The Beginning (Granada, Nicaragua)

Grenada

Well, it´s now been three days since I left Calgary and it already feels like an eternity since I´ve been gone. It amazes me how time goes so much slower when you´re not doing your daily routine of work and living.

So, here I am in Nicaragua... pollution, the smell of burning garbage, over populated streets, blazing hot sun, humid air, sweaty clothes with beads of perspiration dripping down my face... I love it!! Ahhhh, it´s so nice to be traveling once again in developing and tropical countries. I´ve missed it.

It hasn´t taken me very long to adjust to the backpacker lifestyle. Gone are my days of naivety when I was all bright eyed and cluesless of how to survive. My very first night I was a little nervous about getting to my first hostel, but a simple taxi ride, shared with some guy from the states made it easy. I´m no longer afraid to ask just anyone if I can join them, or share a cab with them, or ask for directions.

My first day in the big capital city was quite boring actually, it consisted of me walking around aimlessly by myself for a few hours and then the first sight of two white guys sitting down at a restaurant, I asked if I could join them. We ended up doing more walking around aimlessly in what they said was the more boring place they had seen in their, so far, 8 months of traveling through Latin America. Great. The highlight of the day was to watch a bunch of teen-aged school kids watch a soccer game in a food court, man can they cheer and holler over the excitement! That night as I returned to my hostel, I basically got kicked out because I supposedly had only booked one night and there was no room for me. Oh well, I once again hopped into a taxi at 6:15pm and went to the bus station and headed for Granada. This is where I am now. A very quaint, touristic, colonial town. It reminds me a lot of Antigua, Guatemala where Jeremy and I had visited a couple years earlier. The second I passed through the town in the bus, flashbacks of Jeremy and I traveling together touched my nostalgic heart and mind. But only for a second.

Anyhow, here in Granada, I´ve connected with some great travelers from a huge array of countries from around the world, all with the same goal to explore and have fun. This is waht I love about backpacking, you learn not only about the local culture, but also about so many other foreign lands.

My new friends (name?, Manuela, Lina)

I´m gone for 7 months, and others have already been gone for 8 or months and still have 4 or more to go! Gee, I´ve been trumped and have a feeling I´m going to want to stay longer if possible. It´s amazing how flexible I am, someone has suggested I no longer go north and then backtrack south. It makes sense, I´m going to skip a couple countries I had originally thought of visiting.

As well, I´ve noticed that times have changed since my last big trip. There´s wifi everywhere, and everyone has their own laptop or iphone with them. Sure makes communicating a lot easier! I´m feeling a little old, but lo and behold, I´m not alone. There´s definitley some others in their 30s or older. Nice.

For so long, many of my friends, family and co-workers asked, ¨Dean, are you excited to go?¨ and I never was really able to say yes. But now that I´m here and in full swing, I´m so excited to be here and am trying to enjoy every minute. This time around, I´m going to try and relax a lot more, no rushing, no over planning, no stressing about this nomadic lifestyle. I´ve been wearing the same outfit for a couple days now, meh...

One last comment, I am so grateful to have spent my last weeks in Calgary surrounded by my friends and family that truly love me. Knowing that I wouldn´t see everyone for an extended time, allowed me to fully appreciate everyone and live each day to the fullest in Calgary. If you´re reading this, THANK YOU.

August 14th, 2011 

Reflection

Just on my bus ride home now from Vancouver, it's a 15hour trip. I'm grateful though for the time to sit and reflect on so many things, such as life and relationships, the crazy weekend Leo and I have had, and future adventures. It's a peaceful ride with gorgeous views. Thank you.

Sent from my iPhone

So great to see Kristy! 

Pride

Trial run

I write this from a hostel toilet stall, yep, seriously. Just arrived in Vancouver after a 14 hour bus ride. Walked to our hostel with Leo, which was about 25min from the station. Can't check in for another 5 hours! No sinks to brush my teeth. Yikes. And I'm only in Vancouver.

Sent from my iPhone

The Journey...

Preparations & Procrastinations

Well, it's less than one month away now, my departure date that is. I'm trying to squeeze so much stuff into my last month here, as if I'm never coming back! I'm only going for seven months, and yet if feels like I'm going to miss so much. In a way it's a good thing, because I'm trying to seize every moment here. As well, I'm trying to get in shape for the damn beach. Perhaps not trying enough. Sometimes I wonder if I should get a personal trainer... not enough money.

Tomorrow I'm going for my travel shots. I hate needles! Or should I say, I'm terrified of them. I cringe and pout like a baby when I see them. Just typing this, I'm cringing.

I'm going to be throwing a little "moving out, moving on" party this Saturday, there's about 30 people who said that they're coming. Yikes. I don't know how I'll fit them all in. I have to inform my neighbours as well, I hope they don't mind. Who cares, I'm moving out anyway. But gee, what a bright idea this was of mine. I have a lot of things I need to do still, other than planning my own party. I thought the event planning was over when I left work. Oh right... I'm not fully done work. Foolish me, I agreed to hold one last public workshop three weeks after my last day of work. And, I'm the one doing more of the organizing for it, simple stuff though I suppose.

