On The Road To Ushuaia

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2011-12-30T21:47:00.001-08:00

0-7341800
Latitude:36.22403
Longitude:-113.06079
GPS location Date/Time:12/30/2011 22:47:28 MST

Message:wandering around the desert

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2011-12-28T09:13:00.001-08:00

0-7341800
Latitude:32.81009
Longitude:-106.29247
GPS location Date/Time:12/28/2011 10:14:06 MST

Message:wandering around the desert

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2011-11-18T07:55:00.001-08:00

0-7341800
Latitude:31.57203
Longitude:-115.75623
GPS location Date/Time:11/18/2011 08:55:22 MST

Message:checking in from the race course

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2011-11-16T11:28:00.001-08:00

0-7341800
Latitude:30.88858
Longitude:-114.71068
GPS location Date/Time:11/16/2011 12:28:32 MST

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2011-05-28T17:25:00.001-07:00

0-7341800
Latitude:40.58284
Longitude:-114.19939
GPS location Date/Time:05/28/2011 18:26:06 MDT

Message:checking in from the race course

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2011-05-28T16:45:00.001-07:00

0-7341800
Latitude:40.67361
Longitude:-114.17403
GPS location Date/Time:05/28/2011 17:45:51 MDT

Message:checking in from the race course

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2011-05-28T15:16:00.001-07:00

0-7341800
Latitude:40.58962
Longitude:-114.16563
GPS location Date/Time:05/28/2011 16:16:51 MDT

Message:checking in from the race course

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2011-05-28T10:20:00.001-07:00

0-7341800
Latitude:40.64289
Longitude:-114.13113
GPS location Date/Time:05/28/2011 11:20:30 MDT

Message:checking in from the race course

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2010-11-19T17:03:00.001-08:00

0-7341800
Latitude:29.52248
Longitude:-114.29704
GPS location Date/Time:11/19/2010 18:03:46 MST

Message:aaaaahhhhh mexico

Click the link below to see where I am located.
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0-7341800

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2010-11-19T11:27:00.001-08:00

0-7341800
Latitude:28.89163
Longitude:-113.52338
GPS location Date/Time:11/19/2010 12:27:35 MST

Message:aaaaahhhhh mexico

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2010-11-17T11:22:00.001-08:00

0-7341800
Latitude:31.85473
Longitude:-116.61598
GPS location Date/Time:11/17/2010 12:22:46 MST

Message:aaaaahhhhh mexico

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2010-11-17T07:30:00.001-08:00

0-7341800
Latitude:32.77739
Longitude:-116.00627
GPS location Date/Time:11/17/2010 08:30:27 MST

Message:aaaaahhhhh mexico

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0-7341800

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Utah Cruiser Expedition II

2010-09-17T22:41:00.000-07:00

865 Miles of Dirt Road diagonally across the state of Utah. Quite the adventure. I'll get pics loaded up before too long and some words to go along with it.

turning wrong into right...

2009-11-24T23:40:00.000-08:00

…or is left into right? I really don’t know. If I were more educated, or even just a bit smarter I am sure I could use some Greek allegory to summarize the weekend we had in Mexico. But as it is I’ll just start telling my tale and see what happens.

The reason for the trip to Mexico was rest and relaxation, or my version thereof. The dates were chosen around the Baja 1000 race. My friends Jason and Darren were up for a bit of a kamikaze trip with me. Leave on weds after work, drive 1000 miles, cross the border on Thursday, take a bunch of pics in Ensenda, head to the desert and take more pics. On friday head to the ocean, and take more pics. On sat take more pics and head home 1200 miles from Ensenada and get home Sunday night. 3k miles of driving in 5 days with nothing but tacos and Tillamook Medium Cheddar to sustain us. Simple enough plan. Our execution however was riddled with problems.

About 11:30 on Weds night we ran out of gas 4 miles shy of the Chevron atop Chiraco Summit on I-10 east of Indio, California. I’d like to blame a lot of things. The slow as hell pump in Vegas that I gave up on after putting in 8 gallons after 15 mins. The closed gas station we passed before getting on I-10 mins earlier. Watching Eastbound and Down instead of the gas gauge. Truth is I just didn’t pay enough attention and we ran out of gas. So at 11:30 I walked back to one of those emergency phones on the side of the freeway. Had a tow truck sent out with 2 gallons of gas to get us to the Chevron and 90mins later we were back on our way and 3 hours after first stopping we were asleep on a tarp (thanks for the Ambien, Jason ) near Anzo Borrego State Park.

