Hello my dearest and closest family and friends.
I wanted to let you guys know that i have arrived and somewhat settled in safe and sound into this beautiful city of cartagena. Its my first time in south america and i am traveling alone after a sad, yet wonderful and important goodbye with my loving partner gabriella. as you may or may not know, we have decided to go our own separate directions for now and are opening ourselves up to our independent experiences. so, its been abit sad and abit lonely and abit different and on top of that, up until about 5am this morning ive had like really terrible diahrrea in which ive probably sat on like 30 various toilets in the last four days (i think i used every bathroom in the panama city airport yesterday while i waited from 11am when i arrived from mexico city on one airline, then had to enter the country to retrieve my baggage and check into a different airline which would take me to colombia at 6:30 last night). there were some travelers on the plane and we shared a taxi to the hostel district, which is quite a dirty part of town. so, anyhow, as youre probably waiting...back to the shits...it had been really rough, leaving gabriella and not really knowing what was going to happen, and also not being able to really eat or drink much without having to go use the toilet a few minutes later. so, in the middle of night after four days of this crap (pun intended, though i wouldnt really describe it as crap, different consistency if you know what i mean) and getting up twice (once to clean my pants from a minor "accident," the fourth of such occurences) only to lay down and feel that gurgle/unease in my stomach, i decided it was time to actually heal myself, i mean come on, i claim to believe in all that stuff, that i have the power to heal myself and such. so i lay my hands on my waist and shoulders in the angle i was laying at and channeled love and reiki energy into my body. the experience became quite powerful as i felt that i needed to call in many of my guides and ancestors too and a vision of them dancing around a fire which represented my power center came into my consciousness. they poured every possible liquid that emanates from the body onto this fire to create an alchemical flame that i needed to bring into my being. i also felt the extreme importance of truly believing that anything was possible and i needed to fully trust that i could do this. i slept with many strong dreams and awoke happy and healthier, though very weak. a capsule of thieves essential oil, with peppermint and basil (funily, i hadnt tried any medicine except charcoal up until now)was my breakfast, coupled with a limonada a hour or so later. so that was about four hours ago and ive been walking all over the city giving thanks to my power and trust and healing potential. i feel that these are some of the important lessons that i am going to be learning on this solo journey of mine and i guess the shits are giving me a little bit of an initiation into that.
so, Colombia appears to be a fascinating country and this city really is beautiful. the old walls of the city which protected it from all sorts of invading dudes back in the mid teen centuries are still intact and cars drive under the various tunnels to enter the historic center, which is also surrounded by water. supposedly this was a main port for south america in the old days of european invasion and expansion. there are colorfully painted colonial buildings and big bushes of fragrant flowers and fruits and all that nice stuff and beaches nearby and the sun was directly over my head at one point and i looked down and i had almost no shadow behind or next to or in front of me, just a little thing right at my feet. the people seem really nice too and all and i could see myself exploring this region alot, the only thing is its friggin hot, like all day long and i think im just also yearning for the mountains and the rivers and the trees. its just really hard to explain to myself leaving so soon since i originally thought i/we would be staying in this city for awhile...oh well, explanations need not be had here today i guess.
oh and another fun thing is the money. one dollar in mexico was about 10 pesos, which is really easy to figure out, just take away a zero to think in terms of dollars. not so much here, one dollar right now (its been totally dropping) is about 1800 colombian pesos so ive got all these bills of 1000, 2000, 5000, 10,000, 20,000 and 50,000 pesos. my bed last night was 12,500 and my lunch today (i actually ate almost a full meal! for the first time since i was in oaxaca city with gabs) was 5,000.
so yeah, the next time you hear from me i might be on a beach or i might be about to hike deep into some crazy guerilla infested jungle...but probably ill just be in some nice colombian town, eating fruit and taking care of myself. which i hope you guys are all doing out there too (the taking care part, though fruit is good for you too, and probably hanging out in some nice colombian town too).
lots of love and blessings,
michael
ps-i also need to put some stuff about the last couple months in mexico into words too and as ive mentioned, that may come soon.
