Ugh

Here is one of the most difficult parts of travelling. When I am tired and want to lay down or relax I may not be able to because my bed might be 30 minutes drive away and I may have to wait another couple hours before the shuttle comes to pick me up. Now becomes buying something at a restaurant and hoping the owners don't care if I sit for a few hours.

I learned something today; uneven sidewalks can lead to disaster but if you reduce your pace and take it slow you can navigate the sidewalks and look around while doing it without tripping. Genius! I am actually very focused on the way that I walk lately. I read a book called Born To Run which was amusing and informative. It is a fascinating story which presents a theory that humans are uniquely built for distance running. From that theory the author looks at different cultures, statistics, historical data, and present trends giving a surprisingly powerful argument. 

One aspect that I found very intriguing is how our walking and running has changed since the implementation of pavement, shoes, and especially running-shoes. The authors argument is that the implementation of these (especially the running shoes) has allowed us to take longer strides and in turn has us landing on our heals. Landing on the heal disrupts the foots natural design of shock absorption, weight distribution and path finding essentially leaving us weak in the feet and prone to injury. While I'm not tossing out my shoes I am examining my own stride and making some minor adjustments.

It also has me thinking about our travels in a new light. When Ashley and I walked the streets of Lima, our first stop in our travels, we may easily have been mistaken as inebriated by how much we stumbled. It turns out that smooth sidewalks are as much a luxury as traveling to eleven different countries is. It only dawned on me how much better we are at walking and how much slower we go while we are doing it. The curse of walking while sight-seeing is stubbed toes, rolled ankles, and jammed heals. The cure it seems is walking at a ridiculously slow pace or stare at your feet the whole time. 

I hope this has been informative if not entirely useless. Either way I am saving a space on my resume for this new found skill. "Learned to walk slowly over rough terrain" is surely a job securing skill.

A quick update. Tomorrow we are flying from Bali back to Kuala Lumpur where we start the final chapter of our travels. The last leg.