I am heading to Rio de Janeiro next week and will then proceed to march around much of Latin America. I am taking a laptop computer and expensive camera gear.
I stand only a 50/50 chance of coming back with my equipment. I will get robbed, mugged, shot, or stabbed. I am a fool to take expensive things to poor places. The impoverished will want my stuff and will probably take it—by force, in all likelihood.
If I swim in the Amazon River, a Candiru, or "willy fish," will swim up my urethra, since I will pee in the river and they swim toward warm water sources. The locals will have to chop "it" off because there won't be a good hospital nearby. That will be a shame.
I have to take lots of socks or I'll get a severe case of trench foot. Wearing sandals won't help.
I'm going to get really sick since I'm not used to the food in Latin America.
Guerrillas will kidnap me while I'm in Colombia. Since people don't like me, no one will pay the ransom.
In general, I am an optimist, but this is a list of the things people have told me may—or will—happen to me. Not everyone is so optimistic.
Please tune in over the coming weeks and—maybe—months for all the excitement.
7 comments:
Jay, take care bro!
jack.
Jay,
Your journey is by far the most interesting thing I've heard in recent times. I will follow your trip out here. Enjoy all the freedom! Take care.
Ravi.
AWESOME. I look forward to the stories and tales of adventure.
Have a blast!
This reminds me somewhat of the Monty Python sketch where Michael Palin says "well, there's a Mr. Death at the door and he wants to speak to you..."
Now that I've answered the door, I guess we'll see if Mr. Death has his way with me, won't we. :)
Jay
BTW, have you seen a shrink about these annihilation fantasies? I was just reading your Wonderland Trail memoir (Day One) and found you fantasizing about being eaten (or partly eaten) by a bear?!? (You know, "How absurd, she swallowed a bird...") There's probably either a book plot or a pair of psychiatric lederhosen in this somewhere.
Eduard
Eduard,
They're not my fantasies. They're the pessimistic predictions of others. My hope was that the reader would infer that.
I may need to see a shrink for other reasons, but not for "annihilation fantasies."
Jay
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