Thoughts Sidle

It's Uruguay. I've decided to head toward Uruguay.

The air is pretty clean and clear in western Uruguay. Even Montevideo has pretty good air quality for a capital city. I know an interesting hot water resort area in the country. Not much possibility for river, lake, or canal travel, but two out of three seems good. (see earlier post)

There are good places to visit or stay that are less expensive than Uruguay, but I believe Uruguay is cheaper than, say, Mexico these days. It is not as exotic as Mexico, but it has its attractions. One might call it the Belgium of South America. Also Porto Alegre, Brazil and B.A., Argentina are not far. Uruguay's athletes play ball with the big boys, but it is a small country.

Just because I am heading toward Uruguay is no assurance that I will arrive. I intend to travel slowly so as to give myself abundant opportunity to be distracted.

My first day of travel as I leave 29 may be my most strenuous, but it will be slow: I'll get a bus in 29 and take it to Yucca Valley. From Yucca Valley I'll take a 2nd bus to Palm Springs. In Palm Springs I hope to transfer to a bus that will take me to Indio.
With luck, in Indio, I'll be able to catch a Greyhound to the Mexican border at Calexico.
I have taken the above route, leaving 29 in the Morning and arriving in Mexico City early the next morning. I probably won't try that this time. Instead I will probably spend the night in Calexico or across the border in Mexicali. Then in the morning take a Mexican bus directly to the Tijuana airport and take the first reasonable flight to Ciudad Mexico.

Might stay two or three nights in the Mexican capital. From Mexico I can catch a flight to, say, Panama or Venezuela and on to Brazil. Could take one of the wonderful luxury buses from Brazil to Uruguay.

I can enjoy Montevideo for a week or so and then head for the"termales." There I'll spend much of my time in trunks and bathrobe. I intend to sip mate and eat well too.

But who can say; I might find a lovely villa in the highlands of Panama. I might decide to take some Spanish classes in Merida, Venezuela. Or I might meet a woman of that great Japanese-Portuguese mix in Sau Paulo. Met a girl like that in California many years ago and still have occasional dreams. Then again, I might meet an elegant German-Brazilian matron in Porto Alegre. Women do seem to appear in my dreams.

Its' a trip!

Thoughts of the Adriatic and the Black Sea do sidle into my imagination, but I intend to move my body toward southeast South America.

Damn!

I seems I used to enjoy my travel with a kind of good old "I don't' give a damn!" attitude or a "Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead!" attitude. It was my 'thought.'
Now I am more concerned with 'true motives,' even though I'm not sure what they are.

I've just been practicing some conscious inner dialoguing. Inner dialoguing is fairly new to me. I used to want to talk things out with others. The less sure I was of what those 'things' were, the more I wanted to talk them out; usually. I still like to talk things out. But I've noticed that others are not always interested in all of my problems. They seem most uninterested I discussing those problems I had yet tried to identify. In fact, I didn't want to talk to myself about them.

You have thoughts about talking to ones self? So did my father. He said talking to oneself was fine and often useful. He did say that it should be kept within certain limits. He said that it was okay to talk aloud; that it was eve okay to answer oneself. He did caution me to take special note when I caught myself saying "Huh?" in these conversations.

Now, I have been doing a pretty good job of taking care of business, of myself, and, on occasion, of others, for well over half a century. Even so, a guy can still learn.
Just now, during a little inner dialoguing, I think I discovered some motivation for my lack of travel decisiveness.
Maybe it's better to say I discovered obstructions to decision or obstructing motives. Anyway, I discovered that incompletely acknowledged fear of spending too much money might have been slowing my decision a bit. However, other motives loomed larger. More fear. It seems that I have feared that I will drive too far, too long and too much. I feared that too much driving would lead to too little fun and too much fatigue. I have feared that I would spend too much time on buses and so expose myself to pain, fatigue, and boredom. I have unconsciously feared that I would book unpleasantly long flights. Excellent earphones, great movies and decent food, even in business class do make long hours in the air fun. In the recent decade my ankles swell. I once thought it good to have swell ankles. It's a minor fear, but I was also reminded that long layovers at airports are downers for me.

My dialogue led me to identify some problems and potential problems. What is an early step to solving a problem?
Now I am saying, mostly to myself:
I am willing to arrange to drive less than five hours in a day.
I am wiling to arrange to travel less than five ours on a bus. )An exception might be on one of those wonderful buses found in southeastern South America which provide completely horizontal full length sleeping accommodations with good fresh coffee in the morning.)
I am willing to plan to avoid any flight of more than 9 hours. (that doesn't provide the sleeping accommodations of those excellent SA buses)
I am willing to avoid airport layovers of more than two hours. I'll be very open to taking a hotel and enjoying the city and country of that layover so as to spend less than two hours that airport.

I think that this talking out has been a help.