We woke the next morning, crossed the border at Tecate, had tacos for lunch with the Adobado tasting as amazing as I remembered it. Before long we were in Ensenada searching for “Contigency Row” and all the Baja 1000 racers. We struggled with traffic and finding a place to park. After finding a spot on a nice crowded street we set out, cameras in hand, for the pits, the SCORE dancers, latin hip hop and more tacos. 4 wonderful hours later, including what connoisseur Darren deemed the “Best Carne Asada” he’s ever had, we returned to a dark abandoned street with a lonely and burglarized Ruby Claire. The thieves actually hopped into a red Ford Ranger as we walked up. Shattered window (with a sticker purchased in Chile I don’t think I can replace), open door and almost every thing gone. Shitty. We made some phone calls to cancel credit cards, phones, then off to find the Soriana to pick up some new underwear, deodorant and toothpaste. I’d like to say it wasn’t that bad but they pretty much took everything but the fridge, the tools, one flip flop and a spare brake line. One of the humorous effects of the robbery is it pretty much left Jason and me dressed like twins.

Darren drove that night and we set out east of Ojos Negros looking for the race course and a place to camp. My new GPS was gone so we only had maps to work from. We slept well despite being one sleeping bag short. Luckily I had stuffed a down comforter and blanket into my roof top tent so we had enough warmth to go around. Sometime around 3 am it seemed as though an entire rout of coyotes decided to start a nice chorus of howls that went on all night and made Jason a little nervous down on the ground. The lack of light pollution made for incredible star gazing but unfortunately we were there too late to catch the Leonid meteor shower.

The next morning we scrambled around a bit to find a nice spot along the course to hang out and take pics. Before long a continuous stream of motorcycles and atv raced by on their way into the mountains. We moved up the course a bit to a nice wash with some great whoops shortly thereafter. We laid out a tarp and did an inventory of all our current possessions. It wasn’t pretty but we had food, we had the clothes on our backs and we were all okay. That is when we saw a helicopter on the horizon and heard the unmistakable rumble, or should I say howl, of an 850 horsepower V8 headed our direction. Ricky Johnson came howling at us at 95 mph. He entered the wash a bit skewed and then the fun began. I had spent time watching the 1000 back in 2007 on my way to South America. This was Darren and Jason’s first exposure to the amazing machines. The skewed truck came through the wash, left the ground and angled directly at the two of them, cameras in hand. (I was on the other side of the dirt road) They scrambled out of the way, after taking some photos, and were left with a rush of adrenaline and huge smiles on their faces. At that point all the concern over stolen tshirts and sleeping bags disappeared.

4 hours of race spectating, coke drinking, photo taking and laughter passed and we were back on the road headed to the ocean for some beach camping, night racing and relaxing. Then the real fun began, at least for me. Apparently my long and very fortunate run of hassle free adventuring was over. Less than 24hours after getting robbed the bad luck struck again. Slowly twisting down the mountain east of Ensenada, I fought my way around slow diesel traffic and relaxed locals with nowhere to go. As I came into a corner my attempt to slow Ruby came up empty as my brake pedal went all the way to the floor. I shutter to think what would have happened had the brake line let go two miles earlier or later. As it was the corner wasn’t that sharp, the road was relatively flat and there was a room to get off the road. So I downshifted and pulled the truck off the road and to a stop. A bracket had come off the front axle and the hard line had vibrated in half. Fortunately, and yes I realize how weird that sounds, but fortunately Darren had had the same thing happen to him on the Rubicon trail a few years earlier, so as he expertly and rapidly rigged up a fix I sat back and then the reality of the situation set in. I told Darren I was okay to drive but truthfully I was pretty freaked out. Not so much for me, but because of how closely I had come to injuring or possibly killing my friends. My friends who are husbands to wonderful wives and fathers to adorable kids. I basically wanted to break down and cry. I was feeling guilty about getting robbed and now my truck had almost ended our lives. Seriously two miles later it would have been impossible to stop the truck. (maybe I should sue Toyota to issue a recall since it seems to be the popular thing to do) Darren could tell I was not right so he offered to drive. Then basically told me he was driving. I never would have made it. With only one front caliper the truck would jerk violently to the left upon braking then after correcting for it, the truck would jerk back violently to the right when he let off all of this happening on narrow, twisty, dark Mexican roads. What I’m sure was four very long hours (for Darren) later, although the tacos, coke and chats with locals probably helped, we set up camp on a beach south of Erendira. 75 feet from the ocean, 30 feet from the course. Awesome.

