I had this idea a while ago, to travel back to Chile and see if I could find a story in the proposed building of five hydroelectric dams in an otherwise untouched region of Chilean Patagonia. I thought this might be my big break, my chance to finally be a travel writer. I’ve started doing research, and reaching out for potential sponsors and supporters. I’ve told myself again and again, okay, Susan, you need to make this happen. Don’t give up on it when it gets hard…make this a priority. I planned on heading down next winter, after another year of working and saving $ in Utah, enjoying the support network I’ve found, enjoying the snow, the desert, my friends, etc. But along with these thoughts of encouragement have come small, niggling doubts. Are you sure you’re doing this right, Susan? You’re really going to wait a whole year before striking off into the world again? Isn’t that what you’ve been wanting to do for the past three years? Why are you waiting? These little doubts got louder and louder. What if somebody else writes the story before you get there? What if the dams are already under construction in a year and there isn’t a story any more? I started to have anxiety. And then my windshield blew up. It only took a couple of days after that for the message from the universe to become clear: GO. NOW. I no longer have anything to hold me to Utah except for my friends and my fears. It’s been a while since I picked up and left everything. I’ve gotten quite comfortable here, even while I have chafed against the “normalcy” and structure of life in SLC. But although I enjoy the seasonal life I’ve carved out for myself here, it’s not what I want to do when I grow up. When people ask, I say, “I want to write for National Geographic.” Another year in Utah isn’t going to get me any closer to that goal. I don’t have a ton of money, but I have enough to go and figure it out, and I think this hydroelectric project has enough followers and detractors to possibly get me some funding. It’s time to stop trying to fit my so-called writing career in between working two or three other jobs. It’s time to stop finding random jobs that allow me to travel. It’s time to make the writing pay for itself. It’s time to get published.

I am…scared. Excited. Scared. Really excited. But this feels right. This feels like what I am supposed to be doing. It’s what I’m good at, it’s what I’ve been wanting to do since before I moved to Utah. I’m just getting started on building a network, planning my route through southern Chile, touching base with everyone I’ve ever met who has something to do with Patagonia or conservation movements, or fundraising. This is but my first official announcement: Plans have changed! I’m going back to Chile. Probably in early November until late March. Or for as long as it takes. Stay tuned…

My own jointed bones and square inches of flesh are feeling stretched taut, full of love and friendship. Full of the happy sadness and sentimentality of leaving a place one loves. Last night thirty-odd favorite ski bum friends poured into my home with arms full of food, drink, gifts, and good wishes. Chris set it up as a surprise party, but with so many friends excited to talk about my trip and share their support, the secret was never going to be kept for long. It was a great sending-off; tomorrow as I lift off from the Salt Lake airport, I’ll imagine that the plane is being buoyed by my friends’ excitement rather than jet fuel. I’m excited to leave; I believe as Muir does, that it is easy enough to live out of sight of one’s friends, but only because I know that I’m bringing their love with me, and that they’ll be waiting for me when I get back.

The adventure begins tomorrow…

I’ve only three weeks left of any work, anyhow. I pulled the trigger tonight on $1,000 plane tickets to Lima and Bogota to work for Awamaki, the Peruvian non-profit. March 14-May 9. Felt a bit more fluttery about the whole thing than I think I ever have for an international trip. Last night I waffled around on kayak and expedia and LAN websites, making notes about small price differences if I arrive in Medellin instead of Bogota, cruising the traveler’s forums on Lonely Planet Thorntree learning about no-go areas in Colombia, running bus routes in my head for feasibility. Looking at the map, at the surprising distance between Lima and Bogota, I recalled the 28-hour misery marathon riding from Santiago to Arica: a head cold aggravated by constantly changing altitude, legneckbackfeetarm muscles cramping as I twisted myself into a thousand different positions across two bus seats. This time around, I decided, I would splurge on the plane tickets.

