I apologize

I realized lately that I'm taking myself a little too seriously with this blog thing. I've started hating myself for it. I mean really, these babbling diatribes about chickens crossing the road and how its the secret to life, really? Who the hell am I Karl Sager? Nope. I'm just some knucklehead traveling around the world looking at shiny fish and eating coconuts. I'm sorry I forgot that, it won't happen again.

Yesterday was fun

Started out by getting scammed by a tour guide. He saddled up beside us as we were walking to the fish market next thing we know he's asking us for $60 american dollars for showing us some fish.

Next we got scammed at lunch. I must have ordered the "whitey special" because we were charged two times the price of our meal. Lucky us.

After that we decided to screw it all and head to the nicest hotel in town. I forgot what hotels like that were like. It was actually really refreshing to order a $5 beer and a $10 glass of wine. We sat there laughing at ourselves, sipping expensive drinks in our tank tops and dirty feet as a piano played in the background.

Off to buy our ferry tickets. Holy crap. what seemed like 100 guys descended on us as we approached the ferry zone. "Hey my friend" " Boss over here" " Hey buddy I can get you nice boat" all walking with us stride for stride as if we were jesus and his apostles. Having already been screwed twice in one day I quickly learned how to tell them thanks but no thanks. It didnt work. I'm not quite sure if we made it out alive. I may be writing this from an internet cafe in heaven.

Finally we strolled through the neighborhood and found the row of hindu temples. Walkign around on the spotless marble served as a needed break from the insanity out on the street. I walked into one temple and was approached by a man who was praying when I walked in. He took me through the temple and explained his religion to me. I have to say it was one of the coolest things that happened so far, especially when he saw Sabrina sitting at the entry and asked if she wanted to come in, but only if she was "clean and not on her period". I laughed and asked "how do you define clean?"

My life adjusted

The human ability to adapt is truly astonishing.

Before I left for this trip bus travel was not an option. If I couldnt fly or drive myself, I wasn't going.

Once I got to South America I was forced to take buses everywhere we went, and I soon found out that they weren't bad. TV. Air Con. Reclining seats and in ride dining. Not a bad way to travel. I said to myself, if this is how bus travel is, well then hey I can deal with it.

Then I got to Africa.

The buses here were smaller. And they kept getting smaller the more I traveled. Where there once was a reclining chair with headphone jacks, there was now a torn plastic bus bench with a metal rod sticking out of the headrest.The plush and comfy row that fit two person per row, was now replaced by a 4 person row that sat 10. The foot room that I was accustom to, where I'd take of my shoes and stretch out my tootsies, was now replaced with room enough for one foot and a tool box, a chicken, a box of fish, and three tanks of gasoline. That arm rest I had, was now some strangers lap. And the in ride movie, was now the back of someones head and/or ass, just inches from my nose. Direct routes were now, mutliple stops and on bus bathrooms were now plastic bottles into which I pissed.

But you know what? I'm dealing. You learn to deal because you kind of have to. It's the rythm of life here, and you either dance to the beat, or get off the dancefloor and go home.

The bus journeys, like the places I stay, or the things I eat or the people I meet along the way are what they are, and I'm adjusting quite nicely to that.

I like to hope and pray that I will end this trip someone completely different than the person that began it. But if not, I can at least say one thing for certain. If I have to, I can share my bus seat with a chicken.

Chicken flavored breakthroughs

Traveling in buses through Africa is an experience unlike any other. The world passes by endlessly, as if it were running on a treadmill. It's in this downtime that I've actually had a chance to think. A chance to let my mind completely wander wherever it wants to go. The other day it chose to focus on a chicken crossing the road.

Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.

I never understood this joke before. Never found it funny. Often wondering how and why it had such a long shelf life. How was this one of the jokes that survived the test of time? It's not funny. I know funny. I get paid to be funny. And I know that this joke, unlike many a knock knock joke or a horse walking into a bar joke, is not funny. It never has been. As a child I dismissed this joke as being too dumb to get. This joke, I figured, was a joke for simple folks. The kind of folks that find Full House and Family Cirlce funny. Clearly I am not one of these people, my brand of humor is far more sophisticated. Or so I thought...stupid little fat kid.

I now understand the joke, the entire time it seems, was on me.

All this time I was looking for something more than the answer I had, because the answer I had wasn't funny. To get to the other side? That's it? Really? That's the big payoff? It can't be. But it can, and it is. That's the answer and I get it now. The joke I spent my life grappling with, trying to understand, turns out to not be a joke at all, and that's precisely what makes it funny. This joke, it appears, is a lesson.

