Lost in Santa Marta
Santa Marta, Colombia
It is a calm Sunday morning along a remote stretch of uninhabited Caribbean coastline in Guachaca, an easy hour and a half by taxi from Santa Marta, Colombia, through winding, dusty, mountainous roads into the untouched jungle.
Through endless pothole-filled roads and a few crocodile crossings our driver navigated the way to our secluded and well-hidden eco-cabina well off the beaten tourist path. Santa Marta, Colombia is the second oldest city in South America and we are just outside sacred indigenous Lost City.
Surrounded once again by infinite nature, I have settled effortlessly into the peaceful ebb and flow of the ocean. The breath has resumed its familiar rhythm. I am immediately transported back through time and dimension to my quiet days living simply along the Pacific side of Costa Rica in Playa Grande during a slow, quiet, rainy season four distant years ago.
We have joined beautiful friends who have traveled from Mt. Shasta, California for five days of reconnection after three and a half years since we last met. Synchronistically, these friends I met while living in Costa Rica. Kindred travelers on the journey, we instantly bonded over free flowing conversations late into the night and more than a few mango rums as they became lifelong companions.
In a dreamlike sequence of timeless days here in Colombia, life has offered a momentary window of opportunity to return once again to the simple basic elements of daily living which I first discovered along my journey some five years ago in Kyoto, Japan. These simplicities can be found anywhere one may find themselves in the world, from a dense, urban city to a remote stretch of beach in South America. I am reminded once again that these basic elements are all that are necessary for a truly happy, meaningful and authentic life.
We have put aside our phones, let the fear-inducing news and minute by minute chaotic world events fall behind. Mornings have effortlessly returned to silence, with only the sound of the incoming waves, the gentle breeze moving through the coconut palm trees and endless variety of unfamiliar exotic birds greeting the morning.
It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there. —William Carlos Williams
Waking early and effortlessly to the ocean and the elements, from one dream world into the next, one cannot help but move into the body through easy stretching, walking or a swim in the ocean. Nature has once again become my gym with tree branches washed up on the beach and stones and bamboo sticks to be found all around. We have also danced into the night, this perhaps being the most healing form of movement, expression and unrestrained joy.
Writing seems to flow effortlessly in a place like this, free of all distractions and anxiety inducing headlines. For a brief window in time we have been invited to return to that which is most important, a return to the natural flow of life, the rhythm of nature and uninterrupted time for connection with others apart from phones or screens.
We will soon return to “civilization,” to the traffic and the noise, the chaos and the headlines and demands of daily life. And yet we breathe a little easier, walk a little more calmly and hold close to our friends across the miles wherever they are in the world.
Field Notes
I sit at the depths of the ocean along the soft ocean floor only silence surrounds me only the self pure nothingness miles below the howling wind and turbulence of tsunamis and crashing waves the chaos of the world screaming and urgent for attention a new crisis of the day will soon slowly wash away effortlessly downstream surrendering to the calm returning to the peaceful waters of the ocean so quietly I sit calmly peacefully like a smooth, grey stone in a zen garden along the ocean floor this is my meditation
Published Travel Articles
Enjoy published articles from my last five years of travel.
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Zen and Ink Journals represents hundreds of hours of writing over the past decade, sometimes from a train in remote China or a coffee shop in Kyoto, a hammock in Costa Rica or a simple cabin on a mountaintop in Boquete, Panama , Ciudad Colón or Cusco, Peru.
On these pages, I share my observations of kindness and beauty from my adventures in the world and invite you to listen quietly for the call within you to explore the places that beckon your soul.
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“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving. A good artist lets his intuition lead him wherever it wants.”
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