In the summer of 1980, a maverick young doctor gave it all up, to hitchhike around the world. The first arc he carved with his thumb stopped a little red pickup that took him over the horizon. Like his mythical hunter companion, Orion, he was on a vision quest, propelled toward the dawn to have his sight restored. This is the story of that five-year odyssey to discover his Destiny.

1. Orion’s Cartwheel
In the summer of 1980, a
maverick young doctor gave it all
up, to hitchhike around the
world.
The first arc he carved with his
thumb stopped a little red pickup
that took him over the horizon.
Like his mythical hunter
companion, Orion, he was on a
vision quest, propelled toward
the dawn to have his sight
restored.
This is the story of that five-year
odyssey to discover his Destiny.

2. Prelaunch
Sam and Millie sat at the picnic bench above
the shack, on a hill overlooking Otama beach.
It was long after their New Zealand bedtime,
and they were gazing up at the southern
constellations. The Milky Way threw a sash
of light across the firmament. A little
morepork owl hooted in the tree ferns
beside them.
“What’s that one, Uncle Wink?” Asked Millie.
“Oh, that one. You call it ‘The Pot’.” He said.
“What do you call it Uncle Wink?” Asked Sam.
“It has several names, depending where you
live in the world.” He said. The ancient
Greeks called him ‘Orion’.”
“Does he have a story?” Millie asked.
“Oh yes, Millie. He has a story.”
For once, his niece and nephew sat still.

3. Iguana Nights
I crossed the Sea of Cortez to
the Land of Cortez on August
20, 1980. Dolphins jumped
alongside my frijoles, rice and
res beef dinner. I tried to sleep
on deck but, between the
heat, the fluorescent lights,
and the dancing gay Mexican
girls, it was not my Destiny.
Joel and Manuel, two new
friends, tried to help by
working us up through the
rehydration food chain, from
leche to gaseosas to cervezas
to Seagrams. I ended up
drinking the boat water.

4. Panama Pirate
The next five days and nights aboard
the Rina II are now remote fond
memories. I worked hard, loading the
ship with televisions under the
watchful gaze of the mafia owners,
but there was also plenty of
hammock time, for reading,
crossword puzzles, and playing
magnetic chess with the crew. These
men were true coconuts- hard as
nails, sweet inside. Milton and I went
out for a beer one night, and met
Gloria of the Vibrating Hips. On
another afternoon, I got a fishbone
stuck in my throat, and I wasn’t even
trying to emulate Eduardo. Every
morning we were leaving tomorrow.
Mañana.

5. Fire in the Valley of the Idols
His name was, in fact, Fuego, and he was
determined to live up to his appellation.
Fuego was mostly the colour of my new
boots, except for his mane, which was as jet
black as Lucia’s.
The horses had saddles and woven bridles,
and we had food and bedrolls. Lucia gave me
a bracelet she had made. We set off for El
Tablon, Bordones waterfalls, Altos de Los
Idolos, and beyond. As our horses climbed
the narrow tracks through the clouds, the
sheer vertigo-inducing walls of the gorge
dropped from under us. The river receded
into a ribbon of rocky rapids. The white noise
of the water gradually became silent. Fuego
would buck and sputter, and I knew it
wouldn’t break his Colombian heart, if he
could find a way to pitch this gringo into the
void below, and make it look like an accident.
But he also knew that Lucia would eat him
for trying.

6. Shining Path
He was already gone when Coco
arrived, with the custard dawn
suffusion of yellow flan on Lima’s damp
grey matter. His younger brother, Luis,
had tagged along, and we headed
southeast to Pachacamac, the ‘One
who animates the world.’ On a rocky
promontory overlooking the Pacific, the
original red and yellow paint on the
walls of the Temple of the Sun was well
preserved. The Hotel Europa’s interior
had likely come out of the same can.
The desert expanse, outside the
trapezoid doorways of the Temple of
Virgins, was a sand reliquary of half
buried pottery shards, human bones,
and pre-Incan textiles, all the way to
the horizon. It was as if history had just
given up and gone home.

7. Journey to the Sun Gate
Two poor buskers, with no socks, sat
on the cobbles against a twelve-sided
stone, singing mournfully in front of a
small green plastic cup. An old
Quechua woman and her white llama
paused to listen. In the corner behind
the swinging doors, as I entered the
poorly lit bar, were four young
altiplano boys in ponchos. They had a
set of pan flutes, a harp, churrango,
and drum. It looked like that was all
they had. There was thunder on the
drum and lightning up my spine. The
whole essence of Peru soared in
volume and syncopation – the
despair, the sad resignation, the
condors, and the cold. If the Andes
could whistle blood, it would have
sounded like this.

