Day 129 – Hitting the wall

At about 6:54pm on Sunday 13 September, Rachel and I both agreed that we had hit the wall. Rachel had a bit of a cry. I looked out at the passing, desolate landscape and felt the same wave of sadness.

Travel is an amazing thing. In the four and a half months since we left Australia's golden shores, we've slowly lowered ourselves into a bubbling pot of new experiences. From the shiny and familiar starting line that was the USA, we now find ourselves in Bolivia.

When I lived in Japan, people used to talk about Culture Shock. The term refers to the psychological and physical side effects a person can experience when immersed in a significantly different cultural environment. It's serious stuff, it can make you sick. I've also heard it best described as; being adrift on an ocean of unfamiliarity.

I'd forgotten all about it until that moment on the train. Then it all came flooding back.
The place we are in now, Bolivia, is very different from home. Great, really great, but very different. Sometimes even something as simple as buying food requires special effort. At those times, I miss the simple things that I used to take for granted. A big weekend with friends. A quiet chat over a beer down the pub. A meat pie and sauce.

We caught the bus down from to Oruro on Sunday. The plan was to head to Tupiza on the overnight train. From there, we would head into the the National Park and the Salt Flats of Uyuni for four days.

Arriving in Oruro was like having eel-infested cold custard poured down your pants. Once a rich tin mining mecca, this is a town fallen on hard times. Dusty and desolate, the whole place reeks of misery. We wandered around, tried to be friendly. However, our “holas” were met only with blank stares, or hushed mutterings. People stared at us as we walked through markets. We stuck out like a marketing manager at a MENSA meeting.

We boarded our train at 6:30pm. It looked quaint from the outside, but smelled of old socks on the inside. A tour group of elderly Germans cacophonied into the carriage, wearing enough expedition gear to climb Everest. Then the videos started.

They were bad, terrible, evil videos. Morbidly uncool 1980s Latin American pop stars in bad clothes. They sung and danced with such effort, but looked and sounded like cats being shorn. Then the train conductor told us we weren't being fed until breakfast, eight hours away. Suddenly, we were both adrift in the ocean.

For a moment, it all got too much. The wall came shooting up in front of us. Unclimbable. Impenetrable. Looming.

We talked. We talked about that fateful day so many months ago we'd decided to commit to our adventure. We talked about why we were here, what we wanted to achieve. We talked about our comfort zones and why it was important to be outside of them. We talked about where we'd been and where we were going; today, tomorrow and in the years to come.

Soon, the sun set. We sunk into our chairs and slept, the clickedy-clack of the train providing the perfect sedative.

I think holidays are about having a good time, all the time. I don't believe traveling, life even, is the same. In order to appreciate the highs, there have to be downs. Sometimes, the deeper the better. Without this, surely any journey would be nothing more than a constantly joyless trudge across even ground. A mind-numbing trip across a featureless fugue plain.

As Kurt Kobain once alluded to, there is comfort in being sad. Sometimes it's healthy to feel that you are a long way from home, well outside your comfort zone and with nothing going right. Sometimes, it's important to be exposed to sorrow. It helps you appreciate the moments of sublime glee when Mr Happy decides ride his sunshine skateboard into your life and sprinkle rainbow dust in your eyes.

Twelve hours later, Rachel and I disembarked the train and emerged into the bright sunshine of Tupiza's small town square. Things looked different. People returned our greetings with a sunny “hola” and bright smiles.

Suddenly, the wall was nowhere to be seen.