How To Live Like a Rockstar When You are Not One...
Máncora: Here Comes the Sun (♬Dee Dee Dee Dee Deeee♬). June 5 I found a lousy hostel for S/$20 per night that is right on the beach front where loud waves crash right below my room. Rad. Ah, Here Comes the Sun. I have wanted this for a long time… Maybe I have found a temporary home. I went for lunch and a walk around town to find out that I know no one in town. I have made so...
Hunachaco to Máncora: Chasing the Sun. June 4. Staying up late for nothing really screws up a day. It was 3pm before I left the hostel today and I walked out onto the beach and warm weather that I have been longing for as I have been chasing the sun and wondered what took me so long to get my ass out the door. I should have known it would be awesome outside because the mosquitoes had already found me....
Lima to Huanchaco: Oceanside…You Have Been Missed. June 3. Take a bus north of Lima to Huanchaco some time in your life. It will blow your mind. Lima is in the middle of a desert. In fact, the whole of the west coast of South America that I have seen so far seems to be a desert. But, the road that will take you into northern Peru out of Lima to Huanchaco is something else. The highway is build on the...
Lima Spanish Inquisition Museum of the God Ol’ Days. June 2. I recognized that I had a friend on the bus once we arrived in Lima, Matias from Poland/Germany. We checked into the same hostel and went out for lunch. Ceviche, Peruvian style raw fish, is freaking awesome! Who knew that something that should taste so terrible could be so good? I could eat that three times a day… We went to explore a couple of Lima’s 40+ museums. On...
Cusco to Lima: Mass Tourism Cusco. June 1. My friend caught a plane towards Iquitos this morning. I had a blast with her. We had a little goodbye romance and she headed for her plane. It was strange for me as I was being left. I am always the leaver. My friend Aafje, who ditched me on my birthday, was in town. She was sick and wanted me to visit her so I went to meet before I left mass...
Cusco: Trying to Be Nicer in this City I do not Like. May 31. My friend tells me that we have been in seven different hostels in the past seven days and she is wearing out. I thought this was par for the course. I move fast! But, we will spend a second night in our Cusco hostel tonight. It was an awesome morning of having no plans and no need to be anywhere, so she and I spend all...
Discover Machu Picchu. May 30. My friend’s alarm went off at 3:30am. Yuck. She went to the shower and I stayed in bed. When she got out she crawled back into bed which lead to a precarious position whereby we used energy that really should have been saved for the climb. Life is not easy. By the time breakfast was consumed it was too late to hike up the mountain, so we spent $10 U.S. to ride the bus up...
Cusco to Aguas Calientes: Machu Picchu. May 29. There was not a lot of sleep to be had as we went to bed late last night and I was up early this morning because of a pair of wondering hands. Life can get worse… We got on our Cusco to Aguas Calientes $100 U.S. tour to Machu Picchu in a van with about 13 other gringos. I had to sit beside a crusty woman from Argentina who was a nasty...
Cusco: My Tourist Hell. May 28. Construction workers were hard at it this morning and had us awake a lot earlier than we would have liked to have been. It was noon when we finally left the hostel and the workers were sitting out on the sidewalk drinking beer with their lunch. That-a-be fellas… Cusco is the kind of place were women in traditional clothing walk around with small lambs sit in purses and peer out at the world while...
Isla Del Sol to Cusco – Country Number 60! May 27. When the sun shines during the day in Isla Del Sol it is intense, and it will burn your face, as it did mine, but you can also feel a cool breeze on the wind because it is an island in the middle of a lake at 3800 meters altitude. Isla Del So is that beautiful woman who teases you with her warmth and makes you feel so good,...
Isla Del Sol: Island Fun. May 26. A small boat took my grumpy-with-a-backpack-on friend and I on a two hour ride to Isla Del Sol, an island in the middle of the highest altitude large lake in the world, Lake Titicaca. I was not enthused about the idea of heading to a cold island in the middle of a cold lake, but warmed to the idea when we checked into a family guesthouse with a couple of cows who overlooked...
La Paz to Copacabana: Train Wreck of a Day. May 25. Neither of us could sleep at all. It was 10am and though my body was tired, and my brain was not racing, but it would not let me rest. And my stomach is still wonky. So, we decided to try to start our day which was actually just a continuation of the previous day. I felt terrible and there was no energy at all in my body, but we...
La Paz: Route 36 Cocaine Bar. May 24. I hit the free city walking tour of La Paz and it was awesome. – We started in front of minimum security San Pedro Prison, most famous for its place in the book ‘Marching Powder.’ There are only 15 guards at a time for 2,500 inmates, and the guards do not even enter the prison. The prison is totally policed by the inmates who establish rules and a hierarchy. All inmates pay...
La Paz: Israeli Manners. May 23. Two Israeli girls were sitting behind me on the bus. One of them kept on putting her feet up on the back of the seat so that they overhung where I was sitting to show her Israeli manners. It was driving me nuts, but I was tolerant. It was muddy outside and when a chunk of mud fell on my seat, I slapped her on the foot and told her to keep her...
Rurrenabaque to La Paz: Mucking Through the Muck. May 22. Yesterday we were on the incredibly rough road on the way from Santa Ana to Rurrenabaque. We were driving in a Toyoto mini-van. That road is one of the worst I have ever been on in my life and it destroys vehicles. I am not sure how tour operators can make money. Those mini-vans drive 3.5 hour into the Pampas every day and 3.5 hours back again on an unimaginable...
