A parakeet squawks in the yard, in the distance a monkey releases a guttural, disgruntled acquiescence. The lapping of the incoming tides mingles with the slow boil of the water sitting on the outdoor propane stove. Tinny music spills out of your weary and overused phone. A sip of the overly strong rum and pineapple juice slows the synapses.

Hanging over the calm, sweet waters of the Golfo Dulce and wedged under the humid armpit of the central american jungle, this hostel languishes, empty yet yearning, in the tropical torpor as if in an endless siesta. I sit down alone to ponder my sweaty inexistence when I am, much too quickly for these latitudes, interrupted by a fellow guest. After the normal hostel-friendly banter of where did you come from, where are you going, how long, impressive, cool, I’m jealous, one day…we settle onto that common question of those that travel on such circuits–and above a certain age where drugs, booze, and mingling of bodies have lost a certain sheen: why do you travel? It’s a loaded question. We all know it. We all ask it. None of us have an answer. Sure, we have a preloaded bullet in the chamber, ready for whenever the snare comes out; whether it’s over a quesadilla in a Costa Rican hostel or a shot of rakia in a Serbian dive bar. 

Mine…? On the surface, I travel to enhance my thinking–broaden my horizons so to speak, to at least try to see some new and alternate ways of looking at life; to meet people, both like minded travelers and (often) less well-off financially, yet typically mentally wiser, locals; to see new things and understand what exists beyond my easy, slip n’ slide existence where I glide from one easy solution to another. And so, in the easy manner of 30 something ‘off-the-so-called-beaten-path’ hostelers, we agree. What is life when one just stays in one place, especially when given the opportunity to explore the world around us? We part in the simple, non-committal way of travelers…enjoy your trip, maybe we’ll run into each other down the road…but do we really care? It was a nice chat, but do we really need to pretend like we need to forge some digital connection?

The next day, I find myself walking down a burning hot asphalt road through banana plantations and reluctantly creeping jungle. I slowly swig a beer against the impressive 11am sun. No shade to protect my nearly translucent white skin. As I pound along the slowly boiling cement backpack laden like an abused pack mule, my mind wanders back to the conversation of the night before. I realize that this, this stupid, horrible, hot, sweaty, pointless walk is why I travel. I chose to travel on a Sunday, the one day that no collectivo travels to Dos Brazos. I chose to go to a town with almost no public transport. I chose to go somewhere, not quite secluded, not quite ‘unknown’, but, at the very least, not necessarily easy to get to. At the same time, for whatever reason, I chose not to take the easy way out–for $20 maybe more, I know enough Spanish to barter or so I like to tell myself, I could have taken a taxi. But no, aware of my decision yet refusing to admit it to myself I chose this path last night. I knew it would be hot. It would be miserable. It would be long, painful, stupid, blah. I knew it. I wanted it.

Maybe it was the heat, the dehydration, but I felt happy, almost ecstatic with my decision. This is why I travel. This was complete disconnection. Not just the simple disconnection from the digital age, which all of us 30 somethings early admit is a key ingredient to our travel urges (to get away from our email and our greedy, all consuming phones), but a disconnection from myself. At home I know exactly what I will do. I will wake up between 7 and 9am. I will go to work. I will hate sitting at my computer all day. I will drive home and complain about sitting at a computer all day. I will perform 1 hour of physical activity. I will complain about how late it is as I prepare dinner. I will watch 1-3 hours of netflix as I melt into my couch and lament that I should be using my brain to read or write. I will go to bed between 11-12pm. I will feel like I accomplished absolutely shit in my life today. 

On this road today, in this moment, I feel none of those things. I feel disconnected, not just from all the digital BS, but from my own brain. I can’t honestly trace back why I am here. Miami me would never be walking down a road in the middle of nowhere at mid-day. Miami me would call an Uber, get into the air conditioning, and be where I wanted in 20 minutes, perusing the internet and ignoring the landscape the whole way. So, why? Why am I sweating and suffering here? I could have done the same. I have the money, I have a SIM card. Why did I choose the exact opposite approach as home me?

Well, as my brain fries on this asphalt road, let us explore the theory. It all stems from disconnection. I need to disconnect from myself to really feel like myself. Everyday decisions don’t feel like me, but I never seem to really notice it as my days pass by. On the road my decision-making becomes ‘suspect’. Is it because I am cheap, indecisive, embarrassed? Maybe all of the above. Or, possibly, is it because inside I just get joy out of doing the opposite of what I would do, what any normal, sane person with appropriate means would do? Who knows. But here I am, walking down a road in the jungle, sipping a warm beer, carrying a 60lbs backpack, smiling and choking out ‘buendia’ like an albino bigfoot at every consternated person on a sputtering dirt bike that passes me. The kids on the burnt pitch of soccer field cease their mindless ball chasing to wave at the mirage of myself as I pass through this unmarked town. 

The sweat pours down my face in a torrent that, I imagine, might match the barren rivers I cross were it the rainy season. As I am slurping up the last drops of my superheated, less than good beer, I see a man on a motorcycle stop ahead to answer his phone. I walk by. He hangs up. He yells at me in Spanish. We have a confused, jumbled, kind of, conversation. He offers a ride. I accept. I say I’m going just up the road. He has already told me he is going to Dos Brazos. I have yet to understand. We get on the same page. He is from there. His name is Ronaldo. He navigates the turn off and the bumpy dirt road like a pro, as though my 210lbs plus 60lbs bag crushing the shocks of the back of his dirtbike are nothing. We exchange words that neither understand and laugh at one another’s misunderstood jokes. My ass goes numb. I can’t feel my knees. I think I might fall over backwards at every stream crossing. Each small rock or bend in the road feels like it might be my end. I’m not surprised. Where better to fade into nothingness than the jungle. The smell of decay lurks just beyond each roadside ceiba tree. The verdant green of the forest fringes are the deceiving storefront of a dark, ruthless underworld. Take one wrong step or stand still for too long and be entangled by a ficus and gorged on by the overly organized army ants, a mini-society filled with Japanese efficiency just waiting to strip all your earthly features.

