is this the bus to cartagena?

it is saturday(sabado)... and i am in bucaramanga...
the plan is this... and more likely to change than stay the same...
i am leaving for cartagena on the bus this evening... john will travel with me... and help me get established in cartagena... i should arrive sunday (domingo) midday... and then on monday check out the school where i plan to study spanish... and hope to find a place to cash my travelers checks... but dont worry. cause i can use my creditcard to get money out of atms.... so i am not helpless...
things are going well... and never as expected...
the heat is noticable... and although i packed almost nothing.. i STILLL brought too much. it is a tiny bag, but it feels like i have rocks and water ... very heavy.
i am having lunch with johns family and then wandering the city before we hope the bus...
i hope that all is well with each of you... you were in my thoughts on my birthday... and i take you with me as i go ... into more of the inviting unknown.

I Am in colombia...
i have to keep reminding my self... not that it is not obvious that i am not in the US... but... it is still hard for me to grasp the depth of that reality... i am in colombia.. and it is not anything like what i imagined ... try to imagine a combination of china and mexico... where cars dont stop... you can make a phone call on the street cause people are selling minutes on their cell phones...and there is a constant chorus of car horns... taxi, bus, motorcycle.... horns.. like an orchestra warming up or a conversation... between automobiles... nearly an arguement...
that is the colombia i know... so far... and bucaramanga is like the shijiazhuang of colombia. city... but not major metropolitian... just a city... maybe bakersfield... or sacramento... without the national capitol.
it is just a city built up in and among the mountains... the lush jungle grows on the side of the road and where it is too steep to build anything.

so the journey with in the journey begins... almost as normal as any other day of life... it feels normal. it is... i am just in colombia.

a birthday in a small colombian town

my 28th birthday found me wandering the streets of a small old colmobian town. The Basilica Menor hosted the faithful and the frail. the sky painted the ground with light and shadow. the rythums of the city could be felt as if time had not passed and the day would last forever.

Giron, Colombia

my new job...

so my new job starts on Tuesday. I will leave the place that i made home... and i will get onto a plane. From there I will risk it all and take a gamble. With my heart open, my eyes open and a drive to explore i will jump into the deep end. I will try a new life.
I have let go of so much in the last month. I have let go of love and the hope of a future there. I have let go of my vision of myself. I have let go of my belongings and my place ... my home... I have let go of the dreams i had been holding so tightly... suffocating. I have let go. now i release what is left into the world to the fates and the wind. i release into the inevitable and release into the pain, the suffering, the glory and the brilliance of life in it's every day occurrences.
I see myself turning into a monster... a version of myself foreign to me- even at odds with myself... but i transform more every day. the monster within... is gentle peaceful and far more of a hippy than i had hoped. i am a stranger to myself and thus often those closest to me are strangers too. I am set loose. i am free. i wander out into the fear ... the distance into the nothingness of anonymity and i search for the essential... i search for the root of me, even if it is not who i intended to be... i may be lost to myself, but i wander to find the essential. that is my new job.