I arrived back in country from South America last fall physically exhausted. I am sure i was suffering from "bad sleep syndrome," the fatigue you suffer while travelling has a direct relationship to the one you no longer have with a comfortable bed; Yours.
As i sat half cocked over a travel pack on an uncomfortable stretch of classic airport gate seating, the kind you can get hemorrhoids from just looking at, my mind faded in an out of what i had just experienced, a knee busting, lung searing, eye popping trek; Climbing in and out of a river bottomed Andean-furnace, Twice. I recall the sleep fatigue and factor in a percentage of the physicality. Packs, tents,and mules in the steepest canyon on the planet makes for some humility and sleep only at exhaustion, the kind where dreams are neither necessary or obliging.
Atlanta -Hartsfield Airport is a general whir as an entire army of business travelers weave in and out of each other all desperate to make a connection or find a place like myself, just to hurry up and wait. My mind wanders, reading becomes a pointless endeavor as my gaze is continually pulled from the page to the endless human flow. I adjust my view too the cluster of high concept shops. The gate for my connecting flight into Chicago is smack in the middle of a mini mall. There is the shoe palace, (use you imagination,remember Richard Reed?) the ubiquitous fancy burger joint/sports bar, more takes on pattied cow flesh then high def televisions bolted to the ceiling and the mobile phone/techno device kiosk where a pleasing dread locked sales girl will make you care about the color of your mobile device.
At the TGI/Apple/insert name of: famous pro sports "jock", which by the way is big, autographed and in a glass case on the wall, it's the Monday morning extension of Sunday football on every screen, except for the one in the back corner. Above the bus station droning along in all its pixel'ed glory, there is something a little different, seems there are a couple of wars going on, brought to you by Coca Cola.
I turn my thoughts to Jeff or Duff as i know him, wondering if my trekking companion and friend of twenty years was still sitting in Lima, Peru, i wondered if he was as sore and tired as i was. I know he had lost almost 15 pounds on the trek and had been bitten in the mountains by a tick of an unknown variety which at the time had caused us some concern, I was sure he was waiting for the right moment to make an escape, a harried taxi dash to the airport weaving in and out of 8 million people all trying to get to the same place at the same time. I left Duff at 9:oo the previous night to catch an earlier, separate flight. We said goodbye after a successful adventure at our hotel in Lima's version of the cul'de'sac. This one in particular, a Peruvian styled Palm treed safe zone microscopically wedged into a city that cares enough to arm everyone with a sense of unease.
I was pleased upon how easy my re-entry into the my home country was a mere two hours earlier. I passed through every gated check point with over a thousand soldiers returning from Iraq, my freshly renewed passport slung around my neck, not one major hiccup through customs. Unusual to say the least considering where i had just come from.....
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