Category: Travel

While perusing the Aegean coast off the west coast of Turkey, I had this most interesting dream. The night before was mellow and filled with exotic foods which might have helped this to happen. Upon waking up I immediately had to write it down as it was too strange to forget and I had to make this blog as I think it might be a crucial insight into my psyche. I woke up with Charlie’s alarm and was not ready to have the dream finish but maybe it was for the better…

The dream began in a school setting which reminded me of an elementary school back in Simi Valley but I could not say exactly which one. I was the “new kid” at school and seemed to be quite the celebrity. Everybody liked me and wanted to talk to me. As I ate lunch, I helped the nerds beat up the bullies and the girls all swooned at me. Then I was asked to join everybody else in a game of 75 insults towards the faculty. This game consisted of two lines lining up and facing each other, and one by one somebody would run into the middle and insult the faculty. On the way to my spot in line for the game I ran into my buddy (let’s call him Al), a friend I have from the UCI soccer team but haven’t seen in ages. But I know why he was in the dream and I must digress to get this short but telling story out there…

While stretching one early morning on the Crawford fields, Al tells me this story of him and his girlfriend from the night before. We practiced twice a day until at least 8pm so it was impressive he was able to get all this done. Al and his girlfriend were having sex on the couch in her parents’ house in the living room. As some people like to do, they then started having butt sex. This went on for a few minutes but then all of a sudden the girlfriend’s parents came home unexpectedly and opened the door to this most interesting scene that any parent would love to catch their daughter in. Al reacts quickly and pulls out but he pulls out too quickly and the first 5 inches inside his girlfriend’s colon also came out much like you might expect if you put your hand inside an inside-out sock and pulled to make it right-side-out. Now let’s try and paint the scene… Al is standing naked in front of the parents and his girlfriend with poop stains on his member and his arms out to the side with shoulders shrugged as if to say “WOW, who would have thought this could ever happen, I am truly sorry”. The parents were in shock and not saying a word, and the girlfriend was screaming in pain with her ass in the air because she is unable to hide the new tail she has been given. So the story ends with Al going to the hospital with the parents and the girlfriend. The girlfriend is draped over the back seat as she cannot leave the doggy style position. Al is forced to deal with doctors and family friends trying to explain what happened over and over.

But this was not in MY dream and let me get back to the interesting stuff. The insult game goes on for a while but I cannot remember any of the insults. The only thing I remember is a guy getting into the middle and stuttering really badly trying to insult the principal but everyone just started laughing at him.

After this I get on my very fast GSXR and drive back to Simi. I know I said the school was like that of one in Simi but it seemed to be in Orange County. So I rode back and forth to Simi several times, apparently because I had school in OC and my life in Simi. The rides were done at breakneck speed with all caution to the wind but no problems were ever encountered during the transits.

Finally I go to my friend Pratt’s house but park my bike inside the neighbors’ house. This neighbor’s house I believe to be the brother of a friend I have, but this brother I never knew or talked to or even knew his name. Strange. I remove my bike and go to Pratt’s real house. I see Pratt making some kind of weird green liquid with a very impressive chemistry set with the glass tubes with swirls and all sorts. This green liquid you could paste onto people’s bodies and then touch it and it would electrocute them in a very hilarious way and not leave any lasting marks, I think.

I went to the back of his house and was told to open this cage which I remember struggling to open. Once I opened it the whole area filled up with prison-looking people and the whole place looked to be a prison. There were guards harassing a black midget. The black midget suddenly, and with great strength, punched one of the guards and sent him sprawling against the wall and then did the same to the other two guards. Now everybody was basically trying to capture this black midget but he had the strength of many men and was very wily as midgets can be. I remember running all around trying to stay away from the fight and the fight was never to involve me. Finally a friend pulled me out and dragged me to a back room that had 3 bunk beds in it.

At this point I am watching myself from a third person’s perspective. I am laying on one of the beds on my side with my face down. I watch someone take a hand drill, the kind you spin yourself, and make a large gash in the side of my abdomen. I then watch this guy take some sort of wiggly thing and place it on my back. It goes into the wound and I can see an image, as if it is an X-ray screen, of it going inside my body and absorbing much of my blood while I listen to a narrative of how this thing is going to make me more fight-ready and able to handle any sort of pain and torture and it is to help me. I then am looking at my body from the outside again and I watch a pool of neon green/red blood cover my body and bed but it then gathers itself and goes back into my body very much like you could imagine slime moving around like in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

While this is all going on, the guy opens a box which he says contains a thalamus gland. He says this is to keep the pain away. The thalamus gland jumps out of the box and starts to pleasure me. (I know, weird.)

Eventually I get up from this “torture” and am shown 5 rolling clear balls about the size of a large marble. I have control over these balls and can make them split and merge and morph. Then they turn into about 20 very ornately decorated figures and animals which I cannot remember exactly what they were. The one I do remember was a very nice looking polar bear with all sorts of sparkly decorations and colors on it which I was told would turn into a robot in a few days and I would have to wait until then.

Then I woke up. Any analyses?

One day, a kangaroo, a lemur, and a parrot decide to go to a Boca Juniors soccer game in Buenos Aires. They had heard that a game was being played against a team named Huracán, a relatively weak opponent. They had also heard that to go to a Boca game without camouflage and a 90-litre backpack filled with all the usual necessities of walking through the Amazon, it meant certain death or severe maiming. This story attempts to follow these three through their experience and try to make it clear to the curious gringo of how to enjoy this Experience.

Lemur, Kangaroo, and Parrot had very little information going into this Experience to give them any clue of what to expect. All they knew was that Boca is supposed to represent the poor population and is in a dubious part of town with a night-time game. The passion runs high with these people and it can be very difficult to rationalise with someone who is half insane with drum beats and speaks a different language than you. Not to mention the fact that Parrot was the whitest animal around and stood several inches taller than everyone. From the little information they were able to gather, it appeared that for anyone other than a Boca inhabitant, tickets would be costly and upwards of 200 pesos — not including the jersey required to enter the stadium to avoid random floggings. Check out bocaexperience.com for the full lowdown.

The three heroes decide this would be unacceptable and find a friend who can get them a ticket from that website for only 130 pesos. Still a lot, but better than being completely duped. So they pick up the tickets at a very seedy-looking bar in an even seedier-looking part of town. The exchange was made with Juancho and they now had tickets. They purchased jerseys and were kitted out. The last thing Juancho said to them was to make sure they use door 7, otherwise they would be with “the mob.” He also assured them that just because the tickets said doors 12 and 14, they should use door 7. Advice was duly noted.

They head in the direction of the stadium, La Bombonera, hoping to find a beer or two before they entered. It became clear that the roads were being cordoned off and the kioscos did not sell any beer. Obviously an abundance of alcohol at these events had caused some serious damage in the past. All of the houses were strongly fortified up to about 15 feet, at which point there were always dogs staring down and dripping saliva. There was a very large line that the three herded themselves into, as animals do. The other animals around them appeared to be equally confused about why they had just got into a really long line without asking any questions. The line began to move quickly and fortunately they found themselves in line for door 7. They get to the front and are told immediately and without question that they could not enter through door 7. They got herded to the side and told to enter on the other side of the stadium. They went to the VIP section to try and use their unique appearance as a bargaining chip but that was ineffective.

