Definition of Peregrination

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Peregrination pehr-uh-gruh-NAY-shun, noun: A traveling from place to place; a wandering.

I was conceived in Africa, a sign of my future. My travels first took place inside the womb. Oddly enough, I did not want to leave, or perhaps I always knew that I wanted to travel to places bigger than my immediate world. I have always been restless, pulled by an inward energy to know and find and seek. I was two weeks late, a cesarean baby flown from Alaska to Seattle to be born.

Weeks later I took my first trip home to grow in the misty forests of Petersburg. At the age of two I was playing with koalas in Australia. At seven I created a calendar that counted down the days until we left on the ferry for Washington State. At twelve I was an expert iguana catcher in the Mexican jungles. In my early teens I ate Pat Ti for breakfast and smiled shyly back at the hill tribe people of Thailand. Teenage years were a blur of wanting something, anything, like what I read about in books. Going off to college was the beginning of freedom, of my independence and entrance into a world alone.

College kept me trapped in Juneau. But I made use of my time by scaling mountains, rock climbing, kayaking muddy shores, and camping in private escapes. After four years I was ready to leave. By the end of May, a mere month after graduation, I was in Europe. The cities and landscapes became a blur of pleasant memories. I explored castles and road trains. I drank Dutch beer and ate Swiss chocolate while tramping the Alps.

Three months later I came home for a few days before moving to Fairbanks. I cried on the plane. This world had nothing for me. Everything I wanted—adventure, exotic foods, fascinating people—existed elsewhere. I got up in the morning with dread, wishing I did not have to face another day of work. I drove along the same highways, shopped at the same stores, listened to the same dull stories from each of my homebound friends. Every day blurred into the next, an endless stream of nothing.

Trapped inside by -40 weather, I read and dreamed and envied, waiting for the time to come when I could leave again. National Geographics, Outdoor Adventure, and It’s God’s World brought the world to me. If I was unable to see the world through my own eyes, then I was going to live it through the eyes of others. However, one cannot stay happy with vicariousness before it begins to breed envy. I began to plan that winter for a trip to Vietnam. I wanted to be warm, feel sand on my skin, and walk the jungles where war had been fought. Plans change, as do people, and Argentina began to climb higher and higher on my list. Not only was it a good budget country due to the fall of the peso in recent years, but I had access to several other countries if I felt confined.

Peru, a land of Inca dreams and foamy lamas, drew me. Here was my chance to learn about the past, about a people who had disappeared in the wake of progress and time. Like many cultures, history swallowed the heart leaving us the bones to pick through and piece together like the fledgling anthropologists that we are.

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Photos

Unloading Coho
Me getting close and personal. I think I had gone more than a week without a bath at this point.

Juneau View
Beautiful downtown. I tried to go high to escape the tourists.

Cruise Ship
One of the many that bring ridiculousness to Juneau shores.

Rock Ptarmigan
Sitting pretty watching her chicks. If I had had a zoom lens I could have gotten pictures of them too.