Por Fin

So this is it. Today I´ll soak up what´s left of Lima, enjoy my last vistas on our neighbor continent, then bam, just like it started, it will end. I wish I could make it out to be some epic finale to this trip, but it´s just a flight. I´ll leave just like I came, just with less stuff and worlds of new knowledge and experience. I had so much fun the last few months I could throw up. From the center of the center of Mexico, to Rio´s carnaval, to my purgatory in Corrientes, my taxi in Buenos Aires and all the rich experiences that city imparted, to wine country, to Bolivia´s extraterrestrial landscapes, and Machu Picchu, and now, finally ending on the Pacific coast in this highrise suite. And like that, it´s over! I´ve seen so many unbelievable places and things, but the people I´ve met are the real story, and the inspiring affirmation that this was a worthy way to spend the past 4 months of my life. If I could do it all over again, I wouldn´t change a thing... well I would have brought more money, but other than that, nothing, haha. In fact, I want to do it all over again. I have a massive next-time list of things I didn´t have the time or money to see, and people I would love to see again. Can´t even begin to start digesting little life lessons I´ve learned along the way, but I think I definitely came out of this whole thing a hell of a lot more rounded and stable than I was when I left, with more of a thirst to just appreciate what is and not wish for what was or could be, and maybe with a lot more love in my heart for people in general. That last one´s a tough thing to say though, I´ll wait it out and see if the feeling lasts.

On Lima anyway, it´s really cool. We found us some trouble on Thursday night and consequentially spent most of Friday in bed, but it was a good time. I have to leave kinda early for my flight tomorrow, but it´s Saturday night and the diva inside of me can´t really be contained. That´s one thing that I still think is so cool about flying... tonight I party in Lima, tomorrow night I party in Atlanta, just like that. Continent-hopping. I´m really excited to get home and be with my family again, I missed them. I really miss New york too, and really can´t wait to get back into my life there, blazing some kind of trail leading to I don´t know where, but at least it´s my own. As soon as I get back... shit, already, I´m just thinking about how I´m getting to Brazil again. Too bad my entire family is gone right now, literally. I was hoping for some sort of red carpet to be rolled out, and going to a 20-person dinner at nani and papa´s but I guess no one really cares. Hahaha. Kidding kidding, they´ll be back but i´m still being a little biatch about it.

Alright, well that´s all, folks. Thank you South America, for showing me a great time and giving me some crazy shit I´ll never forget!

Pacification

So here we are, perched on a cliff hundreds of feet over the endless blue paradise brewing below us... we´re in Lima! Miraflores to be exact, the ritzy glamorous part of this massive metropolis, where bakeries and dog shit line every sidewalk. It´s gorgeous, actually, kind of reminiscent of a lot of places I´ve been this trip, so it´s a fitting spot to end it all. Like I said before, we´re staying in Kendra´s connection´s apartment, on the 14th floor. On the balcony side, you have a lighthouse a little ways to the left, then the cove wraps around, dotted with waterfront highrises, then ends at this massive rock covered with radio antennas. Straight ahead, the Pacific Ocean, in all its sea-foam-green glory. On the other side, the city´s skyscrapers extend seemingly as endlessly as the ocean, this place is huge! The coast line is all a big cliff, so you have to go down to get to the water, which is full of surfers and not much else, and the way the waves hit the rocky beach wants to put me to sleep... it´s really nice! I had heard a lot of nonsense about Lima before I came from other travelers, but its nice parts are no joke! It´s kind of expensive though.

Today I was walking around and ran into one of my college professors, how freaking random. I didn´t yell his name fast enough to actually get to talk to him, because it´s been a few years and wanted to make sure I wasn´t yelling at a stranger, but I realized it was definitely him. Small world, eh.

So it´s Wednesday, that´s a little ridiculous to think of, since I´m leaving Sunday. All of this is over! So we agreed that Thursday through Saturday night is strictly partying, no wimping out. I gotta make some Lima stories, and they have to count. I just talked to an old Atlanta friend who knows people who live here, so hopefully we can run with the locals again because that´s always how I seem to find the most trouble without actually getting into any trouble. Fingers crossed.

So I dunno what else, I´m going to try to snag some clothes here before I leave because I know it´s cheaper to rebuild a wardrobe here than it will be in Atlanta, then I´m going to dunk my head in the ocean the morning before i leave so I´ll smell like the beach when I get back...the water´s pretty cold though. And then, that´s about it! Living like a king and queen in this aparment man, it´s on the 14th floor, we have a doorman, it´s huge with a balcony, with bedrooms upstairs and cable, 2 bathrooms, laundry.... shiiiit. Makes me feel lik I´ve been living like a hog the past few months!

Arequipa and trying to be Anthony Bourdain

Cuzco ended up awesome. We stayed Friday night so we would be able to travel relaxed after Machu Picchu, and I wanted to get some nightlife back in my life, and Cuzco turned out to be the perfect place for that. Kenj and I went out for dinner, she got tired and I was itching to do something, so I went to the bar we had previously visited and there were a few more people, so I sat down for a drink. Before I finished my beer, this guy came over and invited me out with his friends because they were going to a different bar. Just the kind of thing I was hoping for! So we went to this place off the Plaza de Armas, which is not only the main square of the city, framed by 2 cathedrals and colonial architecture, but becomes a zombie haven after dusk. Drunk tourists turn into zombies after a few drinks under a full moon, in case you weren´t aware. So we had a drink in this nice little place and chatted for a while, and his friends were really funny. One chick got pretty drunk and kept mentioning that she´s an attorney, and everyone kept making fun of her because she doesn´t really work, she sits in her house all day. Good company, good drinks, then we got up because the group had this collective antsy-ness that made us move on quick. We walked to the other side of the plaza which is full of dancing places, too small to be clubs, but playing music too loud for it to be considered a bar. Thennnnnn all of a sudden the streets exploded with madness, people kicking, screaming, pulling hair, punching... This one guy opened the passenger door to a police car, held on to the roof of the car and started kicking the cop in the face. Then a few more cops showed up, tried to calm everyone down, I waited for tear gas to start flying because it was like a scene from a zombie movie, like a real mob, but then the cops left and never came back. Eventually the people stopped fighting and the night continued, more or less. The thing is, it was other tourists fighting, what´s up with people on vacation fighting each other?? It´s vacation! Must have been the moon. Anyway, the crew I was with decided they´d had enough and went home, but it was still too early for me.

I walked away from the Plaza de Armas and stumbled upon a little street that I hadn´t noticed before, but I could hear music from around the corner, and found myself in another little hub of bars and clubs, no zombies here though, just my luck. So I was really just meandering, listening to everyone yelling at me to come into the club (they hire people just to do that at clubs, restaurants, massage parlors, everywhere) and one kid caught my attention, I don´t really know why. His name is Germán anyway. So I went over and talked to him for a second, wiped my dripping nose (it´s cold) and he thought I was asking for cocaine. He told me he didn´t have any but could help. It was funny because that´s not what I was doing, but I guess I was sort of giving that universal signal. He was a really nice guy anyway, we talked for a while and whatever. Next day we hung out, he took Kenj and I to this great restaurant and he showed us some awesome Cusco things. He´s an artist, so naturally has some hippie friends, one of which makes artesenal woven things and sells them in the street. This kid was hilarious and a hell of a nice guy who had too much love in his heart for his own good, and it was actually touching because he really meant it. Then we went and drank Chicha with them at this other awesome place. Chicha, the Cuzco variety, when stripped down to its essence, is a fermented corn drink. It´s foamy and a little bubbly thanks to the fermentation, tastes just like fermented corn, and is supposed to be really good for your system. They serve it in glasses that must hold a liter and a half and require two hands to drink from. Germán hung out with us the rest of the day, gave me one of his drawings for a keepsake, then we parted ways to catch our bus to Arequipa. I really love traveling and meeting new people all the time, but it´s starting to wear me out saying hello and goodbye in the same twenty-four hour time-span. I really hate saying goodbye!

We got into Arequipa this morning an hour and a half early, after almost missing the bus as it pulled out a while before it was supposed to, then they made us feel like assholes for holding everyone up. Things rarely happen early here, so it came as a shock. Anyway, got in to Arequipa, found a hostel by 6 so we dropped our stuff, found an Argentinian guy that was coming home from his Saturday night out, and hung out til breakfast was served. Another really nice hostel, with breakfast included in the price and HOT water. Met these characters at breakfast...well the one has enough character to outweigh the blah-ness of his friend, and sort of set off with them to sight see. The city´s beautiful, got a little taste of it, then went to see this museum that holds a mummy that was found on a volcano in 95, the last time it erupted. This mummy had been frozen since it was sacrificed by the Incas, so it was in nearly perfect condition when they found it as the eruption melted the ice at the peak. Fascinating. They speculate the Incas sacrificed around 500 bodies every major ceremony, and this was normally done on mountain peaks or volcanoes for spiritual reasons. As the earth is warming up, the ice on these peaks is melting, so they´re finding more stuff like this these days. Looking on the bright side of global warming, archeologists should have plenty of work in this continent.

