A Major Blow

Major Blow to my "status"!

Yesterday at a refueling stop down on the coast I had my camera stolen!
I was very hot and flustered and the pump guy made me move my bike when I was already over getting a drink. Anyway, somewhere in the transition and moving of the bike, someone took the camera.
...I think I know who it was as he was behaving a bit strangely.
I never put the camera on the ground but I sometimes wear it while riding as a belt and sometimes I don't. I was wearing it when I stopped and I noticed 15Km down the road that I didn´t have it. I rushed back to the service station and asked around but to no avail. It's just one of the costs of traveling alone I guess - you can´t keep an eye on everything all the time and sooner or later when you are tired or distracted, something will get the better of you. I guess I´m glad it was a stolen camera rather than a head on collision with a car in my lane etc.
The camera was an expensive enough item and I'm still thinking about what to do about that, but the real hit is that I lost that memory card with about half my pictures on it. It includes all the great pictures that I took at the North Coyote Butes as well as Antelope Canyon (they were some of the best pictures I have taken and certainly the best on this trip). The only remaining record is the few reduced scale images I have here on this post... Bit of a bummer really.

The trip is supposed to be about experiences and memories rather than pictures, but I find that I am very disappointed to lose these pictures.
I spent the night thinking things through and it seems to me that this sort of regret over loss is based on thinking about the past and projecting into the future - It causes much of the suffering we experience in our lives. If we just let the past go and think of the present and project that into the future, things get much better.-
Sure I had a good camera and great pictures and they are now gone forever and its not fair and what a loss and blah blah... Woe is me...
But the alternate view is that I am healthy and free and I´m in the middle of Mexico on a motorbike and can do whatever I like for several months before I have to worry about work. This is a truly privileged position and I should make the most of it rather than spending too long brooding, which won´t change anything anyway.
I think Dogs are a great example of how to live in the present - they just do what they feel like doing now and don´t worry about the past (or at least that's how it seems to me). I´m going to plan a little more than a dog but in principal I´ll try to make the best of what I still have rather than wasting time on what I lost.
So, I´spent all day today heading towards my next destination which is the city of Oaxaca (central southern city). When I get there Ill find a post office and send a bunch of the stuff that I have collected along the way home, and some stuff that I don't need too, back to Vancouver in a box. Then I´ll try to find a camera shop and try to buy a similar camera to the one that I lost. (hopefully I can use the same memory cards and charger and spare battery that I still have) And I also have to get rid of some American dollars that I have been carrying as backup in the form of travelers cheques before they are as much value as carrying a bag of smooth flat rocks (probably not far away).

So there it is... Bummer, but what can ya do...