The repeated clickety-clack and gentle sway of the train coach rocked me nearly to sleep, but my eyes refused to close, staring wide at mountain faces rising so steeply that the sprouting tufts of green clinging to the cliffs appeared to be affixed by ancient magic alone. The nieble floated ethereally through the saddles and gorges, draping the ancient Andean peaks with shrouds of reverence. My gaze fell to the Urubamba River below, admiring huge chunks of granite worn into smooth ripples reflecting the fluidity of the water cascading toward Machu Picchu town and eventually to the mighty Amazon. I could nearly hear the water crashing above the bubbling murmur of my fellow pasajeros traveling toward Ollantaytambo – an ancient Incan town whose name has confounded the tongues of foreigners for half a millennium.

The mist atop the mountains split into tendrils teasing memories from yesterday’s walk in the forest – memories familiar, yet unknown. Memories of birdsong high in the canopy that evoked the cheerio greeting of the American Robin, but with a touch of warbler soprano. A vine of fuchsia flowers reminiscent of sweet peas, but with curving petals grown long by the warmth and wet of a high rainforest. Alpacas grazing on terraced gardens, looking like their goat cousins, but with gracefully elongated necks. Poinsettias that have far outgrown their foil-wrapped plastic pots, spreading into branching trees. Familiar, yet unknown. 

I craned my neck heavenward once again, hoping to catch a glimpse of the sacred condor soaring through the mountain guardians who hid an ancient city from marauding conquistadors centuries ago. Guardians preserving a sprawling city of stone built by hand, hematite cleaving granite into perfect mortarless seams, paying homage to the ancient Incan trilogy of heaven, earth, and underworld – condor, puma, and serpent. 

My mind flitted between my current work sabbatical and the ever-branching memories of nearly ten years past, recollecting a similar existential precipice during the interim drifting between my completion of graduate school and embarking on a presumed lifelong career. A trip to the rainforest of central America with the intent to study anatomy and exercise physiology; but instead the discovery of culture, language, and appreciation for a natural environment of lush canopy and undergrowth appearing a distant cousin to the familiar maples and firs of my childhood playgrounds. Familiar, yet unknown.

A repeated query of identity and purpose – a searching for my place in the universe, always retreating to the natural world to calibrate the compass that leads me confidently to the answer of the ever present “What’s Next?”
In the natural world, I can find peace with familiar, yet unknown. Trees still have roots, birds still have wings, flowers still have petals, and rocks still shape rivers, though their appearances might be widely varied. And though I don’t know exact species or behavior patterns, I am reminded that the natural course of things will always prevail, just as the waters of the Urubamba ultimately reach the Atlantic, no matter which path they take. 

The rocking of the train finally coaxed my eyes to close as we climbed out of the rainforest and into the dry high plain, flowering cacti and gangly agave blurring past the train window. I leaned my head back, smiling gently as I basked in the restfulness of the familiar and the thrill of the unknown.