Dallas airport

And with a big long stuttering my trip to Colombia gets off to a start.  It has been three days of airport travel and, well, lets just say I haven’t really seen anything just yet.  The whole adventure has been overrun by airport naps, earplugs, canceled flights and all sorts of other distractions.  I’m just hoping the return trip takes a different form.  I’m currently in Bogota and have gotten my first taste of the famous Colombian hospitality that I have been hearing about.  People on the plane, in the airport, at the hotel, on the street have all been so incredibly giving of their time and patient it has been wonderful.  I’m looking forward to actually making it to Cartagena and getting a chance to explore the local culture.  On Thursday night I ended up staying in the airport and speaking with this Colombian woman who strongly recommended a castle and the caves under the castle near Cartagena.  I’m going to try to spend some time today trying to find these caves once I get settled in.

Recently a friend of mine loaned my a copy of the book “Illusions” by Richard Bach to read on the condition that I write up some of my thoughts about the book. It is a relatively lightweight book so it didn’t take much time to get through it. When I read it I was in a very different mental space than I have been in lately (vacation vs. full time work) so I’m raising a caution about this writeup with that in mind.

First off, I have been reading a lot of “life journey” books (or whatever the name would be) as of late. Carlos Castaneda among others have made it to the short list. I found that “Illusions” had a very interesting way of talking about the core subject of ways one can live their life. The nuances of daily living can be great learning experiences and the ways in which the main characters deal with their feeling of what is possible and impossible changes throughout the book. A lot of it related to me because of the life decisions that I have been making lately and the personal breakthroughs that I was having with my climbing. I’ve been very aware lately with how much people’s internal mental dialog can sap people to accomplish their potential.

Another aspect of the book which I found to be meaningful to me personally was the existence of God like figure as an everyday person. It has been a long time since I have sincerely looked at others as inspiration for how I would like my life to be and have developed a lot of that internally. Part of that I’m sure is the ego as well as where I have been emotionally and mentally over the last few years. In some ways I feel that this book helps me to come more to terms with that and confront it for personal growth.

I think Pam (the friend who let me read the book) was right when she made a comment about how it is a book that can resonate with someone depending on where they are with their lives. Even if you aren’t “open” to the book, I think that you’ll be able to gain something from reading it.

Portland will most likely have my attention for about three or four days before I continue my journey down south to San Fran and eventually over to Bishop, CA.  One of the things which I hope to do better with in general is being present in the moment and not dwelling in the past or over planning my future.  I suppose the first bit of that already happened for the last few days I was in Seattle and will continue over the next few months/years.