ode to the canadian

somehow we met these people the other day - our last in cartegena until we get back. we went to a volcano with them. one that spews mud instead of lava. well, spews is not really an accurate term since the mud is somewhat just stagnantly sitting in the crater. in any event you jump into the crater of the volcano, which is by all accounts counterintuitive, and bathe yourself in the mud. the mud is said to have theraputic value, but really it is just cool. you float in the mud, so you can be standing upright with only the bottom of the crater below you, yet completely englufed in mud (up to your neck - weirdly, you never sank so that the mud came up above your neck, no matter however tall or short you were). it was a surreal experience.

one of the guys we went with was a canadian guy who was older than us. i wasnt sure if he looked old or young for his age but he had tufts of gray hair, but a laid back and young look on his face. it turns out that he must have been about 45. apparantly he has traveled throughout the entire world during his lie and chooses always to cross borders in absurd ways. for example, he came from peru to ecuador via boat. the only way to do that is via 2 week jungle canoe trip. this he did and in the process apparantly almost died. he came out of the trip with a deadly cough and a huge abscess on his leg that had to be immidiately lanced once he was within range of a doctor. his cough still flares up every now and again and he needs to take antibiotics every few hours.

still, his next plan is to get from colombia to panama. since it is pretty dangerous to get there overland (dangerous like paramilitary drug wars going on, not like pirhanas) he is choosing to take a number of connecting sailboats. there is a boat that goes from cartegena and sails to panama over a four day period, but this boat seems to provide too much of an air of party and fun and 'thats not what (hes) in this for'. plus, he is no stranger to sailing. his last trip took him from central america to micronesia by boat. he met two guys who happened to be the danish sailing champions and happened to be sailing via the galapagos and easter island further west our to south east asia. his last stop was micronesia. he had stories of triangulation of star paths for navigating, being without sight of land for "only" 24 days. during these days he was able to keep sane by sticking to routine. waking up and excercizing. playing travia games with hsi mates, etc. and his description of his time at deep sea was one of consistant vomiting. the boat would regularly drop dozens of feet over a wave and vomiting ensued, but he didnt let that stop him. his positive spin on the whole thing was that he developed a great 6-pack by trying not to vomit (eh).

he has taken up photojournalism and before anything purchased the most up-to-date possible camera. during his few weeks in peru he managed to take over 9000 pictures only to have his camera (with the pictures on it) stolen and all his pictures lost. this was a setback but everything was fine because the bus driver bought him a pineapple.