Life on the Road - South America

There's nothing worse than the working-stiffs back home giving you hell for traipsing around a foreign continent living a 'carefree' life on the road. 

What they don't know is that it's not all mangos and sunshine. 

The road means getting up at the crack of dawn to catch a bus after being kept awake all night by the blaring soccer game and squeaking bedsprings in the hotel room next door. 

It means sucking dust on a long bus ride while manically trying to guess which of the towns you keep passing through is the one you intended to visit. 

It means blissful relief when you finally arrive and find your pack still on the roof. 

It's the sight of begging children, the arduous haul to the hotel, a screaming bladder and the excitement of a new  town all catapulting your mind from one emotional extreme to another.

 

The hotel manager says the showers are hot, but the water hitting the skin is as cold as the bottom of Lake Titicaca. 

There's no seat on the toilet. (At least the bowels are behaving.) 

You call that a fan? Sounds like a helicopter! 

OK- food. Leave the pack in the corner, get out the map, locate the market, grab the passport ( or leave behind?) and go. 

The sun feels great. Then you get lost, your mood turns sour as your blood-sugar crashes, you find the market, smell the mangos and try to haggle but have no clue what the fuit seller is saying. You finally hand over the cast- did I just get ripped off? - and walk out to find a good place to eat. 

Is this easy?

 

Travel in South America certainly has its trials, but that's why we do it. And it sure beats working! 

 

-2012 Lonely Planet South America 발췌 

 

 

아직 스마트폰과 지도앱이 발달하지 못했던 시기에 남미여행을 했던 사람이라면

처음부터 끝까지 고개를 끄덕이게 될 글.

몇번이고 다시 읽어도 너무 좋다. 

가진건 가장 없었지만 가장 풍족했던 시절로 되돌아가게 해주는 글.