Three journalists from Vermont, Chicago, and New York are staying in the hotel tonight, on a all-expense paid ski vacation underwritten by Ski Salt Lake. During the course of our conversation, I mentioned my own writerly aspirations, and gave them the address to my website. In return, they gave me some advice: join Twitter. So I did. Twitter and Facebook in one month – look at me, joining the world of the internet! Ted (or, Traveling Ted TV) is my very first follower! Taking a minute to look at his website in return, I found this simple and convincing list: Five Reasons why more Americans Should Travel Abroad. Reason #4 was my favorite: see that we are lucky to have what we have. Oh, yes. Lucky that we aren’t picking our worldly possessions out of the rubble that’s left of our house. Christchurch has been foremost in my thoughts these last few days. Here’s my addition to the list. #6: more Americans should travel in order to know cities like Chch, in order to understand the images on the news, and to have an impression of the city before the quake to balance the sensationalism and pain being broadcast post-quake.

To end on a good note:  20-36 inches of snow predicted this weekend. Life is, well, it’s pretty good.

Follow me on twitter! @susanmtraveler (I think that’s how you put it…this is new for me)

I’m sure it’s a surprise to no one that a little bit of me-time in the great outdoors has made me clearheaded and inspired to return to this space.  Surprise or not, though, it feels good to be back.  There’s been this huge pile of landslide debris blocking my path for so long.  I’m trying to sneak over the hardened, dried mud without dislodging any rocks.  If I climb up high enough, maybe I can see to the other side.  Maybe I can slip right over it and then start running, leaving it far behind.  I’m a little bit shaky, a little nervous and shy.  I could spook at any second!  I’ve tried to attack this blockage, force it out of my way and yell it down with angry words.  The earth only rumbles again and sends more dirt and trees plummeting downhill on top of me, building the pile higher.  I’ve tried to ignore it.  Carry on with things on this side.  Pretend it’s not there and that I didn’t want to go that way anyhow.  It pokes me when I do that, though.  I can’t seem to move very far away, either.  I can still see it, no matter where I move.  I’ve tried dismantling it logically, but taking it once piece at a time only makes the rocks and roots multiply, and I get dirt in my eyes and I am blinded, overwhelmed by the size of the thing.  I can’t make it go away, but maybe I can get over it, move on.

So I’m back, then, or trying to be, anyway.  I’m not over the block yet, but I’m moving that way, stepping softly but confidently (trying to be confident, anyway).  Reminding myself that the only person with the power to move forward is me.  I watched that movie, “Julie and Julia” two nights ago.  It’s a story of a woman who wants to be a writer, but has never finished anything she’s started.  She decides to start a blog about her love of cooking and her admiration for Julia Child.  ”524 Recipes in 365 Days!” was the challenge she gave herself.  Listening to the actress playing Julie Powell read bits of her blog, I remembered my own early blogging days, when I first went to NZ.  There was no art to my writing.  It was pure fun.  My only goal was to relay, as clearly as possible, the wonders, astonishments, lessons, and treasures of my first year traveling by myself in a foreign country.  My posts were honest and excited.  I described things as they had imprinted themselves on my eyes and soul, with only a few quick glances in the thesaurus when I was feeling particularly creative.  The excitement is tangible in those early posts.  No wonder so many of you commented back in the beginning!  I’m not sure when, exactly, this began to feel more like a job than a joy, but it’s been a sad, downhill ride.  The movie was a good one, very much a chick-flick (and I, being especially sappy these days, teared up during several scenes), but it hit me as more than a fun way to pass the evening.  There’s a scene where Julie and her husband have had a fight, and she’s alone in the apartment, lying on her bed, sulking, feeling sad, wallowing a bit.  She sits up, looks at her computer, lies back down again.  A second or two passes before she sits up again, and I imagined I could feel her taking a deep, resolved breath before she stood up, and moved toward the computer to write about the day on her blog.  The message I got?  It sucks, sometimes it really sucks, but if you just get off the bed, and do what you say you want to do, what you’ve committed to do, then good things happen.