The Pampas: Amazon. May 20th and 21st. Five hours of sleep is not enough to keep my pencil sharp. I am dull and groggy. Keeping up a blog takes shitloads of time. I have written every day of my life for about 9 years, and it was all pen-to-paper journal business before. No problem. But, this internet business takes serious time. The writing part is the fast part. I would say it is only about 25% of the time of...
Rurrenabaque: Termites Taste Like Mint – Surviving the Amazon. May 17-19. As I met Maar-sneeze in the morning she told me, “I read your blog last night. You’re such an asshole.” I would learn to get used to being called an asshole in an unmistakable Dutch accent over the next three days. This would happen often… The Survival tour. Okay. We will see… Maar-sneeeze and I met with our guide, loaded into a long boat with a new friend, who...
Rurrenabaque: Dutch Girl Madness Plans. May 16. A late sleep in and like 9 hours of sleep happened! Those days exist for a vacationer, but they hardly exist for a traveller, and they are as gorgeous as a bright red apple on a tree with strippers climbing that tree when they do happen. I hung out and read waiting for a Dutch girl, my friend Maar-sneeze to arrive (Her name is Maartje, but I can hardly pronounce her name because...
Rurrenabaque: My New Little Circle. May 15. I like walking down the street and dudes on motorbikes wave at me because I kicked their asses in pool last night. I like this Rurrenabaque. I could spend two weeks here in Rurrenabaque. There are red parrots in the trees that scream like children, in several different tones, and they tease the dogs who howl along and bark with the parrots. It is obvious that they love taunting the dogs. This went...
Rurrenabaque Hostel Take Over. May 14. After I found a Rurrenabaque hostel, I had a look at this quaint little town trying to make a decision whether to head straight into the jungle in the morning, or to just hang out for a couple of days and take over the town. It has been a long time since I tried to take over a small town to make it mine, and I kind of need that. So, I am just...
La Paz to Rurrenabaque: You Got to Get Out of Town and Get Filthy! May 13 and 14. The idea of moving out of my private room and into a dormitory in my hostel was so unappealing that I decided to just get out of town. I need to get to the Amazon anyhow, so I weighed my options. All the planes leaving from La Paz to Rurrenabaque were full today, tomorrow and there are only a few seats left...
La Paz: How Did it Get to This? May 12 Well, it got ugly last night in La Paz. I had altitude sickness all day after we got down from Huayna Potosi, but my night time I was feeling quite celebratory. The English boys and I got at the booze, and I decided to drink hard liquor, which never works out well for me. But it was my birthday at midnight. I blacked out most of the night, but I...
Huayna Potosi – Climbing a Mountain…Really…. 9-11 May. My friend Ben and I drove breakfast into ourselves and got into a van that took us to the mountain climbing supplies agency store. I have no idea why I actually signed up for this, but here I was. It was terrible to get the supplies. I guess there have been so many gringos to come through the agency that they do not care and were not much help at all to...
La Paz: Death Road. May 8. There was no way I was willing to hung over for today, so I was a very good boy last night. Not all of the boys were though, and there were some hangovers as we headed out of La Paz to Death Road. It cost us 450 Bolivianos for a downhill suspension bike, all equipment, two meals, and a van to follow us on the drive. It was cold at the summit where we...
Beautiful La Paz. May 7. If you are looking for a pretty city, go and check out Beautiful La Paz. It is sort of in a bowl of a mountain and the city climbs high with earth brown houses all around it. It is one of the prettiest cities that I have ever seen in my life. I was hanging out with the English boys and sort of talked myself into climbing a mountain with them. I am getting fat...
Cochabamba to La Paz: Living on Buses. May 6. We arrived in Cochabamba at about 6am. I ran into an Israeli/Dutch girl in the bus station there that I knew from Potosi and Sucre. The Dusty Gringo Trail… We caught a taxi to a hostel that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, which also seemed to be in the richest area of the city, which we assumed was the part built with cocaine money. We stayed at the...
Potosi to Cochabamba: A Connection and a Near Miss. May 5. Last night after we got back to the hostel in Potosi, I had a visitor who asked to remain anonymous because of this blog. But it was really nice to have her over and spend some time with her. She actually did not even want to be mentioned and told me to write about everything except her, but I can not change what I have been doing for 9...
Sucre to Potosi: My Attractive Mental State. May 2. I joined Aafje for breakfast because I knew she was going to check out of the hostel. She told me that she had a dream last night where a wonderful and handsome boy crawled into bed with her in the middle of the night for a little slap and tickle. It was ironic because as at the same moment that she was finishing her dream of Mr. Wonderful crawling into her...
Sucre: New Holland. May 1. At Spanish class today, my teacher Edson mentioned the Mercado Negro in Sucre. I asked him if that was where I could go to buy a black person. Edson is a very sweet person who has probably never offended anyone in his life. I wish I was an artist and I could paint that face of confused horror which presented itself between his eyes and his chin. He took my question for face value and...
Sucre: Shitting on the Toilet, Pissing on the Floor. April 30. Brain exercise equals a very deep sleep. Last night I slept hard in Sucre. I would call it power sleeping. I can not remember that last time that I slept that hard. I usually wake up just before my alarm. I think I was actually in a coma when my alarm went off at 7:20am this morning. So that makes me wonder, do we have shitty sleeps at night...
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