Home is where the heart aches

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So after almost 11 months on the road, countless km travelled by foot, on cars, buses, trains, boats and planes on five continents, going one time around the world, contracting diarrhea, having several infections, getting bitten by thousands of blowflies and mosquitoes, and stung by contaminated needles, spending four days in hospital, and getting really pissed off more times that I can count at locals and 'fellow' travellers alike, I decided to change my plans and go home for Christmas. Basically I was caving in. A Portuguese would call the feeling that I had 'saudade', which is more than just homesickness, and as untranslatable without explanations as the German 'Gemuetlichkeit'. It was also a longing for decent food, clean toilets, hot showers, comfortable beds, clean sheets, and basic safety. The fact that I'd never spend Christmas away from home didn't make it any easier for me to keep on travelling in South America, pretending everything was alright. So I booked the flights, paid a fortune, and was off three days later. The rest is history. Did the Christmas thing, caught up with everybody, got my fix of homeliness, got sick of it soon enough again, and went back on the road. The questions that remains now, is: am I insane or just plain stupid? Or was I acting perfectly normal and rational? But what the hell does that mean, anyway? I constantly meet people who spontaneously quit their jobs, sold their house, and decide to cycle from Scotland to South Africa. Or from Austria to China. Or people selling everything they own, buying a yacht, and sailing across the world for years. Others hitching rides on their yachts to cross oceans. Maybe I'm a bit more normal than most people would think, after all.

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Photos

Rumour has it that in this house androgynous Communist underage coloured gay people in wheelchairs are sodomized on a regular basis
After taking this picture, the owner ran out and tried to snatch my camera, but failing to do so, he switched to giving me a thrashing with an umbrella

Comments

[city dactylic]

Last picture comment equals true.