How To Live Like a Rockstar When You are Not One...
Buenos Aires to Mendoza: Sketchy Exchange Hustlers and Bus Fuss. April 14. I packed my bag when I got moving and then Irmante and I headed into the center to change the rest of our money. There was a lousy exchange rate today, so it was a battle to get a good deal and Irmante was impatient, which was driving me nuts. Eventually, I settled on far less than I would have liked to have taken at 10.15pesos/USD just to...
Buenos Aires Cold as Heck. April 13. I was ready to get out of the Buenos Aires cold today and start making our way to places that will lead us to more warmth, but Irmante had wet clothes that needed to dry. So, we decided remained in Buenos Aires cold for another day. We went to a market and I found a journal made with a record as the cover. It is one of the smartest things that I have seen...
Buenos Aires Money Exchange Cheats: Curiously Mysterious $1 Note. April 12. It is so cold here. It is colder than I could have ever imagined Buenos Aires would be. We need to get out of here! Last night when Zora and I were in the club, back at the house some guy got so drunk that he would not stop vomiting. He was even vomiting when he was passed out. The vomiting would not stop, so eventually an ambulance came...
Buenos Aires – Zora’s Birthday Rock Out. 11 April. Irmante and I headed into the center of Buenos Aires to change money. We battled hard for a good rate with all of the ‘cambio’ yelling crooks. The rate of the day was 10.25 pesos for one USD. We had $400 USD to change, so we negotiated very hard and found a guy who was going to change our $400 for 10.6 pesos/USD. He made a phone call and then lead...
Buenos Aires Meat Meet Party. April 10. It was a casual one, and I was not out of the house until it was dark, which always makes me feel shitty. We went to the butcher shop at about 8pm and bought a lot lot of meat, some vegetables, some bread and came back to have a ‘parilla’ (barbecue) for about 12 people. We were planning a Buenos Aires meat meet party. I was informed that as a man I would...
Buenos Aires Tango in Buenos. April 9. I needed freedom for the day as I have not been alone for more than ten minutes in about 6 weeks. So, I headed downtown by myself to gain my independence again and to get a feel for Buenos Aires without just following someone around to see the city having no idea where I am. I headed to Florida Street to where the money changers are as I needed to get rid of...
Buenos Aires La Recoleta Cemetery. April 8. Today was one of those days. My man period. I woke up grumpy. I have been battling mosquitoes all night, not getting enough sleep and then waking up itchy. It is taking its toll on my mood. I wanted to just go about the city alone, but Irmante wanted to hang out, so we tried that. But, being in a edgy mood and never having a break from a partner in crime for...
Buenos Aires Free Walking Tour. April 7. Someone needs to unify the electrical outlets of South America. Someone needs to organize a meeting of all the countries and make a decision of what electrical outlets will be used as one on this entire continent. We have now been to four different countries and they have had three different outlets. Ridiculous, and inconvenient…! The sleeping bag I have borrowed at the palace seems to be an Antarctic sleeping bag, but we...
Buenos Aires Black Market. April 6. Life started at 2pm, but it was really 4pm before any real action began. The economy is crazy here in Argentina, and if you take money out of a bank machine, you will get about 8 pesos for one U.S. dollar. But, if you take your U.S. dollars to the Buenos Aires black market, you can get 10 or more pesos for one U.S. dollar. Before Irmante and I left Uruguay, we pulled U.S....
Montevideo to Buenos Aires: No Sleep City. April 5. I woke up when Irmante was kicking the bottom of my bunk bed. I looked down at her. She told me it was noon. Time to get moving from Montevideo to Buenos Aires. We had to hurry to pull ourselves together to get to the ferry. She was really hung over and sick and grumpy and miserable about everything. But, she came through the other side. It cost us $37 U.S....
Punta del Diablo to Montevideo: Caballo Loco Hostel. April 4. I woke up in our hostel in Punta del Diablo and had my first shower in four days. That was pretty awesome. I did not feel dirty, but I probably was. There was only brown water at Cobo Polinio so it was not much of an option there. When we arrived here yesterday, I was already dirty, so I just dealt with it. I stole a towel from the hostel....
Cabo Polonio to Punta del Diablo: Unwanted Hitchhikers . April 3. Irmante and I got up early enough to catch an early truck to the highway so that we could try to hitch-hike from Cabo Polonio to Punta del Diablo. About 8 or 10 cars came along but no one would pick up an Eastern European blonde, and a guy in a cowboy hat. Some other hitchhiker came along and was standing in front of us. That was not going to...
Cabo Polonio: Weed Brownies aka Cabo Polonio: Brownie Moron Medication… April 2. We had quite a day. Irmante and I went for a walk past a very smelly dead sea lion on the way to the lighthouse on the end of the peninsula. It cost us $20 Uruguayan ($1 US) to climb it and have a look around. It is the only tourist attraction here. This is a really cool and quaint little town. Any town that has 38 residents...
Montevideo to Cabo Polonio: Freedom. April 1. We checked out of the Caballo Loco hostel, where I had made good friends with owner Felipe who told me he was sad to see me leave. There are good people at that hostel. Irmante and I caught a bus to the main bus transport station to catch a life from Montevideo to Cabo Polonio. My ridiculous hair is making people guess that we are Brazilians, even though Irmante is so obviously Eastern...
Montevideo: Alive Uruguay Rugby Team. March 31. I slept late and missed breakfast, finally showered, and Irmante told me she was going on a free walking tour of the Montevideo. I decided to join. This city has a great vibe. I am not sure why I like it here so much, but it seems to be really cool. The Rio de la Plata that runs along the banks of this city is the widest river in the world; 220 kilometers...