So that was awesome, I have never learned so much from a museum, and it was thanks to a great guide. The guide then recomended us a place to eat, but told us it was where she brings all her tourists. Red flag, we didn´t really have to desire to over pay for shitty food. So we fell back to the usual MO, went to the central market, and I got ceviche again, along with this stuffed pepper, roasted with ground beef, spices, and cheese. We were just talking, the four of us, and this lady sitting with her daughter interjected as we brought up wanting to eat cuy, a regional specialty more associated with Ecuadorian cuisine, but familiar here as well. So this lady was like, you´re crazy to pay so much for it in a restaurant, why don´t we go buy some, you guys come over, and I´ll cook it. We raced around the market, buying fruits and vegetables, cuy, and crammed in a cab to her house. Overjoyed to have found someone local so quickly, Kenj and I were all smiles in the cab on the way there. So we got to the house, chopped, cleaned, and chatted for a few hours, then lunch/dinner was ready. I haven´t had a big Sunday meal in a while so it really hit the spot. Oh yeah, so maybe some of you had a little cuy as a pet as a kid, but I tore it apart tonight...it´s guinea pig. Prepared simply enough, with salt and lime juice, then fried, there´s not a ton of meat on the little guy, but the crispy skin makes it all worth it. Then we had a couple huge salads comprised of these massive, creamy avocados that were really different than what grows in Mexico or California, or the kind that Dominicans eat for that matter. So that was exciting. The other two guys left a little early because the one didn´t feel well. Turns out he went to the hospital and ends up having eaten something toxic that´s rotting his stomach... he´s gonna be fine though, he got some medicine. We stayed, washed dishes and shot the shit with Mari for a couple hours more and had a great time kicking it, practicing the Spanish a little more. Such a great time with such a warm, welcoming, open-minded Catholic middle-aged woman. Annnnnnnd, next time I eat Sunday dinner it´s gonna be with my own family! Pretty excited about that, actually. Like I said, as much as I love meeting new people all the time, I´m sick of goodbyes, and I actually miss some stuff back home! Guess I got summoned for Jury Duty in New York, which I´ll have to work out. Lucky for me, I´m out of the country, HA! Feel like it´s going to be complicated anyway though.


So tomorrow we go to Lima, to stay in Kendra´s Aunt´s neighbor´s husband´s aparment in Miraflores. How exciting. I hope we have some sunny weather that´s warm enough to hang out at the beach a little bit!

Cheap Transportation Alternative from Cuzco to Machu Picchu!!!

This is for the backpackers that are desperately searching for some way to get there without paying the outrageous PeruRail prices. Doesn´t help with the admission fees to the site itself, but hopefully someone will find this while they´re freaking out like I was.

You can get transportation from near Avenida de Sol in Cuzco. Start walking down, away from Plaza de Armas, and ask people because they know where these buses stop. It should cost 5 Soles but the drivers sometimes try to charge you up to 70. Don´t let them screw you! That takes you to Ollantaytambo. That´s where the train to MP stopped before the mudslides, but take another bus from the terminal there to KM82 which is another couple soles. Make sure you get there, it´s important. Then walk along the tracks to Aguas Calientes, which falls at around km 112. It´s quite a hike, and always along train tracks which get uncomfortable, but you can save about U$ 75! If you get nervous, just ask the guard at the station if you can walk along the tracks a little, he told me, ´of course!´ really nicely.

Epic Feats and whatnot

Man oh man, where to start. I´ve been out of the reach of broadband for the past few days again, and for a good reason again. I´ll start at the beginning, I guess, as most stories tend to do.

Tuesday we took a bus about 8 km out from Cuzco and walked through a bunch of archeological sites on the way back. It was really cool, a nice day with perfect weather for walking. Along the way, we met a dog friend and named him Brahma. Brahma´s the beer I drank all through Brazil and Argentina, and the slogan is ´Brahma, Buena Onda´ which basically translates to good vibes, but not quite. I don´t know exactly how to say it but anyway. So this dog was a goofball and I shared my lunch with him, he led us along a horse path to some ruins, then we followed him along this other path trying to find another site. We ran into some mean dogs going that way, and Brahma was just really chill, and basically let us know it wasn´t worth it to pass because those dogs were nasty. He just turned and walked away. But he stayed with us all day until the last ruin, and he was dead tired. Every time we stopped, he would lay down and fall asleep. Every time we left though, he would come chasing after us, to the point that I was worried he´d lose his way home. Finally he realized he had to leave, and it was a sad goodbye, but he was a great companion for the day. Everyone else loved him too. He came and saw all the ruins with us, bounding around old Inca rocks and trying to get other people to feed him... too cute. He did try to bite me though, when I tried to pull some spikey things out of his leg, but I didn´t blame him, he didn´t know any better.


So then we went out on Tuesday night, had an awesome dinner and looked into how exactly we were to get to Machu Picchu. Turned out to be a LOT more complicated than I had thought. First of all, the prices to enter have doubled since whatever we read was researched. Then even getting there is a disaster. It´s insanely expensive to take the advertised transportation to the stupid town of Aguas Calientes, the place you have to go to get to MP. But when something sounds ridiculous, sometimes it is. We paid the equivalent of a couple dollars (rather than around $40) to get to the halfway point. After a little talking with locals, we were told that from there, you can walk along the train tracks no problem. So that´s what we did. That saved us about $75. We started walking from the town, Ollantaytambo, first through some farmland, past bulls, through grain, across irrigation ditches, etc. The scenery, first off, is stunning. The valley is really deep, and the mountains surrounding us were just... monumental, amazingly huge and beautiful. We eventually made our way to the tracks, snapped a few pictures to document our excitement, and carried on because we knew we had about 30 kilometers to walk, and didn´t want to be doing so in the dark. So we walked and walked, along the tracks, and after about an hour, my feet felt pretty hammered thanks to the pebbles that line train tracks. And to give you an idea of my hiking gear, I have one of those silly llama backpacks I bought in Bolivia for a couple bucks, shoes with the Adidas label, but they´re actually called Adalid because they´re knockoffs from Argentina, then jeans and a wool sweater... and it was raining. I´m a huge baby about the rain, then the fact that I was wearing wool made me even more of a baby. The walk was really easy anyway though, mostly flat, and the scenery, breathtaking to the point that it made me stop a few times just to stare. After a while, it looked like scenes from Jurassic Park-huge mountains covered with brilliantly green trees, cacti, sheer rock faces, and the rushing water of the Rio Urubamba hundreds of feet below us. At the start, we passed the KM 68 marker and were a little apprehensive considering Aguas Calientes was at KM 104 or something like that. No one gives you a real map because I think they want to keep it a secret how you get to the town in order to keep the ridiculously high prices. So we set off with a good idea of what we were getting ourselves into.

Around KM 78 we got pretty hungry and stopped for lunch. At that point, we went over what we had been told the day before, and that was to make sure to take the bus to KM82, then walk. So we had added about 13 extra kilometers to the walk at that point. We got to the provisional train station at KM82, which was built recently since the mudslide of a few months ago literaly wiped the tracks into the river. We got to see that first hand on the first 13km of our walk. We were worried that the train people would tell us we weren´t allowed to walk along the tracks, so we tried to sneak around the train station, but the geographic setting sort of makes that impossible unless you can fly. We tried anyway, by scaling this massive mountain side, passing more bulls again, and barely stopping to appreciate how amazingly beautiful everything around us was. But in the end, we just walked back down, I asked the guard if we could walk along the tracks a little bit, and he said of course. So then we kept on trucking. After a certain point, my joints started hurting like crazy and every time we stopped for a rest, it got worse. So Kenj and I both agreed, without actually speaking it, to stop resting. Around KM 90 I think I had thoughts of death running through my mind. I don´t think it would have been quite so bad if we hadn´t been walking on slippery pebbles, but it was rough! Totally worth it though, we just kept thinking about how much money we were saving. Then around km99 we saw some guys with some 2x4s nailed on top of some train wheels, trying to get enough momentum to carry them down the slight descent in the same direction we were trying to go. They told us to hop on. They had a machete and a smaller knife because they appeared to have been cutting some weedy stuff in the jungle beyond the tracks. Despite the tools/weapons, I didn´t care if they killed me, I just wanted to get on some wheels and give my legs a rest, but they didn´t really build their little mobile thing well and we kept derailing. From them, we learned that we had about 2 hours more to Aguas Calientes, and it was already getting dark. When they couldn´t get us anywhere fast, we decided to just walk, FAST. The guys were really nice anyway though.

So then there we were, in the middle of the jungle, in the bottom of a valley, beneath thick clouds, with night tightening its grip on us. Anyone who knows me knows I haven´t really spent too much time in the great outdoors, as great as I think it all is. Not to say I was scared, just saying if something like a Puma or a snake or a nasty spider had jumped out at me, I wouldn´t be sitting here chronicling the story right now. At a point, I was waiting for the joints in my legs to just snap and leave me there stranded. I wondered if anyone ever died from walking at my age, and wondered if, at my age, this feeling was normal. Then it was basically pitch dark and all I could do was keep putting one foot in front of the other. I stumbled, I heard Kendra stumble behind me, and no breath was wasted by talking. For a while we saw some lights illuminating the clouds, and assumed that it must be the town because there is literally nothing else in this valley. Once we actually saw the lights, we got really elated, picked up the pace a little, and came to a bridge! It was a dam. Bummer. Keep going, forget about the pain, forget about dying, hunger, thirst, all that. Just go!

There´s more to tell, but obviously we made it to the town, and suffering is only interesting when you´re in the middle of it, not writing about it. So yeah, we stumbled into the first hostel we found, Kendra sounded like she wanted to shop around for a price, and I wasn´t having it, so we put our bags down, I laid down in bed, and passed out. No dinner, no nothing. Laying down didn´t even feel good, my legs were throbbing! Oh yeah, I fell into an uncovered sewer ditch before that, but it wasn´t deep. Pissed me off a little bit though.

