Dude, I spent the better part of the last two weekends, and a significant portion of time I should be working, reading your blog. I cannot overstate how much I enjoyed it. I am not want to comment lightly, having wasted days and weeks reading others’ blogs while I toil away as an attorney dreaming of another life, yours is the only one I thought was worth it. Hope all good things come to you amigo. You should write a book sometime, seriously. But first another entry here please, and make it snappy! Thanks for sharing your life.
-Ron
Great writings of some wonderful adventures you’ve had. Very reminiscent of a Tom Wolfe or Hunter S. Thompson style of journalism, examining the events occurring before them so completely, that without seeing them yourself you can still envision what the author was seeing or experiencing. I loved the visual imagery and the story. Keep roaming!
-Drew
I really like your site. I just discovered it. I’ve been around Santiago since December. I couldn’t help but laugh at the way you described the US embassy here. It was like reading my thoughts paraphrased. I even had the same thoughts about a zombie apocolypse scenario. It makes La Moneda seem about as secure as a derelict amusement park teenagers sneak into to drink 40s and sniff glue. You’re a great writer. Keep at it.
-Dave
There’s the soul of a true explorer in these posts. An explorer of places, of scenes, of food and, more than anything else, of people. The soul of the people — good and bad, friendly and off-putting, beautiful and ugly, young and old, gringo-hispanic-indian, lost and leaders — rears up from these writings as sure as the words you use and the adventures you describe.
One day you may use all of this to create something different — novel, studies, teaching, understanding — but the tale of your travels is fine and honest and alive as nothing I’ve ever read. Maybe you’re right — maybe there is a lack of “continuity” or direction. But since you can only judge your direction based upon your destination, and your destination remains the next town you happen to be drive to, this part of the tale will have to wait the telling.
Be safe, but be open to experience. You are teaching all of us something about that.
-Michael
You write so clearly, with distinct detail, and I feel like I am hanging out in your backpack watching it all unfold. I want to buy you a shirt and a hat that isn’t so frayed, but this is the uniform of the hitchhiker I understand so well. I pause during reading to reflect about the people you ride with, Ricardo, Erik etc. and think, “these people are so lucky to meet you.” I know your character and your incredible ease with strangers and I think they do too. Thank you for detailing their personalities and for letting the reader know your insight with them (not speaking or not responding negatively to someone who is opinionated)
Send more posts. I learn so much about you from these. I just want to say how much I enjoyed the border story. You are a wonder and the master of your life Cale.
-Betsy
Just a quick note: I spent the last hour (more?) reading your travelogue, didn’t realize it would be so long, but got sucked in in parts, particularly the ones that combine sensory detail with moments of philosophy.
I’m moved by your relationship to money (and tourism, cameras, etc), could understand your p.o.v. on how differently hitchhikers are treated if they’re girls, even though it’s something I’d just have to take your word for, and felt a sense of sorrow that I wouldn’t get to travel alone in the way you have without being advanced at or worse. It’s true that you’re conspicuous, but you’re rarely targeted.
My favorite part was the one in which you say you’re weird, that when you plunged into the water, you thought that you wanted to be around happy people. Whether that’s weird or not, I could completely relate–to the rich internal world, to the strange thoughts, to the happy people thing. I gravitate to people who are crazily happy and know that very soon I will be crazily happy again.
Anyway, what I meant to add was that I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I felt a sense of loss at the end, when you parted ways with Toinon. That’s not to say that I would have preferred it if you stayed together (maybe I would have, actually), but rather to say that I didn’t completely believe your reasons for parting ways. I could be projecting, since I do the same thing when traveling and have a carbon copy story of hitchhiking in Oz. I think these kinds of expectations can often damage an otherwise good connection.
I look back and think some of my funnest experiences and that my desire for independence and solitude got in the way. Sometimes I can’t understand that urge for independence, why it’s so strong when it’s so easy to get very lonely. I think there must be some better way of handling it, of saying goodbye for now, of parting ways and meeting up again down the road. I used to think that, if I had an experience, then I wouldn’t need to repeat it. I used to think that (well, just a little) about people, too. If I met someone, then they became a part of the experience, like a vista or a delicious meal or like a story that ends.
But, I know now that there’s value in continuing connections with people, that when connections deepen, you can create entirely new experiences and new stories. I revel in new-ness. It can be addictive.
-Daphne
I absolutely loved the last one you published. Unfortunately I it popped up on my feed just when I had decided to go to bed, and I couldn’t stop reading once I started. And I had an important meeting this morning. Needless to say the lack of sleep didn’t make it go smoothly, but I guess that qualifies as a compliment about your writing. More !!! Please?
-Chris
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