Read MoreJONATHAN DUNHAM is walking the earth. Assisting him in this endeavor is his donkey, named Judas. They have stopped to rest for a few days in Colinas de San Lorenzo, a slum in this dusty town on the cattle-raising plains of northwestern Venezuela.
On a recent Sunday morning, reggaetón blared from a house near the abandoned shack where Mr. Dunham has been sleeping on the floor. Barefoot children wandered up to his hovel, petting Judas. They giggled and stared at Mr. Dunham, 33, whose disheveled look evokes that of a graduate student for whom surfing, or maybe foosball, is high art.
“Are you an athlete?” one of the children asked him. “Or a missionary?”
“No,” Mr. Dunham replied. “I’m just a guy.”
In fact, Mr. Dunham is just a guy searching for the meaning of life.
His quest began more than two years ago in Portland, Ore., where he was working as a substitute teacher in the public schools. One day, he decided to start walking south, down through the western United States. From Texas he crossed the border into the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, where he stopped for a while. He said he hoped to walk for two more years across the rest of South America until reaching Patagonia.
I have always been intrigued by wanderers. Maybe cause deep down Ive always wanted to be one. But I think my wanderlust would be better satisfied if I was working, maybe in a clinic or school. Ill never get rid of the mother hen do gooder in me.
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