tiny grass

We’re moving in 3 months (exact date pending some details, like buying airline tickets).  The whole thought of Getting Rid of Crap and Packing Up Stuff is bad enough, but there’s a whole lot of orchestrating to do.  Like buying the airplane tickets, acquiring health insurance, finding temporary housing etc.

Today’s bugaboo is researching travel for our cats.  Our friggin’ cats.  I say friggin‘ because travelling with them complicates things quite a bit.  In 3 months they’ll have more international experience than Palin but for now they are a collective PITA.

This whole travelling with pets thing is more expensive than we expected too.  We thought it would cost $100/cat, and that it would be fine as long as the temperatures weren’t obscenely hot.  But researching the various airlines has been downright depressing:

• US Airways doesn’t accept pets internationally
• Delta charges $550 per pet
• TACA/LACSA (who we flew with last year) won’t take any live animals as cargo.  If in the cabin, they’d be in lieu of any carry-on luggage.  Hmm - cats or snacks/entertainment for the kids?
• American won’t accept a pet if the temperature is below 45 degrees, though they mention getting a note from a vet to reduce that to 20 degrees (is that like an international hall pass?).   Plus they charge $150 (must be under 100lbs).
• Continental charges $250 per animal under 50lbs.
• United charges $100/cat but … some of their flights to CR are handled by TACA/LACSA.  And no pets accepted when the temp is under 45 degrees, no ifs/ands/buts.

I’m looking into international petshippers now - it may be less hassle and I bet the cost would be a wash since it’s much easier finding low fares without having to account for the cats.  I hope they know how much we love them.  I’ll be pissed if one of them gets bitten by a snake and dies a week after getting there.

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3 years ago, I saved the first link about Costa Rica.  It was an Escape Artist page on living in Costa Rica, and I dunno if it was a specific article or the general info page the link redirects to today.  It was a Tuesday and I was at work, so I’m deducing that the idea was hatched and the ball started rolling that exact day because my MO then was to spend a lot of time at work surfing.  Or rather, dreaming.

Every dream has to start somewhere, and I’ve had many that started and eventually fizzled out.  Some of them were of the completely half-assed variety that have nothing to do with the real me (like the nebulous wanting a Good Job that made Lots of Money), or explorations of the other countries we considered that eventually came back down to earth.

I can see why most people never make their dreams come true.  It takes effort and focus.  It’s like another job, in some ways.  But if it really means something to you, you’ll stick to it.  It’s no different from an inventor or author who take rejections in stride (or learns from them) and doggedly pursues their dream.  People do it all the time.  It just takes time and effort.

Dealing with reality is not as fun as dreaming.  Lately it’s been a slightly uncomfortable stage - taking apart the life that I’m used to.  I’ve also thought a bit about some of the ‘Oh shit’ moments in the future, the times when I’ll realize that there’s no turning back.  #1 is the thing I look forward to more than anything else - giving notice at my dayjob.  Who wouldn’t want to quit their job and live their dream instead?  But it’s also giving up the perception of security.  It’s freaky.

3 years ago, it started with the simple act of saving a link.  2 years ago, I was still saving links but the dream was alive and well.  1 year ago (almost to the day!) I had my epiphany that it HAD to happen.  (Man does a life improve when you go with your gut and make strides towards fulfilling yourself.)  My hope now is that we move well before July 5, 2009 - hopefully Christmas will come early.

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Vagabonding by Rolf Potts is about long-term, unconventional world travel.  Conventional would be the notion that long-term travel is possible only by the very wealthy galavanting from exclusive resort to private island in luxury.  In reality, long-term travel is very possible for people of more normal means, but to do it in a fulfilling fashion requires a mindset of openness and focus on what’s important.  This is also what is essential to a successful life as an expat, and Potts distills it so well that every expat (and expat-to-be) should read this book.

Vagabonding - n. a privately meaningful manner of travel that emphasizes creativity, adventure, simplicity, awareness, discovery, independence, realism, self-reliance, and the growth of the spirit.

This definition, from the book’s opening page, succinctly lists all the qualities that a successful expat needs.  Quite a few expats move out of their chosen destination within 2 years.  There aren’t any hard numbers, but it is likely in the range of 20-40%.  I imagine that a common thread amongst them would be a lack of flexibility and maintaining the same mindset and expectations they had in their home country.

Clocking in at 206 pages, the book is an easy, worthwhile, inspiring read.  Interspersed in the chapters are quotes from vagabonders, and each chapter ends with a profile of a path-blazing vagabond.  These pioneers include John Muir (founder of the Sierra Club), Thoreau and Walt Whitman.  It’s cool to read about them, but of more value are the quotes and comments by the less-reknowned, everyday vagabonds like ourselves.

Also included at the end of each chapter is a list helpful resources (books & websites).  A more up-to-date list of resources, vagabonding profiles, forum and Potts’ blog can be found at the companion website, www.vagabonding.net.

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This is the very last picture we took in Costa Rica. We were on the road south, coming back from a failed attempt to view eruptions at Arenal and one rainy night at Bosque del Termales.

Some of the mountain roads had absolutely stunning views, while others were spotted with cows, sheep or goats. This particular cow didn’t give a rat’s arse that we were behind her, which is the way it should be. It reminded me of being in India and having to drive around a cow who decided to take a nap in the middle of a busy intersection. Eventually she moved about a foot to the right and gave us enough room to pass.

This certainly wasn’t the last thing we saw, as we spent a couple of evenings in Alajuela (at the warm and highly-recommended Vida Tropical), but it’s kinda funny that the last thing we thought worthy enough to photograph was … a cow’s arse.

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Suddenly you are five years old again. You can’t read anything, you only have the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can’t even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.
–Bill Bryson

My current reading is Vagabonding by Rolf Potts. It’s a fantastic book about long-term world travel, more about shedding your possessions and really experiencing the world than just how to do it cheaply. It’s been ages since I wanted to sightsee, and years ago I spent a month in England with the predefined purposing of getting a taste of my friends’ lives. I told them I wasn’t interested in sightseeing (I’d seen everything in London years before), and they took it in stride. The only thing I couldn’t do was go to work with them - otherwise I went with them to their theatre rehearsals, long walks in the countryside and repeated evenings in the same local pub.

My most treasured memories of that trip was staying in Scunthorpe, a town about an hour and a half from the Scottish border. It’s not a place where tourists go. There’s nothing to see, in terms of traditional sightseeing. But it was a wonderful time because of my friend, Tom Foley (we’ve lost touch and I hope he Googles his name sometime) and his family. They were Irish, and the most warm and welcoming family I’ve ever experienced outside my own. Tom worked part-time and I’d tag along with his Mum to the store or read.

One day she took me visit her mother, who was Algerian and resolutely anti-feminist. She insisted that men and women were different, that men could do things women could not and there was no convincing her otherwise. She was a child during World War II and her story of going to a German school and life at the time was fascinating. We also spent almost every evening at the same pub, The Honest Lawyer, where I became a bit of a regular had plenty of discussions on politics and music with everyone. I have one regret about the experience: I was offered a bartending job there and I did not even take a moment to consider it. I wanted a high-paying corporate job that would lead to an eventual transfer to Europe. Silly me.

I’ve always been curious about the world - my favorite subject in school was Social Studies, when it was about people and cultures, before it turned into a series of boring memorizations and tests called History. I’m not terribly curious about the US - there’s too much familiarity around the corners. But I am absolutely curious about being in a strange land where I don’t speak the language. And in Vagabonding, I found the quote by Bill Bryson (from Neither Here nor There) that summed it up perfectly.

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