The Long Dark Teatime Of the Soul

From Agua Verde, I put 250 miles on the odometer to reach La Paz (that's Spanish for The Paz). On those straight, sweltering stretches of highway, where the miles blend together like the remnants of different ice cream flavors left in a cup to languish in the torrid afternoon sun, you begin to enter that long dark teatime of the soul, as Douglas Adams would say. The riding is uninspiring, the bike has basically just become a fast chair, and you'd love to teleport home - just for a day - to exercise that atrophying part of your mind which delights in familiarity. It's not homesickness, at least not for me, just a desire to put the constant locomotion and new experiences on pause for a minute. To sleep in a real bed, play video games, and ride on roads that aren't infested with bloodthirsty Chihuahuas.

What shakes me out of the torpor is the unexpected and absurd. Like spotting baby stingrays, going on a desert hike and encountering a red-headed hassid absolutely losing his shit as if he were the burning bush itself, chancing upon a pickleball resort with sinister vibes, and listening to the exploits of awe-inspiring travelers. Like Bruce and Olaf, unassuming pioneers of the American rock climbing scene who climbed with legends such as Dave Bershears, Stacy "Gazpacho Fingers" Simmons, and "Jimmy with the prehensile naughty bits"; children being homeschooled on a sailboat circumnavigating the world; couchsurfers who dropped acid with the Dalai Lama.

There are tens of thousands of people right now plying every obscure and purportedly dangerous corner of the globe - by car, motorcycle, bicycle, foot (plural), foot (singular), and every other conceivable mode of conveyance. Their stories invoke a sense of sonder that I have not felt before. How someone could not be intoxicated by the prospect of such quixotic adventures is beyond me. My travels, at least so far, are a steaming pile of coyote crap compared to theirs. I hope to join their ranks someday, and Hobbes already has 85 times the horsepower of Rocinante - but I'll be happy as long as I don't turn into Rudy from Colorado #throwback#deepcuts

Jake Schual-Berke