Famous last words

Australia is a country that is hard leaving. I  didn't want to  give up the telephone number I just managed to remember, the idioms I learned and the many other things that made me feel this place felt very close to home. Of course, this was as much about anxiety as it was about convenience, for I now find myself in Brazil.

Here comes the scary part of my trip. As I now walk the streets of as dangerous a city as I will ever visit, I can not prevent doubt from getting to my head. By any standard, and if you are as uniformed about it as me, Brazil is not a country you travel alone to. It's dangerous, violent and certainly cruel.

And that's the point for my being here. Because I'm afraid - and mostly out of sheer ignorance.

Of course, there is the very real possibility that I will get mugged or robbed or killed. There is also the no less real possibility that I will be tearing down a few self-limiting beliefs. This is why I like to travel: a mind had better be on the move, comfort is akin to poison. I can not afford shackling myself to a barren wall, should even the word "culture" be painted on it in golden letters. Behind that wall is what really makes the world worth living for: beauty in unfiltered and infinite diversity.

There is a thin line between brave and batshit insane, and as I walk along it I am trying to find out on which side I stand.

Then again, whatever side of the line I really walk on is where I belong.