How To Live Like a Rockstar When You are Not One...
May 1, 2019 LIM Airport Lima, Peru, South America. At about 03:00, Not Larry and I went through security at the airport in Lima, Peru. If security asks if you have any liquids of over 100 ml in your bag, you can tell them no and then you can always get a 237 ml bottle of sunscreen and a 140 ml bottle of moisturizer through the scanner with no questions asked. I got the moisturizer through Edmonton, Calgary, San Jose,...
Popayán to Cartagena: Beating an Airline. July 29. This morning as Lucia went to have a shower before work, I was awakened by a couple moving into the dorm at about 8am. The pretty girl was apologetic in English rather than Spanish. A conversation between us took place. She was from Minnesota and asked me if I was an American. I told her I was from Big Beaver, Saskatchewan. She made a funny face and said, “I think I have...
Pablo Escobar Tour – 22 July 2014, The tour bus picked me up from my hostel. I was on the afternoon Pablo Escobar Tour because the morning tour was full, but there were only three of us this morning. That would allow me a lot of room to ask a lot of questions! I am a tour guide’s dream for a while. But then he tires of having to answer so many questions, many of which he has never had to...
Guayaquil: A Change Will Do You Good. June 9. I slept so hard on the bus that the driver had to wake me up in my seat at Peruvian/Ecuador immigration. The man next to me and I were the only two people left on the bus. I need some real rest. Exit stamp. Hasta Luego Peru. I will not miss you. I will not miss having 18 year olds in bars trying to sell my cocaine and I will not...
Máncora to Guayaqiul: Good Riddance Peru… June 8. It is funny how English speaker perceive my name when I tell them it is ‘Castor.’ They often look at me in awe and say, “Wow, that is a very exotic name,” or “You are a Canadian, how did you get a name like that.” I do not usually tell them that it just means Beaver in Spanish, Portuguese and French. When I introduce myself to Spanish speakers here in Latin America,...
Máncora: The Tussler. June 7 I opened my eyes because someone was waking me up. It was Mary. It was light outside. I was on top of a sheet on a cement floor of a dress shop in Máncora, Peru. Hard liquor and I are not compatible. We never work out well. It is possible that I would have been in this exact scenario had I only drunk beer, but the odds are less likely. We left the shop, and...
June 6. Party Boy Wakes Up. I had a late start, but after a swim in the ocean a girl began walking towards me and she was walking towards me with that walk where you know that the person is going to approach you. I stood still as she walked my way until she took off her glasses and I recognized her as Angelique from Germany who held the flashlight in Sucre while the English girl peed in the middle...
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: 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,...
Download Chapter 1 of Traveling Through North Korea
February 7, 2016 Today was a special day where I went to spend an hour with a silverback gorilla family in the mountains of Rwanda. It was…
January 10, 2017 Anyone ever heard of a band called Electric Eel Shock? There is a reason why you haven’t. The reason why you haven’t heard of…
May 4, 2014 Breakfast was at 8:30am, and I was the last to arrive. I was still feeling effects of the chicha, the local corn-moonshine we had…
August 3, 2008 Bangkok, Thailand -Sex Show [su_dropcap]I[/su_dropcap]t was early August and my German girlfriend and I had just left Australia on a cheap flight to squeaky…
July 26, 2014 I wish I could say that we were inside of a pristine shiny and sterile cocaine lab that I had pictured in my mind…
June 3, 2016 Convincing a 20 year old to get out of bed at 10:30 is no easy feat… It turns out that playing Slayer really loud…
March 15, 2014 We were up early to meet a group of three other gringos at Central station at 10am. We were early. We were tired. We…
January 30, 2015 My father was hanging out with me in the basement, and then he began getting his band equipment together to haul upstairs to load…
March 18, 2013 Want the recipe for a fascinating day? This one serves three: Step One – Get Ingredients and Heat up the Oven It started when…
May 1, 2012 I was up at 7:00am, showered, packed and caught a bus from my hotel to Hyun Jin’s place where she fed me breakfast. She…