The other side of the stadium was filled with scalpers offering up tickets and hot dogs being sold. There is a general admissions line that Lemur was sure would have sold the exact piece of paper they had paid 100 pesos extra for. They wait in line, get searched several times, have their ticket checked several times by many cops who appeared to be doing nothing other than grunting something as you walked by.

The construction of the Bombonera was never completed as they intended. The houses on one side of the stadium fought to keep their lives intact and fought off the football team. So instead they built a vertical VIP box wall on one side of the stadium. One end of the field is where door 7 leads to. It is filled with seats and was very crowded for the whole game. Above that section was the away team crowd which, although small, packed a hell of a roar and brought many sorts of instruments and flags to back it up. The other long side of the field is a very mellow seated section which appeared to be filled with the older crowd who enjoyed watching football and were likely members of the club. The other short side is what they call “La Popular” where the general hooligans and riff-raff sit. And by sit I mean go absolutely bonkers for 2 hours.

There are no seats in the popular section so everyone is standing and alternating their way up the stairs where bars about chest-high allow people to lean on them. When the three looked for a place to settle in the crowd they picked a spot right in the middle. There were several other animals taking these extremely long pieces of blue and yellow cloth and tying them to the bottom and top leaning bars. At this point it began to rain with incredible intensity, which had no effect on anything that was going on. The three visitors to this habitat were right under one of the pieces of cloth which smelled like it had been used as a sweat rag since 1989 and never washed, and likely had been left in the stadium overnight. They also figured that the flags would move when kickoff came. This did not happen. Instead everyone around started fighting for a spot on one of these metal leaning bars. They would use the huge cloth to lean forward and stand on the bar. On a bar about 15 feet long there were 15 people holding onto this piece of cloth that was being used by 4 other leaning bars above them while it was raining to the point they could not see the other side of the stadium. The footwear of these acrobats was definitely not adequate for jumping and screaming while on a bar 4 feet high on a stadium stand at maybe a 50-degree slant.

Even with Kangaroo hopping as high as he could, the three of them felt really dumb after a while of not seeing the game and staring at ankles and catching a drunk or stoned guy as he slipped on a metal leaning bar. They found a spot which gave them maybe 70 percent coverage of the field. Lemur realised quickly that his spot was the main thoroughfare to exit the area and he also realised that his sandals were not sufficient protection from the drunk guy in front of him unpredictably moving his feet as he struggled to lean on the fat guy next to him. The three could look behind them and see a heaving crowd of fanáticos screaming and singing song after song. Many were not even looking at the game and had a look of physical strain on their faces as they tried to get every last inch of sound out of themselves to encourage their team.

The game itself was entertaining but not a great demonstration of Argentine soccer or for the reigning champions of the league. The crowd encourages the players to slide hard and recklessly, with booming roars when a tackle is successful. The problem is they don’t say anything bad when the defenders miss a tackle with a flailing slide from 20 feet on the wet grass.

The second half was uneventful for the three visiting animals, except for the fact that they changed to a new location offering a better view as well as the rain doubling its strength and tenacity.

With 3 minutes left the animals decide to leave the scene and attempt to get out early. They walk into the exit corridor which was rather packed with people, understandably due to the rain. The three animals squirmed halfway into the thick of people before they realised that policemen were not letting anyone through this exit. Many other people started to leave too, only to pack this corridor even more. Lemur had a frantic guy and his child try to squeeze to the front, only to be lodged right in front of Lemur. Lemur had his snout about 1 inch away from a guy who was needlessly panicking and turning his head fast and wildly. Meanwhile the kid of this guy was punching Lemur in the Lemur goods, definitely needlessly. The police waited until the rest of the stadium was out before they would let the hooligans out — and quite rightly so. The crowd eventually brute-forced their way past the police and ran for the exits, no doubt to hunt down the other sections in a brutal race through the streets of La Boca.

After walking for miles, they were told by the first brave taxi to pick them up that taxis just do not operate in Boca after a game.

How to Go to a Boca Juniors Fútbol Game

• If you pick a game other than San Lorenzo, River Plate, or Independiente, then keep reading these instructions — otherwise tickets will be extremely hard to get and likely expensive. The team gives priority to members of the club and tickets will be used by them first.
• Go to the ticket windows. Get in a taxi and say “take me to doors 12 and 14 in front of the Bombonera” and say it with confidence. Your ticket should cost 30 pesos. There are lots of windows and some may be closed, but one will be open — maybe the one at the very end.
• If you feel brave you can buy some scalped tickets in the main plaza in front of the ticket windows. I heard there are a lot of fake tickets going around, however.
• Make sure you are wearing a jersey and not flashing anything flashy around.
• Go straight to the middle of the popular section and start screaming and singing. You won’t see the game but they will love you. If you want to watch the game, stay away from the flags in the middle.
• Don’t leave early. Just wait until the yells stop.
• There was no alcohol but people were definitely drunk. There was also a lot of drugs of all sorts and they didn’t seem to mind the police at the top of the stand.
• The other stand has tickets for 60 pesos or so but is not nearly as fun and is usually sold out to members.
• Act like you are singing the whole time as they will harass you if you look like you are not chanting.

Don’t be duped into becoming a River fan because you are told it is safer than a Boca game. Boca is perfectly fine and she will be prepared to embrace you with all her love!

I absolutely love this city! And with extremely nice apartments in the city and nice beach-side homes for around $60k, not to mention the amazing people I have been meeting, I will return to this wonderful place throughout my life. However, there are some aspects of the city that just cannot be ignored. I would never say these things are deal breakers, but none the less, they must be respected or you fall victim to the horrible consequences.

