Day 74

Odometer  32,000 – 32,010 —–  10  Miles (9310 Miles Total)

Cartagena, Colombia

I made plans last night with the girls to go to the food market in the morning for breakfast. I got up a bit late and enjoyed laying in bed and went downstairs for my free breakfast cutting it close to my 9am Crossfit class I was going to head out to. I made it just in time but with a full stomach. The class was stupid hard and I knew this was going to hurt. I hung out for a bit waiting around since every class always starts late. I partnered up with a guy and we hit the workout hard. We almost finished but didn’t make it. I realized it was Saturday after class was over and it all made sense to me. Saturdays are the hardest classes at these damn gyms. I wasn’t prepared for this!

I hung out for a bit after class and talked to some people while stretching and doing a little ab workout as well. I put my helmet on my sweaty head and headed back to the hostel to meet the girls. I worked on my blog for a little while waiting for them to get ready and then they disappeared so I decided to head down to the market at 11:30 or so to check it out before we all went down. I pulled up and it wasn’t nice at all. Just more fruit stands like you see all over the city anyway so I got in touch with them and told them it wasn’t worth it. I got back to the hostel and we decided to walk into the old city to get some food there. Little did I know I was about to be hanging out with these girls until about 8Pm.

We walked down to the old city and ended up sitting down for some street food. We got ceviche, I got an arepa I tried to get last night but they forgot about me and I didnt want to wait any longer. The girls got some coffee, I got some cups of lime juice mixed with mandarins. It was so hot out I was covered in sweat and my shirt was soaked. We sat down on the sidewalk with a bunch of food and drinks and stuffed our faces. We chatted and chatted and chatted about all kinds of things. They admitted I was the first American they have actually talked to or enjoyed talking to since of course no one likes Americans anywhere! hah. I feel so special.

It was nice having some deep conversations with someone. It’s been a while since i’ve done that. After we got done eating we walked over to this delicious cafe where they have some incredible pastries, cakes and desserts along with the best coffee I think they ever had. We sat down and I ordered a chocolate cake with some caramel chocolate cake as well with some coffee. We were in heaven. We talked about life in the states vs life in Europe. We talked about psychedelics. We talked about where we have been and where we’re going next. They had a lot of interesting questions and thoughts. It was so much fun talking to them. Josefien was 27 and she was a physical therapist, Saskia was 24 and she was just getting done with school. They were both from the Netherlands and Saskia actually lives two blocks from where I stayed in a hostel for a night before I visited my friend Adam in the Netherlands.

They were telling me their experiences meeting Americans on trips and Jesus fucking christ its insane how many bad things people have to say about Americans. Day after day after day. I didn’t think it was this bad but it’s really bad. They seem to think it’s America or the highway and everything is the best there, they never want to adapt to another country. I know people like this exist but I didn’t think they were the type to travel. I always thought 90% of these people stayed in the US and did not travel but boy was I wrong! Literally as I sit here typing this I just met two girls born and raised in Montenegro but live in the Netherlands now and after a minute they started talking about the same thing.

After we stuffed our faces with a ton of cake the girls wanted to go shopping for bathing suits. We were talking about watching the sunset at the castle here but it was a bit too cloudy for that. So I followed them around for a bit, taking a few pictures of the old city. While we were out and I was waiting in front of a shop I pulled out my phone and opened Facebook. There it was. Another fatality on the Base Fatality List. I scroll down a little bit and there’s some pictures of the legend Jimmy Pouchert. My heart hurt a bit. Jimmy has been BASE jumping almost as long as I have been alive. He was big in the sport and has been around and alive for so long you didn’t think he would ever die in the sport. But as always you got proved wrong thinking that way. Jimmy taught me how to BASE jump along with his wife Marta in 2008. Such a special bright soul he was. That news ruined my day and I was bummed to hear the news.

I talked to a buddy Jake to see if he had any pictures from our course we did with him so I could post something nice but he didn’t have any. Jake wasn’t in our course. He was in another one but hung out with our group when his course ended while ours was still going on so he was in some of our pictures. All of my pictures were on my hard drive at home. I always think about it but the group photo we have from our first jump course is turning into something other people always talk about. Most of the people in our picture are dead. At this point the only people alive are me, Marta, and this woman Cate who worked for NASA but quit BASE jumping a while ago. I was in California a long time ago on a trip with her and Brian who she learned to jump with. Brian died with 2 other good flyers on the same jump. The leader took the wrong turn flying between mountains and they had nowhere to fly out of to open their parachutes. They all died. Brian had bad head trauma and we thought he might survive but he didn’t. Cate quit shortly after that, I quit a few years later.

Would I be dead if I kept jumping and pushing it the way I did when I was younger? Most likely. Everyone dies doing this and it makes me hate some of my good friends that still jump. Do they think they’re better than the best people in the world? Do they really think they’re going to survive this shit if they didn’t? Little do they know but they’re not nearly as good as the ones that are dead. I mean these guys that died are some talented athletes. That mentality is what made me quit too. I started thinking about this all the time. Am I better than some of these guys that died? Not right now I’m not and if I’m not that what does that mean for myself. I’m glad that mentality worked its way into my head. Maybe its why im still alive right now. 13,500 skydives, 500 BASE jumps, a ton of dumb shit I have done and im still alive. Im happy with those numbers and quitting BASE jumping. It’s just not worth it anymore.

Anyway I tried to put those thoughts aside when the girls came out of the shop and not let the whole thing ruin the rest of my day. We walked around some more and Josefine and I decided to head back to the hostel while Saskia kept shopping. We got back to the hostel and she said her sleeping pad had a small leak in it and she asked me for help to test it out to send the company pictures of where it was leaking from so she can get a new one. 15 Minutes later I found the hole and patched it up so she was good to go with it for the rest of the trip. She was so thankful! It was such an easy fix how has no one fixed this for her yet! We hung out in the pool at the hostel and chatted about motorcycles and traveling for a while. Saskia showed up, they ate their dinner that they left in the fridge and called an Uber to get down to a beach about an hour away from where they were spending two nights. They invited me to meet them there tomorrow so I’ll probably go enjoy a beach day there since I should try to get darker than I already am! Hah

I took a ride into the old city and had a bunch of street food. Some girls bought me drinks while I was just sitting on the sidewalk eating my street food which cracked me up. I didn’t speak any Spanish so that was that. I had some ice cream, made some phone calls, ate some more food and walked around for a while. I got back to my hostel, laid down after having my sleepy chocolate potion I had last night and passed right out.

Just some shots of the girls for memories!