I mused as the sky grew dark. "I like the atmosphere of Montreal. People seemed a bit friendlier and easy-going. Drivers weren't so aggressive there. And none of Montreal is as pretty as Quebec's Old City, but as a whole, it seems nicer. No matter where you go in Montreal, there's something interesting -- a park, an unique piece of street art, a quirky cafe. But here, it seems bland outside of the Old City.

We drank wine and watched a documentary before turning in that evening. 

I could do this every night. 

"Just so you know, I talk in my sleep," Remi warned me before I slipped behind the curtain to his bedroom.

"Well, you didn't last night..." I tried to remember anything unusual.

But while watching Doctor Who in bed that night, I took out my earbud to better hear the ruckus coming from the living room.

What?

"mumble French mumble FUCK! mumble French" Remi's voice drifted in.

I hope he's okay... 

I heard the sound of his sleeping bag unzipping. Scrambling out of bed. Stomping around the kitchen.

"FUCK!"

I started and almost went into the kitchen to see if something was seriously wrong. But then decided to wait just a few more moments to see if Remi would go back to bed. Which he did. Zipped himself back up, mumbled a bit more French under his breath, and drifted off to sleep.

I woke up the next day to an empty apartment and the same note on the table.

"Have a wonderful day! (again)"

If I'm ever able to host couchsurfers again, I'm going to do things like this. Leave notes. Just makes me feel so cared about. Oofta. 

Remi had Saturday off, so we loaded into his car and drove to Montmorency Falls, just outside of Quebec City.

Then Remi drove us to Ile d'Orleans, where we stopped once or twice to enjoy the beaches/buy fresh strawberries, but mostly just sang karaoke at the top of our lungs as we sped around the perimeter of the island.

Remi and I enjoyed our final evening together drinking hard cider in a park and eating strawberries from Ile d'Orleans. As helicopters hovered overhead to capture footage of Quebec City's famous festival (I believe Muse was playing...). We shared some final travel stories and discussed places we could meet in the future.

Because I would love to meet Remi again. I just need to up my level of badassery first. Unless all he wants to do is sing karaoke, eat strawberries, drink wine, watch documentaries and nap in parks. Because that is currently my level. 

And... I... uh... kind of love it. 

"Pay it Forward" -- Squamish, Whistler, Canada

One of the first people I'd contacted in Vancouver about surfing was a middle-aged lady named Ariela. I was desperate to stay with her because this, THIS, is one of the first paragraphs on her profile:

"I love adventure travel and exploring, especially by trekking and hiking. I've summitted Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa (19,340 feet), trekked the Inca Trail to Maccu Pichu in Peru, trekked to Base Camp Everest and the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal, and trekked to the 15,000 foot summit of Ras Dashen in the Semien Mountains of Ethiopia. In 2013, I quit my job and spent time backpacking through parts of Africa, Nepal and South East Asia. It was an amazing adventure, but the best of it all was the people I met along the way."

Yup. These are the people I want to be meeting. 

Unfortunately for me, these are the people everyone wants to be meeting. Her response to my lengthy couch request was the following:

"Hi Aimee, you sound awesome but currently you're FIFTH in line for this time period so, all I can say is maybe -- if you find another host that says a definite yes, then take it! If the other couchsurfing requests don't work out, or they get other hosts, then I'm more than happy to host you. If I can't host, then I'm happy to show you around if it works out. All the best, Ariela"

So I happily took the "yes" from Charles H. Tupper and told Ariela I'd love to meet up with her during the weekend of my visit to Vancouver.

And before then? I will conquer Stanley Park. Yes. 

Stanley Park is a thousand acres of forest surrounded by Vancouver Harbor and English Bay. So would require much energy for conquering.

And I have to walk ten kilometers from South Vancouver before I even GET to Stanely park. Oofta, I thought as I contemplated my dilapidated Chacos. This'll be good for me. I mean, I want to freaking walk across Spain this fall. I should be able to walk a few kilometers today without complaining.

So fueled on coffee, non-weasel piss tea and a few dried figs, I set off on the day's jaunt.  

I expected the weather north of Seattle to be, well, colder than Seattle. 

But I'm sweating. And mightily uncomfortable. 