1. My house has a “huge” backyard but I would venture a guess that most of the inhabitants of this city either have no backyard or only a very small one. None the less, a huge majority of the people in this city have dogs. Dogs of all sizes and the people enjoy walking their dogs. If they cannot walk their dog(s) there are many people offering dog-walking services. It is a law here, as it is in California, that you have to pick up your dog’s feces just to make sure that you feel inferior to your four-legged companion. But no one does it here. No one. And the few people I have seen attempt it will do an embarrassingly poor job to the point you can see them looking around after their attempt hoping no one saw them. This makes for some treacherous walking on the streets. It has not happened to me yet but last year I walked right into a nice warm one in my rainbow sandals, which do not offer much in the way of side protection. A friend of mine, Parv, had a great idea which I am supposed to execute on but it might be difficult in my time left here. He thinks it would be hilarious — and I agree — to walk around and find the hot steaming piles growing ripe in the hot Argentine sun, put on some big wellies, and wait until people are walking by and then just purposely stomp hard into the animal feces. Of course this would be done repeatedly, videotaped, and compiled into a YouTube video. Wellies are expensive here though, I looked.
2. I came here during the summer months on purpose. I knew it would be hot but I enjoy warm weather. I bragged to people in the northern hemisphere that I was living the endless summer this year. But it rains here, and it rains more regularly than a southern California kid would like to deal with. But the rain is predictable and usually follows extreme heat and rolls in around early afternoon, ending early evening. But with this rain come three sub-issues:
   1. With reference to my first gripe above, the rain will wash the dog feces off the sidewalks. Seems like a good thing, right? Well with the hot sun around here and thin ozone layer, the sun actually quickly encapsulates the feces in an outer crusty layer, locking in any odours. The rain breaks this outer layer down and the streets are filled with a faint odour of dog feces which blends with other species of dog feces and makes for an outrageously horrible experience.
   2. Bike tracks and races close.
   3. Since the sidewalks are made from tiles many times and not straight cement, water will collect underneath the tiles. It has been raining all afternoon and you are ready to go out for a drink and have gotten all dressed up — now the rain has stopped. If one of these tiles is loose and you walk on it, the water underneath will squirt up and cover your lower trouser leg giving you a horrible sensation and a chance to practice your Spanish on why your trousers are dirty.
3. The people here have an extreme love for the sidewalk directly in front of their store or house. The sidewalks are never consistent and are made from different materials since each house builds their own sidewalk. So in a blatant spit in the face of water conservation, they are always hosing down their sidewalk to clear the dirt, dust, leaves, or dog shit. I think this is great except for the fact that the one problem I have with flip-flops is that they become lethally slippery on wet tiled surfaces. Refer to the entry on how to deep fry a turkey to get an image of how I have fallen on the sidewalks here.
4. It can be extremely hot here and of course people have air conditioners. You can look up and see a 20-storey building with hundreds of these things dotted on the outside. Definitely not central air. And more to the point, no central drainage either. Each of these things will drip water from the condensation of the machine. Some places have bottles collecting the water but others just let the water drip to the sidewalk. So as you are walking you will see puddles of water and you cannot step over them — you have to go around or get wet.
5. Walking in general can be treacherous. I have mentioned the landmines and uneven sidewalks making you stare straight at the ground. At the same time you need to be looking ahead for the air conditioning puddles. Buses and taxis will drive very close to the sidewalks and although the horn is used liberally here, it can be very rattling to have a 20-tonne object whisk by you only inches away as you are trying to avoid the dog shit. The people here are really bad walkers as well and can be very frustrating for someone who likes to move fast in general.
6. People seem cold at first, on the streets, and rarely say hello to you. Likely because they are looking out for the landmines and buses and air conditioning puddles. However the people here go out of their way to help you and talk with you all the time and are very approachable at bars, restaurants, heladerías, and everywhere else. A simple question for directions will start a five-minute conversation about life, the universe, and everything in it.
7. My double bed really being made from two single beds that are exceedingly “single” and linked with a very thin mattress top. I miss my California king memory foam mattress pad — I should have brought that.
8. The guy at Retiro who is convinced my bike box won’t fit in a taxi and refuses to help me. So then I wave my own taxi down and then when I am about to leave, he demands a tip, and when I refuse to pay he starts to unload the bike box. I yell at him and he threatens me and I finally just give him my 60 cents. Apparently these people are mob-related and next time I will just pay my 60 cents without arguing.
9. Inconsistent internet and slow upload speeds.
10. People telling me that the people here are not friendly and everything is dangerous. They are obviously doing something wrong as I have only had good experiences.
11. Buses that only accept coins and not cash and will kick you off the bus even if you try to tip the guy 5 times the amount of the fare.
12. Clubs that kick you out for peeing in the girls’ bathroom because I did not see the little picture of a woman out front. I did think it was weird that there were no urinals at that club. I did put the toilet seat down, however.

Having said all that, I love this city more than most!

While traveling around Europe, our group coined the term ‘dupe’ which is basically to be tricked. Dupes happen all the time, especially in a foreign country where you do not speak the language. Thus far I have been rather lucky and I have only been duped twice. Here they are.

Dupe #1: Shower Door Attacked Me

I am well happy with my shower. It takes a moment for the water to heat up but I got pressure like the pee stream of a horse, the shower is large enough for all sorts of activities, and the shower head is well above my head so I do not need to duck down. To enter the shower you step over an 18-inch rise in the floor which acts as the basin for the shower. On this rise are two standard glass shower doors. I was aware that one of the doors was liable to come off its track, which it did a few times, but with caution it was not a problem. Well one day the maid had moved my toothpaste, so I had to open up the other door. Basically she broke my routine and this is what happens when you break routines. I open up the door to get the toothpaste because I like getting nice and sloppy in the shower while I brush my teeth. While I am opening the door, the thing falls out of its track and the entire weight of the glass door fell the 18 inches and landed square on my left big toe. I yelped but held in any more noise as I waited the two or three seconds for the pain to reach my brain. The pain flowed through my nerves and hit my brain like a fat couple having amazing sex. I had to stay in the shower for about 20 minutes while I let the blood flow down the drain.

It has been almost a month now and the nail refuses to come off. It definitely hurts and causes me to wake up in the night when it gets caught on a sheet or something. When it does finally come off I plan on sending it to my friend Ken in an unmarked envelope filled with shreds of paper to hide the contents.

Dupe #2: Bought a Bike on Mercadolibre.com

One of my plans to work on down here in South America was something along these lines in no particular order:

1. Befriend bike shop and get deals and sponsorships and free bike tune ups and shoot the shit with them and learn Spanish. (COMPLETED)
2. Buy a bike to fix up and replace the track bike I had built back home that was stolen. Use this bike as main form of transportation to avoid having race bike stolen.
3. Train hard and go on an Andean bike trip so I can continue to disgrace Xavier at cycling.
4. Enter races and dominate the Argentine cycling scene.

Well I went on mercadolibre.com, which is the South American eBay (in fact I think it is owned by eBay). I find this bike that fits all my criteria. A side note here: all the bikes that people ride around here are old ladies’ mountain bikes with fat wheels, likely to accommodate for the random streets that are still cobblestone. So the bike is 600 pesos (almost $200) but I figure it has everything that I want and this is going to come home with me anyway to the States. I communicate with the guy on MSN Messenger in Spanish regarding the bike and where to meet up. I meet him in the slum part of BsAs at the train station, which is very far from me. This is on December 31st at 6pm, by the way, and fortunately I had Parv there to support me. I inspect the bike, realize that there were some things wrong but figured my trusty bike shop could fix it up for me. Make the exchange, find out that the train won’t let me on so we had to find a taxi that would let me put this damn bike in — which was not easy. So that added to the cost. Bike shop is closed for holidays so I have to wait a week until I can drop it off. In the meantime I purchase some paint stripper and sandpaper and plan on removing all the paint so I can have it prepped for a classic Luke paint job, even though I wouldn’t have crazy neighbour Mark to do most of the work like on the last bike. More cost added. Drop the bike off at the bike shop, come back to find out that they cannot fix it because the frame has been so badly damaged that the parts just do not exist that can fit the bottom bracket. So basically I am left with a knackered bike that if fixed would be a danger to whoever rides it. My plan is to resell it or part it out, hopefully back to the same evil bastard that sold it to me. All together, I am out $200 on this expedition — another example of my love for bikes.

