Will I ever leave this paradise?

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As you can see, I remain happily in Mancora.

It's funny how things come about. This was not remotely the trip I had planned. The plan went as follows:

Go to Bogota, fly to Leticia, boat to Iquitos... ok I got that far. From there I was to do 2 weeks in the jungle - deep jungle shit, just me and my guide - then off to Cuzco to do Machu Picchu. Those far from happened. Then, I was to head to Lima to catch up with friends, then to Huanchaco to camp, and from there to Mancora....... for a week or two. So those things have happened, I suppose. But... wasn't I suppose to keep traveling?! Was I not suppose to leave this place I found to be my paradise over 2 years ago, after a short revisit?

I suppose I planned from day one for my plan to get abolished; I planned for a new plan to emerge that would by far top the old one.

I believe everything happens for a reason - as a philosophy major I find this opinion, this blind belief, to be completely ignorant, but it remains my belief though I could never back it up in some epic paper. I believe I landed here, that I came back here, that I've met everyone I have here, for some very true reason. When I left here a few weeks ago, I knew I had much to learn. And, though I knew everything I had to learn was held within me all along, I still felt there was somewhere, something, or someone who could bring it out.

Have I found that somewhere, something or someone? No, I don't think so. But I think being exactly where I need to be, which is exactly where I always will be, is what I truly needed. Which is sort of funny, since I can't ever escape that fate, can I?

There are days I sit out on my beach just outside of the hostel... I soak up the warm sun, I take in the burning sensation from the sand... I gaze at the endless ocean... yet in my head I can see it all - I see myself sitting on a piece of driftwood with rocks instead of sand at my feet. I feel the wind blowing my hair around as I am bundled in a coat and jeans. I see, instead of vast endless ocean, huge mountains off in the distance. I can picture Ogden Point - a large cement pathway out to a lighthouse to my right. I can see it all so clearly... and what is it? It's home. It's what I had before I ever left.

I have what I always had and always will, don't I? It's not the place, it's the me.

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