TENTATIVE plan in images

Waking Up and Coming Alive: A Prologue

Wake – M5 – M42 – M40 – Work – Gym – M40 – M42 – M5 – Sleep - Wake – M5 – M42 – M40 – Work – Gym – M40 – M42 – M5 – Sleep - Wake – M5 – M42 – M40 – Work – Gym – M40 – M42 – M5 – Sleep - Wake – M5 – M42 – M40 – Work – Gym – M40 – M42 – M5 – Sleep - Wake – M5 – M42 – M40 – Work – Gym – M40 – M42 – M5 – Beers - Sleep – Wake – Sport – Beers -Sleep – Wake – Vegetate – Sleep.

This in short equates to the currently perpetual cycle of a week. Fifty two of those shoot by like the Virgin Pendolino on a weekday (Sand Dunes move faster on the weekend service), and you find that three; four; however many years have shot by since you left education and joined the 'big wide world'. More so, the rhythmic ebb of it is strangely comforting, yet now and then you'll hear a Bob Dylan song or walk out of your local screening of 'Into The Wild' and feel this overwhelming twang, an urge to throw your clothes off and skinny dip in the lake of life before it's too late (apologies if a little sick came out of your mouth reading that). The words in a recent song have been resounding in my mind and I think sum it up perfectly.

Seems like only yesterday
Life belonged to runaways
Nothing here to see, no looking back
Every sound monotone
Every color monocrome
Life begin to fade into the black
Such a simple animal
Steralized with alcohol
I could hardly feel me anymore

Desperate, meaningless
All filled up with emptiness
Felt like everything was said and done

This feeling has been overwhelming me on a regular basis now and I've made a resolution to fix this before whatever situation renders me unable to do so. I'll try my best to get on with what I mean before I slip any further into a wanky, self involved, pretentious me-fest. Life is just not what I expected it to be at this point in life; I have a good job which pays very well, a budding 'career' and amazing friends. However, in spite of those things, I haven't seen as much of the world, met as many interesting people or done enough things that I'd like to. So I've bought myself a ticket to Rio De Janeiro, Brazil, with a flexible open return, saved a decent wodge of money and cleared my schedule for the rest of the year. From there, well, then it all gets a little sketchy. I have a likely route which I've carved out on photoshop when not staring out of my office window watching 6 people cramming themselves into a makeshift bus stop for their hourly fix of nicotine, and dreaming of where I'll be in three weeks. But we'll refer back to that later.

So what's the point of it all?: referring to the writing, not life... although if you do have that answer then please do share. The truth is that I'm not really sure. Primarily as a way of keeping loved ones up to date without conforming to irregular bulk e-mails. Instead I'll be writing tales of intrepid adventure, posting pictures and the odd rhyme here and there (no guitar = poetry, sorry). There will be no test so reading is not mandatory. However, there won't be any presents for those who ask “so what did you get up to?” whenever I get back. On a more serious note, anyone who knows me will know of my extreme fondness for articulating pretty much everything that is on my mind, so with the regular absence of any friends for thousands of miles, this will probably be an indirect form of regurgitating whatever happens to be on my mind on my 'journey of self discovery' ('regurgitating' being the apt word to partner with wanky terms like 'journey of self discovery'). I'm kind of hoping that I'll be able to come back with a slightly better idea of, or action plan for, what I'm going to do with myself when I get back. As previously mentioned, I've made a resolution that it won't be the perpetual cycle that I'm currently in. I have no issue with hard work for my achievements, I just want to do something I care about, and it's not really money. So hopefully I'll have a clearer idea of what that is when I finish my Latin American expedition.

Now we have Why, What and When cleared up, we'll return to How and Where. The loose plan is to keep to a loose plan and go wherever I feel like on any given day. However, from the mandatory planning of what I can do it's likely that I'll work my way down to Argentina, across to Chile and along the west coast to the northern tip of Columbia. From there I'll have to get some kind of boat to Panama consequently avoiding the ridiculously dangerous FARC infested Darien Gap between South and Central America. Then I'll work my way around to Cuba where I am loosely scheduled to return to the UK. However, if I have surplus cash or require more time to do whatever it is that I want to do at the time, then I may come back later from somewhere else. Simple really.

Anyway, I hope that you enjoy reading about my adventures over the duration of my travels. You can comment and leave posts if you so wish. My next post will likely be from Rio in early April so until then.
Liam