Just do it.  This is not the first time I’ve heard that message.  Taped to the bottom of my computer screen is a small, rectangular piece of paper with the words “BE. RUTHLESS.” printed on it.  I wrote that little reminder over a year ago after reading a friend’s blog.  Lacy is a fellow artist, a professional actress in Chicago, whom I met traveling in Ecuador.  She was quoting yet another blog by yet another successful artsy person about the experience of learning to “be ruthless with oneself” in order to move forward and, eventually, be successful.  That little taped note has been staring at me for over a year, and I still haven’t been able to look it in the eye.  But today, I went for a (20km!) bike ride through the lush, tall forest that surrounds North Vancouver, and I thought about this space, and how perhaps it’s time to take the pressure off, and just write about what I saw and what I thought about today.  And today, somehow, it felt possible.

So I’m back, I think.  It probably won’t always be pretty, but I’d like to make it a habit again.  There are things that I get excited about, or frustrated with, and while I’d love it if you’d be willing to read about them, I’m mostly interested in simply being in this space and getting my bearings again.  It doesn’t matter if I’m writing into a void, what matters is that I’m writing.

I was nervous about coming back. What do I eat? How do I find pay phones? How can I get around without a car? I tried to practice asking directions in my mind – the words formed in Spanish. Strange, this time around, I didn’t hit that point in the trip where I felt glad to be going home soon. Up to my final days in Huaraz, I was still wandering the streets and visiting friends and forgetting, completely, that I should be saying goodbyes. I spent a lot of time talking to people, asking questions, trying to draw some conclusions about what I’ve seen and learned. What separates Peru from the first world? I asked. What is halting the process of development? Juan, an older man I met in the Plaza de Armas in Huaraz told me that Peruvians lack knowledge, education. Max, a mountain guide, said that it’s corruption holding them back. It’s there in every layer of government, individuals working for themselves, thinking only of the short-term: national individualism instead of national unity.

Antonieta, the woman who ran the hostel where I was staying, had spent several years living in the United States. One of her sons was born in Miami; the other earned his citizenship with help from his father’s business contacts. The older boy has done two tours in Iraq. It was disorienting to see an “Operation Iraqi Freedom” blanket embroidered with the American flag folded over the back of a chair in her living room. She described the first time a car slowed down and waved her across a busy street in downtown Miami. “Here, they don’t care, they’d run you down.” She loved being greeted by cashiers in US grocery stores, or receiving a simple “hello”, or a smile of acknowledgement from people on the street. “The women in my church – people who didn’t know me, who’d barely met me! They surprised me with a baby shower. I’d been feeling so alone, so overwhelmed at the thought of having another baby in a foreign country. I didn’t know if I should have it at all.” Back in 1970, when she was 10, her parents were killed in a massive earthquake that destroyed Huaraz and surrounding towns. “I was all alone. Not a soul came to help. Not an aunt, or a friend, no one.” Peruvians, Antonieta told me, “lack humanity.”

Good things for me to hear about the States before returning. Good things to remember against my dread. And, like all good encounters, speaking with Antonieta raised more questions for me to consider. What is my role as a traveler from the US? The neutral observer who learns to blend in? Or the bringer of culture and light to the third world? Is it arrogant to imagine myself teaching through examples, such as not throwing trash on the ground, like ceding passage on sidewalks, like smiling and being open and friendly instead of sinking into the surly masses? In the Amazon I wrote that to know a culture one has to live a culture. But has my romantic traveler’s lens blinded me, awed me into imitating behaviors that would appall me in the US?

