Journey Junkie. That's my title right? I mean the title of my blog, this blog. Or is it the title for my life? Am I junkie for journeys? Addicted to the vagabond lifestyle, addicted to the travels and experiences that come with serendipitty and surprise. Maybe.
Tonight I am getting on a bus ride. Another bus ride, another drive that departs at twilight and arrives at sunrise. This is the fourth night ride I've had in a couple short weeks. Tonight I'm going back to where I started. Well, scratch that, where I began is about 3 nights non-stop travel by plane and car away.Tonight I'm returning to Jeffreys Bay.
I feel like I hit the ground running a few months ago and it hasn't stopped. I left Jbay and traveled to Cape Town and then hit Namibia. That journey was amazing, beautiful, eye-opening, riveting, encouraging. (that journey will be explained with a few more details later). But let me tell you, the people of Namibia are some of the most beautiful people I have ever encountered, the desert dunes so desolate and obscure, and yet enchanting and inticing (which is why I boarded down them) the waves with unknown and unpredictable swell, but beautiful lefts and completely isolated from towns and other surfers (which is why I boarded them). We worked with the poorest of the poor - orphans in a lost mining town outside of Swakopmund. And we worked with the richest of the rich - engineers descended from Germany with mansions on the shore line. It was a journey, if nothing else.
And then I found myself back in Cape Town - for a few days (although the only thing I recall from the days are the knots in my stomach due to Joplin's current situation). And then I was in Strand and Somerset West, suburbs outside of Cape Town. Where I helped run a surf competition, the 3rd annual one of its kind, loaded with all different surfers from open longboard, to twin fin, to moms, to veterans and more. Unfortunately that surf tourney was also loaded with clouds, wind and rain.
And so now.... Now I'm back in Cape Town. After many journeys - starting yet another - and still, unbelieveably there are journeys my heart is still longing for. You would think one would be ready for home, for proper home. After traveling so much, and considering the last time I was in the closest thing I have to a home was 5 months ago. Yes, I wish I could plant a garden, I wish I was in one place for a long enough time to paint the walls. I have no place to rest my head and I can go through the beds I have slept on the past 4 years, cots, futons, couches, floors, every bed I've been on has comforted many visitors before me, every bed not holding me for more than 6 months. So longings stir. But if someone walked up to me today, offered me a plane ticket to journey the world and its cultures with no ending point, I can't stay I would decline their offer.
Junkie? seems like it. for the journey? definitely. Jeffreys Bay - I'm on my way.
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