Getting Ready

I am leaving for Ecuador in three days. I have fluctuated often between nervousness and excitement, but now both those emotions have been replaced by the dull feelings of the waiting game. My bags are packed, I have exercised the tedium of details necessary in preparation, and now I am just spending time with friends and family and waiting for my plane.

As I wait to leave, I have realized how few images and experiences I am anticipating. The idea of the trip is to be rather open-ended, and although I have arranged for some details in the first few weeks, for the most part I am without anticipation or expectations. I think this is one of my key talents, my ability to suspend expectations before experience. Not only does this release me from possible disappointment, it opens up a wealthy revenue of surprises that otherwise might not exist.

I guess it's probably proper to note some details of my plan and travels. For the first three to four weeks I will be living with a family in the La Vincenta neighborhood of Quito. During that time I will be studying Spanish with a teacher for twenty hours a week at the Simon Bolivar Spanish School. I will stay there for at least three weeks, or until I feel confident in my language skills to travel independently afterward. I have been blessed for the past two months with a wonderful family friend who has tutored myself and another student every Sunday and Wednesday. At this point, I am not only excited by the challenge of a new language, but I crave it. As someone who has spent the last seven years studying literature and attempting to write creatively, I love English, but abhor the narrowing perspective of thinking in only one such language. Learning a new language is also probably the quickest way to double my vocabulary.

After I leave the school, I will be free to travel anywhere. I have many ideas about where to go, and a possible collegiate friend to travel with (she also has a blog, I think more insightful than my own: http://www.imperialistpleasuretour.blogspot.com). In Ecuador there is a diversity of geography including beaches, jungles, mountains, islands, and deserts. There are also neighboring countries that I would like to visit including Peru and Boliva, and I think I may very likely work my way south through Riobamba, Cuenca, and eventually towards Cuzco and Machu Picchu and maybe Lake Titicaca. But in the end, any plans will likely be rearranged by impulse or recommendation, so it is probably not worth thinking about until later.

I want to write more, especially about my reasons for traveling, but I am going to exercise some restraint to keep each blog at appropriate length. Paz.