Hmmm... what else do I have to do. Oh yeah, so I guess I need a tourist visa to get into Brazil and Paraguay. The Brazilian one takes at least 15 business days, and I would have to send my passport to Vancouver first. Not going to happen. I'll get into Brazil somehow. I hope to get one while I'm in Bolivia, which might be a lot quicker. I should get the application ready first though.

What else... packing. Not only my backpack, but my whole bloody apartment. Ugh. Jeremy and I need to separate a lot of our things still. I also need to liquidate a lot of our old furniture that neither of us wants. I'm going to be giving a bunch of it away via kijiji. I hope there's some takers.

I have also foolishly decided to go to Vancouver Pride over the long weekend. What was I thinking when I agreed to that one? Oh well, it will be a blast. I just hope it doesn't eat up a bunch of my money. As well, it eats up five of my days left here in Canada. I gotta start concentrating. Dedicate time to what I need to do! I will get it all done, I hope. What's the worst that can happen? No matter what, I'm getting on that plane on August 16th.

And here's a pic of the party we had. 

How much longer?

They say that time heals all wounds. They never really say how much time exactly. We were together for almost 12 years. For the most part, it was a happy relationship. It ended so abruptly.

So, is it one week for each year? One month for each year? Perhaps one week for each crappy year, and one month for each of the happy years. If that's the case, then I would calculate about 11 months, 1 week.

That's a bloody long time, that can't be right.

It's now been about 6 weeks and it sometimes feels like it happened only hours ago. So, how much longer I ask? If only I knew, I could then start the countdown to my happiness.

Time heals all wounds. But really, how MUCH time?

Someone please help me. The pain sometimes is unbearable.

The truth

It's not a hidden fact that travelling has made a huge impact in my life. I often tell many new people that I meet that travelling has steered my life direction towards social work, helping others, advocating for immigrants and refugees, and towards a better understanding of humanity and culture. Travel, in my opinion, is one of the best forms of personal growth and education.

It's been a really long time since I've backpacked on my own, especially for an extended period of time. Most know that I have a continued passion to keep travelling. And so now, after much drama and time, the opportunity has presented itself.

I am slated to leave Calgary on August 16, 2011 to Nicaragua, returning home from Sao Paolo, Brazil on March 15, 2012. Seven full months of backpacking through parts of Central and South America. Going through this part of the world is something I've always wanted to do. It started when I first went to Costa Rica back in 2007 and learned some Spanish. I am hoping to come home next year with a much more advanced knowledge of the Spanish language.

People keep telling me that they're very excited for me. People keep telling me that they know I am fulfilling a dream of mine by doing this big trip. People keep asking me if I'm going to revive my old blog. People keep asking me what I will do when I go abroad. People keep asking me how travellers survive for so long living out of a backpack.

Here's the truth. Am I excited? Not really. I write this first blog entry of my new chapter in life with a very broken heart. I write this entry with a few tears swelling in my eyes. I write this entry with Sade playing in the background to sooth some of my pain. I write this entry in hopes that writing will act as a form of therapy for me. And I write this entry to help me find a way back to myself.

After ending my nearly 12 year relationship with the only person I have ever really loved, I find myself at a "round about", trying to figure out who I am. I have come to realize that I lost a part of myself when I said goodbye to my best friend, my partner, my companion, my soul mate, my lover, my other half. For so long, I saw myself in him. No one else knows me better. Together, we had a dynamic, a personality, that belonged to both of us. I am positive I will never have that same dynamic again with anyone else. Of course, there will be new dynamics and new personalities spawned with new relationships, but I will never gain back that part of myself that I lost when we walked away from each other for good.

Travelling for me is an escape. I think it will be a great way for me to live out one of my passions and to forget all the pain, all the drama, all the heartache, all the nonsense, that I currently call life here in Calgary. So, once again, am I excited to travel? Not really. Dont' get me wrong though, I will be excited once I am there, but not until I'm out of this pile of rubble. Each day for me this last month has been a new and unpredictable one, and I am always surprised to be feeling how I am feeling. Somedays happy, somedays sad, somedays lost, somedays angry and bitter as hell.

So I have decided to put all of my eggs into one basket - Latin America. I am going on my own for seven months, which will give me a chance to get re-acquainted with an old friend named Dean. Ever since my relationship ended on May 20th, I have only spent one whole day by myself. Every other day, I have been blessed with supportive friends (old and new) and family surrounding me, entertaining me and making me smile, or listening to my anguish and fears. I think I need to rediscover what it is like once again to be in love with me. To revel in my own company is what I desire. So perhaps my travelling is like a quest of self-discovery, a way to heal my scars and forget some of the trauma that has occurred in the past six months of my life. It will be a way for me to find my passion once again for social work. As well, to have some fun with brand new people who don't know the old me, a way for me to re-invent and re-create a new Dean, a new identity. And of course, to have some exciting adventures along the way.

This blog, at one point, was written for others. So that people could follow me and be entertained by my adventures throughout Asia and the South Pacific. I've long learned, that although there are some that really do care about listening to my stories and bearing witness to my growth, in the end, the majority of people really can't fathom what others are going through, nor do they really care. I understand that now. Understanding is not the same as fully knowing. Therefore, I now write this blog for me. If you care to join me on the journey, great, please do. If not, no worries, I'll see you on a path down the road.