Once a month during the high tourist season, there is a giant congress of travellers on a small island on the east coast of Thailand called Ko Phangan. In the summer of 2005, along with my traveling companion Nic, I set my sights on this congress which is better known as the Full Moon Party. This tale is not only of the full moon night but also of the amazing island that is kind enough to cater to such a debauchery-filled event.

I left Chiang Mai with a royal reception from the hostel I was staying at. Their payment for my soccer skills, which had raised their status in the community immensely, was some pastries, some soda, and a Valium pill to prepare me for my 14-hour train ride to Bangkok. Trains in Thailand are the best way to get around and are ludicrously cheap. They have as many as 50 cars and most are set up to be slept in. For next to nothing you can ride these trains without a bed which is what most of the locals do, but for an additional dollar, I might as well get a bed. There are two problems with these trains:

1. They tend to stop a lot throughout the night and these towns are in the middle of nowhere from what I can tell and the stop length can be as long as 10 minutes. There are many stories running around that at these stops, a horde of knife-wielding children run onto the train and cause havoc and destruction while they sort through your bags and tickle your sleeping feet. This never happened to me.
2. The beds were about 3 inches too short for me so I never really got comfortable and only with copious amounts of booze could I fall asleep for a long enough period of time to feel rested.

Chiang Mai is in the far north of Thailand and the plan was to meet up with Nic in Bangkok before continuing to the far south of Thailand to get to Ko Phangan. I arrive in town and after some miscommunication and wandering I find Nic in some bar in the most touristy part of town. He looked like he fit right in with his giant backpack. Until this time I was traveling on my own for 3 weeks and it was good to have a companion.

We set off to find travel to the island and eventually we get ourselves on a bus leaving that day. We bought a bottle of whisky and headed off. The whisky was called some sort of dragon whisky and it was really bad, bad enough that we didn’t really drink any. After 8 hours on the bus we get off and are not really sure what to do. There are no signs or people helping us so most of the bus just starts walking and I am pretty sure that everyone was following everyone else. Eventually we found a boat which seemed to be stacking a huge pile of backpacks on it so we all assumed that this was our boat to the island, which it was.

On the boat most people were trying to sleep or recover. There is this sense while you travel that you are perpetually at a loss for sleep or nourishment which is probably true most of the time. The trick is to not let this get to you and just keep at it hard and consistently. A few of us persistent travellers decide to fight the feeling of sleep deprivation and make our way to the roof of the boat. Maybe a group of 8 of us circle up and become friends and talk and reminisce and philosophise and finish the really bad whisky. Although I am 100% English, my skin is rather dark and I can handle most sunny situations without regard for being burnt by the sun. However, 4 hours on the roof of a boat moving terribly slowly through some scenic waterscapes while drinking was not a good idea. Afterwards I was burnt but it was negligible. Nic however was massacred by the sun with his fresh and pasty American skin.

We arrive on the island and decide to take a tip on a hostel which is in the complete other direction from where everyone else is going. We arrive and find the place that I am looking for whenever I travel. A beachside community of huts with hammocks out front and only white sand in between you and crystal blue water. We make ourselves comfortable, introduce ourselves to the very friendly Dutch girls next door, one of which had maybe the worst sunburn I had ever seen and I wasn’t sure I should point or just suppress my laughter when I was introduced. This hostel had all the amenities and we stayed for almost a week. You could go to the restaurant, lay down on some large couch, get whatever you wanted, charge it to your room, and do this for 5 days and we only spent a little more than $100.

Likely the next best thing to the actual Full Moon party were the motorcycles. For $3 a day you could rent yourself a little motorcycle that could reach speeds up to 40 mph. The trick was that if you broke anything on this bike, you were going to be charged thousands of baht and you would have no idea what for, so the insurance was to not do anything dangerous. We gather up a gang of riders, drink some beers, and start zooming around this island. The roads were good for the most part towards the main city but that is not where we went. We take some dirt road and head inland trying to make our way to the other side of the island. The trail is tough and arduous and the guy who had the sunburnt girl on the back could not handle her and fell over several times. She opted to ride on my bike afterwards — good call. We make it to the other side of the island to what appeared to be another beachside hostel resort. However we get there and walk around and there was no one there. The place appeared to have had people there not too long ago but walking into some of the rooms, there were spider webs and what have you. Very eerie indeed. One of the bikes was running out of gas and to add to the mystery of this place we found a barrel of gas. However we couldn’t figure out if it was diesel or not. We convinced ourselves it wasn’t and headed off. About a mile into the jungle the bike dies and we all immediately realise that we had put diesel in it. Out of nowhere come two jungle men with a tool box. We try to communicate with them but they don’t seem to care. They inspect the bike, put gas on his hand, taste it, and he knows immediately. They spend some 30 minutes or so draining the gas, giving us more gas, sharing our smoke with the dirtiest hands I had ever seen, and then I paid them the equivalent of $5 and we were back in action. Fortunately nothing really bad happened to us in our biking adventures. However there were several people you would run into on the roads that were just covered in road rash and you would ask them what happened and they would recollect some story of them being too drunk and hitting the high side of a curb and never making it back.

At our hostel there was some audacious Dutch guy who had a knack for always showing up while we were smoking. We called him Snoop because there was a popular movie out at the time where Snoop Dogg is basically this type of person. Karma got this guy bad though… he bragged about buying some 12 pills for the Full Moon party and was trying to sell them to everybody. That is not my cup of tea and I refused and I think everyone else did too out of sheer fact that this dude was slightly off. Two days after the party he shows up to tell us that they were really some intense tranquillisers and he took too many and passed out on the beach and was robbed and he also spent hundreds of dollars on the pills themselves. Classic story of what not to do while travelling in this sort of place.

The night of the party arrives and we make our way into town on the bikes and plan to get them the next day since we anticipated the festivities lasting all night and morning. We arrive and start walking the beach and it was already filled with excitement. The beach was long, maybe half a mile, filled with bars facing the water. Each bar took over its part of the beach and played its own type of music. So as you walked down the beach you would be going in and out of reggae, to rap, to techno, to trance, to oldies, and much more. At one end of the beach, up on the rocks rather precariously, is the mushroom bar. You can go here to imbibe the local vegetation for $12 which I think everyone was supposed to do here. We go and have our share which didn’t seem like much at all and then walk back into town. The party is raging even more and the people are getting out of control as each minute passes. We walk down a street to find a hookah bar to wait for things to kick in. We settle down and meet these guys who are probably doing the same thing. I ask them to paint a huge neon yin-yang on my back and they oblige while letting me try their hookah which was definitely mixed with something. Nic got himself a killer dragon on his back. Just as I thought things were starting to be activated, I had an undeniable urge to take a shit. An urge that could not be ignored regardless of what country you are in.

Tangential note here: The toilets in Thailand are of the squatting variety. Two footholds on either side and have at it. To flush you would scoop water out of a bucket next to it and then just dump it down the hole you just shat in and this was sufficient, maybe with two or three scoops. These buckets of flushing water were always filled with some interesting contraption which would gather water from the ceiling, funnel it down a spiral bamboo shoot, then fill up a beaker until boiling which would pop a balloon, allowing the water to fall in the bucket. There was rarely toilet paper and many times you just had a water hose you could squirt up your backside, sort of like a manual bidet.