So the next morning, we woke up at 6 and went to the ticket office,  which is where we realized they had doubled the price. I mean, damn Peru. They didn´t even build this thing, it was there before Peru was Peru, but they still charge us so much for it! So we paid for the ticket. Then went to buy bus tickets and for whatever godforsaken reason, the bus station lists prices in dollars instead of the local currency. This is the only place that does this. So we hand over the already expensive 14 soles to the lady, and she looks at us and says ´no, it´s 40 soles, 14 dollars´. Kendra gave her some sass and so did I. We then realized that if we had eaten dinner the night before we wouldn´t have had enough money to make it to Machu Picchu because neither of us could withdraw cash in that town. So I paid 40 soles in as many coins as I could, halfway to be a pain in the ass, but halfway to drop some weight. Got on the bus, then the lady chased me down and said, or yelled rather, to the bus that I short-changed her. Went back, taught her how to count really quick, gave her a really aggravated look with maybe a little too much attitude and threw my hands in the air like a little biatch, then got on the bus. As soon as we got to the top of the hill, the attitude dropped and even though both of us had legs as stiff as a WASP-y dinner party, we enjoyed the hell out of Machu Picchu. How could you not.

First of all, the ruins really are fascinating. No one knows what exactly the purpose of the place was, so it´s all speculation. The town itself is really cool, but there are a ton of hikes around it that you can do, so we climbed around mountains a little bit for some better views. It´s amazing because the place is completely hidden..the way it´s situated on this mountain you would never find it if you were looking for it from below. Maybe that´s why it wasn´t rediscovered until 1911. The huge mountains and deep valley around it make it a truly amazing site to take in even if you aren´t into old archeological stuff, and the plants and animals all around are really incredible too. Big lizards, these things that look like rabbits but have raccoon tails, and llamas/alpacas are everywhere. There are massive orchids growing out of the side of the mountain, humming birds, cactus with fruits, tropical looking trees... amazing. Then  the trails that link all the little sites to each other are amazing, and it´s impressive people don´t die following them because they´re narrow! Even from thousands of feet up, you can still hear the rushing water of the river below, and you´re not really restricted from too many areas within the site so even though there are a lot of other tourists around, you can still find a way to sneak off for some quiet spot to admire from. So that´swhat Kenj and I did after a while, and I took a little nap.

We got back down, decided that it was worth it to pay for a train ticket rather tahn walk again, and crossed or fingers that we could pay with a credit card. We could, so we booked it and were happy happy happy. Then we read about this restaurant in our lonely planet book, which has totally sucked so far, but was finally dead on about something. This place was sooo damn good! A great 3 course dinner, nice bottle of wine, and a few long hours later, we were fat and happy, had seen Machu Picchu, knew we had a train home the next day... it felt really good. We found out this morning, boarding the train, that all in all, we walked 50 km yesterday. That´s 30 miles.

So now we´re back in Cuzco, taking it easy. We´ll chill out and eat tonight, and they have a lot of good happy hours here, so I think it´s time to treat ourselvesa little. Then we´ll go out and see what goes down in Cuzco on Friday night... hopefully I´ll get what I´m looking for. We tried this place that was up my alley on Monday but it was dead, and they told us to come back on a real night and there would be people there. Then we head to Arequipa tomorrow night on an overnight bus, hopefully see some canyons and stuff, then on to my final destination on this continent, Lima. Thanks Pops for helping me out and making it possible to enter my country again without any trouble. Sometimes I feel like an Easter Egg you find in October.... spoiled rotten.

Alrighty then

Finally I´m here, the place that books say myth and fact intertwine, where the history of one civilization is built atop the one that came before it...I´m in Peru! The guy at the border almost didn´t want to let me across because of my provisional passport, but I just stood there long enough for him to decide that it was legit. The last couple days in Bolivia were awesome, and beautiful of course. We went from La Paz to Copacabana, and spent a night there. Copacabana was a little bit reminiscent of the town in Puebla where I got haunted, no joke, and the central square near the cathedral totally spooked me out. Won´t dwell on it, but there was definitely something going on there, and I didn´t like it. So Kenj and I walked around the town for a while, got to the outskirts, and hopped along these pretty huge rocks along the water´s edge for a couple hours. We saw some really ugly hogs that sounded like they wanted to eat us, walked past some houses and felt weird, like we were walking through someone´s back yard, until everyone smiled and said hello. People in Bolivia were really something. So anyway, we had to chase the sunset because I was thinking we could loop all the way around on these rocks and make it back to the docks of the town, but instead there was a cliff face and we had to run back before darkness fell and who knows what kind of boogie men would have come out.

Next day we woke up early to do this hike we had read about. We brought all our bags because the hike would have us end up in this other town with docks, from which we could get to the islands in the middle of the lake. The hike was 17 km, so like 10 miles or something, and there were a lot of hills and rocks and gravel to walk over, eucalyptus groves, and cliffs, plus we both had our two bags. The scenery rocked, just like the book said, and we were both pretty obsessed with ourselves for making it with the luggage. We met a couple girls from Denver, and took a boat to the Isla del Sol, Island of the Sun, with them. First off, the island was a draw for both me and Kendra because, in Inca mythology, it is the site of creation, and the birthplace of the sun. There are some ruins there, which we didn´t see because we´re goofballs, but being there was cool. It´s a decent sized island with a population of around 5,000, no cars, only gravel or cobblestone paths. Donkeys do the heavy lifting because the island is basically the peak of a mountain poking out from the lake... it´s steep! All around the island were those awesome-looking terraces, made from rock walls with no mortar. Hope you know what I´m talking about, otherwise I´ll just have to show you the pictures. The real treat though, was just the lake surrounding us with amazingly blue water, the snowy mountain tops in the distance, and the sunset with a few beers, from the top of this mountainous, mythical island at the end of the day. Perfect! Then we slowly made our way to Puno, Peru the next day. Border crossing, like I said, was pretty uneventful, and from Puno, we took a quick little tour to the Islas Flotantes, Floating Islands. I guess people have lived on these man-made floating islands for centuries. It started out as a means of defense against the Incas and other agressors but now they still live there, and it´s become really touristy. It was interesting anyway, to be walking around on them and seeing all their reed houses and reed boats and reed handicrafts. Everything was made from reeds except for the people.

And now I´m in Cuzco. I woke up this morning a little grouchy. We got here on the bus last night at 4am, got a hostel through this guy making rounds at the bus station, and even though we sorted mostly everything out (money-wise) before we passed out, I was still ready to get ripped off, thanks to what I´ve heard about Peru. So far, so good. But anyway, the mood passed before I even showered, when I went outside to grab an OJ from the guy across the street and stood there a minute to take in the scenery from the street outside the hostel, and appreciate the fact that SHIT, I´m in Cuzco! The city´s awesome, I had the best shower in probably 2 weeks this morning, then we explored. It´s always fun exploring with Kendra because we do the touristy bit really quick, snap our pictures, and then instantly find that we´ve wandered to the place where no tourists are around. Here, that meant this massive maze of street markets that radiate out from the Central Market of the city, which is just as awesome but a little more touristy from what we gathered. There, we just wandered around, marveling at all the meat and vegetables and fish... cow heads, stomachs, intestines, balls, sheep heads, pig hooves and ears, and of course the pieces that are more familiar to us. Then we stopped off in this one section with all the tropical fruits to get some juice. We each had a juice of aloe vera with egg white. It´s supposed to be good for your digestive tract. I hope it´s good for that because it´s not really good. Then, sitting there, I spotted the ceviche counter. One of my favorite foods, which I rarely eat, was sitting right in front of me. So obviously, I had to get knee dip into that, and it was sooooo damn good. It was different than other ceviche peruano I´ve had before- there was lettuce and red onion, the cured fish, THEN some fried squid, seawead, rice, then these toasted beans... holy hell, I was in heaven again.

So anyway, we´re here. Nightlife seems to be a little more interesting and varied than in Bolivia, so I might have to take advantage of my last couple weeks of real, fun night life (shakin it til the sun comes up) before I go back to Atlanta. Tomorrow we´re planning a day trip to a few different Inca sights, then Wednesday we´ll probably go to a couple more ruins on the way to Aguas Calientes, the jump-off point to Macchu Pichu. We decided to sleep there one night, even though we heard stupid things about the town, so that we could catch the first bus up the mountain, watch the sun rise before the buses of tourists come to ruin the scene, then stay as long as we want. Doing a trek up a trail will have to be on my next-time-list for a lot of reasons, but we´ll see what we came to see!

Well, that´s that. I´m here, I´m elated, I´m seeing some awesome shit and having a great time.

Stones and Bones

Writing from my last day in La Paz now. I really like this city! Kenj and I wandered basically to the polar opposite side of town today, and it´s really cool. No tourists, just straight up barrio. There´s this massive market (Fairway style for the NYers) with nothing but hanging carcasses of llama, cow, chicken, everything that is edible, then the next section is fish (I guess from lakes around because we´re landlocked) and then every vegetable ever invented. Upstairs is a cafeteria, so Kenj and I grabbed our first coffee in a while up there. It´s funny how damn good coffee is once you haven´t had it in a while. Habits like that will never die for me, scary. I´m kind of searching out whatever distribution center all the street vendors pick up their hand-crafted wares because I´m thinking how insanely profitable it would be to sell this stuff back home. Literally, stuff would go for 10 times the price on the street, and considering those guys get it from somewhere.... I could make a fortune and be back to Nyc in a second. Well, at least I could make some drinking money. Figure if I hang out in Little 5 Points (ATL) for a week, I can probably sell all of it and get a new tattoo. Anyway, I´m not in the position to be spending money on anything but a bed and food at this point (there´s too much to see) so all that speculation is on the back burner.

