life without proof

I've just come back from Ecuador - where I spent a good weekend with the Latin Link team there. I was tempted to change teams -- as they held their annual conference at a centre with a swimming pool fed by hot spring water! A swim really is the best way to start the day -- but I don't often get chance to do that in Guatemala so it was a great luxury for me.

I then spent another week exploring a bit of Ecuador - but mostly Quito, the capital city. As it is Ecuador I took the opportunity to visit 'El Mitad del Mundo' (the middle of the world) where the line of the equator passes through. I did the tourist thing of standing with one foot in the Northern hemisphere and the other in the southern (although disappointingly I've since been told that the tourist site isn't actually on the real equator!).
Quito seems like a really nice city - with several large open parks (another luxury after Guatemala) and safe to walk around. I also climbed the 78m to the top of the tower of the Basilica (which is even more of an effort when you consider that Quito is at an altitude of 2800m above sea level to start with!)

But at the top of the tower, looking out at the amazing views over the city and the surrounding mountains, I got to thinking.....
As I was travelling alone and without a camera, does all this really exist?, have I really been here and experienced these things? I haven't got any photos to prove that I've been here. As I was looking at a view of the city framed by a stone look out from the top of the tower - I thought how great a photo it would make -- rather than just appreciating it for the beauty it holds for me in that moment. So much of our lives these days are only validated once we've uploaded photos onto facebook - or at least written a status about it. Somehow we have a need to provide proof of the life that we have lived. And most of the time, our photos don't chronicle great adventures or momentous experiences - but rather just us spending time with friends and family -- who all immediately want to review the photos taken, on the screen of the camera - like an instant nostalgia, rather than really capturing a moment for the future.

So being without a camera recently has been a bit of a revelation. An encouragement to just enjoy each moment, and each view, for what it is, the beauty that is always around us if we choose to see it -- and to be content to just be.




P.S. Then I climbed down the tower and bought a couple of postcards, just to prove that I'd been there! Maybe 'just being' takes a bit of getting used to!

Alcatraz Escape

So here's the photographic evidence that we did it!!!!!






With the Golden Gate bridge in the background!






we 'landed' on the rocks just below where I'm standing - so you can see how far we came!
View from the Golden Gate bridge -- Alcatraz is the island on the left, we swam from there to the far right of the photo.