I find a toilet, likely the only one with toilet paper miraculously. I spend a good 15 minutes exerting a lot of force and energy and put it up there with one of the most difficult ones I have ever had. Afterwards however, I was a new man and ready to rock!

After some walking I end up losing Nic and we go our separate ways to enjoy our own adventure for the night. I find a guy we met on the boat roof who is with two lovely Dutch girls. We take a seat on the porch of some house claiming it was ours and have a drink or two. Without any words being spoken, we split into two groups and me and my new companion wander onto the beach. The next few hours were filled with sweaty beach dancing, fire rope jumping, water splashing, rock climbing, sand rolling, and who knows what else. But it was amazing. I truly love dancing when you can just let everything go and do whatever your body feels like doing regardless of music or social stigma and this beach was filled with people thinking they were the inventors of many sorts of new dances. Come morning we took the bike back to the hostel at breakneck speed despite the shrieks I was hearing behind me and went for a morning sobering swim which was mainly memorable in that we were some kilometre off the shore but still only to our waist in water.

This night stands out in my head as one of the best nights I have ever had and I am sure this entry does not give it justice. The entry in my actual travel journal is similar. Nic has the pictures and hopefully he will get me these at some point and I will update this entry to maybe justify some of this ridiculousness.

One more note from this island… Nic at some point befriends a local island girl. Maybe they had something in the drunken hours of the night but she came back to the hut we were staying at. And then the next day she never left. She couldn’t speak English and I think she was just waiting for Nic to put a ring on her finger and be her sugar daddy for life. I think he did buy her some food at some point.

A short distance from Buenos Aires is the small little country of Uruguay. Widely known as the most popular vacation spot for all the Argentinos as well as an easy hop, skip, and a jump for travelers to extend their visa duration. I convinced my traveling companion, B, to join me as we embarked on what ended up being a 1500 km road trip around the south-eastern heel of the country. As usual I made no prior arrangements and was really only armed with stories and suggestions that I had heard from people I had talked to. These stories mostly consisted of “Everything is booked and you will not find anywhere to stay” and other methods of saying pretty much the same thing since it was the high season.

B and I arrive from Iguazu into BsAs at 9am after a 19-hour bus ride. The bus was more than comfortable and supplied a seat that reclined all the way down and a stewardess-type person to bring meals every now and then. I only spilled wine on myself once which made for a pleasant aroma to waft me and B to sleep as we traversed the amazingly unexciting countryside on a double decker bus which I believe to be approaching speeds in excess of 160 km/h while we were asleep, but that doesn’t impress me as I have topped 280 km/h on my streetbike.

We had reservations on the buquebus for 11am so we quickly go back to my house to change out of our wet clothes (from the rain and waterfalls up north) and pack for Uruguay. We go through customs, collect a few stamps in the old passport and go find that all the seats are taken up and we decide to eat our empanadas on the floor. The boat was only an hour so it wasn’t so bad except for the surprising amount of crying babies.

Arrive in Colonia and jump on a bus to take us to Montevideo. First impressions of the landscape is that it looks just like Argentina. No wonder they like to come here. Bus takes two hours and we show up at the Tres Cruces bus station without a plan other than we needed to get some money and a place to stay as well as sort out a rental car for the week. I was designated the cash dispenser since B didn’t get paid until Friday so she would pay with her credit card whenever possible. We agreed to figure out expenses once the trip was done. While I get cash, B sorts out a hotel and rental car. Hotel is near the beach and four-star, called the Ermitage. We drop our stuff off, then get in a taxi and I instruct him to take us down the infamous rambla that meanders its way down the entire coast until we got to ciudad viejo where apparently the excitement was. It was roughly 5pm on inauguration day and we missed the major TV events and decided that it was not worth watching a limo slowly move through some streets. We eat at a parrilla where B gets quite possibly the largest fish ever after we agreed we were just going to have a snack as to not ruin dinner. We then proceed to walk the streets looking for bathing suits. We had agreed to do as the locals and wear tiny bathing suits, a thong for B and tight booty shorts for myself. We fail and end up back at the hotel, play King’s Cup with ourselves producing some interesting pictures. We miss dinner and the nightlife which I had heard was not so great in Montevideo. General consensus from everyone I talked to is that you only needed one night in Montevideo. They did have a velodrome on the map which got me very excited but I did not see it.

The next day we pick up our rental car (Budget rental car), fill out some dubious all-Spanish forms and agree to not get insurance thinking that the American Express card would have us covered in all instances. It saved us $50 so why not — I was a good driver if not a very very fast one. The plan for the day was to drive the interior of the country and get to Punta del Diablo. We start out on the coast, Luke ignoring all of B’s claims to cut inland, and we stay on the coast for a while until we get to Piriapolis to have lunch. Beautiful city and the place where we found our bathing suits. I got the chicken, tuna, onion, tomato salad. This turns out to have exactly those ingredients and no more. It was horrible and I am sorry to B for making fun of her getting the delicious pizza and ignoring the culture. I felt quite sick for a day or two.

We carried on straight to Diablo. The roads in Uruguay are well kept and extremely long and straight. These are the types of roads where you sit back, turn the Latin music up exceedingly loud, roll down all windows and maybe even open up the trunk, put one arm out the window doing the little wave thing as the wind travels over your hand, and gun it. Put the pedal to the plastic or whatever this little Corsa was made out of and go as fast as you can with no concern for your passenger or yourself or the little mopeds going 40 km/h across a 200 mile distance. The landscape around you is empty with large flat lands or rolling hills. You know there is water somewhere over the horizon so you feel you can never be that far off and thus reassured that should you crash and lose a limb, it wouldn’t be too long until the Uruguayan ambulances found you crawling east.

We arrive at Diablo to find a very interesting town. The camp site out of town was overflowing. The town itself was comprised of one main road filled with long-haired hippy types selling string and pieces of wood and whatever else they could make to supply their dope or alcohol habits while living in this out of the way place. The whole town was right on this little shore that was not so pleasant as far as lounging beaches go. There were bars and restaurants and a load of houses on stilts. Some were nice, others were not. There were people everywhere and our rental car seemed to be an eyesore in a place where everybody was either walking or hitchhiking. We tried several places and everything was filled and we were told to go to Chuy or Barra de Chuy which was further up the coast. We agreed and by this time it was dark. We feign an attempt to find somewhere in Barra de Chuy and then go to Chuy. Chuy is a border town next to Brazil and it felt like it. Kinda trashy and dubious and if you went off the main road you may not be getting back. We found a 3 star hotel and dropped our stuff off. Got a bite to eat and found out that the only places of pleasure that night were in Barra de Chuy which required a cab for the 12 km. We opted to stay in and entertain ourselves.