Yesterday I went to this old Inca site a couple hours outside La Paz, Tiahuanacu. The spelling varies, and that happens with a lot of words here, as they incorporate other languages with Spanish. Bolivia is really cool. I definitely want to come back here when I have more time and money to spend. A lot of things about Argentina came off as kind of goofy-the people, the attitudes sometimes, just in general. But Bolivia seems to just be. It is the way it is because that´s their way. The city, while being so crowded, is so subdued. People, for the most part, speak slowly and softly, and although we stick out like sore thumbs, we never really get stared at, even in non-touristy parts. It´s interesting because I guess Bolivia is, by numbers one of the poorest countries on the continent, and while things here are relatively basic compared to Argentina, you see a lot less poverty day-to-day. It´s hard to speculate on shit like that as a tourist, but from that perspective, that is how it looks. There aren´t the street children and families here like in Buenos Aires, and the city also lacks a lot of the silly things like pickpocketing and taxis robbing you that the Paris of the Americas was loaded with. The attitude of vendors in general is just amazingly nice, calm, never pushy, always saying nice things like ´joven´ or ´usted´ just being respectful.

At the Inca site, I had to buy a bajillion trinkets from the little artisan fair they have. Kendra was in a museum that I didn´t want to pay for, so I moseyed over there like a good little southern boy. All the stalls basically have the same things, so you really just choose who you want to buy from. There was this little old lady, napping in her chair, who snapped up as I walked past and started talking. She had a really nice face so I decided I´d buy from her. There are a ton of little animals and symbols carved out of stone, and I learned the significance of some the other day in Uyuni. So I asked her about the other ones, and figured they´d make nice souvenirs for my kid cousins and baby bro. There´s one to help you earn money, one to guard your path (maybe that´s my next tattoo, opposite the sphinx) one for a happy journey, health, love, to ward off bad things, all kinds of things. Then I bought a couple old Inca symbolic things, the same things that everyone who has been to Bolivia will undoubtedly have, because it´s all the same. Cool, nonetheless. Then I asked the lady about the hats that so many women wear and she explained that it´s just a hat, and their word for it is ______ which of course I don´t remember, but in Spanish it´s sombrero. I was hoping for some mystical significance, but I guess sometimes you just have to let your imagination go.

Then I ran to catch up with Kendra, who had passed me while I was shooting the shit with the lady. I caught up and realized that I was in a part of the site that you were supposed to pay for, but I was slick and walked past the guards. I mean, they were lazy and didn´t check my ticket. I really had no idea. Anyway, we saw an old pyramid, or what´s left of it, and some cool old statues of dieties and the puerta del sol, the door to the sun, which does something funny with the shadow on the day of the summer solstice. The symmetry on these sites is really cool-there´s a small opening in a wall made of solid rock, one stacked upon the other, perfectly straight, without mortar, and if you stand dead center in the opening, different figures line up perfectly. I´m obsessed with all this ancient stuff, and can´t get enough. I guess that was just a little teaser compared to Peru though.

Before we left the ruins, we wandered through a field. I don´t know why, but I´ve been picking up random bones that I find on the ground. They´re Llama bones or something, so I´m using them as souvenirs. Then we kept finding tiny random pieces of ceramic, like the pieces you see in museums of the Incas. The field was sort of a site that hadn´t been excavated yet, and it felt like we shouldn´t have been walking in it, but no one told us anything otherwise. So anyway, I grabbed a few pieces of ceramic, hoping that maybe they came from an old Inca relic. I mean, it´s totally possible, but I also saw a bunch of broken beer bottles too. Whatever, to me, it´s the ceramic of the Incas.

Alright, well tomorrow I go to Copacabana, which has a beach but should be nothing like the famous one. It´s our jump-off point into Lake Titicaca, this massive lake in the mountains. We´ll see the Isla del Sol (the Inca creation site) among other islands there, and this lake divides Bolivia and Peru. So it´s possible that I won´t be online again until I get to Cuzco. Oh, the street food here is decently good. Not overly greasy, there are some spicy salsas, and it´s delish. I´ve been eating these steak sandwiches with this onion-pepper-spice mix on top, with a spicy tomato salsa and fries. It´s pretty amazing, and costs about 80 cents if we´re talking US standards. Get outta town with that, Bolivia is a good place to be when the cash flow is waning.

Back down to Earth

Sobre las nubes, en un otro mundo, bajo el mismo sol...


Wow, so there aren{t any words to describe the past four days on this tour through Southern Bolivia. It could have been another planet, or 12 other planets for how diverse the landscapes were, and how utterly desolate some of the places are! Never has desolation looked so beautiful! So like I said before, we saw some beautifully toxic lagoons, flamingoes, llamas, all kinds of other high altitude creatures, dunes, deserts, mountains, a TON of volcanoes and the rock formations that came from their lava flows thousands and millions of years ago, through tiny villages that have been around for centuries where population is quoted by the number of families that live there.... too many things to describe and too many things that the photos won{t even come close to doing justice to. If youre down for roughing it a little bit and like that kind of stuff, you HAVE to do this. We had an awesome guide and cook, and joined a French pair who turned out to be really awesome. No one in the car spoke English, so it was finally an opportunity to only speak Spanish in South America... ridiculous! Bolivia is different though, because it isn{t made for tourists like Argentina is, and that is awesome. The smaller towns where the tours depart from are naturally really touristy, but it{s as if tourism is separated from town life, because the streets are still full of stalls selling typical food, crafts, kitchenware, clothes... anything you would ever need.

The first night, we stayed at a hostel that was a little over 4000 meters up, and freezing. The night was perfectly clear and the moon was waning, and I saw more stars than I{ve ever seen in my life, it was breath-taking! The next night, we topped out at around 4800 meters... almost 3 miles!... and got to the hostel in time to see an amazing sunset as it dropped between two mountain peaks. Pretty much every sight we saw took my breath away so I can{t really even summarize what the coolest thing was.

Now we are in La Paz. We came on an overnight bus with our companions from the tour, and that bus ride was pretty incredible too. The first half or so was on a rode so bumpy that the light and panel above Kendra{s seat broke and fell off! She didn{t even wake up, and I was sleeping too when one of the passengers behind us sort of lept over me and caught the light before it smacked her face. Then one of the bus workers came by and said sorry and ripped off the rest of the panel that was bouncing around. It was funny. Mostly funny that we slept so well on a bus that made it feel like we were having a seizure for 5 hours. The ride was around 12 hours in total, or something like that, so we got in this morning, went to a hostel that our new friends had recomended, took our first shower in a week, and now Kenj and I are walking around La Paz. It{s a really cool city so far. We walked alongside a protest-march which we couldn{t figure out the purpose of, but it was pretty chill. They passed a bunch of older ladies in the street who were arguing against the protesters and throwing bits of bread and confetti at them and laughing their asses off while yelling at them to shut up. La Paz lives up to its name so far. Plus you can buy literally almost anything in the world on the street. The city is only a million people, but maybe due to the mountains squeezing it all into a relatively small valley, it feels like it could be 12 million. The traffic and driving is nuts, it{s crowded with winding, hilly streets, and just really distinct all around! Street food is everywhere so I{m about to have my way with whatever I find out is typical here. THere is a witch market where they have a ton of natural cures for every malady, so I might as well stroll through and pick up something for diarrhea because it{s inevitably on its way. I don{t even care, as long as I enjoyed everything on its way down!

The way the trip is going is really nice because for every few days in a city, we take a few days out, way out, from a city. It makes me appreciate nature and urbanity so much more! Driving through the bolivian wilderness is probably the coolest thing I can say that I{ve seen in my life, and so moving! They seem to be really conscious of maintaining the natural beauty of the place too, which is really nice. The tours have their track, they don{t ram through any vegetation or leave garbage around, you{re only aloud to get so close to certain things so people don{t destroy what is there, and all the buildings get power from solar panels. It really is amazing to be surrounded by so much natural beauty and considering that our society in general doesn't really pay any respect to it. I'm not crazy, I've never been one to feel the earth bleed or hear a tree cry, but ever since the movie Fern Gully sufficiently ruined my childhood, I get a little maniacal about the destruction of nature for some short-term profit making and some serious long term damage. Being here, in the midst of such awesomely powerful forces of nature, I started thinking that maybe we aren't exactly destroying earth, but rather destroying our ability to inhabit it. After we're gone, some other creatures must be coming to take our place, and the scars we've left will fade away...this shit isn't going anywhere, but we're like dinosaurs walking.. maybe I'm wrong though. I don't think so, but science finds a way to support both sides... who can say.

So anyway, I just realized how quickly time has flown and how soon I am going home. Every time I realize that I get a little shock because I really haven't seen nearly the amount of things I would like to! I'll have to come back here, duh, and take a lot more time in Bolivia and places further north. I would like to see the extremes of this country - I guess the Amazon basin sort of dumps itself in Northeast Bolivia, so that would be an awesome contrast to the miles-high deserts and volcanoes of the other side of the country. It really is nice to be in La Paz now though, where I can take care of my eyes, sleep warm (by the way our hostel costs $3.50 a night) be out of moving vehicles for a few days, and eat some hot food! The people here are awesome too.. not that I've talked to too many (yet) but our guide, Oshin, had really cool perspectives about things and the general feeling you get is just... I don't know, very warm, chilled out, and you can see a lot of cultural elements and traditions that go back centuries at least, probably millenia! It's really cool being here, and I´m totally going to come home looking like that American kid that goes on vacation and tries too hard. Meaning, I have a ton of stuff from Bolivia and Argentina because since I got robbed in BA, literally everything I have-luggage, toothpaste, contacts, sweaters, shoes, are all from down here. They sure do make nice stuff though!

Another sunrise, first FREEZING morning!

Dude, we made it! For all the people that said we wouldn´t get into Bolivia... suck it!