The HID lights let us know a racer was coming long before they arrived. In a blink they were gone. Eventual winner Andy McMillin came by first in his trophy truck and the next 2 hours were full of blinding HIDs and roaring engines. Eventually I drifted off to sleep about 3am. At this point the bad luck was behind us and I slept well that night. Next morning came, a breakfast of coke and crumb donettes hit the spot and more racers filled the day with dust and photos. Jason took it upon himself to fix the brakeline with a spare my friend Eric had given me on my way to South America and I had just carried in my spare parts box. The fix maybe took 20mins. Not bad.

As die hard Toyota owners one of the goals for the trip was to see Ivan Stewart in the factory prepped Gen 5 4Runner. If you don’t know Ivan Stewart, shame on you, and you should quit reading and Google his name. After 6 hours of hanging out we began to think he had either passed in the night or had broken down. One racer had been by the last 2 hours so we packed up and decided, against better judgment to drive against the race course and take it back to the highway. The course was rugged but easily doable in a now healed Ruby Claire. As we began to slowly climb the hills away from the beach a red 4Runner came flying over the top of the crest. Sure enough there was the man. His honking horn and aggressive driving meant we just got the hell out of the way without being able to take pics. I’m starting to get long on words and low on sleep so I’ll make this short by saying we attempted to catch him as the course leap frogged (or is it lept frog) the highways. Eventually we found him 2 hours later back east of Ensenada yet again near Ojos Negros. Having achieved our goal we set out for the states and the ride home. More tacos (I think I ate 24 over the course of 3 days) a tank full of cheap gas and some churros purchased at border and we had sadly left Baja behind.

Remember the comment I made about leaving the bad luck behind us? About 2 hours into the states my exhaust crack became worse, as in sheared off the pipe and made the lumbering straight-six ring reminiscient of a Trophy Truck. (yes I realize that is hyperbole) A broken window and no exhaust makes for one noisy Land Cruiser. We spent the next day watching Long Way Down, Eastbound and Down for the second time and very little talking. We arrived home to a snow storm in SLC but the cloudless desert of Mexico wasn’t easily erased from our minds. The trip had it’s hurdles and made the self proclaimed ‘quick, cheap and dirty’ trip to Baja considerably more expensive but in the end it was all worth it. I’ll get pics in my gallery soon but just a few for tonight.

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2009-11-20T22:08:00.001-08:00

0-7341800
Latitude:31.21732
Longitude:-116.35146
GPS location Date/Time:11/20/2009 23:08:45 MST

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Message:aaaaahhhhh mexico

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2009-11-20T07:38:00.001-08:00

0-7341800
Latitude:31.56285
Longitude:-115.78253
GPS location Date/Time:11/20/2009 08:38:27 MST

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2009-11-19T08:20:00.001-08:00

0-7341800
Latitude:33.1425
Longitude:-116.26677
GPS location Date/Time:11/19/2009 09:20:35 MST

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habla espanol?

2009-11-17T22:20:00.001-08:00

I'm not sure i do anymore but i'll be finding out very shortly.

The trip to Baja got delayed a day or two due to a friend's work commitment but tomorrow we're headed South. Expect a SPOT message or two over the next few days. We won't be doing a lot of driving around. Mainly just sitting in the camp chair, drinking a frost beverage directly from the ARB fridge, and watching trophy trucks race by at 140 mph. Hopefully I'll be inspired to write a full report, along with way too many pics when we get back. It's 32 degrees here in SLC right now. Wiping the sweat off my freshly shorn dome in the 75 degree heat of baja can't come soon enough.

dmc

unfortunately it's not true

2009-10-28T08:24:00.000-07:00

I'm not really sure what happened this morning but some of you may have received a SPOT message from me saying I am in Chile. Well unfortunately that isn't true. I'm in my cubicle at work. I do have a pic of Torres del Paine as my wallpaper. Does that count? yeah i didn't think so.

