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 Travel & Outdoors | March 2008 
Patagonia - Bound
 Simon Romero - New York Times
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With donkey in tow, Jonathan Dunham is taking long walk to southernmost tip of South America.
Tinaco, Venezuela - Jonathan Dunham is walking the Earth. Assisting him is his donkey, Judas.
They have stopped to rest for a few days in Colinas de San Lorenzo, a slum in a dusty town on the cattle-raising plains of northwestern Venezuela.
On a recent Sunday morning, reggae music blared from a house near the abandoned shack where Dunham has been sleeping on the floor.
Barefoot children wandered up to his hovel. They giggled and stared at the 33-year-old Dunham - whose disheveled look evokes that of a graduate student for whom surfing, or maybe foosball, ranks as high art.
"Are you an athlete," a child asked him, "or a missionary?"
"No," Dunham replied, "I'm just a guy."
Just a guy searching for the meaning of life.
The graduate of Denison University in Granville began his quest more than two years ago in Portland, Ore., where he had a job as a substitute teacher.
One day he started walking south, through the western United States - then across the border from Texas into the Mexican state of Tamaulipas.
He planned to walk for two more years, through South America, until arriving at Patagonia in Argentina.
The members of a family in Tamaulipas allowed him to care for some of their dairy cows while he stayed with them for several months.
When he left them, having honed his Spanish, they gave him a donkey to help carry his load: a few books, some secondhand clothing and a bit of food.
Dunham named the donkey Whothey (the origins of the name are obscure), which in Spanish is roughly pronounced "Judas." At 4 years old, Judas is something of a minor celebrity in parts of Latin America. The donkey and Dunham arouse curiosity wherever they go.
"Judas is not just any donkey," El Heraldo, a newspaper in Colombia, reported in October, when public-health officials barred him from entering the country because of sanitary rules governing the import of donkeys. "He was born and grew up in a beautiful and well-managed hacienda."
"Jon is a well-mannered and shy biochemist," the newspaper continued in its description of Dunham, who did in fact earn a biochemistry degree from Denison. "He was unsatisfied with living in the materialist realm, with the eternal anguish of getting the dollars for the gluttony of consumer society: laptop, new car, Chanel No. 5, cell phone, the latest release by Madonna or Shakira."
Well, sort of.
The precise motivation for Dunham's travels is not entirely clear even to him; perhaps it never will be, although at a minimum it is a journey of self-discovery and endurance. Meanwhile, newspapers along his route have reported that he was walking for world peace or to set a world record or to spread the word of God.
"They always find something to say," he said.
He has relied on the kindness of strangers along his way through Mexico, Central America and, now, Venezuela.
He keeps away from big cities, aware that they are no place for a donkey. He often seeks out a church upon arriving in a new town or village in search of a safe place to sleep. Judas helps him meet people, Dunham said.
Here in Tinaco, for instance, he and Judas were recently resting in a park where artisans sell their wares.
"I struck up a conversation with the quiet gringo and his burro," said William Exaga, a 38-year-old artisan. "I thought, 'Here's a chance to cure some of the animosity between our governments.' "
Exaga allowed Dunham to stay in an empty shack he owns. The dwelling is in the middle of the poorest slum in the poorest town in one of Venezuela's poorest states, Cojedes. Dunham jumped at the opportunity.
Tinaco is a long way from where he grew up in Laramie, Wyo., the son of a university professor.
Dunham, who was planning to enter medical school before his walk began, speaks some Arabic, having traveled by camel in Sudan, and some Tok Pisin, having spent part of his childhood in Papua, New Guinea, where his father went on sabbatical. "The Bible," he replied when asked what he was reading. "And some Plantinga."
That would be Alvin Plantinga, the American religious philosopher at the University of Notre Dame. Dunham also carries an MP3 player that he uses to listen to lectures by renowned professors.
His journey has had its ups and downs. While walking in the United States, he said, he sometimes was so hesitant to spend money that he ate discarded food, such as half a cheeseburger or pieces of pizza.
In Nicaragua, Dunham, who lacks health insurance, contracted dengue fever. Both he and Judas have battled parasitic infections.
He traveled by ship from Panama to Venezuela to avoid the dangerous Darien Gap separating Colombia from Panama. Even taking precautions, and even though he carries almost no cash and little else of value, Dunham has been robbed twice.
The most traumatic robbery was in a Venezuelan harbor, where he and his donkey were on a Panamanian merchant vessel waiting to enter the country. Pirates stormed the boat and robbed everyone on board.
While Venezuela might at times seem like a hostile place for an American to be walking alone, he said he has witnessed greater generosity in the country than almost anywhere but Mexico, where he was given Judas.
One Venezuelan gave him an old prepaid cell phone (it is the first such device Dunham has owned). Others have given him food, clothing and shoes - crucial gifts for someone surviving on about $2 a day.
Over a breakfast of Pepsi and arepas, the corn-based bread that is a staple of the Venezuelan diet, he ate under the beaming look of the cook, Ada Boza, who has prepared food for Dunham during his stay here.
"Jonathan came into our lives a few days ago and has shared with us his good spirit," Boza said as she doted on Dunham and two other visitors from afar.
"We will miss him immensely when he moves on." |
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