How To Live Like a Rockstar When You are Not One...
The Cuban Scooter Heist Jan 15 Bean and I are a lot. That is becoming clear… Bean says that we are the guys in the books that everyone else is reading about here on their vacation. That is probably a very accurate assessment. The day really began when we were trying to track down a car to rent at Starfish, our resort. We walked into a tiny air conditioned shack in the resort parking lot where a man was leaning...
Riohacha to Cabo de la Vela: Northernmost South America, Almost. August 8. The postal service in Colombia has been a pain in my ass. I have had postcards I wanted to send out since I was in Bogota about three weeks ago. A girl who worked in a hostel there told me where the post office was and drew it on a map for me. I walked across town. It was not there. I asked someone else. They send me...
Popayán to San Agustín – The Worst Road in Colombia, So Far. July 25. Colombia is the type of country where a man in the center of a town square has a scale at his feet, and he will charge you C$1000 to find out your weight. Opportunistic. Colombia also calls people who want to sell you crap, ‘Snake Charmers.’ I like that. Colombia also has traffic rules but is also a ‘make your own rules’ kind of country. Many...
Popayán: Colombian Snack. July 9. People love my wooden sunglasses. I get a compliment on them nearly every day by someone. When people ask me, “What are they made from?” my standard response is, “I think a small Chinese child’s hands…” The reality is that it is probably entirely honest and that is pretty sad… My dates with Lucia include me carrying a Spanish/English dictionary like it is my man-purse. It is necessary for communication with her and vocabulary. My...
Popayán: My Hatred of Mass Tourism. July 8. Selfish girls piss me off. Well, selfish guys piss me off too but a selfish girl is more selfish than a selfish guy. She seems to expect more. When the football game has begun and you come to the hostel to meet your friend and I so that we can hurry and get to a television to watch the game and you show up late, make us wait longer so that you...
Cotacachi to Popayán: Changing Countries and Talking to Idiots. July 2. Changing countries is always hell somehow. Even as a wily veteran traveller, it is always a little bit terrifying heading into the complete unknown. By now I should be used to that slight feeling of un-comfort, yet I still feel it every time when I am changing countries. There is a new currency to learn the value of when changing countries, a new list of cities to geographically memorize...
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...
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: 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...
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: Unilingual Moron Near Brain Implosion. April 29. It has been a long time since I used my brain. Today all that changed. I had my first Spanish lesson. It was three hours of driving a language into a muscle that has been on autopilot for about four years with no new heavy lifting in the meantime. It is amazing how much the action of shaking up the language section of my brain alters my whole mind. Weird sentences from...
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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…
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…
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…
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…