Areas of Unrest

25 June 2000 - World Beat

QOTD: "In order to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." - Carl Sagan

Reading: Edward Hasbrouck, The Practical Nomad

Listening to: Oliver Mtukudzi, Tuku Music

I was hoping to be able to say that I was listening to Oliver Mtukudzi in celebration of a victory for the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) in Zimbabwe, but it seems the results won't be tallied until late tomorrow or early Tuesday. And there are rumors that Mugabe will manipulate things and keep ZANU-PF in power. I'm still hoping things work out. At any rate, listening to this reminds me of that beautiful country.

I mailed off my final payment for the Central Asia trip a few days ago. So, of course, it's time for me to start obsessing over where to go next. I finished Tim Severin's In Search of Moby Dick and found myself contemplating the Aranui, a freighter that sails from Tahiti to the Marquessas. (By the way, the book is excellent, an exciting exploration of how traditional whaling is still practiced. But the American edition was published without pictures! I am tempted to write to the publisher and complain.) I've known about the Aranui for years, but the time never seemed quite right.

But then there are all the other temptations. I can think of at least four possible South American itineraries, for example. I even figured out how to optimize use of frequent flyer miles for one of them - which involves going to assorted obscure Chilean territories. Rapa Nui (Easter Island) is not all that obscure, I suppose, but few people could place it on a map. Isla Robinson Crusoe, on the other hand, is not exactly a major tourist destination. It's the island that Alexander Selkirk, who was Defoe's model for Crusoe, was stranded on. There turn out to be fairly regular flights from Santiago to Isla Robinson Crusoe, though they aren't cheap. I could use United miles to fly into Santiago, pay for the trip to Isla Robinson Crusoe, use American miles to go to Rapa Nui, and then travel overland through the Chilean and Argentinian lake district (Puerto Montt to San Carlos de Bariloche) and across to Buenos Aires and fly back from Montevideo, Uruguay.

Except if I decide I want even more to go to Malta for a week and stop somewhere back on the European continent on the way back. Or stop in England on the way back and hike one of the National Trails.

Or if it's time to go to Southeast Asia and see Angkor Wat (Cambodia) and Laos and do the standard Thailand/Malaysia/Singapore stuff. It's a good thing that Indonesia is still too unstable to contemplate or that would be another possibility.

Fitting the possibilities into things that take a month or less is the challenge. Instead of doing housework all weekend, I've been reading and browsing my beloved Thomas Cook Timetables and looking up web sites on obscure freighter routes and learning about some of the European long-distance footpaths. And generally daydreaming.

There's not much point in even trying to decide now. But I wish I was more focused and didn't keep running around wanting to do everything. I do enjoy my wanderlust, but I'm sometimes envious of people who are content staying still.

In the meantime, I guess I can use the spin the globe or put the pencil point down on the map method.