That's what preconceptions will do to you, Bourget. Make you a sweaty, mighty uncomfortable person. Just because Montreal can hit negative 40 degrees Celsius in the winter does not mean that Vancouver won't be unpleasantly toasty in the summer.

Part of me hates that I've traveled so much in Europe. If I'd only traveled in the US, this city would be amazing. But after spending weeks and months in Prague, Istanbul, Vienna, Barcelona, London, Bordeaux... 

Skyscrapers are just boring. Where's the character? The chipped paint? The exposed wooden beams? The old streetlights? 


I'm well on my way to being a pretentious hobo. The worst kind of hobo. 

Oh well.  

At least I can enjoy the parks. 

I shared the park with bikers, rollerbladers, walkers, tandem bikers (some more successful than others), skateboarders and the random plane landing nearby.

Vancouver's version of Denmark's, "the Little Mermaid"

What I did not expect to find in Canada. This.

...

Charles H. Tupper took pity on me and my blistered feet and drove to pick me up on the outskirts of Stanley Park. For which I was immensely grateful, because although I consider myself a walking lady, I had already traversed over twenty kilometers and another ten did not sound appealing.

So we ate green beans, rice and pork, drank tea and watched a film together. While I tried to woo the Siamese kitties into cuddling with me, to no avail.

Baskets will always win. My lap ain't got nothing on that basket.

The next morning, I set off bright and early to meet Ariela at her home for our adventure to Squamish and Whistler. Charles H. Tupper had given me excellent directions regarding public transportation, but I eschewed them all and decided to walk the ten kilometers instead.

Like I do.

For someone who believes so firmly in the virtues of public transportation, it seems odd that I avoid it like the plague. 

 Ariela organizes hikes for a women's hiking club in town, and had invited me and her own surfer to join in on the excursion.

I looked at Ariela's cute red convertible with trepidation.

If the wind in Ireland could make my sinusitis so much worse, what will a few hours of riding backseat in a convertible do to me? 

Fuck. 

Well... it's too late to back out now. 

After an hour and a half of driving through the crisp morning air, we arrived at our destination.

And my sinuses are destroyed, I moaned as the familiar burning/pressure settled into my eyes, ears, throat and nose. Why is my body such a disaster?

Four Lakes Trail was a lovely, gentle hike through the forest near Squamish.

Full of pristine trickling streams --

cougars --

 

 and bears. 

Well... at least that preconception about Canada seems to be true... awesome?

This is always where I'll feel most alive, I breathed the fresh mountain air, ignoring my screaming sinuses and sinking into that feeling of "home". That rare, remarkable feeling I sometimes get when I feel like I fit. Could be with a person, could be with place, could be with a job.

I fit here. 

Relieved and, well, somewhat disappointed by the lack of cougar/bear attacks, I reluctantly slid back into Ariela's red convertible and we headed north to Whistler. A ski resort which rivals Aspen in its noxious level of ritzy.

We shared a pitcher of beer, ordered some nachos and watched downhill bikers careen down the mountain.

I feel like my life is extreme. And then I watch people like that. 

And I feel so... mundane. 
 

We meandered around Whistler for a few more minutes before starting the long journey back to Vancouver.

Well, long in Slovenian terms. Probably like a quick trip to the shop in Canadian terms.

And since it was, well, such a quick trip home, we made several stops.

At the Olympic ski jumps -- 

Yup. My life is mundane. Utterly mundane. 

-- on the side of the road to observe a rather furry pedestrian --

-- to take in a couple of truly spectacular views --

-- to hike to a thunderous waterfall --

-- and stop for a final beer at one of Vancouver's many microbreweries before Ariela kindly dropped me off at the home of Charles H. Tupper and his two Siamese kitties.

"Just promise me to pay it forward," she said as I disembarked the little red convertible for the last time.

"Sure thing," I smiled. "Thanks for the adventure."

I get the whole concept of paying it forward. But I still hate it. Ariela's "pay it forward" turned that gift of a ride home into a transaction. I now owe the universe. Besides, I've got a veritable MOUNTAIN of "paying it forward" to do by now that I'm already feeling overwhelmed. Holy bananas. Don't know how I'll ever get caught up on that. 

When I give, I don't like the feelings of obligation or "debt paying". Then it doesn't feel like giving anymore. I want to give just to give. And that's it. End of story. Finished.