Wandering an Incredible Life

Freezing air on my face. I didn’t get used to this cold yet. The backpack weighs down my steps while I enter running the metro station between the 53^rd and Lexington Avenue. I’m in New York, but I should have been in Hong Kong.

On the platform between the rails, a lonely man with a rather poor aspect plays latin rhythms with a classic guitar, ignored by everybody.

By almost everybody.

His melodies warm up my affection for the South American continent that I left just yesterday and to which I didn’t say goodbye but see you soon.

I take out of my wallet some change, a couple of American dollars, plus a 500 Chilean pesos coin. A coin that here is useless, but I’d like to bless it, I’d like for it to become a lucky charm.

I get closer to the man, leave the coins in his guitar case, and then I look at him in the eyes. “Good luck, man”, I say to him. He thanks me and smile, maybe I’m the first person who spoke to him today. While I keep listening to his music I think back to the last week…

In Viña del Mar, Chile, a dumb Swedish named Aron let his keys of the hostel, where I sleep too, to be stolen. Two burglars enter the room at 6a.m. and steal some valuable things, among which my mobile phone.

At the Easter Island I rent a scooter with Naoko, Japanese, and we spend the day exploring. At night, too tired or too relaxed by the frozen beer had on the beach, we loose the keys of the vehicle. I spend a couple of hours in the cold, and the day after we have to share the amount of some tens of dollars for the inconvenient.

Going through New York airport, exhausted for the trip and relaxed/softened by the assumption of being an expert traveler, I loose my passport. I miss my flight, I have to re-do my papers, spend the night in the city and the whole inconvenience costs me almost 200 dollars.

Really, for a while I thought I had had a week of bad luck, I thought I had been targeted by the bad fate. And yet, what did I really loose? Things that I can buy again. Some money. Some time. One day in Hong Kong.

But what did I receive? Experience. A little lesson of common sense and humility. A cold and pleasant walk through Manhattan.

The exchange is fair, the balance is just: I haven’t been unlucky. I haven’t lost anything that had a real value, and my trip continues, always positive, always exciting.

The train that will bring me to the airport stops at the station. The man with the guitar turns just to say goodbye to me.

Good luck, man.