8. Journey to the Sun Gate
We descended to a citadel of
honeycombed stones, the cloud
cathedral of Eden, well earned.
The Urubamba slithered a
thousand feet beneath us. An
Amazon of buried jaguars. The
sunrise parted the mist, on the
way down. We changed, from
Andean icemen to reanimated
discoverers, in minutes. I reclined,
with my boots up beside the
Hitching Post of the Sun, and
waited for the light and heat
among the llamas. That’s why
they named their money after it.
When it turned itself on, I heard
Neruda’s poem. Rise to be born
with me, brother.

9. Beyond the Sacred Valley
The gravity-fed Incan
storehouses, high on the
mountain, still looked like some
Far Horizon lamasery. The fifty-
ton panels of the six mysterious
monoliths weren’t going
anywhere. Each of dozen words
to describe the sound of flowing
water in Quechua carried me
through central channeled
pathways, to the Bath of the
Princess, and further down the
temple hill. A young boy sang a
sad Quechua song and did a
shuffle dance for coins, his feet
protruding through torn sneakers.

10. Floating Islands
A little girl and her smaller
brother brought Magda and I to
three bowler-hatted women,
seated in front of their reed huts.
The doors were simple reed mats,
sagging at an angle. They had
quickly laid out their handstiched
handicraft recuerdos, on a
blanket in front of them. Magda
bought me a crude tapis. I
paddled her around on a reed
boat raft and she started to sing
again. Clouds rolled over us.
The wake of the Heraldo rippled
the reed island shore as we left.

11. Laundry Night in Rio
I got the room in the courtyard
with the double bunkbed, and
she let it be known that no one
would be sharing my space. For
three dollars a day, I had a private
room with an interior window
patio view of potted ferns, red
tiled roofs and distant bamboo,
two blocks from the most famous
beach in the world. I could get a
great steak dinner around the
corner for a buck, and a short
black coffee for a dime. I asked
myself how long I could play
volleyball on the sand, on less
than five dollars a day.

12. Ubuntu
We drove through the
rain to see the Bushman
rock paintings the next
day on the way home,
and fell asleep in the
wooden bed back at the
Doctor’s bungalow in
the afternoon.

13. Uhuru
“This is Harold. He is not
registered, and you will tell no
one. Do you understand this?”
He said. I told him I didn’t
understand this.
“I have taken off your zero.
Harold will be your guide. You
leave tomorrow morning for
Uhuru.” I was speechless. I
asked him why he was doing
this.
“Because it’s there and you’re
here.” He said. “And because I
am a great admirer of
Hemingway.”

14. Uhuru
“Harold…Uhuru. Twende.”
Let’s go. And we went. Faster
than we should have, slower
than we wanted. One step for
every four heartbeats, up the
steep stairway to the House of
God. And then, finally, there
was no place to go. The cloud
cushion, so far below, merged
with our snowfields. We stood
on top of Africa, Mount Nel in
the background, the curvature
of the Earth vertigo-inducing,
the reaches of outer space
within arm’s reach.

15. Injera Wat
The little holes in the spongy
pungent millet flatbread soaked
up the paprika and spiced sauce,
and wrapped around the tender
lamb like it was rocking it to
sleep. With a glass of honey
mead teitch, it was one of the
finest meals in my life. When I
told her that, her eyes looked
down, and she nodded slowly.
Later, I looked at her leg and her
chronic osteomyelitis. I left her
with all my antibiotics, and my
gratitude. I hugged her and
Zewde goodbye, and never saw
them again. But the exotic
dreams I had on those spices that
night were in Ahmaric.

16. Next Year in Jerusalem
There are some who maintain
that the angles between the
three main pyramids and
Orion’s belt at the horizon
were an exact match when
Orion rose due East of the
Sphinx at the vernal equinox,
in the astrological Age of Leo,
10,500 years ago. If this was
true, then I was standing in
the largest and oldest
terrestrial replication of
Orion’s celestial pattern. Here,
on Earth, it smelled like the
namesake ox hide he was
conceived in.

17. Next Year in Jerusalem
“Shalom Aleichem.” I said
“Aleichem Shalom.” She said. And
stamped my passport. Welcome
in peace. She was wearing a little
yellow flower in her lapel.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Nurit.” She said. “It’s my name.”
I asked her what kind of flower it
was.
“Jerusalem buttercup.” She said.
After four thousand years, I was
retracing the steps to, and
returning to the land of, my
forefathers.
There were rams’ horns blaring.

18. Orion’s Cartwheel
“Is that the whole story?”
Asked Sam.
“No, Sammy, not the whole
story.” Said Uncle Wink. “But
it is the end of the first part.
And way past your bedtime.”
“When can we hear the
rest?” Asked Millie.
“Soon.” Said Uncle Wink.
“Hopefully, soon.”