The next day we head to Santa Teresa for a short beach stay. We pick up some hitchhikers who tell us what beach to go to and it was lovely. B gets a ridiculous sunburn which basically modifies her movements for the rest of the trip. She put lotion on her face, arms, upper body and feet but not on her legs or back. When we finally made it to the hotel that night she was bright red and the pictures don’t give her condition justice. She bought some cream and then would put it all over her, then lay on a plastic bag on the bed. She would fall on the bed like a tree being felled in the forest. You couldn’t touch her during these three days otherwise she would scream without consideration of her surroundings. We attempted a stop at La Pedreira but the town was full up though it looked very fun and we promised to return one of the evenings. We then settle on the penthouse room in Costa Azul between La Pedreira and Paloma. The view was gorgeous even if the hotel felt like it was put together by me and my friends with no construction experience whatsoever. Our drain was clogged immediately in the bathroom so using the sink would fill up the floor. The shower had about -3 psi pressure coming out of it and the chairs on the deck were all sat on by an extremely heavy person so when I sat on them, they just split and I fell on the ground. To compensate we gave ourselves facials!

The second night in Costa Azul was a precious night where we watched the sunset which was met with fanfare by all the spectators. We then ate at this place on the beach, made friends with the owner, gave him booze, had him pick the food and wine, and spoke Spanish the whole time. I tried to ride this girl’s horse but she didn’t trust me since I was several beers deep. The best part about this night was the fact that his meal of choice for us was squid. The night before I argued with B for ages about why she refuses to ever even try squid. She wouldn’t even give it a taste or a bite. I compared her stubbornness to being a racist and all sorts of other ignorant things. So when he brought out this meal and she liked it, my argument had come full circle. I hope B doesn’t find out that I was really friends with Ehrman and it was all planned years ago.

One of the days in Costa Azul we went to Cabo Polonio. I had heard much about this remote destination that had no running water and electricity and required you to take a horse or 4×4 truck over the dunes to get there. We bolt down the highway singing loudly to Madonna and buy some tickets for these trucks. It was a lot like Pismo going out there I thought, except for a lot more trees. Eventually after 4 km you get to the beach and then get to the “town”. The town consists of all these randomly placed little houses, some were literally shacks while others had a DirectTV dish and a generator. There were bars and restaurants and people renting umbrellas which B so desperately needed. We wandered the shore and rocks, scouting for sea lions and other random things in the ocean. We lay on the beach for a while but the sun was intense and the wind was out of control bringing sand into every orifice and crack that was around.

Back to the main artery of the roads for a brief moment until we take a long dirt road to get back to the coast and on the way we pick up two more hitchhikers. Hitchhikers were everywhere and I hope my actions during this trip will come full circle whenever I am in that situation. These guys said they hitchhike every day to get to work in this pretty little beach town. We get there and then have one final sprint to Punta del Este. Punta is a lot hotter than the rest of the country and known for its ludicrous all-night rave parties and super expensive tourism. We ended up in a hotel in La Barra which is a Laguna Beach-ish type place outside of the downtown of Punta del Este. The downtown is filled with huge apartment buildings and tourist stores so I was happy to be out there. We found a 4 star hotel not far from the beach which was actually really nice although I am not sure they spent too much time on noise cancellation. Food was fantastic and the sunsets were even better over the skyline of the main city. One day we attempted to do some kite surfing lessons but learned that it would be $200 for a half day and you required a full day to be up and going on the board which we were not willing to pay even though the guy was trying to convince me that I only needed two hours since I have wakeboarded and fly large kites.

The conversations were great the whole trip and B was a great companion for traveling despite her need to be in a minimum of three-star hotels and getting sunburned the first day. Let me conclude with some pointers for those who may want to do this trip in the future:

1. The sun is intense in this part of the world due to a rather large hole in the ozone layer. This is caused from global wind currents as well as changes to weather patterns. Bring sunblock — in the shops there you can get SPF 70.
2. If you are not making any reservations or plans, rent a car. Had we not rented a car and were trying to take buses the whole time, we would have been quite simply, fucked. If you are not going to make reservations or rent a car, have a tent at least. The rental car for 6 days was $360 with 3 trips to the gas station (gas is called nafta in this part of the world) costing $100.
3. Hotels were pricey as far as I am concerned but I am on a fixed budget unlike my American companion. Montevideo was $85, Chuy was $40, Costa Azul for two days in a honeymoon suite overlooking the beach was $260, Punta del Este for two days was $240. Alternatives of course are hostels and campsites which are numerous but fill up really quick during the first part of the year.
4. Ensalada does not mean there will always be lettuce in the salad.
5. It is expensive in Uruguay compared to Argentina. Mainly because it is the rich Argentinians going there and also the dollar is widely used so I lose my exchange rate advantage. All the ATMs will give dollars and most hotels expect it as a form of payment.
6. If an ATM does not work for you, try it again in a new language and with different values. They will eventually work I found.
7. Watch out for the corporate monsters who are willing to whore themselves out so they can sticker every car in Punta del Este. I mean honestly.
8. Love life and everything in it.

This entry was pulled from my travel journal from Europe summer expedition 2003…

July 12th

For Justin, Jen, Mike, and myself, this was our first hard day of travel. An outrageously uncomfortable Ryanair flight to Pau in the south of France. Get lied to by a taxi driver who said there was no bus to the train station. Our first encounter with the impatient French while trying to buy and then change our train tickets.

Train to San Sebastian with a bottle of wine that was heavy on the cork. Met a lovely girl named Sara who spontaneously bought a ticket the night before to go to Pamplona. Very admirable since she was on her own. Something American girls are not going to do, ever.

San Seba by 7pm, go to meet Durden but he’s not at the place so we wander, which is always my backup plan. Eating in a restaurant with Jen and Mike. And through the bush in the window I see Durden. First truly good feeling of the trip. Two minutes after I meet him, someone calls my name. Turns out it was a random roommate of a friend back home. It was her and two friends. Believe it or not, they were in the same hostel as us. Small world.

Author’s note: I write a blurb about spelling hostel wrong the whole time but it doesn’t make sense since I have been spelling it correctly thus far. Basically I spelled it “hostil” for ages and then would switch into “hostal” every now and then.

Saw “…Dream inconscient Love…” on a bridge over the river looking at Notre Dame. Need to look up “inconscient.”

Author’s Note: I have since looked up this word and it does not exist. In addition I have seen “Dream inconscient Love” in Thailand and Argentina. This fake word seems to be following me around.

San Seba was amazing. A town where you talk to people and find out a lot of people are willing to give up everything and move there regardless of educational position or money. Topless beaches, ridiculous views, and moderate temperature. I hope to go back.

From San Seba we bus to Pamplona listening to Mike talk on his phone for at least an hour. The Spanish countryside is amazing. To see deserts and forest and mountains is a treat when they come together.

In Pamplona you run into people dressed only in white with a few dashes of red. The town was nothing like I expected. I imagined dirt roads and horse drawn carts. My ignorance I quickly overcame. Simply a party for a week where public drinking is encouraged and sangria is thrown about so people can share drinks through their soaked clothes. Found a convenient hostel with internet. Mike talked the guy down five euros. The second night we slept in the park. My 10 degree sleeping bag was brilliant. I was able to share with Jen and still needed my shirt off. Chris and Jeremy, who we met up with earlier, had nothing and quite rightly froze as they retreated back to their origins.

