Close encounters of any kind

The vapor slowly spreads from the coffee mug into the sunlit immersed cafe, distracting my gaze away from my writings and readings on the table in front of me onto the people passing by trough the window. The waitress has brought the third bill of the day and I still haven´t had enough of the coffee&pastry that´s displayed from over the counter. Pfiffs and gurgles from the authentic esspresso machine makes me feel at ease with myself sitting in this café for all day long. It seems like an oasis with my own desk, in which I am protected by a hardwood ridge and a window from all the whirling and hasting in outside La Paz.
I sigh.
In this mellow easy going feeling the views of the memories of the last 4 months fall back upon me. I am reflecting my trip, without deliberately trying so. My stare falls somewhere in between that tile of the gutter at the opposite of the street and the cornerstone of the church, but I see nothing. In my head run the thousands of miles, the people, the hard times or experiences, the beautiful ones, one after another with a speed that makes me unable to stop them and I am surprised my brain can run that fast. Why am I already looking BACK on my travels? Why am I not living in the moment, enjoying every single second of me being here leaving reflecting for something to be when I am back?
I am looking out of the window, as something changes. There´s a change of presence outside the window, and I can´t put my finger on what it is until I realise someone from outside is directly staring me in the face. I was so soaked up in daydreaming that I didn´t notice a girl greeting me after instantly having reckognized me. (which isn´t so the other way around though). She comes inside and while she is entering the building at the back of the corner, I try hard to remember where I´ve met her before. - Am I travelling for too long already, that I start to forget people? - As soon as we greet I remember that we shared a hostel in Cusco and had a conversation or two. Her boyfriend has headed out today to becycle the dreaded ´death road´ which she chose to leave for the sake of having a greater chance to be alive next day. She sits in front of me and we share a couple of moments, where she is mostly talking and I am mostly listening. I don´t feel like talking much, but to be honest I don´t feel like listening much either. Especially not the same kind of traveller stories and questions I´ve heard over and over again during the last couple of weeks. I ask and ask, but it doesn´t take long before she realizes I am only half listening, not focusing on the actual information she provides, but more interested in how she says it, why she says it that way and what message she is actually broadcasting:´ I feel lonely, I want somebody to talk to.´ This clashes with my state of being, but I try to comfort her with asking questions, telling some of my own experiences and just being relaxed over a cup of coffee. However, it turns out to be hard: I can´t seem to understand why one feels lonely when alone anymore and the more I try to show her that I care to understand, the more she begins to emphasize the difference between us and the more she begins to understand what I am trying to do but fail hard at. Bummer... It starts to get awkward and I don´t know how to turn things for the better. I say I better get going on with some reading and writing and she complies, indicating that she still has a lot of shopping to do. I watch her walk out of my little oasis and somehow I feel disturbed. It´s a coincidence we´ve bumped into each other again - Although that happens to travellers a lot I have noticed - but I have to admit to myself I feel bad about making someone more aware of how pathetic her situation is. Apparently I need some more time to come out of the shell of my own imaginations to get to the practise (and art) of sharing time with someone and enjoying it. Has travelling made me more of an introvert? Or has it made emerge a more reflective side of me that was there anyway? Anyway, I make the commitment to try harder next time to show empathy and to be in the moment of diaologue.
I sigh again. Not because I am bothered, I just like to sigh. I can feel it release tension from my trunk as I feel the pressure of the air in the inside of my lips, even when I am completely relaxed already.
As I look up from my booklet with my thumb touching yet another 5 bolivianos worth of Coffee, I am surprised to see yet another acquaintance. Or in fact, 6 of them.
- Guys, I am in the middle of south America, not back home in Maastricht where it´s custom to greet someone every other minute when you´re walking down the street! The world is a village...--
