Atlanta, Virginia

In almost an hour and a half I will be leaving for Central America for the sixth time since I first rolled across the Mexican boarder in a Shackleton bus, leaning out the window as we left a trail of dust in our wake. I remember fences made of dilapidated car doors, chipped shrines of the Virgin Mary clinging to the roadside, mariachi bands in dusty squares, cowboy hat wearing men driving pickups full of cows. Now though I sit here at my gate in Atlanta’s airport and watch the Latino’s begin to congregate beside me, thinking that I’m more at ease than I have been for weeks. A few hours ago I was in Boston and, though my friends there are some of the dearest I will ever have, the pressures of work had reached a painful breaking point of sleepless nights that I knew I must escape.

Soon I will be in Central America, backpacking my way across an area of juxtaposition; waterfalls, volcanos and beaches set against civil strife, poverty and a slight sheen of tropical dirtiness and decay that is becoming increasingly comforting to me the more I travel. Daringly I have only bought a one-way ticket to Costa Rica and yet, within eight weeks, I plan to arrive dirty and tired back in Boston having followed a route I have not even planned. For the first three weeks I will be traveling with mum and her friend Penny through Costa Rica then I’m off up North alone, only dust, footprints and the odd pair of socks left behind in my wake.

So Today as I sit here in this mammoth airport with it’s flocks of milling Americans I am making a commitment, three actually, never an easy thing for me at the best of times and under my present circumstances probably doomed to dormancy.
The first is that I will explore my first full continent this trip, Belize, Honduras and Panama my final targets in this goal that has spanned a long time. The second is that I shall make it all the way to Boston by any means possible and the third; however hostile the terrain gets, I shall write an entry in my blog for every day that I’m backpacking.