I spent several days visiting a girl my age named Emely, who worked in the open market, selling jackets imported from Bolivia. From eight to five every day, she sits in the street in front of the rack of coats, haggling with customers, crocheting afghan squares, passing the time with the abuelitas who sell dried corn and flaxseed and other grains next to her. I met Emely when I stopped to talk to the abuelitas; I was looking for someone to teach me a few words in the local Quechua dialect. Emely’s twenty-four, with a three-year-old daughter, and single. And with dreams of traveling to “La India”. “These coats are just for now,” she’d tell me. “I’m from Lima; lots of people in this town are from Lima [the coastal capital of Peru]. If I opened a restaurant, with real food from the coast – you can’t get that here, not good food, well prepared. If you did it right you’d have good business.” She told me about her ex-boyfriend, the father of her daughter. “She will never, never live with him. Even if I have to go to Spain to work and save money, I’ll leave her with my family, or I’ll bring her with me.” The strength of her determination to provide a better life for her daughter, her fears of having to leave her behind to seek better employment, her occasional struggles with depression when life overwhelms her – I heard it all as I sat with her on the cold curbing. This wasn’t the first time I’d heard this kind of story from a woman my age, but it still blew me away, each and every time.

Sofia, a Belgian NGO worker living in Huaraz, had suggested that among the women, it’s a sense of self that’s missing. A Peruvian woman of the lower class is the spouse of a, the daughter of b, the mother of x, y, z. “When I asked a group of campesinas what their dreams were, they didn’t understand the question. They thought I wanted to know about what they’d dreamed the night before.” So what about Emely? And Wilson, and the scattered others I came to know who are driven by the strength of their hopes and dreams? How are dreams sown and cultivated? How are they harvested?

I met a young man from Texas at the start of my trip who told me that he believes that those capable of traveling as I do have a responsibility to give back in some way. This idea lingered, and as my encounters became less touristy and more humbling, it returned with a large question mark: how? And is my responsibility to my fellow Americans or to the people I meet as I travel?

I’ve been back in the US for a month now, and the adjusting continues, quicker than I thought possible. Jeni, my Machu Picchu hiking partner, returned to her native North American home several months before I did, and wrote to warn me about “how quickly [the shock] fades and you find yourself buying a coffee that is worth a chicken, a dozen eggs, a bag full of produce, and a massage in Peru.” She’s only exaggerating a little. I’m struggling with our consumer culture, all of the Stuff™ that our economy and lifestyle affords – things I haven’t seen in nine months. This is the point of progress, right? To be able to afford to buy things to make life easier. Wouldn’t Emely jump at the chance to have a washer and a dryer in her own house? Walking with Sian one day in Boston, we noticed a line of people waiting outside a tidy Newbury Street storefront with black awning and pictures of cupcakes with bones crossed underneath. These were young people, trendy, university-types, with hair cut into hard angled shapes to match the plastic jewelry and large square sunglasses covering their faces.  They sat wrapped in fleece blankets in canvas folding chairs, leather-booted feet stretched out and propped up in front of them. Others sprawled on inflatable mattresses and looked up videos on their laptops.  “What are you waiting for?” Sian asked a girl with curly black hair.
“He’s releasing a new t-shirt design,” she responded.
Oh.  Is it free?
“No, no,” she laughed.  “$75.”
How long have you been waiting?
“Since Wednesday.”

This is my culture. Seventy-five dollar t-shirts and leather couches and the $1,000 laptop I’m using to write this blog entry. Now that I’m back, comfortably settled in the belly of the beast, what do I need to do to live up to my responsibility as a traveler? How do I “give back”, as my Texan friend advocated? In the past nine months I’ve lived a different life, an intensely personal one. Traveling alone I’ve internalized everything that I’ve seen and experienced. Now I have to find a way to dig it out and put it in context for the people who ask about my trip. I have to figure out how to teach and show without bragging, to change minds and inspire selflessness without lecturing. And relearn how to live in the United States. And keep in touch with Emely, with Antonieta, Max, and Sofia, to keep the cultural interchange open in anticipation of the day when we find a way to help each other, and maybe even the rest of the world.