So yesterday we hit Tucuman, like I blogged about in the previous post, then that night we headed out on the bus for the border town, La Quiaca. There seems to be a recurring theme on these buses, and it is that a kid next to me or in front of me is always throwing up! I used to get really grossed out by puke, but that faded a little bit once I got to college and started doing it a lot.. but when it´s everywhere, it´s kind of like stepping over dog shit in the street, no big whoop. But still, gross!

Back tracking a little bit, at the last night in Mendoza at our amazing hostel, Kendra and I had decided to have a quiet night since we were set to wake up early for the bikes and wine tour the next day. We were in bed by midnight, amidst the drunken rambling of the Irish and American kids hanging out in front of our door. Fell asleep like a rock but around 3.30 we woke up because everyone was fighting-like MTV show style-for about an hour and a half. It was pretty hilarious so I wasn´t really bothered by it at all, until it dragged on and one girl shoved me. I was sooo ready to get all Jersey Shore, but whatever. It ended with one guy passing out in a chair and peeing on himself, and everyone else thrown all around the hostel in different parts. It was funny but sad at the same time, but it did restore my faith in reality TV because before that, I didn´t really believe grown ass people could act like such animals. Anyway, that was our last night in Mendoza. Then we had that overnight bus after the bike tour. The tour wore me out so I slept like a rock on that bus. Then the few hours in Tucuman, then the overnight bus which brought us to La Quiaca early this morning. That one didn´t give me or Kendra much chance to sleep. So we rolled in, already in a different world in one of the farthest Northern reaches of Argentina, caught a taxi to the border checkpoint, and signed out of Argentina for good. Then all the little people with backpacks walk to the Bolivia side, and if you´re from the US you pay a decently hefty fee and fill out some paperwork to enter, and bam you´re in. Only thing is, they need a photocopy of your passport, or a picture of you. I was lucky enough to be carrying a few pictures of myself that my roomy had sent me. One was from Halloween when I dressed the part of Samantha from Sex and the City. Another was my face on a different body, with a hysterical outfit and a great haircut. hmmm what to do. Then I did actually find one normal one, that I really liked, of me Michael and Drew from one of the Christmas parties, so I had to give that up. They laughed, but I kind of wished that I would have had to give them one of the others.

So then we took the bus from Villazon, Bolivia´s border town, to Tupiza, which was absolutely incredible. The scenery is out of this world. Started out as desolate mountains and sand, then cactus plants started popping up, then the mountains evolved from blank walls of rock into forest covered peaks. There is a river bed, which is dry for the season, and a lot of really amazing colors to see. I was dead tired and wanted to sleep but couldn´t keep my eyes shut in case I missed something. All this is while driving down a road that is currently being paved, maybe repaved, so a lot of the trip was this huge, double decker bus, bouncing around the desert. Awesome. Then we came up to this tunnel that cut through two mountains, and it was miraculous that the driver didn´t hit the sides! It was like the tunnel was made to perfectly fit this bus and nothing more. The rocks in there looked like those Disney World fake rocks, they were so clean and precisely cut. So a little more breathtaking scenery over about 3 hours, I think, and then we landed in Tupiza. Feels just like it should. I guess we´re about 3000 meters above the sea, so what, 9000 feet... you can feel it a tiny bit, like I have to walk slow because I feel like I might pass out. So we walked out of the bus station, with no idea what this town held in store for us, only knowing that we want to see the salt flats, the Salares de Uyuni, named for the town about 4 hours north of here, but within reach nonetheless. So the long and short of it, we signed up for a four day tour, starting here, ending in Uyuni, where we´ll stop by some tiny villages, swim in some thermal springs, see two volcanoes, one of which is active and smoking, geisers, desert, lagunes of all colors, and salt flats. If my excitement dial went from one to ten, I´d be at eleven.

So anyway, I´m off the map for the next four days. No nothing. Hopefully I can pick up a couple more disposable cameras before this trek, but that´s looking a little doubtful. I tried to buy contact solution but the lady at the pharmacy told me ´not in this town´. So in the worst case, I´ll end up with crusty eyes and no pictures, but it really won´t matter because just being here, feeling Bolivia, it´s like breathing in a whole new adventure. I was ready to leave Argentina, and now I´m really happy to be here. As usual, it´s hard to put it into words, but the vibes here are so different from everywhere else. The people are really cool, really slow, quiet... it´s definitely a break from the pace of Buenos Aires. There are a lot of people milling around right now, but it´s just so quiet and chill! All the women are bundled up with so much wool thrown over their shoulders, the top hats, the mountains in the distance... it´s like every book or movie made the place out to be. But it´s only going to get better.

Funny twist of fate again. I met this cool chick from San Francisco in Iguazu, and now she´s staying in the exact same hostel as me here. That was over 2 months ago, how random! Especially considering Kenj and I ended up at this hostel because a girl chased us down the street and asked us if we would stay there. Funny.

Alright, well I have a lot of feelings right now, hence the long entry. But I still can´t say how freaking excited I am for this 4 day thing and for the rest of the awesomeness that this country and Peru have in store. All of this high altitude excitement is kind of making my head spin though. They say to walk slowly, eat a little, and sleep all by your little self while you get used to the altitude. No fun. I ate a massive lunch today and couldn´t have felt better. I am heeding the other two pieces of advice though, not happily! But I´m excited to really get into the country, chewing coca leaves, freezing, treking, and pretending to be tough.

So long, VOS, welcome back TU

I survived the bike tour! I knew I would, I just wanted to put a little cliff hanger for the faithful readers out there. It was really nice, got to taste a lot of wines and see how all the magic happens, and we finished off at this crazy beer garden. It was basically a wooden hut with a bar and a bathroom, a field, and couches. The beer was good, but the vibe was really awesome. We got the bikes around 11 in the morning, went around and did our thang, then ended at the beer garden, after several vineyards, at 7:05. We were supposed to have the bikes back by 7 or else be charged a fee for making the guys stay late, so we rode back like bats outta hell. Right before we pulled out of the gravel street from the beer garden though, the friend we had picked up along the way rode right into a ditch and did a little mini-flip over the handle bars. There was a cop on a motorcycle who watched, and he followed us all the way back to the bike place, telling us when to go when we were waiting at stop signs. It was really fun getting a police escort but he was probably just hoping another one of us would fall so he could laugh about it some more.

So I´m writing from the bus station in (San Miguel de) Tucuman right now. We have a bus that leaves in about an hour, which takes us to the border town La Quiaca, at which point we cross into Villazon, Bolivia hopefully, then straight up to either Uyuni or Tupiza! Bolivia is possibly what I´m most excited about, but there are a lot of discrepancies in the information detailing what is actually needed to enter the country. Sooo we´ll find out tomorrow. If not, we´ll take a bus and backtrack a bit, go through Chile and straight up to Peru along the coast. Hopefully Bolivia wants us to go though, because I really want to see it. The change of scenery from Mendoza, 14 hours away from where I am now, is really different. We´re pretty much surrounded by mountains now, and looking out the bus window, you get these killer views of farmland that appears to stretch endlessly until it hits the foot of the Andes, it´s really nice. There are no clouds in the sky, it´s nice and crisply fresh, and everywhere you go, a Cumbia beat follows. Kenj and I walked around a bit tonight just to kill time as the sun was setting, and the nightlife was already picking up. If you like dark clubs and hookers, this is THE place to be! For real though, the town is really nice. It´s where the first constitution of Argentina was drafted so it holds some serious patriotic value.

Alright, well it´s burning up in this kiosk and I´m about to freak out, so I´ll leave this there. Now that I´m perfectly used to the Argentinian accent and funny words they add to the language, it´s time to get back to some basics, hopefully. Can´t wait to see what comes next, hopefully the following update is from Bolivia! Don´t cry for me, Argentina!

Mothers

First off, happy mothers day to all you mothers out there. Hope your kids make you really damn happy today, and I hope all the kids are suffering a little bit on account of their mothers. It was always my least favorite ´holiday´ ever because I hate doing yardwork.

I´m in Mendoza now! Cordoba was a flash, but I´m really glad we stopped there. We got in on the bus around 7am and got a hostel for one night. Nightlife is supposed to be really great there because like 90 percent of the population (don´t quote that stat) is below 25 yrs old. I wouldn´t know because I passed out in bed before I was supposed to go to some party with some Israeli guys I met. L-A-M-E! So I can´t tell you anything about nightlife there, but the city is really nice. At just over a million people, it was like being able to breathe again after BA. I think we probably walked around the entire city too, from the bus station to the hostel, through a big park, through all the plazas, to the river (which was mostly a grassy field) and everything. So that´s Cordoba.

We went out last night in Mendoza, which is even smaller than Cordoba, and considerably more charming. The urban layout is very Philly-a central main square surrounded by four smaller squares, and the city sort of radiates out from there. It´s really pretty, calm, quiet, and the food is good. Anyway, we ended up at this club last night, and it ended up being really fun, and funny. Argentina is really funny in general. Can´t say why exactly, it just is. So now I´m back on the backpacker schedule and lifestyle. The only responsibility is to try to get up for breakfast, and make sure I don´t miss any more buses, like I did in Puerto Iguazu. At least I didn´t pull a Tommy-boy there, the driver stopped and waited. This hostel I´m at is insane. It´s called Dama Juana (not to plug or anything) and it´s like a resort! Relative to hostels anyway. There´s a nice TV room, a little pool, everything is kept up nice, and the bathrooms have freaking granite countertops! Honeymoon-on-a-budget, hello. Mendoza is just really pretty in general-the mountains in the distance make a great background anywhere, and there are palm trees right next to pine trees-it looks awesome! Almost like a more tropical Italy. Tomorrow I´m going on a bicycle tour between a bunch of vineyards. How perfect. If I don´t update within the next 3 or 4 days, assume I met my demise smiling because nothing sounds better-wine, mountains, biking, fall weather... what else could you need?