Why else would a chicken cross the road?

The lesson here is simple. Sometimes there isnt always a deeper meaning to everything. Sometimes there is no hidden message. Sometimes things are just what they are.

It's a good lesson to learn. I think we've been raised to always question things. To overanalyze everything. To find the deeper meaning in it all. Wether its life, love, religion or the universe. We need to know the meaning behind it all. We need to know why the sky is blue instead of just accepting that it is. We need to know why we are here, what we're supposed to be doing, when it will all end, and what the whole point of being here in the first place is. We can't be satisfied with just being.

The chicken taught me to just be. Just accept life as it comes. Don't look for the deeper meaning, because then you lose the meaning entirely. Looking for something more, and you may miss what's right in front of you. The chicken needed to get to the other side of the road, so he crossed it. Nothing less, nothing more. That's one smart chicken.

Space for rent

I've come to realize that the most valuable luxury any of us own is our individual personal space.

Take it away, and you miss it more than anything you've ever owned.

Get it back and you'll value it almost as much as the air you breathe.

I may have Malaria

Walking back from dinner the other night I started to feel myself go down hill fast. I always know when Im getting sick because the roots of my hair hurt. Thats right. Thats how I know, and my hair doesnt lie. Couple that with the almost instantaneous waterfall that began to flow from my nose and it was pretty clear that I had caught something.

The flu sucks no matter where you are, but put yourself in the middle of malaria country and the flu becomes a little something more than a minor inconvience. For someone like me (aka hypocondriac) this becomes a serious problem.

Upon feeling the first signs of my oncoming sickness I head straight to bed, hoping that a good night sleep will work itself out. Wrong. I wake up the next morning with a temperature over 100, body aches, a headache, a slight cough, and chills. Im exhausted too. Like holy crap I cant lift my hands to blow my nose exhasuted. A million things run through my head. I have AIDS. No I have mono. No i had mono when I was a teenager so i can't get it again. Right? It must be the water. Or the food. Something is wrong and that something will probably kill me. I reach over to grab our guidebook and thumb through to the malaria page. I go onto read (paraphrased of course)- Malaria is not to be fucked with. You can die bitch. Signs that you got malaria include fever, body aches, cough, headache and chills. Do you have these? You do? Well then you have malaria.

Aw shit. I have malaria! I knew it! Great now Im going to die and I never found out who won the Amazing Race or if the Cavs battled back to take the series against the Celtics. Oh well it was a good run.

Well theres only one thing left to do in this case, go get tested. Confirm my death sentence and make arrangements for my funeral. So Sabrina and I pack ourselves into a typically over crowded african bus and make our way to the clinic. I feel like shit. Like I want to die shit. Luckily for me, thanks to malaria i just might. We arrived at the clinic bus stop and the world is spinning. I havent eaten in about 30 hours and I feel like Im going to pass out. We walk into the clinic and they escort us into the room where they draw my blood. Oh great now Im really going to pass out. 10 minutes later the test confirms it, I'm a pussy. No malaria. I just have the flu. Ugh.

So I suffer through the next few days sweating through my clothes and watching Sabrina slowly go crazy from being couped up in a straw hut for 3 days. In the end I'm glad I didn't have Malaria, but I would like to pass on a piece of advice to the folks who write our travel books. Dont be so vague about the warning signs of Malaria. I mean seriously if the warning signs you describe are exactly like the flu well then isn't it more likely that you have the flu? The signs are so damn vague you end up sending paranoid idiots like myself into a tailspin. If you sneeze and cough twice you might have malaria. If you blink your eyes four times you might have AIDS. If you can hear yourself breathing out of your nose you're probably going to die. Unbelievable.

Tofo, Mozembique- where perfection goes on holiday

We arrived in Tofo about a week ago. I say about because I'm not really sure what day it is or when we arrived. The people around here say that if you stay long enough you sink into the Tofo hole. Poke your head up to look around and three months have passed before you know it.

I can completely understand why. Our room is a private straw hut sitting on top of a sand dune overlooking the ocean. Everynight I fall asleep to the sound of the waves crashing on the shore. The roads here are all dirt, the power is spotty, and the rain storms are amazing. The pace of life is slow. Real slow. The most active thing I've done since we arrived was snorkling with giant whale sharks. And I like it.

One day we decided that the beach we were staying on was nice but we wanted to see more so we hopped on a boat and sailed 2 hours to an island in the bay. New beach, same pace. You have to laugh when you realize your life, for the meantime at least, consists completely of island hopping from perfect beach to perfect beach. Well at least it makes me laugh.