Odyssey: Ten Years on the Hippie Trail

From Kansas to Kathmandu, from mountain to beach, jungle to city-street, jail to monastery, palatial estate to park-bench, from heart-break and back to love again, our journeyer met with all these and much more in this engrossing tale of not just travel but of a life consciously navigated. At the outset however, he'd cast his fate to the wind, with little money but a shaky confidence that he'd find ways and means of survival when his bankroll hit bottom - which didn't take long. Being carried by a strong desire and determination to see the world he persevered, opening doors with an ability to spot and sink into an opportunity, or to melt an obstacle or disagreeable situation by some stroke of cleverness or by waiting it out. Choosing to shun scamming, smuggling or fruit-picking in favor of creative and artistic means to earn his living, he kept some cash in his pocket - most of the time.

His experiences ranged from lengthy stays in villages, tropical jungles and beaches, with nomads of the Sahara and wandering spiritual 'sadhus' in India, to crossing Afghanistan by horseback. Arriving in Kabul nearly broke he landed a position in a hotel as its cook and general manager. All the while he thrilled in the high adventure of it all, even while enduring several months in an Indian jail - thus transcending mere survival by steadfastly refusing to regard his own lack of funds as 'poverty.'
Throughout the journey his path would cross and intertwine with the people of his own leaning, the 'hippies' on the trail, which during this era were legion.

Many mysterious interventions of destiny would arise, presenting ranges of circumstance from idyllic to agonizingly stressful, but all would impart valuable life-lessons and rich insight to this seeker of anything and everything that would contribute to his accumulation of knowledge - knowledge of being human, of being alive. He would add to his own involvements intuitive observations of others whose existence differed greatly from his own, and would treasure absolutely all of it as spiritual attainment.