That being said if you get a SPOT message from me in about 3 weeks from some lonely beach in Baja, that will indeed be me.

dmc

Awesome Find

2009-10-02T10:47:00.000-07:00

Yes it has been a long time since I posted anything and this isn’t really a post anyway but I like it so much I figured it was worth putting out there. I thought I’d visited every site on the internet (I have some slow days at work) and then while searching for Mendenhall Glacier photos today I found this site…

http://www.my-photo-blog.com

and his main site…

http://www.wildnatureimages.com

fantastic images and his Alaska pics are for me what Tom Till’s are for Utah. All of his photos are fantastic and I’ll spend hours on his site but whenever I miss Alaska I know where I’ll go.

Later,

dmc

about a year late

2008-12-17T12:33:00.000-08:00

I finally added a Mexico album to my Gallery. It’s broken down into three sub-albums; Baja, Mainland and Yucatan.

Enjoy.

dmc

75 degrees of separation

2008-11-26T10:13:00.000-08:00

Reflecting back, as I have been doing quite frequently lately, upon where I was at this time last year, various things stick out in my mind. Today, for some odd reason, temperature is in my head. Or in my skin as it were. I was two or three days from picking up Benji in Cancun and had just arrived on the Atlantic Ocean. I struggled to find a place to camp and ended up at a small town beach side ‘resort.’ I chatted with the caretaker a bit, he said I could camp there after sharing a coke with him, and then kindly, helped me park in a well lit (poor for sleeping) and coconut free zone (great for not denting my truck or shattering my windshield.) Damn I’m glad I took my SPOT device with me. Just so I can post things like this…

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=18.4381,-93.2304&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

The thing I remember most about that night was the heat. I was up very late that night, typing emails and IM’ing friends. I sweat the entire time. The fine gent who let me camp said I’d have to be gone by 9am. I sweat away miserably in the heat and because I couldn’t sleep I actually ended up sending emails out from my phone after the laptop battery died. About 3:30 or 4 I finally drifted off, sans clothing, into my hot damp sheets. About 5:15 I hear someone yelling at me. Yeah apparently 5:15 and 9 are the same thing on the Caribbean costal clock. I fought, not very valiantly, to wake up and get out of there before the jefe and workers arrived. Groggily I drove about an hour then slept an hour on the side of the road. My haze carried me throughout the day, through what could have been the most humiliating police check stop ever (narrowly escaped) and up to Campeche. Oddly I remember how HOT and humid it was, yet I was so psyched to have my brand new polyester Valencia jersey that I suffered through.

Last night I accidentally left my window open. I woke up freezing cold this morning and I’m headed to buy a new jacket at lunch since it feels like the time is right for a new fleece. Last year I slept through a 90 degree night. Last night was in the 20s I believe. 75 degrees of separation and an entire world away. Although just one small year, it seems like a dream and life that I can’t really remember.

Chao,

dmc

One Year Gone

2008-11-06T13:11:00.000-08:00

One year ago today, just about this time in the afternoon, I climbed in my truck after lunch and goodbyes with friends and started off on a trip that would change my life forever. From the outside it looks like one guy got in his truck and drove as far south as he possibly could. That however is not even close to being the truth. Without the people listed below, that one man, me, never would have made it on, through, or back from his adventure. Each played their own role, some more significant than others, but each and every one of you is appreciated. The list doesn’t include all of the 118 people who subscribed to my blog (yes I have a list but it only contains email addresses and figured you wouldn’t want them posted for the world to see) or viewed it regularly. It also doesn’t include the hundreds of people I encountered along the way that took kindly to a poor speaking gringo.

In the next few days I’ll post up some reflection and I intend to start writing more frequently in my blog about my current misadventures and excitement. (since my return I have had at least one more ‘once in a lifetime’ experience that I need to share with you all) but for now I just want to say thanks to everyone that made my trip possible. I hope the list in complete and inclusive, but as is expected from a guy with my limited intellect and shabby organizational skills I’m sure there will be inadvertent omissions.

