A New Pilgrimage: Mexico to Bolivia

A new pilgrimage has begun. 

Last night we climbed the mountain outside of Tepoztlan, Morelos to camp out under the stars and watch the city lights of Cuernavaca and Cuautla flickering below. 

We’re just across the mountains that skirt the south end of Mexico City, looking south. With a little luck, by this time in two months, we’ll be Bolivia. Between now and then we have eleven borders to cross and thousands of miles to journey. 

I’m with Nick Wenner, and being with Nick has informed so much about what I’m doing now and where I think I’m going. Nick has spent the last few months living in the countryside, camping in the open air, learning primitive skills. He romanticizes a time 10,000 years ago before the agricultural revolution began, when all were hunter-gatherers, nomads. His goal is to replace everything in his backpack and everything he wears on his body with some version he either made himself of natural materials, or watched an expert make from beginning to end. 

I’ve just spent the last month in libraries writing a draft of 1/3 of a novel. I have nothing in my bag that’s useful for anything outside of cities: it’s all books and electronics. But I’m ready for this journey: I’m ready to drop all the creature comforts of the modern world and be fully exposed to the possibility of developing muscles, developing skills, and ending the journey a better person (with more useful supplies in my bag).

Our itinerary is to go where people still practice old ways and stay there until we’ve learned. If we can trade for lessons, we will. Otherwise we’re willing to pay for teachers’ time. 

Whatever it is that’s driving Nick to return to the land and the old ways of toil and patience, it’s something I feel too. It has something to do with a sickness I think a lot of people feel in the modern hyper-technological, yet alienating world. I don’t know what the answers are, but I intend to share my discoveries as they come to me. 

We’ll be hitchhiking when we can, taking buses when we can’t. To cross the Darien Gap from Panama to Colombia, we’ll either take a ferry or some other boat found under serendipitous circumstances. Tune in in the coming days and weeks to here about our adventure. 

Love Travis