Track Pete

I’ve been in Lima since March 14 working towards ownership of a Honda CG125NL mototaxi with my decidedly non-fluent Spanish. After going through the initial hassle of establishing communication with a dealer, choosing a model, finding out how many were in country, and doing a wire transfer for the funds I thought I would be ready to go in 15 days – not too bad, all things considered. Well, there’s some good news and some bad news. The good news: I am now officially the proud owner of a red and yellow Honda mototaxi! All of the paperwork is mine and as far as everyone is concerned, this mototaxi is now proudly owned by me. It is still on a truck for delivery however it should be ready for me to get eyes on it and take some photos of the actual moto within a couple of days.

In spite of seeing it hundreds of times in surfing movies and documentaries, nothing quite prepared me for the intensity of being smashed beneath a wave at high speed and tumbling deep down into the ocean. Blurry disoriented vision combines with overwhelmed physical senses struggling against the pressure and noise to create a sharp stab of fear and pain, suddenly smothered as all sensation focuses precisely on the massive rolling wave moving over me. For a moment, that wave is my entire existence. Upside down, legs and arms akimbo, the light filtering through it defines depth and motion, a single moment in which everything stops to allow my mind to process this intensity. As the calm acceptance of the power around me settles into my mind a single thought escapes, unexpectedly shaking me from my reverence. ”How can I possibly capture this experience?”

Every time I travel, my world seems to shrink, my sense of time completely changes, and I often lose track of what’s happening “today.” I become completely disconnected from myself and almost feel like a passenger in my own body as I interact with the world outside. It’s especially strong when I travel outside North America, because I am instantly alienated by the world around me. There is a strangely surreal effect on one’s psyche to be completely surrounded by people speaking a different language, following different rules, and interacting in different ways. No matter how you try to submerge yourself in another culture, you are always an oddity, an outsider, and the ever present knowledge of this is what creates this strange mental disconnection.