The first night was something like this… Meet Adam. A friendly Canadian wandering about. He teaches us about the run and Pamplona and we get drunk. Maui is lost at this point. To where we don’t know nor care. Walk the bull run I will do in a few hours collecting bottles of sangria the entire way. Who was leading our sobriety-searching group? I don’t know but collectively we had an uncanny sense of being in the right place. We saw some fireworks that were amazing and only beaten by the ones we watched the next day. Absolutely ludicrous! It might have been our distance, which was closer than any show I had been to before, or it might have been that third litro of sangria. In either case the shockwaves rattled through your soul. The bursts would engulf the entire visible sky. The French had created fireworks that upon bursting, not only let out an explosion of fire, but slow-falling balloons. Unheard of!

Thankfully Maui woke me and Adam up at exactly the right time of about 6:30am. Jen and Durden were comatose and slept through the reason we had gone to Pamplona. I was told the most likely to die were hungover tourists which was exactly the best description of myself. Adam had run 3 times already. The first time he had witnessed a fatal goring. The second he was beaten mercilessly by the police. The third went fine. So our plan was to run until the curve and stay on the inside. The bulls are not famous for their agility. The sound of them coming was the source of my terror. These beasts boast 2-foot-long horns and their shoulders were above my head. I was able to make the turn and seconds later see beast after beast smash into the wooden wall on the outside of the turn. As each bull recovered, one by one, they looked right at me with the coldest look imaginable. No pupils, only black pool balls for eyes. This is the time when your world could easily be thrown into an unwanted orbit. A lone bull is far worse than a group of them. But fortunately, my world continued to orbit just fine.

The best part is the ring at the end of the run where you are watched by thousands and each one is cheering on the bull. There were maybe 200 people in the ring. In there the matadors release smaller bulls with corks on their horns. Still aggressive but only a good trampling on a slow-witted person is all they can do.

Go back and sleep. Wake up, Maui leads us aimlessly to a closed internet café 5 miles away. Eventually leave Pamplona for Madrid via 4 hour train.

Six years ago traveling through Europe I heard about this event called Tomatina which was described to me as a giant tomato fight. At some point I saw some travel TV show at the Tomatina and at that point it made the list of things I had to do before I depart this Earth or at least settle down in some white picket fence house with 2.5 children and a golden retriever. In the summer of 2008 I made my pilgrimage and here is the story of how it all came to be…

I left a very cushy apartment in Barcelona (thank you Neil) to complete the triangle I was planning on making inside the lovely country of Spain. The plan was to go to Madrid to visit long lost travel friends for the weekend. Then go to Valencia and figure out how to go to Tomatina, and then back to Barcelona just in time to catch my flight back to England.

While in Madrid, I made my preparations. I bought a bus ticket from Madrid to Valencia. I bought a train ticket online from Valencia to Barcelona so I had my escape. I knew this event was going to destroy whatever I was wearing so I decided to get kitted up with typical Tomatina gear. This included:

• A 2 euro pair of fake croc sandals which were bright orange and the back of my feet hung off the edge. Apparently my feet are larger than most Spaniards and they really are not that big at a size 10 (US).
• A plain white t-shirt for a euro.
• A pair of cargo shorts which went past my knees but had plenty of pockets and strings and shit so I thought they would be perfect for 5 euro.
• A pair of chemist-looking goggles for 3 euro.
• A small knife to cut the ham down for 5 euro.
• A waterproof camera for 10 euro.

With all this I was set and said my goodbyes and headed off to Valencia. Now the Tomatina festival itself is not in Valencia which turns out to be a very large city. So I arrive in Valencia and get off at the bus station and basically looked to my left, then to my right, and then back to my left, and didn’t have a clue as to where to go. I jumped on a bus that I thought would take me to the beach and an hour later arrived to see the Mediterranean in all its glory. The beach was huge and filled with people and thongs. I had my little backpack on me with valuables in it so I decided to just walk through the water and not go in.

My plan was to stay up all night until 11am when the Tomatina would begin. I had no idea what to find in Bunol but I assumed like all good Europeans, they would be raging it before a large event like this. I made my way to the train station and put my bag in a locker which gave me some piece of paper with a code on it that I needed to get my bag back out. Now all I had was my crocs, shorts, shirt, goggles, knife, ATM and credit card, some 60 euros in notes, a camera, and some change. I get a large beer and wait for the last train to Bunol.

While waiting I offer some beer to a girl next to me. We then decide we need more beer and go get two more large bottles before the train arrives. For the life of me I cannot remember this girl’s name so we will call her Janet. Janet is from Valencia and is visiting a friend who lives in Bunol and they plan to attend some Manu Chao concert in Bunol. While drinking our beers on the train we compare lives across oceans, political mindsets between people of our age, why I was traveling alone, the funny Europeans behind us, and I am sure a lot more. She invites me to tag along with her to go to the concert which I do even though it was going to cost like 40 euros.

We go to the concert, she negotiates some deal and we each pay 30 euros. Inside there are very large beers but for 10 euros each. The music was OK but the locals seemed to love it. I got into the groove and danced their funny dance.

After the concert we went to her friend’s place so they could change. My crocs were killing me so I used my knife to remove the rubber around my pinky toes on both sandals. Now the shoes looked even more ridiculous.

We then go to their other friend’s store of sorts, eat, drink, and be merry until 1am. I couldn’t understand most of what was going on but the free food and booze was enough to keep me smiling and I didn’t mind being the center of some joke. We then headed off down some streets, winding around a hill or two, then all of a sudden the valley was alive with mini raves dotted up and down the woods we were in. There were rolling beer and food carts all over the place. You would walk down a path and suddenly be surrounded by some techno and then another path would take you to some trance and then another dark path would take you to some Spanish country music. Insane. The people I was with were all locals and this Janet girl had a firm grip on my hand and made sure my other hand was filled with very large beers that I never paid for because the locals knew the locals working the beer carts. Basically the night went on like this until the sun came up. I always think it is a very weird thing to be outside dancing your head off, half delirious, as you watch the light engulf the landscape.

We head off to a coffee shop and I eat anything and drink everything I can find including leftovers from other tables. The time is approaching for the Tomatina and I am drunk/hungover. I tell Janet to take me to the pole because I am going to be the one to cut the ham down.

Let me explain how this all works… The Tomatina has unknown origins — could be a spilled truck on the road started it, or something in honor of some saint — but the fact remains there is now a tradition. At 11am they raise a huge ham onto a 30-foot pole that has been greased all the way up and down. Not until the ham is cut down will the trucks come and unleash the tomatoes. The tomatoes will then be unleashed for one hour and then it is all over and everyone goes home or to where I don’t know.

She takes me down some alleys, a left, a right, a left, and then all of a sudden I am thrown into a mass of people right next to the pole and they had just started trying to rip this thing down. The strategy is to wipe all the grease off first by making human pyramids. After that make more pyramids to get to the top. Problem is that everyone wants to be the one to cut the ham down and the locals are sabotaging anyone who gets even close since it should only be a local to do this. I hurl myself into the mix and start pushing and lifting and standing and climbing. It becomes clear that it is me and a core group of about 15 Aussies who are intent on getting this thing down, with other people coming in and out but mostly fearful that they might get hurt. Within minutes of me being in this chaos, I lose my credit card and ATM card and cash. The goggles are lost and were useless anyway. The crocs were instantly gone and now I was barefoot. Fuck it! The fun must continue and I will deal with this later.

