Fear and loathing in Cordoba

In two distinct ways, Cordoba was a great jumping off point for my travels up and down the continent. We visited Che Guevara's childhood home in Alta Gracia where there were a couple painted maps that outlined his two separate journeys throughout America. In many ways, we are sharing a common route (an idea that I had before the movie came out by the way). I do not feel particularly attached or more interested in Che's life, but I certainly feel connected to his sense of adventurism and, more importantly, his self-discovery. Part of the goal of this journey is to get a better idea of the direction I want to lead my life. Che realized during his travels that he wanted to be a revolutionary. At some point during this trip I would like to be able to return to the realm of responsibilities with my head more firmly wrapped around the direction in which I would like to move my life.

The second reason Cordoba turned out to be a great departure point was one particular conversation I had with a 24 year-old drama student from La Plata. After a number of beers and some worthwhile chit chat about soccer, women and other seemingly inconsequential small talk material, we came to the topic of our travels. He and his female friend were on their way to Salta in the north. They told me that they were planning to go to a rest stop on the highway a couple kilometers outside Cordoba and hitch a ride up north. Seeing as I had considered the option myself, I briefly asked him if it at all scared him to hop into some old man's truck only to be left to a sketchy whim. The word 'scared' in Spanish translates as 'miedo', which when translated back into English in the infinitive means 'fear'. We spoke about fear for about two hours.

Fear, he said, was completely artificial.

He explained his philosophy on fear, which was evidently well thought-out. It essentially consisted on fear residing in one's mind. Fear, he said, was completely artificial. It is a construct of man designed to suppress his neighbor for the simple purpose of coercion. He did not believe in fear, at least not as it pertained to his person. Certainly he worries for the safety of his friends and family, but he said he does not think twice about hitchhiking because fearing the potential problems that might arise would only keep him from experiencing something new. That experience is a definite, a potential problem is just that, potential.

I am not saying that I won't think twice about certain activities or simply act on a permanent whim, but I do not think that being overly cautious at every step of the way is any way to travel. You can't be worried about every sketchy inner city kid. You can't worry that you may have to end up sleeping in a bus station because the bus you thought left 10 actually left at 9. You have to get your feet wet, you have try new things (like strange amazonian earth worms). You can't be worried that you might get horrible diharrea in the northern highlands of Peru hundreds of meters from a toilet and hundreds of kilometers from a hospital because its going happen at some point and you just have to go with the flow (no pun intended). Its an experience in and of itself. You have to be resourceful and deal with adversity...

At the very least it gives you something to write about.