Return?

 "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."
--Saint Paul

Riding up the coast from Santiago to Calama was a breathtaking experience.  Though it was my third time making the trip, it was the first time I had left during daylight and was afforded the opportunity to witness something other than vast expanses of empty desert.  As I looked out the window of the bus my eyes were immediately drawn to the sea.  The sky that day was flat and gray making the point where the ocean and sky met at the horizon almost indistinguishable so that it appeared as though the sky simply folded over and continued back towards the shore.  The coast itself is a dramatic spectacle with waves that rush violently at the cliff sides and about the reefs spraying white jets skyward; a perfect picture of beauty and fury.  Where the land stretched away from the shore appeared undulating hills of green that were bare and windswept so that a picture of such could easily be mistaken for Eastern Scotland.  Then the road would become an alley of eucalyptus trees on either side and I could swear that I was driving south of Sydney, or along the southern shore of Victoria.  Sheep, goats, and ponies roamed the moor-like landscapes, and precious few dwellings were seen.  The closer we drew to the North, the more the trees disappeared and the cacti began to dominate.  The last I saw of the coast was as we stopped in the fishing cities of Coquimbo and La Serana, where the beaches swept wide in a palm-lined crescent, and the hills rose beyond adorned as they were with the picturesque houses all uniform in their Spanish influence.  I awoke at first light to once again see the tyrannical desert asserting its dominion over everything in sight.  I sighed and let it all wash back over me, knowing that for better or worse, I was back home.

The trip to the States was a whirlwind of reunions, eating, and wedding activities.  The entire time I was overwhelmed by the green, the heat, the humidity and I kept thinking that maybe I shouldn't have come back so soon only to turn around and leave after five days.  That thought changed by the fourth day to maybe I should just stay and forget everyone and everything in Chile.  It was a soul wrenching experience that was only intensified after 34 hours of consecutive travel back into the desert; the emptiness, the dryness, the cold.  From the moment I landed in Chile, I knew I was back in a different world.  My Spanish came back to me slowly, but I was able to get through immigration and customs easily enough (though the immigration agent refused to believe that the fat face he saw in my passport was actually me.  I finally had to pull out my Chilean ID to convince him.)  Getting from the airport to the bus station was easy, but expensive because I had to use a transfer service, whereas getting from the bus station to the airport I was able to ride a cheap bus.  I was at least dropped off right outside of the station and able to find a place to leave my bags for the day.  My ticket was for a bus that left at three o'clock in the afternoon, and I had arrived at the station around nine in the morning. I had an idea to go into Santiago for a while, but as I sat on a bench outside in the damp cold and tried to think of somewhere to go, I drew only blanks.  It was chilly, I had very little money, and most of all I just wanted to be on my way.  I said a quick prayer asking God to inspire me to action and immediately the thought dawned on me to just try and change my ticket.  It had been easy enough to do so for shorter trips, and my hope was that I could hop on an earlier bus and not have to pay more money.

That is precisely what ended up happening.  As providence would have it, there was a bus leaving at eleven that morning with one available seat left.  I had my ticket changed free of charge and was shortly on my way, after a quite early lunch at Chilean burger king (palta on a whopper?  Delicious.)  The next I ate was at a small security stop somewhere an hour and a half north of Santiago where I purchased an empanada de mariscos (shellfish) .  I knew it was a bad decision, but I was hungry and I wasn't about to eat a hot dog.  Thankfully I didn't vomit the thing up later, but the shellfish burps were pretty bad and I was glad no one was sitting next to me.  The bus was the longest I have yet ridden, simply because we stopped so many times for very long periods.  By the time we reached Calama the next morning, I had been on the bus for almost exactly twenty four hours.  I was able to be dropped close to my house, which was empty when I arrived.  After I showered and unpacked, Ximena came home and was very excited to see me.  As we lunched together, Carlos came over and I was able to give him a baseball jacket he had me buy for him.  He was eccstatic, and he could not stop expressing his pleasure.  When he finally left, I dropped like a stone into bed and slept in an unconcsious state for a few hours before waking to meet Ryan for a workout session.  Things fell back into place, and life has resumed the Calama rythm I left.  For three more months.

I left with an odd feeling from the States with some lingering questions answered and some new concerns acquired.  Travel has begun to define my person, and I do have a somewhat undefined desire to wander.  Yet, at the same time I saw the threads of my life in the States still laying much as I had left them and looking as though they would be easy enough to pick back up and follow into new directions.  I know my mother prefers the latter, and I personally would love to settle and have a family (she so clearly wants grandchildren), but every time I have attempted to move in that direction, God slams doors and points to far more obscure portals.  On one hand, there is a reason that we have the phrase "can't see the forest for the trees" ingrained into our idiom.  However, if Christ is the ultimate model of how were are to live our lives, then there aren't many ways one can interpret the phrase "foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."