TrekFeet

I hate to wake you up to say goodbye. October 1, 2007

It’s that beloved time of year again, in which we impulsively cobble together travel plans, purchase procrastinated tickets and dump all the sensible and exotic contents of our combined backpacking arsenal in the middle of the living room floor.

Head lamps.  Mole skin.  Thermal long underwear.

Bolivianos, West African Francs, Thai Bahts. Drain plugs. Sleep sheets.

Yellow fever cards.  Sarongs. Flip flops.

Check.

We pace the house and deliberate packing lists with the shared understanding that we must be prepared for anything.  Thin nylon rope may be a necessity should our planned mountain climb go terribly wrong ala that tragic fellow who, trapped in a crevice, had to hack off his own arm (I really only mentioned that horrific story so I could use the word “crevice,” which I pronounce in my head with a jaunty British / French Canadian hybrid accent - “crehvaaasss…”).  The army-issue mini can-opener my dad gave me? Of course; should we stumble upon some Lost-inspired buried hatch resplendent with ancient generic tins of processed meat, it’ll be our salvation.

100 percent Deet. Cipro. Polarized camera filter. Waterproof Uno cards. Journals. 900 page book. Q-tips.

We’ve got it all.   

And yet…. And yet, we have not a single hotel room booked - even for our initial night in Hong Kong on a busy national holiday.  We are not entirely certain of our destinations other than “Borneo” at large and Mount Kinabalu in general.  After that….well, we have to fly out of Bangkok eventually.  The highlands or islands might be a nice diversion, but then again, Cambodia is enticingly close.  The route we’ll weave between the certainties of arrival and departure is still the unknown lottery, hidden under that alluring flinty silver.

And that’s the paramount fun of the adventure.

This is the rub I love most - in the trips and in my companion. The fact that he shares this giddy, brave new world, colonial explorer mentality is such a delight.  No matter we’re flying commercial coach instead of chartering steam ships and indigenous crews to cut a swath into the heart of darkness. Kraabel is still as drunk as I on the notion that there is unexamined territory left to conquer, unfathomable experiences yet to explore.  

Back home, the biggest mysteries in so many routine days are whether Crazy Mary will show up to paint at the coffee shop today and how many periwinkle Morning Glories might appear on the vine.  

Lovely secrets in their own right, but I will admit, I am craving Headhunters Trails through thick sweating jungle, where your heart beats slow and heavy in the heat.  I am dying for frantic, pungent markets where you watch your step and your bag.  I am counting the days until I hunker on cold mountain tops enchanted by the view, lungs clamoring for breath and hands for cameras.  I am longing to negotiate, barter, navigate, take chances. I am ready for eating and transportation to be a gamble and an escapade.

And just in the nick of time, the next adventure arises.

We leave Thursday. We’ll be gone just under two weeks.

These are the knowns.

Everything else is ours for the finding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borneo