Muchas gracias mis amigos…

My parents for instilling in me the belief that the world is best viewed through a windshield on dusty road. For allowing me, after the sell of my house that funded the trip, to fill their basement and garage with clothes, camping gear, spare parts, tools, and all other sundry items that I’m sure they got sick of as I prepared for my trip.

Mike and Wendy Connors for living the more traditional life and providing my parents with Grandkids so that they are far more tolerant of my wandering.

My amazing friends who showed up, night after night and weekend after weekend to help get Ruby Claire prepared for the trip. Trent and Shellie Ashby, Jason Call, Darren Webster, Ryan Davis, Adam Tolman, Dave Helm, Cory Fillmore, Will Carroll, Johnny Lange, Troy DeMill, Cody Morgan

To William Joseph, Jen, Emalee and Gage Carroll for many dinners, hours in their garage, skills, talents, laughter and friendship.

To all of my sponsors whose donations ($10k worth) made my trip possible. Paul May at Equipt Expedition Outfitters, Kurt Williams of Cruiser Outfitters, Wes Johnson of Menlove Toyota Scion, Scott Brady of Overland Journal, Jim Jackson of ARB USA, J Ralls of Hewlett-Packard. Kaleb Galbraith of Mule Expedition Equipment and Dustin Francis for my exquisite roof rack. Scott Simpson and Julie Sediq for my Toyo Tires.

My awesome managers Trent Anderson and Jared Jolley (and to my former team, especially Josh Carmack, TK Hollberg and Brad Neves) for dealing with my giddiness about my trip and with accommodating my schedule during my last few weeks of work.

Ben Butterfield, Justin Kirkham and J Ralls for being brave enough to join me along the way. Greatest six months of my life will always bring fond memories of you gents. Sorry about my foul odor and dave matthews addiction. Life on the road makes a man stink. Words, or my ability to organize them, will never full explain how grateful I am to each of you for sharing in my journey.

My assistant Cory Fillmore, Jen Carroll, Kim McArthur, Jen Morgan (usually about 4am) and Adam Tolman for always being online to chat with when I had a connection. Keeping me up to date on the real world and reminding me how easy it is to stay in touch. For being there in my moments of panic when I needed to realize I was only alone physically and could find friendship quickly and easily when I needed it.

Eric Vogt, Todd Kaderabek, and Henry Cubillan for various and sundry reasons. Your excellent words and photos over the years definitely fueled my motivation to go. Inspiration is a better way to put it. For also giving me confidence in my own ability to provide that same motivation to others.

Scotty Brady for the last initial push over the edge after I had made up my mind to go.

Mr. Brian Hanson, for not kicking the baby and giving me access to your sling box for the Masters broadcast.

Travis Jeremy Farnes for being the freak you are and providing me with friendship, humor and 200 DVDs for my trip including all of the Red Sox World Championship DVDs

Again to Jim Jackson, your contacts in the latin world were invaluable to me.

Frank Diaz and Alvaro Pachon. Two men, emblematic of the love and warmth I felt throughout the amazingly beautiful Colombia. Thank you good sirs for your friendship and sacrifice for a total stranger.

All the fine folks in Wasatch Crusiers, the TLCA and at IH8MUD.com. Cruiser people are truly special.

Christo Slee for overnighting parts to SLC so Ben could bring them to Mexico for some repairs.

Ken Romer for keeping me in the loop at IH8MUD. To all the guys at Rising Sun for the gracious welcome to Cruise Moab 2008. Cheeseman, Jethro, the Quigleys, Matt Farr, Perry Loughridge, Jeff Zepp etc Great group of people. Thank you for the kind words.

Brad Gillespie and Robert Gardner. Two best parts guys you’ll ever find. Friends first and the guys in the know second.

Motivational emails from Lisa Webster and Loretta Rose since neither of their husbands know how to type. And of course your friendship as well.

Erin van Zant and Kevin Bradley. My Canadian friends I met along the way. For the camaraderie, adventure and shared meals.

Barbara Belyea for saving me thousands of dollars with the buddy passes.

Ryan Davis for picking me up and the airport, sharing my last American meal with me, and being the funniest person on the face of the earth. Your friendship is never taken for granted.

Hampton, Bush and Morty for having the best nicknames ever for one family.