But no, not today. I realize that the jungle–for all of its death, decay, and deconstruction–is also a place of growth, symbiosis, and reinvention. Adapt or die. Ronaldo handles my inexperience like a professional. We arrive. I try to buy him a beer or lunch, but this is Dos Brazos…neither are available. We thank each other and he takes off. I walk the 30 minutes into the jungle, up a mountain, to my hostel. I see an elusive (so everyone has told me since, the second in so many days) tayra on my way. In his weaselly way, he keeps stopping to take my scent on the breeze of the cool river valley. Perhaps, I should be a bit embarrassed that he can smell me so clearly over the decay of logs, plants, civilization. I wish I didn’t sweat so much. After a few more dramatic pauses to get a last good whiff of my humanness, he disappears into the thick, damp underbrush. A toucan lets off a humorously high-pitched screech. Maybe the pitch fits those showy, bright colored beaks. I drop my bags, filled now with sweat as I arrive.  I am told where to go to see a sloth. I spend an hour watching my spirit animal scratch his belly, eat a leaf, scratch his butt, take a nap, scratch his nose, move half a foot. I scratch my uncountable museum worthy collection of unidentified bug bites.

I had been deep in my own thoughts about why I travel. I had a nice essay outlined. I was slowly rehearsing it in the heat, I think I had it nearly perfect when Ronaldo dashed my reverie and erased the whole tome. As I sat down that night in my open air dorm with only a mosquito net between me and the jungle, I began to realize that today was just another reason why I travel. I disconnect from myself because I know what the normal decisions that everyday me makes will lead to, but these don’t make me feel alive. When I exit my day-to-day comfort zone I begin to make decisions that might otherwise be considered terrible. And I don’t disagree. One day they might lead to some horrible conclusion. However, so far, I have very few travel decisions that I regret, and most, even if they were not the best at the time, have since turned into the anecdotes of life. In many ways, walking down that road to Dos Brazos, I think I knew I was never going to walk the full 18km. I was certainly prepared to do so, I had enough water, food, etc.. etc…, but something was always there saying ‘just start it, see what happens, see where it takes you, who knows’. When I travel I find that something is always whispering to me like this, ‘go see what is around that mountain, walk to that next street, go see what you can see from atop that sand dune’. I have to disconnect from my everyday security to be able to connect to my inner explorer. And when I am able to do so, there is something inside me and around me that assures me that these minor risks will be worth the reward. Today it was a free ride and the first view of my favorite animal in the wild. Tomorrow, who knows….

Ultimately, I guess, it comes down rehabitualizing my outlook on the world. At home, I am connected to the digital age and afraid of true human contact. When I travel, I aim for the opposite. I want to disconnect from my computer, my phone, my email. However, I aim to reconnect.

To humans.

To nature.

To myself.

To my own thoughts.

Traveling is about learning to reconnect not just disconnect. It’s about trusting other people’s suggestions, hospitality, humanness. Google can’t replace conversation; it can’t give you a sunburn from a long day on the road; it can’t serve the best arroz con pollo you’ve ever eaten; it can’t give you a ride to Dos Brazos and help you learn Spanish colloquialisms through meaningless conversation. 

I don’t travel with any overarching goals. I’m not trying to center myself, I’m not trying to show the world that all Americans aren’t wall building separatists, I’m not expatriating myself, I’m  not trying to party my ass off and get laid. I think, and only time will tell, I am trying to experience life from different perspectives and have different experiences, as much as that is possible from a middle class, caucasian perspective. But, I don’t know. I might be running from something. Maybe time will tell.

In my own meandering way, I guess my point has come to its pinnacle. The goal of this site is not to be a travel blog trying to prescribe ways to see the world or how to experience some exact place or event. The aim is to have a place to share experiences. To provide illustrations about what you can experience when you give in a bit to your minor fears and explore new places outside the norm, your own comfort, and just try to lean on other humans instead of travel books and preorganized tours. I hope to create a place to share thoughts not guidance. I guess, I envision it being a place where we can all share our ‘travel’ art. Not in the strict sense of art based solely on travel, but art that originates in that clear thinking of being able to completely disconnect from daily rote and refocus ourselves on just living. Whether it is writing, photo-essays, drawings, whatever, I hope it is a place that people feel free to share themselves. Being shy by nature, I find the thought of publicly sharing any part of myself completely mortifying. In many ways, I feel that the digital age has made sharing of ourselves beyond a superficial photo or a 120 character whimsical thought nearly impossible, even if it is just in everyday conversation. 

Of course, I envision the site floundering and there being only a bunch of incomprehensible posts by me that no one can follow. But, maybe, miraculously, others will decide to contribute and we can have a forum of like-minded people sharing their experiences, tips on cool places to visit and adventures to be had in those places, and random tidbits from their brains that might make us all think a bit—you know, beyond whether or not to push autoplay on netflix for the next 2 hours.