I´m going to leave the computer for someone else now and go watch Tomb Raider on the big TV they have.

Don't Cry for me, Buenos Aires

Alright, so the going away party last night was really tame, but a really nice goodbye. Everyone at Piola was really nice. Whenever someone leaves here, everyone has to give a little speech, like a toast. I personally love toasts, and this goodbye process has made me be a little bit more comfortable making one - having to do it in Spanish made me realize I shouldn't be self-conscious to do it in my own language ever again-at least I'll know what I'm saying. Anyway. 

In a couple hours, we leave this view behind forever

The photo is from my friend Justin's album of his visit here. It's looking out from our balcony. I like that balcony. There are also some new photos up on Kendra's picasa web album, HERE! I've been snapping with a few disposable cameras, so once I get home, I can show a few of my own pictures from this leg of the trip. I can't believe that we're already heading out! The time here has been so nice but I am pretty excited not to be having to dodge buses and rich ladies' big purses every time I step out the door. The purses more-so - a lady with a big purse, hiding her eyes behind a big pair of sunglasses, can be much more daunting than a big bus. And more dangerous, statistically speaking.

So yeah, tomorrow this time, I'll be in Cordoba. A couple days from now, I'll be careening down some street in Mendoza, lips purple from wine. Then who knows.

A Quicky from La Matanza

I´m sitting in Sylvia´s house now, just hanging out on the internet while the people who live here are doing normal night-time things. Sylvia is the one in charge of the cooperative I´m volunteering at. We´ll eat dinner soon-ish, I guess, then I´ll go to the bakery for my last time. As much as I want to say I won´t miss those overnight shifts, I kind of will! The stories told by Alejandra that hurt my brain, heart, and soul, the smells wafting from the oven, buttery dough between my fingers, the delirium that tightens its grip around 5.30, the sunrise and the knowledge that sleep is soon to follow, and the euphoria that comes with that realization....drinking mate, smoking cigarettes, trying not to fall down. It´s been really fun, and a crazy experience. I don´t mean to be a baby or a martyr about it, it was just definitely more intense than what I had anticipated! But I came here for experience, and that´s what I got, and I would have had it no other way. These hours have worked out perfectly because I´ve been able to hustle a few things at the market between English classes and bakery shifts. K Gotta run.... later
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OK, now here I go to finish that. I had to go buy some dinner stuff last night, so that's why I got cut off. I just had a great last day at the coop, it was so much fun. I slept 3 hours in Alejandra's bed this morning, as usual, and I'm about to go to my going-away party in a couple hours, but I'm really energized! I'm always a little excited to be leaving or arriving somewhere, and this time that is going to have to get me through a few days w/ no sleep... because when you go out with Argentinians, you can't even think about getting home before sun-up. That's for bitches!

Anyway, last week I told my regular students that this would be my last week so they brought money today para tomar gaseosa y comprar facturas, to get some soda and pastries from the bakery where I work. They're between 10 and 12, I was blown away! Then I hung out with Nico, the 18 yr old kid that works at the bakery during the day to sell the stuff we make all night. When we sit around, there are usually just a few guys and we drink mate and they blow kisses and whistle at almost every single girl that walks past. Nico kissed at this one girl earlier, and this older lady came back and asked who kissed at her, joking, laughing her ass off. Then he said te amo, blanco to this girl (he was referring to the white sweater she was wearing) but I am also blanco because I'm white, so this other older lady made fun of him because she said it was like he was telling me he loved me. I ended up selling a few things (a couple CDs I took from the apartment, a can of tomato paste, a couple pairs of pants) and made a few pesos, then did my last round of goodbyes and thankyous to everyone. I was saying bye to Sylvia and Alejandra (Sylvia is Ale's aunt) and she was really sweet. First off, she's just an awesome lady - determined to make the coop a success, and in doing so, she does amazing things. It was me, Sylvia, and Ale holding her baby. Sylvia told me that whenever I come back, the doors to the coop are open to me. Then she added, the door to my house too, of course! And Alejandra-And to my bed too, haha (nothing scandalous, obviously) then her baby said y la teta! Saying that Ale's tit is always open to me... everyone was offering me something, and I guess his thought process was that he should offer me his mom's breast. It was hysterical.

So now I'm basically packed up to go. I'm going with almost nothing this time! Not that I have a lot after the first night in BA kicked my ass, but I got rid of a few things anyway just because I don't need a lot. So now I look like I'm going to the gym. I met this really awesome chick yesterday, Amanda from Canada, who's 33 and teacher, and is volunteering at La Juanita. She's helping them out with the Kindergarten that just started. An amazing feat actually, which I can't type about because it's too long a story. Anyway, she's one of those people that I think I blogged about before-you know them for an instant, but they give you a little idea that you carry for the rest of your life. We just talked for the almost-hour bus ride but she left a big impression! I don't know how to explain without sound a little crazy, but we talked about following feelings and staying focused on a goal while trusting that the directions you are pulled in are drawing you for some purposeful reason. Then we talked about The Alchemist, one of my favorite books, a gift from my bro Nick one xmas, and one of the better presents I've ever gotten. Read it if you're into somewhat sappy, transcendental, follow your dreams shit, but if you're not, you'll hate it. We talked about the game monopoly, in relation to the coop vs. business set-up, and it was such an interesting conversation! OK so here's the summary-take the game monopoly but instead of playing for yourself, play with the goal of everyone ending with the same amount of money. The closer you get to having the same amount of property and cash, the closer you all are to winning. Once the board is filled with houses and hotels, and you can't develop any more, the game is over, and everyone is good. From an urban planning standpoint, it's an exciting way to think about this game that I hate-fill that board up! But it's a great metaphor also-play the same game under a different set of rules (or ideology) and it's totally different, and everyone wins! So duh, normally the game ends because one person, with enough money to do so, buys everyone else out and once you have no more capital, you're S-O-L. But this way, every time someone cashes in on something, all the players conspire for the next player to cash in as well, so the cash at hand grows and grows, in the hands of everyone, rather than one person being the fat cat and everyone else being miserable. Hmmm the metaphor could go really far but due to the diverse readership (hopefully) of this blog, I'll cut it there. Interesting thought anyway. It's all mostly to say the point of a coop is that it functions like that. That's why I loved working there, and during money-talks it was really amazing to see people not being greedy. Solidarity...if only it was so easy.

Alright, I'm going to make some rice with this butternut squash I snagged from the farm, then get ready to go to my going-away party! Last night in BA, it's going to be crazy!
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Oh yeah! Uruguay was nice! It was Labor Day May 1, and nothing was open at all, not even buses! So we got there at 6am and passed out on the beach for a few hours. Amazing. Then we walked across almost the entire city and found a hostel. It was really calm, just like a vacation from vacation should be. We met a couple kids from BA and had a good time, then took the boat back on Sunday night with one of the girls from the hostel. That was after I left my book, with all of our return tickets in it, on the bus that took us from Montevideo to Colonia. I'm an idiot, and I told Kendra to get ready for plenty more of that on the trip we have ahead of us. It was a good warm-up. I bought some wool socks at this huge market there, and caught this guy in the middle of opening my backpack to rob me. He was really charming about it, actually. Today, walking to the convi from La Juanita, I caught a girl opening up my friend's bag. On the way back to the apartment the other night, there was a massive bloody mess, CSI style, on the sidewalk leading away from the ATM I used to go to when I had money in the bank. Like, a carnal bloody mess, really, you could even smell the blood. I don't know if it's a sign to watch my ass for the rest of the trip, which I'd be doing anyway, or a sign that I will continue to miss out on the bad things like that. If I get robbed again, no one will be impressed.

This post has taken a total of about 38 hours because it's now 5 am and after my goodbye party. I had planned on doing something crazy but we didn't end up leaving Piola. The guys at the bar sent us a bottle of champagne for a goodbye gift, and that made me reeallllly happy. Then Lorena came back w/ Kenj and I to drink that, and we watched Brazil carnaval videos on YouTube for about an hour, which made me REALLY happy. That was really the best week ever, I hope I can do it again sometime really soon. So tomorrow we go. We both have a lot of things to get together for the trip, but don't have to leave this apt. til 6 at night, so I can see myself sleeping until around then. I'm not sure how I'm still awake right now, but I'm even more impressed that my companions at the bakery pull the same hours every night. Raul has a 2 hour commute to this job, and Ale has a baby. Neither of them ever sleep, and I'm on autopilot on a joy-ride thru delirium just from working one night like that. Buenos Aires has kicked my ass, but I could have used a good ass-kicking before I came.

"Las memorias son mas importante que dinero"

Yeah so a certain quirk of fate necessitates my leaving Argentina and re-entering before I leave for real. Since my passport with the entry stamp is gone with the wind (ahhh along with my poor puma kicks) I need to get a stamp proving that I actually entered the country legally. That's to say...

Surprise, last-minute trip to Uruguay!

I've wanted to see Montevideo and Colonia since I've been here but figured I'd save the money for my grand exit from magnificent Southern America. However, leaving and coming back is going to allow me to get some more money, so not only am I excited to go, I have to go. It's my destiny. Almost everyone in Buenos Aires has been to Uruguay since it's an easy jump to make if you need to renew a tourist visa (to stay in Argentina legally) so there have been plenty of travel tips to go around. It sounds like it's going to be a really calm, relaxing weekend. I'm going with this guy, Ryan, who I met at the farm, and Kendra. I'm most likely going to be hanging out watching sunrises and sunsets on the beach, drinking mate, drinking beer, and buying very cheap travel things at some street market that gets rave reviews from trusted sources.

