The Road Linds Travels

“La borracha (drunk woman)!” Greg jokingly shouted after my locally brewed beer crashed to the floor of the Peru Rail train. The train conductor opened his door adjacent to our front-row seats to see what the commotion was. He chuckled at Greg’s false accusations. The truth was I wished I were drunk instead of sick with what would become the debilitating flu shortly later. Surely, there was some sort of wisdom in a morning buzz or somewhere in the hops of the spilled beer beneath my feet.

“La borracha!”

That morning, I woke up ill on my fourth day in Peru on an eight-day trip. My phone, with which I was taking all of my photos, died after plugging it into a faulty socket, and my barely touched Cusqueña beer that my new acquaintance had just purchased for me was seeping into the carpet of the train.

We’d been through many of the same things: Our parents’ death, a divorce, the whole nine yards! He then graciously offered up some of the best advice anyone has ever given me.

“Life yourself by yourself,” informing me that his yoga instructor had once passed this wisdom to her yogis and that this was precisely what he had been doing since.

“Life Yourself by Yourself.”

Greg from Miami was a former real estate agent. He possessed a passion for travel, a  pair of bad knees, and a disdain for President Obama. We certainly couldn’t have everything in common. He became a friendly face in the tourist town of Machu Picchu. If nothing else, he was a source of inspiration. If this sixty-seven-year-old man can do what he’s doing, I certainly can. No flu, faulty technology, spilled milk, er beer was going to stop me.

My positivity had not faltered, and the Universe sent reinforcements every chance it got. Whether in the form of retired American men who swear by the benefits of yoga or their apt wisdom, and even, dare I say it, the inability to use my smartphone, I was open to it all.