Anchorage ( part one)

  Landing in Anchorage was a weird experience for me. I should have been very excited about the prospect of exploring a new destination and thrilled that I have the opportunity to do so but my joy was tempered by the fact that,in many ways, I didn't want to be here at all,I wanted to be somewhere else.I wanted to be somewhere warm,familiar and surrounded by the life I had grown to love.Sadly,part of that life had ended and the rest had to be put on hold until my head and heart had caught up with reality.Where better though to go through the process than to escape to the one place where it seems nearly everyone is escaping from something-ALASKA!!

The long trip from Australia had taken it's toll and I realised that I had spent far too much time on my own thinking about the things that might have been.It was time to start to look at the big wide world and figure out what was going to happen next.It was with this in mind that I came up with the silly plan of riding my bike from Anchorage some 3,600 kilometers to Penticton in southern British Columbia to compete in the 2011 running of the Ultraman Canada Championships.It is an event that I have competed in six times and crewed for other athletes three times.Not a bad record considering that the event has only been held on ten occaisions.I also have the honour of being the only male who has won the silly thing twice and perhaps of greater note,the dubious distinction of  having the biggest fall from grace of any Ultraman Canada participant.My stellar introduction to the sport began with two first placings and a second before my current hogging of positions at the bottom of the table with  three consecutive DNF's (did not finish).Not very grand indeed but instead,something fitting the  "hero to zero" tag quite well.Now after reading my previous posts you may have some idea of what has happened to contribute to my athetic demise but that is the reason and not an excuse.There really should be no excuse because life is what it is and we all do things for our own reasons.People who believe that I failed in those last events are looking at the shallower side of what is important, the real story is that I was alive and well enough to start.I know that sounds lame to some but sometimes just to feel part of something is victory enough to someone who sometimes had trouble just getting out of bed to face each day.

  One thing I was looking forward to was the chance to hang out in the laid back environment of the good old Youth Hostel.I have spent many a night in various hostels around the world,Too many to even try to count and with the rare excepion they were always great experiences.You know,sometimes you need to get away and be with people who do not know you at all,that way you will be acccepted for who you are right then and there with no preconceptions and very little expectations.It is very refeshing and for a people person like myself they are havens of knowlegde.Not the kind of knowlegde that you glean from books but the kind you absorb from the life experiences of your fellow travellers.In this kind of company it is all about communication and for the most part a genuine interest in who you are and what your story is.Rarely am I asked the kind of honest,open questions in my "normal" life that I am asked immediately upon meeting a group of strangers in a hostel.I find it very refreshing.
 
  The Spenard Youth Hostel in Anchorage is no exception and its location in what is apparently the dodgy end of town only lends to the ambiance of the place.It is a huge house which sleeps about forty and unusually for a hostel ,is run with an iron fist by the "house-parents".That was a surprise but at my post partying age,quite a pleasant one I must say.No booze,no smoking,no local guests allowed,only bona-fide travellers,great stuff!What I didn't expect were the huge number of eastern European travellers I met.

   Appartently,I had landed right at the start of the fish processing season and cheap labour from all over the world was flying into Alaska to work the numerous processing plants dotted about the coastal communities.The first group I met were  nine Albanians who introduced me to stupidly strong coffee and even more stupidly strong Albanian rap music,which they seemed to treat with a  sort of national pride that was lost on me.There were also Turks,Serbs,Phillipino's and Mexicans all waiting to be called up to work for a few months processing the catch of the day for minimun wage.The folks from the U.S however were there for the plum jobs on the boats.That is where the real money is to be found,if you believe those who were all but press-ganging the wide eyed greenhorns into service.I was dubious as to the claims of untold wealth at sea but it was of no concern to my plans so I played along with enthusiasm.It is amazing what a few episodes of the "Deadliest Catch" can do to bolster the dreams of a fat wallet for just a few tough weeks at sea.Good luck to them I say,I don't do boats!!

  As usual places like this are full of charcters and the Spenard Hostel did not disappoint,providing a wide a range of personalities as one could wish for.I fell in with a couple of guys while sitting in the garden enjoying the afternoon sun.They had come out for a cigarette and it seemed I was sitting in the smoking lounge.No matter,they sat downwind and the company was worth the mild inconvenience of the occaisional lungfull of smoke.Doug Browne was a half Scot, half Inuit fisherman from North Pole ,Alaska who was trying to round up crew to man his salmon fishning boat which was based in Kenai and was a few days away from sailing.He was quite the storyteller and seemed to know about everything and everyone in the state.His claim to fame was that he had featured in season one of "Deadliest Catch" as deck boss of the Maverick.It sounded great and he told as good a story about making huge money on the high seas as a rich man who is staying in a hostel can.As they say,never let the truth get in the way of a good story.He was fun though and did provide all kinds of local knowledge,including the indentity of and costs associated with, the two street hookers down the road.No thank's mate,not even on my worst day!!

The other guy,who I ended up spending quite a bit of time with over the next two days was an ex Army Ranger,Chris Chase.He was one of those guys who you just knew was escaping the real world in search of a new life somewhere quiet and isolated.He is about eight years younger than me but looks much older with wild,unkempt long grey hair and a face obscured by a full beard and moustache.His yellow,coffee and cigarette stained teeth were a match to his tar stained fingers in which there was nearly always a cigarette clamped hard and smouldering away. I pegged him for a guy in trouble and I was right.We talked a lot about life and travelling and such but it wasn't until I told him of my plans to document my trip and the reasons behind it that he becames very animated,he was all over it saying that I should include the military guys and the hell they are going through with PTSD and how the government is letting them down and on and on and on.I let him rant for a bit and then calmly told him that,in my opinion, his  frustration and energy would best be served in starting the new life he wanted and not spent focussing on his obvious anger toward the US military who,by  his own admission ,didn't care about him.He was speechless!I went on to say that what he had gone through had defined where he had come from and not where he was going.It was up to him to decide his future and not anyone else.Well that was it for him he sat down and said that nobody had ever spoken to him like that before and then he spent the next few hours telling me all about the horrors he had seen in his time in Iraq,Panama and Somalia which caused the nightmares he had to this day.He seemed amazed that anyone would care at all about his problems but after a few of the young Serbs swapped horror stories of their parents fight during the breakup of Yugoslavia and a new realisation that there were others who continued to suffer the injustices of war he seemed to realise that his was not  such a unique story and he seemed to find lot of comfort in that.He changed a little that day I believe and I think that change was for the better.I think he took a couple of small steps in the direction that he had hoped to go.Although he lives with a soul tourtured by memories of a past life I saw in his eyes the spark of someone excited to be alive and it was my pleasure to have met him.

Chris did find work on a boat and set out a couple of days later to start his new life.I really hope he makes it.