On the positive contrary, this meeting is of a whole different kind and way more a proof of the odds. Before my window is the entire Danish family travelling around south-america. I´ve met them before, the first time in Puerto Pyramides and the second time in Chalten (in the middle of nowhere!) That is a mere 6000 and 10.00 km´s behind, respectively. I was amazed by their story before, and their continuing energy to travel with a whole family, and now the amazement grows bigger while their story starts to merge with mine. We exchange experiences and laughs, and with six family members having shared a lot of time in the same volkswagen van, a lot of attention is directed to me. This makes me come out of my shell fast enough, altough I also sense that the coffee might have to do something with it. We come to the conclusion that this is the last time we´ll bump into each other, as they are heading north and I am looping back to direction of Buenos Aires. Nevertheless, this third encounter must mean something so this time the promises to keep in contact and to host each other when in Holland or Denmark are empowered and even becoming plausible, to my intuition. They too are dumping themselves on the outdoor market of La Paz and head off to try their bargaining skills. Something of which I am getting a bit tired, I have to admit. Buying fixed prices can be way more relaxing after being in a country like Bolivia for a while, where even socks or 2 pieces of fruit can be bargained. We have a heartily goodbye, which we let go on forever, and finally I am back sitting at the same table with my own stuff. What else does this day have at play for me? Or maybe better, who?
That question is soon to be answered, but not only after I sigh another time, pay my final bill and head of to the post office. The time at the café allowed me also to write some letters and postcards.
In the post office I am hurried, my bus to Sucre leaves in only one hour, and although the distance to the busterminal is walkable, I now know how South-American rush hour and post-offices function, so my strides to the counter are long and fast. (family trait?) Yet another time I feel the presence change, it happens from a seemingly odd gesture, movement of freezing from someone in the room, directing energy to me, and as I turn I notice another familiar face. Two, this time. Werner and Linda, a dutch couple biking the South-American Andes are welcoming me with their warm smiles. We´ve met before in the desert (when it was raining in San Pedro the Atacama, that HAD to be a Dutch meeting) and at the time I was with Laura. I am perplexed with the so manieth meeting of the day, and in mixture with the stress I feel from getting the bus, I stumble upon words that are in my own mother tongue. This is ridiculous, but I am suddenly aware that I lost my sense of meaning of words. I backtrack, and slowly I am able to get going a short conversation and to show how surprised and happy I am to see them again. Again, there is a short exchange of experiences and yet again, another goodbye.
Later that night, as I am sitting in my night bus to Sucre, covered in blankets to protect myself from the freezing cold, I let my head rest to the cold glass. A droplet of melted ice slides down just inches from my eyebrow. How can I be so dead from sitting a day at a café? The answer is in the part above, and in the fact that this morning I´ve said goodbye to my good friend Leo from back home, who has been with me on the Sun Island and Copacabana at the titicaca lake for about six days. After that I took a 3 hours bus to La Paz already. It´s okay. Unfortunately I can barely sleep, despite the tiredness, as my bus glides into the night on it´s way to beautiful Sucre.

Today, in a month time, I will have had my first day on Dutch soil. You may have guessed it from my writings, but I am thrilled to get back. I long to be home again. Not because I am tired of travelling, not because the South-American experiences cease to amaze me, or that I feel lonely with my good friends around me, and only a little because I am tired of only superficial conversations after having travelled with Laura and Leo (which were guaranteed in-depth talks.) It is because I know what I want to do. It is because I found what I want to be working and living for in the next couple of decades, the space and the time on this continent have had the EXACT outcome I was looking for in the first place. And so, much more than my Central American experience was a great manner to get away from it all, this trip has been more the kind of travel to get back home again. Patience and open-mindedness are things I can still practise in the next coming month, but I know I belong in Europe, fighting for the things I find worth living for and living for the things I find worth fighting for.

What it is I found out? What ideas I come back with? and how I am longing to put into realisation? Why I so much cherish Europe and home all of a sudden, why for many it is a grey place of daily work routine?

Well, when I get there, I´d like to share it with you over a nice cup of steaming hot coffee.