Adventure Awaits

Transcript

Welcome, beautiful thinkers!

I hope you can hear me.

Okay, I’m just sitting in a shipping crate, which is my bedroom for this time that I’m in a secret location, or an undisclosed location out in rural Jalisco.

And I was thinking about this idea. Adventure awaits.

And here I am coming out to my friend’s property, jumped on to the quad bikes the other day.

I’ve never rode a quad bike or ATV before.

So that was interesting, takes a bit of strength sometimes to direct the steering.

And it takes a bit of skill and balance.

You gotta be careful with these things.

Because even though they seem a lot more stable than the motorcycle, well, that can change very quickly, especially with the kind of conditions you’re rolling in, going up and down these hills on these rugged roads that have been worn away with little creeks and rivulets.

As the water flows through in the wet season, these large bumps across the road of this red soil, then leads deeper into the woods, or even the rain forest here.

When these little microclimates close to the creek or the river, and all of these things can happen.

It’s wonderful to explore like that.

And I know not everybody necessarily has the resources to go out and ride on a quad bike or has the friends that will let them use their cars.

Go go to the beach, or wherever you want to go.

There’s so many things to do in this world, so many things to explore.

A key point in my life one moment that I’ll probably remember for the rest of my life.

I was in Colombia, and I met a fellow from Cartagena in Medellín, David, the English teacher, and David said to me, “Come, come see me in Cartagena, you’ll have a good time.”

He said, “Come to the Isle of Barú”, he said, “Is easy to find me. You just have to ask them for the English teacher, David.”

So I went, I jumped on a plane booked a flight to Cartagena, jumped on the plane.

And I got into the airport there, in Cartagena.

What’s it called Cartagena de las Indias, I think?

And, I said, I asked around a few people, “How do I get to La Isla Barú, how do I get to this island?”

And they said, “Oh, it’s not easy.”

Contrary to what David had told me, David had this very “costeño” attitude, like a relaxed coastal attitude, you live on the beach a lot of your life, just chill, everything is fine, don’t worry, it’s easy.

So the fellow told me this, this tourist guide, he said to me, “Alright, here’s what you’re going to do.”

“Jump in a taxi and you take that taxi, to the southern ferry stop.”

“You’re gonna get on a ferry.”

And then when the ferry arrives to the island, you’re going to jump on the back of a motorcycle, and that will get you to the island, to where you want to go.”

So that’s what I did.

There I was sitting on the back of the moto and going maybe 10 or 15 kilometers an hour.

Again, over these rugged road roads.

This road only accessible by moto, you don’t want to really drive a car on it.

And we get to the beach.

In the end, I never found David.

But as I was on the back of that moto, I thought to myself, “This is incredible.”

Like I was relatively calm, the seat is vibrating underneath me.

And this fellow, quite competently navigating through these roads that he has rode many times.

And I thought, “Just a few years ago, I wouldn’t be in this situation, I wouldn’t be exploring like this, traveling like this, having these adventures.”

And of course, as the point I come back to many times, you say to ourselves, sometimes, “I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that.”

Or we even say, “I can’t do that. I’m not that kind of person.”

How quickly these things can change, when we allow a little transformation to enter our lives.

When we take a few small steps, even though we’re not sure where they might lead.

And we can find these adventures, even if we are of limited resources.

I remember when I was at Technical College in Newcastle, some friends, my friend Loxy, she would say to me, “You know what we love to do?”

“My friends from the Central Coast and I, sometimes you just jump on the train and we take it to a new little town that we’ve never been to before.”

“And we go explore and see what it’s all about.”

They call it “city kid adventures”

Coming from the city to explore in these towns that probably people don’t know about.

If they’re not from the Central Coast, probably never heard of them before.

There’s all these little places you can explore.

I think also of Helen Keller, she said that famous quote, “life is a grand adventure or nothing.”

Now even somebody who is so limited as Helen Keller, unable to see, unable to hear.

She still lived her life as a grand adventure.

She still had that attitude, willing to explore, find out what was going on in the world and appreciate it.

However, it came across these sensory experiences, these smells, these touch, these touches, these emotional experiences that reach to something deep within us.

These are all there for us to explore.

Yes, my friends.

Adventure awaits.