On Being Alone...

Somewhere back in October, I started this journey alone. Steve drove me across the border to the Tijuana Airport and as he sped away back to California, the only home I've ever known, I stood there, a dry cold wind whippping at my jacket, and thought: This is it. I'm on my own now. For the first time in my life, I was working without a net. But my expectations didn't conform to the reality I encountered. I wasn't ever alone, not really.

I can count on one hand the days of this adventure where I truly had no one. Even before Chris got to Quito, a week or so after my arrival, I had already found friends. Then we travelled together for two months before he had to go to Rome, leaving me to fend for myself in Mendoza. From there it was a solitary bus ride to Bariloche where I met and quickly bonded with a Californian named Tony. We would travel together for a month down Patagonia and eventually reach Ushuaia. We left Ushuaia together on a cruise ship to Antarctica for two weeks where I would meet my next travel companion, Mie, the crazy Danish girl. From Buenos Aires, where the cruise ended, we went to Iguazu, back to BA, to Cordoba, then Salta, and eventually to Tupiza, Bolivia. There our paths finally diverged.

But even before I left Tupiza, I hooked up with two Israeli girls, Nati and Sharon, who were headed toward Uyuni, same as me. Everytime I think I might be on my own again, I run into another person heading in the same direction; a hazard of traveling in an area overrun by backpackers I suppose. So I will do the Salar de Uyuni (the Salt Flats) with Nati and Sharon, and afterwards head to Potosi alone. That is unless chance delivers onto me another traveling companion before then. If the past is any indication, I count my chances as fairly good.