So my last weekend in Buenos Aires is actually going to be spent out of the country. Kind of silly I know, but things have tended to take silly turns more often than not around here. Most of the Scandinavian friends I've met are leaving this weekend for good also because they are all here on a study program that just ended. I went to their end-of-semester party last night at this bar in Palermo which turned out to be a costume party. I found out about the costume thing somewhat last minute, but don't exactly have a wealth of clothing choices anyway (I could be "Drew" or "Michael" or "Charly" bless their souls), so Kendra packed her little bottle of fake blood which made its last, and epic, appearance at the "holiday party" at my sorely missed apt in The Heights. This party was thrown to celebrate it all - Christmas, Hanukkah, life in general, the season in general.... but was really a Christmas-decorated, pop-music themed, heathen shit-storm that miraculously didn't earn us a bullet or 30 through the floorboards. Anyway, the blood was a hit, and after a brief period of tension (the Vikings don't warm up to things so fast) everyone who was anyone had at least a little blood smeared on their forehead or forearm. Thanks Kenj.

So then, May 5, all of this ado will be left behind. I don't think I've ever been quite as excited for something as I am for what's coming my way in the next month. We start off easy, drinking wine in Mendoza, coming down from the BAires buzz and seeing some night- and cultural life in Cordoba, and some mountains in Salta. Then headspinning natural beauty in Bolivia, and finally, BAM, Peru. Since I was a wee lad in history class, I've been enthralled to the point of obsession with ancient civilizations. It all started with the Romans. And the Greeks of course, and the myths that inspired my tattoo. Then the Aztecs, which gave me the idea for the first AIM screen name I ever created... whatever, I've always been a weird kid. But mannnn oh man the Incas, truly amazing. I can't even begin to describe by typing how emotionally charged I feel about this whole thing. I don't think there are words anyway, it's just going to be awesomely moving, I'm going to freak out.

A big part of the travel research (which isn't too extensive, something I realized is almost worthless once I got down here) is reading peoples' travel blogs. Most people who have travel blogs actually blog about things they do, rather than rant about whatever is pushing their buttons at the moment. But these people also complain A LOT, which is interesting to read because they write about the worst possible things that could happen. Good to have a picture of how bad it can get before you go. Every plan made on a trip like this has to be made very loosely no matter what, but especially when Kenj and I will be cutting up through Bolivia and Peru, things can get complicated. Simple stuff like infrastructure issues, schedules (or lack of adherence to them), strikes, protests... things that hinder your journey but don't really affect how good of a time you have as long as you're in the mindset to enjoy the SHIT out of everything you're doing. And go prepared with enough supplies to last you a couple days of being stranded, just in case. So I'm excited to be meeting new people again, being on the run, living out of a gym bag and washing my underwear in the shower, stealing bread from the hostel breakfast in the morning to use for a sandwich at lunch....backpacking can be so fun.... and it's soooo not gay. Sometimes I just sit and wonder who I even am and how I could be enjoying this so much. Whatever, I would rather be doing nothing else in the world right now, and as much as I'm going to miss this city, I'm really excited to be leaving the whole urban situation again!

And Auntie-I'll try to stay healthy as best as I can but you know how I eat...

Reminiscing and Forward Thinking

Here are a few pics for the people that don't have me on facebook.. this one is on Ilha Grande in Brazil.

And here, the beach kicked my ass, so I slept on that log. Beautiful beach though, right?

How bout that? Iguazu falls, amazing.

Me and Natasha, on a boat, after a full day of fun in the sun and trekking thru the forest.

We had just gotten kicked out of this church in Rio, but here's a few of the hostel/Carnaval crew 

Me feeling awesome in front of the  Copacabana Palace Hotel. Just after the first parade of the night had finished, just before the maniacal disaster I was to become in Lapa. Thanks to Athena for the pic

Leanne was the shit. Met her and Zoe at breakfast alone in the morning, then went mad that night. Behind us are the famous Lapa arches... fun spot! Leanne's photo.

 I could have died and gone to heaven. Great company with Sian and Sandra from the hostel, a perfect sunset, and the perfect spot in one of the most amazing cities I've ever seen. Screw San Fran, I left my heart in Rio de Janeiro! Thanks Sian for the photo

Throwing it back to week 2 in Sao Paulo. We are in the midst of a car chase that ended with me schooling the hostel crew on a couple things that night. Thanks to Rory for the photo.

OK hope you guys enjoy the photos! None of them are mine due to A) the fact that my camera got stolen, but B) I never  took that many pictures anyway. 

It's just a lazy Sunday, sitting around and reminiscing a bit while Kendra and I plan the next leg of our trip. Laundry, beer, and a travel research meeting between the two of us is what I have planned for this afternoon. This weekend has been the most relaxed so far, of the entire trip! On Friday, we went to a house party. It could have easily been a Brooklyn house party, but the vibes were much friendlier. The only difference is that here, instead of jungle juice, the botella loca makes rounds throughout the night. Not really that crazy though, as it seems to always be fernet and coke, a national drink of choice. Not the most drinkable mix in the world, but somehow I like the bitter taste.

Yesterday was a big Earth Day festival in a park nearby, so Kenj and I strolled over and planned on meeting up with a few people. My half of the group didn't show, but we met with a New Yorker friend, Sarit, who we've been seeing quite a bit. A Brazilian singer, Bebel Gilberto, performed live and it made for nice, sultry bossa nova jam session. The evening was icy, but the music made me feel like I should be in a smoke filled room, dirty martini in hand, with curtains waving in the breeze, awaiting some scandalous rendezvous, or more true to my nature, on the beach sipping on something frozen. We finished off by meeting a few new people and going to an Arabic restaurant in San Telmo which turned out to be cheap and delicious. As the night wound down, we headed outside because I was really craving some shisha, but we couldn't smoke inside. We lit it up, and as per usual, passersby make the night more interesting. 

A couple walked past trying to sell us some stickers or other junk typical of the streets/buses/subways/trains of Buenos Aires. We didn't want anything, but they asked for a drag from the hookah so I couldn't say no. The woman smoked, made a funny face, and asked what it was. Then the guy had to try, and did exactly the same thing. I guess they thought we were just sitting outside smoking a bong.. Goofy. But no, it was just that lovely sweet tobacco that is the perfect way to wind down after dinner. Then this other random guy who was just standing around asked me, in perfect English, where we were from. All his hair was bleached. Including his eyebrows. But I talked to him anyway, told him Atlanta, and he started name-dropping all over the place about some jewelry stores and connections he has in Atlanta, Georgia. Totally random, because not many people know about Atlanta, except for the airport and coca cola, let alone the state it is in. But anyway, he kept talking about some mail order bride, how he came from Chavez-town to get her here in BA, explained that chavez town is venezuela, how he had all of his things robbed in Bolivia......  running his mouth while saying nothing really. I was enchanted by the lights of street lamps dancing off his perfectly bleached eyebrows, enthralled at how his bleached bangs covered that goofy forehead of his... I was ready for the night to never end with this one, but he said his piece and bowed out.  

I have the propensity to converse with crazy people more and more, the older I get. That probably says something about me. The story always unfolds the same, no matter where I am. Someone is weird, talks to me, I think they're funny, keep talking, then end up with some emotional obligation to them. For instance, I met this guy in Union Square right before I left NY and we ended up sharing his lunch on a bench, talking about India (he was like 65, and a tourist from said country) and human-squirrel interaction in Manhattan, chatting in a cafe over coffee.... then all of a sudden I was supposed to be calling him that night to see a movie in Hoboken because we were, in that moment, very good friends... in a very creepy sounding way. Whatever, I had time to kill and I like a story. Obviously I didn't meet him ever again but that's the kind of weird shit I get into. Even better when it's in a foreign country.

This will be about food.

Today I bought what has turned out to be perhaps the best hunk of salami I've ever eaten. I was coming home from working on the farm and this guy on the street had the most irresistible basket full of cured meats and cheese. OK so most people know I come from an "Italian" family, and to us that means that every Sunday since the day I was born, these things have been a staple. Salami, pepperoni, prosciutto, more stuff I don't even know the names of... plus cheese, olives, whatever special things Nani had on hand that day, bread and wine. Anyway, it's the ultimate comfort food other than sauce. Or gravy, depending on your geographic location (wassssup Jersey!). So here I am blogging, chowing down on some olives from Menoza and this heavenly salami from Cordoba. I'm getting the salami grease all over this keyboard, and Kendra the vegetarian is going to love me for it. What's more - whole way home, all I was thinking about was the huge hunk of skirt steak in my fridge and bottle of malbec on the table. At this very moment, I could die satisfied. Mannnn when I go to Mendoza I'm going to turn purple from all the wine I'll drink. Can't wait.