Montevideo Party Time. March 30. Lazy, and out of bed at 12:30pm. I was tired. Irmante was sick as a sick dog because she did not starve herself from food and water to choke the sunofagun of a cold off. So, I went on a health shopping spree for her and tried to sort her future out. I drew a mustache on her with a marker. It was a rainy shitty day. I made buddies with the guy who runs...
Prior Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. – (A proverb I got from an older black man in New York in 2004.) – I have done no research on this trip to Uruguay, and realised on the bus itself that we booked that we will be doing a lot of unnecessary backtracking because I did not take 40 minutes to look at the future of our plans and just booked a ticket from Asunción to Montevideo… I am pissed off...
Asunción: Cold Starve Works, But Wow it Sucks. March 28. When you do not drink liquid or eat food for 30 hours it really does terrible things to you. I could not sleep very well at all. I had been tossing and turning and I am sure everyone in the dorm stayed awake because of my mental battle to kill a cold with a Cold Starve. I was so thirsty, and my stomach ached. I actually peed in the middle...
Sickness in Asunción. March 27. I slept restlessly all night and did not get out of bed until noon. I wanted the rest to heal. My body has been trying to be sick since I was in London in early January, but I have been combating it with raw ginger and garlic. I have decided to let it come, and maybe I can process it and get it out of my system. I did not have time to be sick...
March 26. My day started with a questionable stomach, I developed a crush on a sweetheart waitress, and we decided to get out of town. So, we went to check on Gustavo, a rocker who we met last night who was going to try to get his hands on a Paraguay licence plate for me, but his buddy did not come through. I thought Gustavo was a super cool guy, but Irmante told me that she got a bad vibe...
Encarnación to Villarrica: The Hell Bus and Being Hookers. March 25. We were up at 7:30am to catch a bus to Villarrica. It was a seven hour ride on the oldest roughest bus in all of Paraguay. We were off the asphalt for most of the journey, driving down a red dirt road of washouts, dust, semi trucks hauling cattle liners, ruts, buses and people standing on the side of the road everywhere to flag down the bus. It was...
An Encarnación Celebration. March 24. Encarnación is a town that sells cups and bottles made out of a cows hoof. Really. I have never seen something like this before. The cup base it the hoof of the cow, and the drinking apparatus on the top is made out of a hollowed out horn. They are gorgeous and stylish for drinking terere. The woman who made them, with two thumbs on her one right hand, had also artistically crafted champagne or a...
March 23 Ciudad del Este to Encarnación. Ciudad del Este is not a necessary place to spend time, unless you want to hang out at a really cool hostel, which the Casa Alta is, and really nice people work there. But, we decided to get out of the second largest city in Paraguay to head to Encarnación. We went to the bus station and the man behind the counter tried to skin tax us an extra 10%, but Irmante caught it...
March 22. This date is usually a very crazy day for me. The life-changing event of 2011, 2012, and 2013 all took place on March 22. It is a weird day for me. It is also my brother’s birthday, and we had an awesome visit today, which is a nice way to have the day this year. It took Irmante and I forever to get moving as I have a million things to do before I could leave the hostel. Eventually,...
March 21 A MONSTER of a day. Irmante and I decided to head to the Argentinean side of Iguazu Falls. We took two new friends with us who, one of which we stole form the hostels expensive ‘tour package’ and we made our own adventure to figure out how to get to Argentina to see the waterfalls from there. The hostel agreed to store our luggage, and the four of us adventured off, with some semi-informed instructions of an Israeli...
March 20 On a 23:20 hour bus trip, I bet that I slept for 18 of those hours. It was 10:30am when I woke up and there were only two hours left to get to Iguazu Falls/Foz do Iguaçu. After arrival we collect-called the Klein Hostel that we had pre-booked to come and pick us up. They were there in about 5 minutes. Awesome. We dropped our things off at our hostel and semi cleaned up enough to head out, and...
Rio de Janeiro to Iguazu Falls: Bus Ride. March 19. Irmante and I were up early to get ready to get a move on from Rio de Janeiro to Iguazu Falls. We said goodbye to Csilla and Cash and headed into the great unknown. We found out where the bus was to pick us up and waited at the stop. To flag a bus in Rio de Janeiro, we have learned that sometimes you have to step out into the...
Rio de Janeiro – The Calm Before the Storm. 18 March I am not hung over after St. Patrick’s day. What a treat! We had a relaxing one and we woke up in Cash and Csilla’s corridor sweatbox at about 10:30am. Cash and Csilla have a cat who was taken away from her mother too early, so she suckles on the fuzz of a teddy bear that they have in the house. Irmante has been trying to get the...
Rio de Janeiro: Stalking a Crippled Masturbator. March 17. Our friend Csilla from Hungary is an English teacher here in Rio de Janeiro. When she used to live in an apartment in downtown Rio, the doorman of her complex thought she was a prostitute. An eastern European woman who had plenty of male visitors in business suits, who would stay for an hour and then leave again… St Patricks Day No Way. I just do not feel like drinking right...
Rio de Janeiro Forest: After Ayahuasca. March 16. I woke up in my tent at noon. It was hot. Sweaty hot. I packed up my tent and went to find the others. It was the next day after ayahuasca and everyone was hanging out on the rock. I felt like an outsider because all I wanted to do was go home. So, I went to the church where the guitar remained from last night and I played it for a bit...
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