I could go on and on but I’ll cut this short. Each and every name below had an impact on my ‘solo’ journey through Latin America. To the strengthened relationships with old friends and relatives to my new friends found along the way. Thanks for buying stickers, donating to my cause or just sending emails. Thank you all…

Aaron Weaver

Alvaro Rodriguez

Bart Anderson

Trent Anderson

Alvaro Pachon

Frank Diaz

Trent and Shellie Ashby

Chris Atz

Bob Waterbury

Tim Baker

Barbara Belyea

Evelyn Batista

Benji Butterfield

Kurt Jeffrey Williams

Tyson Blackner

Mark Kuz

Steve Kemerling

Brandon Madsen

Brennan Dates

Bret Van Tuyle

Brian Dean

Mr. Brian Hanson

Brad van Uitert

Todd van Uitert

Cameron Egan

Joshua Neil Carmack

Jared Call

Nique Christensen

Christo Slee

Mike Connors

Wendy Connors

Royal and Loretta

Cspencer175

Kevin Bradley

Erin Van Zant

Dan Davis

Darren Webster

David Jeffs

Davey Patey

David Petersen

Stephen Petersen

Dominic Gill

Dylan Austin

Eduardo Silva

Eric Cline

Eric Paine

Eric Thorne

Eric Vogt

Esteban Campos

Cory Fillmore

Ben Ferguson

Flor Granados

Frank Diaz

Gary Cummings

Ryan Gaz

Cameron Gibby

Grant Stewart

Gustavo Nunez

Guy

LRDTGSMJLWCBFF

Heather May

Henry Cubillan

Kelly Hildt

TK Hollberg

Igor Karpovics

Woody

Ken Romer

Jarek

Johnny Lange

Jairo O Rincon

Jan Alsen

James Roy

Jason Call

Jay Jones

John Curnutt

David Callister

Jen Morgan

Jennyfer Carroll

Jeremy Christoffersen

Jim Jackson

Hampton

Jared Jolley

Jonathan Hanson

Joseph Muir

Juan Carlos Cruz

Patricio Rios

Justin Borg

Justin Burrup

Justin Kirkham

Kaleb Galbraith

Kelsey Cavanaugh

Kent McComb

Chris Koulouras

Kurt Nosack

Ed LaRosa

Lisa Webster

Luis

Lynn Scow

Mark Woytovich

Mark Amstock

Martin Jensen

Matias Calvo

Matthew David racker

Matt Nelson

Kim McArthur

Megan Lapage

Matt McKay

Natalia Basso

Nathan Eilers

Nate Thompson

Onur Azeri

Paul May

Perry Loughridge

Peter Carey

Rachel Romer

Jack Arthur Ralls

Trevor Ralls

Rodolfo Mata

Ron Petersen

Ryan Christian Davis

Ryan Sharp

Salvador Melgar

Jeff Salzman

Scott Brady

Scott Simpson

Sean Pritchard

Sean Robbins

Julie Sediq

Sharon Bowdish

Shreesh Taskar

Spencer Bybee

Susie Davis

Liza Swift

Traske Muir

Tangi Quemener

Travis Jeremy Farnes

Steven Davis

Ken Thibault

Tiff Muir

Trent Taylor

Todd J Kaderabek

Travis Manning

Troy DeMill

Lance Vaughan

John Whipple

Russ Wilson

Spencer Lynn Winegar

Tyler Wade Winegar

Brad Gillespie

Wes Johnson

Robert Gardner

Cody Morgan

John Yang

Aaron Weaver

John Curnutt

Joseph Thoming

Andre Shoumatoff

Matthew Pitkin

The guys from RideParts in Osorno

Luis and Odile

I shall be eternally grateful.

dmc

Sweet Ruby Claire

2008-06-11T16:12:00.000-07:00

She's home!

just dandy

2008-05-06T23:02:00.000-07:00

Six months today. Six months ago today I left on my life changing journey to South America. One week ago I arrived home and it has been a whirlwind since. Two days of catching up with friends and family then off to Moab for 5 days of wheeling with friends from far and wide at the TLCA Cruise Moab event. I returned home to my grandpa’s funeral. A great story teller and desert rock hound he was huge influence on me and my trip to South. I’m close to posting my summary thoughts on the last six months and I hope to have it up soon. My friends have started calling me Dartanian and I’ve included proof justifying the nickname.

