Tag: Hungry Ghost

I appreciate my good fortune. I don’t have much and I try not to suffer for what I don’t have. Someone once gave me a book called ‘Enjoy Every Sandwich” and that seems to be as good a purpose for life than any.

I explained to Luis my intention to take a slow boat to Santa Rosa (on the border with Colombia (Leticia) and Brazil (Tabatinga). He said he would send me the sailing schedule by WhatsApp, and he might even have a hammock that I would be welcome to take away. Luis also recommended the Amazon Bristo as a good place to eat… “down 8 blocks to the river then one and a half blocks to the left”.

When I was drinking alcoholically, maybe around my 21st birthday, I didn’t aspire or expect to live beyond the age of thirty. Although, I did stop drinking when I was 39 years old, I am still amazed that I doubled my own life expectancy to 60 and beyond. It makes me smile just thinking about it.

Without using more superlatives it is a wonderful experience and the Peruvian authorities seem to have done a good job in managing numbers and directing visitors around the site. BUT the individual points of interest are not signposted, so unless you know what you are doing it is likely that you will walk past something you wanted to see, even by a few metres, and you are not allowed to backtrack. I had mistakenly walked past the Temple of the Condor and tried to walk back, only to be told ‘no’. A very kind Spanish speaking man tried to help by telling the attendant that I had come nearly 10,000 km to see this sight, I just wanted to backtrack 50 paces but still the answer was ‘no’!

Having taken about 150 trains across Europe and Turkey in the spring from the Atlantic Ocean (Tralee, Ireland) to Lapland (Narvik, Norway) to the Mediterranean (Algeciras, Spain) to the Armenian/Iranian borders in Turkey (Kars/Kapikoy), so I was really looking forward to this special train journey.

In various Buddhist traditions, there are practices that cultivate and promote an awareness – or mindfulness – of death; not to make me afraid, but to increase my appreciation of life and to make me ask what is it that is really important… what matters most?

I took a very slow walk around San Pedro market. I wasn’t gasping for breath but I had to stop and stand still a couple of times. I must be honest in terms of my own physical and mental health that I have walked more in the last 2 days than I had in the previous 2-months.

The whole focus of the Buddha’s teachings was to bring the process of ‘rebirth’ to an end. The reason given for rebirth is ‘craving’ for sensuality and the ‘craving’ for continued existence. From my personal perspective, I am confident that this is my one and only life, and that’s enough for me. I have no expectation or desire to do this all over again.

It’s lovely to be travelling again, particularly somewhere that I’ve never visited before but it can also be quite tiring, so time for a much needed early night.

On arrival at Bogota there was a long queue to get through immigration but I made it out by 9pm. I went straight to the Health Centre on the 2nd floor to see if I could get a Yellow Fever vaccination but, as I half expected, the centre was closed.