Financial Wisdom

I woke up this morning feeling like I was lying in a bed of stinging neddle and looking like all the

red lines that underline every word I write, because the computers spell check doesn´t understand enlglish. I am terribly burnt.

Trevor told me that as the thought came to his mind to put on sunscreen and a hat, he looked over to see me passed out on the sand shirtless in my hawaian swim suit, reflecting light like a sheet of white paper. The entire beach front population must have been stairing at us, like the little kids that spilled sand on our chests and asked if we were Gringos, and including the seal that breached the surface of the ocean for a second of air.

We reached Valparaiso, Chile yesterday, an antique port-city that is full of color and cobble stone streets. What looked like a 20 minute ride by Subway Train on the map took 2 hours by bus from Santiago but we arrived in Valparaiso with daylight to spare in finding a hostel.

I was at first struck motionless as the lady at the desk entitled Ïnformacion Turista told us the cheapest night would cost us 6,000 pesos. You have to realize that as a backpacker you begin to worry quite a bit as the finances available for your trip are draining faster then your planned budget. You begin to think of situations such as selling your clothes, your books, your drawings or whatever else might be possible to pawn on the street. At what point do I turn to spanging (spare-any-change-ing)?

In reality I don´t plan on having to turn to any of these things, though the thought keeps me entertained on long highways after the mate has run flavorless.

Lets do some math.

100 Chilean peso is equivalent to 1 Argentine.

4 Argentine pesos is $1 U.S.

This means 400 Chilean pesos is $1.00 U.S.

4,000 Chilean pesos is $10

and 1 night in a 6,000 Chilean pesos hostel is $15.00 U.S.

Not bad.

This hostel turned out to be 7,000 after I talked the owner down from 8, but I know that the difference this makes doesn´t have to effect the outcome of this trip. If any thing its the bus tickets we have to be weary of, and all the little trinkets, snacks, and drinks we buy add up fast. We´ve saved our money for a reason and know what it takes to budget. Its a lesson of wisdom, of discernment between what we can and can not do.

I had a friend who told me that the best way to travel is to step out the door without even a backpack. This is a test of human ability, and in a way a test of society. Eventually you will find a backpack, someone will offer you a bed, and you will find a fruit tree, or a baker throwing out all his day old bread, and he might offer it to you in an act of generosity. More then anything I take his advice as a metaphor for how we should treat life. We need a lot less then we want.

"So do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.¨

For now, I buy a big bottle of aloe vera and a bag of cold and super creamy milk for a pasta dinner, and cream for my coffee when I wake up; proof that I have a lot to learn about wisdom.

(Like all South American Milk I have encountered along my journey it can be mostly found in a plastic bag, and oh it is so delicous! They say Starbucks down here is better because the creaminess of the milk. That is one thing I won´t fit in my budget... right yet).