We try and try and try for over an hour to get this thing but there is not enough organisation despite my best efforts. At one point I was probably 20 feet up and felt like I could jump and hang onto the ham which I tried and then we all fell onto a huge human dog pile filled with grease and water that was being squirted on us by the surrounding buildings filled with locals. Who knows how many lost their lives in that hour. I remember being so defeated but there was nowhere to go and no water to be drunk. I was stealing bottles out of people’s hands and just drinking. Eventually they just brought the trucks out and the tomato fight began without bringing the ham down.

After about 20 minutes you are just fed up of getting thwomped in the side of the head by random missiles. You are supposed to crush the tomato first and then throw which nobody does. I watched some pretty malevolent people just wind up and crush some poor soul from about 10 feet away and then duck down laughing. After an hour the streets are almost to your knees in red juice and people are laying on the ground swimming in it.

My condition at the end: my left shorts leg was missing revealing most of my boxer briefs. My camera, goggles, money, cards, knife, and crocs were all missing. I had enough coins to get the train back to Valencia. The train ride back was hilarious. The train was shoulder to shoulder and everyone around me seemed to have done a much better job of cleaning off. I was smelling so bad and was sticky to the touch and my hair was plastered in some weird direction from tomatoes. People were giving me a wide berth the entire trip. I get to the Valencia train station and try to remember my combination to the locker but it is impossible to sort through the hazy memories of no sleep and raves and booze. I then, in my hilarious and smelly state, need to find the officials and convince them in my limited Spanish that my bag is in the locker and I don’t know the code and I will prove it is mine with the passport. Finally it all works and I am so happy I purchased my train ticket back to Barcelona beforehand otherwise I would have been stuck in Spain waiting for some money transfer or something.

Back at Neil’s apartment we reminisced about the experience which they had gone to as well but with their business school classmates in a huge procession. Turns out that I was arm in arm with one of his roommates as we scooped large quantities of tomatoes and threw them in the air at the end of the event.

Not sure what I would change next time but I obviously was a rookie during this excursion. Thank you to Janet for making that night and day work out just right. Too bad I don’t remember your name and our paths may only cross once in our lifetimes but at least it did not go to waste.

First of all, I love this country. I knew I did when I visited this place 1 year ago and I am glad to see that I picked wisely. Granted there are still some 193 countries I still need to visit. I am glad that I have decided to make my first offshore residency here. I have a friend who happens to be in town right now, a Mr. John Finch, who describes this place rather succinctly: “They have everything that we do, just not as good.” This is very accurate, but I am sure there are numerous things that can be traded back home.

Everything is ludicrously cheap compared to what we pay in the States, except for gas. Beer is cheaper than water. Wine is equally cheap. Medical supplies are a third of the cost. McDonald’s tends to be rather expensive from what I have seen, but I refuse to go there. It is marketed to the upper class here, I think, because it is the upper class who parties all night and emerges from a dance hall looking to scarf some bad-for-the-earth food. A nice meal out will cost you $20 (US) out of your pocket, with wine and apps and desserts.

Dinner is always after 11pm. And takes a long time. Clubs and bars do not really start their festivities until well after 2am. It is easy to find yourself coming home at 5-8am. The trick is to use naps and just go slow when you are out. No need to pound two Jäger Red Bulls and then a beer, and then move to the next bar because the first five hottest girls you saw didn’t hit on you, and then jump in a taxi to find a hotel where you could get that last nightcap before 2am. Just relax and enjoy the evening and just when you thought things were not going on tonight, you find a huge dance party in the middle of the street.

Cumbia and reggaeton suck in my opinion, but I cannot escape it. If you go out dancing with locals, you will need to dance to this. It is the most repetitive music I have ever come across.

At night, poor people from the suburbs come into the city and drag these carts that are 4 metres tall with recyclables. These people are called the cartoneros and they keep the streets clean. I hear the city is trying to create a proper task force for this job, but until they do, this is a good job for the poor people to do. They don’t cause trouble, just drag a whole shit load of trash out of the city and into somewhere else.

I saw a guy at the airport racing another guy in the little buggies they have hauling bags. A backpack fell off one and they didn’t even stop or notice. I wonder whatever happened to that person and their bag?

The buses here have these strange air hoses hooked up into their hubs. You can hear that these buses are using a lot of air for what seems to be the shocks. Picture to come. I can only gather that these hoses pump air into the axle and then into the shocks or something. Doesn’t seem efficient, but my guess is that there was some corruption at some point and a deal had been made to make this the popular way to build buses. The buses are also privately owned and you can see in some of them that the driver has really personalised each one with custom mirrors and ornaments and black lights. A bus costs 90 centavos, or roughly a quarter. Same with a subway ride. They are also pretty fun.

The city is documented in a small pocket book called the Guia T. Learn it, know it, love it.

They are incredibly good drivers here. They have four-way intersections with no lights or stop signs and traffic just works. It makes me confident as I haul ass on the streets on my bike. When you cross the road on foot, you try to be as close to the car as possible to make sure that you get in between that car and the one behind it.

I have noticed a lot of facial moles around here for some reason. Must be the weather.

The city provides free water to everyone and it must be drinkable. Lovely for someone sweating gallons on his bike who can only find bathrooms. No problems yet as far as I can tell, but I have a miraculously strong stomach.

For the most part, all young people live with their parents until they are in their mid to late 20s. Because of this, it is not easy to just go home with someone at the end of a night. So they have all these pay-by-the-hour motels, or telos, all over the place. Yet to try one out, but I did see a drive-in one in Santos, Brazil.

So there is this strange phenomenon regarding the one peso coin around here. They are in very short supply and if you buy something that requires that coin as change, they will ask for another way for you to pay. You say no, and then they scowl at you, yell in the back, some kid runs out and goes outside and does something to get a coin for you. That or they just won’t sell you the thing you want, or they might even give it to you for free — like the banana I got today. This is all because the buses run some sort of cartel that was in conjunction with the Koreans. The buses would take all the peso coins since a trip costs 90 centavos, and then hoard them and sell them to the Koreans, who would then melt them down and sell the metal for more than the actual peso was worth. Fucking ridiculous, I know. So there is this big question of why they don’t introduce a card system into the buses — how hard could it be, everyone asks. But it seems there is just too much corruption somewhere down the line and it never happens.

For such a large city, I can walk or take public transportation everywhere, and it is another great example of what we need to do more of in America. Fuck density issues — just raise car taxes and gas prices, and provide commuter buses and light rail and small hovercrafts.

Good times, great people…

The urge began during a trip to Argentina to visit my co-bro Roberto. It took shape as I went through the admissions process for ESADE. And it blossomed with a photo gallery provided by Roberto. I want to immigrate to South America. This would happen after an affair with Europe for 20ish months of course.