The World Atlast

Like a baby bird being passed my mother’s regurgitated food, I accepted the bottle of chicha. It was half drink, half paste with the look and smell of creamed corn. It had been illegally brewed and sold to me through a kitchen window in the tiny farm town of San Agustin, Colombia, a former guerilla stronghold on the country’s border with Ecuador.
I walked down the road, chicha sloshing in hand, to the hum of my fears: Was it moonshine? Would a sip of it blind me? Could it be molding? I walked into a bonfire at a farm where the locals were in their bowler hats, the lone Chilean played Cumbia music and an Argentine couple made dancing to an accordion look sexy. I woke up feeling like my head had been filled with shaving cream.
I started walking, a foot in front of the other, to the outer edge of San Agustin, to rolling green hills, mountains, low clouds. I started ascending cliffs along the Rio Magdalena, the longest river in Colombia that cuts through the country up to its Caribbean coast. Passing cars stopped to offer lifts, but I declined given fears I had accumulated in the U.S. about hitchhiking and obscure places. After several miles of walking, I swallowed it like the chicha. If I couldn’t use fear as an impetus to challenging myself then I would become consumed by it.
I took a lift. Then I kept taking them, farther and farther from town. I turned my head to see signs on the opposite side of the road, the one leading back to San Agustin: 10 km San Agustin; 15 km San Agustin; 25 km San Agustin. High above the river, I followed a sign to a nearby waterfall that looked as fluid and strong as I felt in that moment. I was far from paralytic fears that had stopped me so many times earlier in my life. I turned my back to the waterfall and started my return journey.
Walking alone on the side of a quiet road, I heard a motorcycle engine stop. The young driver was going back down to the bottom of the canyon. My heart sped; my fear had always kept me off of motorcycles. I was surprised at how readily I hopped on the back. Twisted throttle, feet off the ground, we accelerated, faster and faster and I gripped the driver tighter. He passed me a set of headphones blasting reggaeton as we made hairpin turns down the canyons of the Rio Magdalena. I felt dirt kick up on my sandaled feet and my fear started to feel intoxicatingly good. My eyes watered and my lips cracked against the wind and the spread of my smile as we flew and flew and flew.