Also on food, there is a severe lack of spicy options here, something that makes me a little bit anxious. So my vegetable lady, who sometimes has random awesome things like cilantro, plantains, and gorgeous tomatoes, whipped out some aji picante the other day when I was lamenting about the spice issue. First off, the veggie lady is awesome. All the Spanish that I knew before I got here is what I've learned from Mexicans, and to a tiny extent from Dominicans. As far as fruits and veggies go, the names here are different and apparently sound really funny. So I've relearned the Argentinian names for things like avocado and strawberry from her, when she isn't laughing her ass off at me. Anyway, back to the hotness. She whips out these little red chiles and I got 8. I tried one when I got home and it wasn't spicy at all. Of course. So later I put a few in the skillet with my steak to roast em up a little. Holy hell, cooking them was like having a tear gas bomb go off in the apartment. So I bit into one, excitedly anticipating the burn in my mouth, that kind that hurts soooo good, and BAM it freaking tore my face off!! I felt so... alive! Man oh man I sure do love eating. Sweating, panting, drooling, just like at my 21st birthday over the cake I had with my Aunt Denae and Nani at this stupid French restaurant in Manhattan.... I mean, the restaurant wasn't stupid, it was just really weird being in a place where people were eating so quietly. Maybe they weren't having fun or maybe they were just enjoying the shit out of the food because it was that good. Anyway, if the French weren't so pretentious, they really would have it all. But I guess I can't blame them, since they have come up with some pretty awesome things.

Argentinians love to talk about how 'Italian' they are, kind of like me. They always say it with exaggerated gesticulation and use it as an excuse as to why no one is direct here. You never say what you mean, but rather what will earn you the most social grace, much like in the South. But then they eat things like milanesa and polenta and claim it's Argentinian. I like listening to what people here say about their country, and the most truthful thing yet is from Lorena - it is riddled with contradictions. When I went with Kendra to get a cell phone at the rental place, the guy was in the middle of telling us that everyone in Argentina is thin, in good shape, and has great skin, when one of the fattest people I've ever seen walked through, barely squeezing through the doorway. The time I've spent here has been full of silly little moments like that.

Que mas... well I'm still just going on, getting my mind blown every time I go to La Juanita, and having fun at the farm. Both projects together are a great balance because I get to see so much from very different perspectives, and without them, I would be in Argentina with barely any need to speak Spanish-something that has been driving me crazy! Plus, I take home bread and things from the bakery, and today I took some squashes from the farm. I have been getting lettuce, onions, and whatever else is good day to day, and it's all organic, and things that I've been working on growing, I love it.

Our bathroom toilet is broken. This happened back home just about every other weekend (or every time I used it) so I do know my way around the back of a toilet tank, but now a piece is broken off and I have it held together with string. It's... precarious. What I love about renting is being able to shrug problems off on a landlord. Just make a call and wait. As long as the downstairs neighbors don't come over first to tell us we're flooding their apartment, haha.

OK, last thing about food. When Justin was here I got my first taste of the Argentine Parilla. Besides Tango, I think that's the thing this country is most known for. You can't really mess up grilled meat, but the meat we had was really damn good. You basically just order different cuts off the menu and that's it. There are a mountain of side options, but each piece of meat just comes by itself. So we decided on chorizo, mollejas, and bife de chorizo... sausage, sweet breads, and a good ole T-bone. I've always been a fan of sweetbreads but I'd never had them grilled before and damn! It's not for everyone, but that gland made me want to bless the cow, and the farmer who kept it so happy. Meat here lives up to its reputation.

Alright, well I've got a busy afternoon to look forward too. My friend is in Palermo at the park, so that's what I've got going on. I need to quit blogging about food and eat some, then go clean up and get outta here.

The Living Dead in Recoleta

Today Kenj and I went to the Recoleta Cemetery. Her idea. I've never been to a cemetery except to bury a dead person or see someone's grave (only twice in my life) and haven't ever considered going to one as a tourist. Perhaps mainly because I've been haunted before. Go ahead, laugh, but for real! More than once! I've seen some weird shit, and I never really cared to stroll through Downtown Death before. But it was actually pretty. It really was like a mini city for the dead, with plazas, alleys, church steeples, marble and granite facades. Not spooky at all, but I guess the unhappy, wandering spirits wouldn't be shooting the shit in the graveyard anyway. They're harassing people like me.

Now we're waiting for our friend Justin to get in from Kennedy. His flight lands at 5, and Kendra has a skype date at the same time so we're chilling out. It's cold out today, and windy!

I'm about to start getting a little attached to BA, and now I've decided I'm definitely leaving May 5. I booked my flight home for June 6 out of Lima, so I'll have a month to explore some more and hopefully have some more crazy shit happen to me. I'm sure it will, I can feel it. Not anything bad, just something that will leave a big impression. I'm excited to be on the road again, but saying bye has always been hard for me, and now it's going to be time to do it again! It's making me sad thinking that I'll be home soon. I'm overjoyed to be seeing my family, of course, but this trip has just been so exciting! No one tells me what to do, I am my own boss for the volunteer stuff, I meet so many interesting people and have so many interesting and exciting things happen to me... anyway, I'll be on the run from the US of A soon enough again, just a matter of time. No point in thinking about it now anyway because I still have 2 months to go!

Photos!

Here's the link to Kendra's web album with a few pictures of us and around BA:

http://picasaweb.google.com/kastrouf/BuenosAiresAround?feat=email

Enjoy!

Mud, Monedas, Music and Nicknames

I just got back from La Juanita. It's raining, and that's not supposed to change for the next couple of days. One issue in La Juanita is that there aren't sewers, just drainage channels, and a lot of the streets and sidewalks aren't paved yet. That's to say it's a good deal less pleasant when it's raining, especially when you consider raw sewage combining with storm water above ground, and then exceeding the capacity of the drainage ditch. This same combination occurs underground in the US, NYC especially, but we don't have to really deal with the consequence - unless you live near the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn or some similar aquatic delight. Anyway, it's not that bad near the coop, but... shit happens.

Monedas-there is some issue with a national shortage of coins (monedas) or something like that. So it's hard to get coins, but that's the only way to pay for the bus. 

Ohh and the buses are such a trip! It's like Xhibit came to Argentina and pimped everyone's bus ride (reference to a bad MTV show). I just learned that all the bus lines are operated by different companies, so maybe it's to attract riders? I'm talking blue/pink/green neon interior lights, little shrines to the Virgin by the windshield, chrome wheels, embroidered curtains, glittery lettering with the crazy font a lot of people use for their tattoos... why would you take a normal bus if you could throw your monedas in that machine? It kind of threw me back to the glory days of having blue flame NOS floor mats in my '89 Corolla, the first thing I bought for that beauty. It couldn't shift into 2nd gear, but with those floor mats, who even cared?

It's kind of driving me crazy that I don't have any of my music at this point. Sometimes there's just a random song that I really want to hear. Otherwise though, I'm perfectly set thanks to my decade-long obsession with Latin music.... and plenty other things Latino, but that's neither here nor there. As fate would have it, there is a lot of Latin music here. Argentina's favorites seem to be Regaeton, which somehow never gets to be too much, and Cumbia, which is different everywhere you go but always has the same chh chh chh, chh chh chh beat. I've yet to see Tango, not because it's not around (because it's everywhere) but because... I don't know why. I will this week though, because another friend is coming to from NY to stay with Kenj and me, so we'll be doing all the fun must-do things that I've been too cool for until now.

I was sleeping at Alejandra's this morning after the bakery shift ended when torrents of rain started pounding down on the tin roof above us. At first it sounded like I was in a dryer machine so it woke me up, but that's the kind of ambient noise that plunges me into a sleep so deep you could think I had died. So that's exactly what happened. Then I started dreaming, and it was one of those deep, intense dreams when what is happening around me becomes a part of the dream rather than waking me up. I forget what the dream evolved into, but I woke up, gradually, to 3 people on top of me - Ale's son, Brandon, drumming on my back and drooling, and Ale and her mom both standing over me to grab him off and let me sleep, haha. It was a good wake up call.

Man, I always talk about Ale because she's the shit, and she was killing me again last night because she was sick, throwing up and feeling horrible, and she still came to work all night even though she hadn't slept all day. I've always been obsessed with tough chicks, especially because the tough girls I know are  ten times harder than tough guys. But last night, it was our other companion, Raul, who had the spotlight. Ale and I always take breaks outside to cool down, but Raul works like a horse all night, keeping us on schedule. We were talking about the Paco situation (a new cocaine derivative but it's bad enough to kill people in 6 months) and Raul loved the conversation, and said he had plenty of stories.

To explain Raul a bit first - he's a hell of a nice guy. He knows a lot about baking somehow, and has brought all kinds of awesome ideas for new, high quality but incredibly cheap products, and he's just a cool, warm, friendly guy. He started on about when he was a teenager, started with a lot of different drugs, ended up living in the street for a decade, moved to a province far away, with a lot of snakes, and got his life back together (a painfully miserable process), and now he's just Raul from the bakery. You would never think this guy had a crazy story like that - he doesn't have that used-up look on his face most others tend to get, and is just so... sanguine about everything. 

Stories are my favorite part of traveling, and maybe one of my favorite parts of life. You make plenty of your own stories traveling, but I mean that I like hearing other peoples' stories because they are always so much more interesting than anything I would have to say! It's the most fascinating way to learn little life lessons, through someone else's story. It's amazing when I think about little inspiring things that I've picked up from people, whether it's family or someone that leaves my life as quickly as they entered, people have so many interesting thoughts! Sure, most of it is bullshit, but that's why I like talking to people, because the more I hear, the more I'm bound to come across something new and useful. This guy Sean, for instance, I met him in Rio. He's British, a hell of an interesting kid on a cool trip (him and his friend, both 18, had just set out for a year to go around the world... every continent, the first time they've left home) who I was sight seeing with one day. We had just gotten kicked out of a church, and were bitching about it. We were somewhat on the same wave-length, and he goes on to say, I don't give two shits about religion, but I have to respect it, because how can I just disregard something that gives so much hope and passion to millions of people around the world? I was a little shocked because when I was 18 I would have never considered something that deep! 

On that note, I'm going to go make some dinner, maybe drink some beer, and get ready to, most likely, have the day off tomorrow because we can't work at the farm when it rains. 

Chau gente