OK ESN:0-7341800

2008-04-30T22:56:00.001-07:00

This thing might be getting a lot of use soon. I am lost (in a good way) in Bolivia, Chile, Argentina or Paraguay
ESN:0-7341800
Latitude:38.5636
Longitude:-109.5475
Nearest Location: , Moab, UT, US
Distance: 0 km(s)
Time:05/01/2008 05:56:27 (GMT)

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=38.5636,-109.5475&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

chao

2008-04-27T11:53:00.001-07:00

I heart Natalia

2008-04-26T23:15:00.001-07:00

Before I get to that just a few things.

Steak and ice cream for lunch today. In a mall food court no less.

Steak and ice cream for dinner today as well.

Yesterday I did something I’ve never done before. Snapped the shaft of a golf club on purpose. Figured it was cheaper to re-shaft my wedge when I get home than it would be to buy an new one. Not as easy to do as I would have thought. Took a few smacks across the knee to make it happen.

I’m all packed and ready to go. So why do I heart Natalia? I have 2 companies in Ushuaia still working on shipping quotes (I’ll let them know on Monday that I’m home) going on 4 weeks. Another one working in Chile going on 5 weeks. Or is it 6? Natalia first emailed me on Monday in response to my email Sunday night. I loaded my truck in the container Friday afternoon. Less than 5 days. She, along with her co-workers, Matias and Marcelo combined to make miracles happen. Of course they are nowhere near as cute as she is. Yeah ‘miracle’ might be a bit of an exaggeration but after the frustration of the last few weeks it is how I feel. How about I just say they kick ass. I am just still astounded at how simple the process was here and so difficult everywhere else. I think I stumbled upon a gem of a company and have to thank Kevin and Erin for putting me in touch with them. Sea freight is not even their normal mode of business, they are an airfreight company. That confuses me even more about why this process is so hard for other companies to figure out. Not only did they get me in a container with a ship date for early next week (which means no dock storage charges) but they also made it possible for me to pay the freight upon receipt of my truck in Long Beach. The companies in Ushuaia were estimating almost $6k due upfront. (Spend some time thinking about the prospect of getting $6k in cash, cc is not an option, 14k miles from home with no local bank account. Yeah there are no easy answers to that dilemma.) Friday morning I paid All Cargo $891. Just a bit easier to swallow than $6k. By the time the truck shows up in Long Beach I’ll have earned enough money (assuming the job thing pans out) to pay cash for shipping and avoid the CC. That is a HUGE benefit since I wanted to do this trip debt free. I got close but not quite. Half the cost, ¼ the time, and it allowed me to spend some time in this wonderful city. Yeah I made the right choice to leave Ushuaia. Should have done it 2 weeks sooner.

Friday morning I was sitting in the office of All Cargo after paying the fees and listening to Matias talk to the port on the phone. I’d been there about an hour waiting for the official’s name and appointment to stuff the truck. ‘Stuff’ is the highly technical term they use for loading the container. Matias was speaking in his rapid business Spanish and somewhere in there I caught ‘at 2pm.’ An overwhelming sense of sadness and triumph set it. I fought hard not to tear up in front of 6 strangers on the 10^th floor of 893 Rivadavia. I managed to maintain my stoic, hardass appearance. But inside the emotions were chaotic. The finality had finally set it. Oh beautiful sentence there. The breadth of my vocabulary is truly astounding isn’t it? The closure was now real. My trip was over. 10 years of planning over. Proud of the fact that I did it 7 years before my original goal of age 40. It was a nice quiet time to reflect upon my accomplishment. 20mins passed and it was back to the anything but quiet task at hand.

The task at hand? Drive through this nightmare, from a traffic and pedestrian standpoint, of a city to the port and get it loaded successfully. Considered paying a taxi to let me follow him through the confusion but I nutted up and did it solo. I made it. Ruby Claire is parked ever so politely inside her sealed container waiting to be loaded on Tuesday for her journey to Long Beach, California. Two minor fender benders, some small nagging mechanical issues but she made the 30k miles of abuse and stress pretty much unscathed. Just a hair shy of 196k miles on the odometer. Yep there is a reason I drive Land Cruisers.

This morning I woke up with nothing on the agenda. First time in many weeks. Instead of hitting snooze I turned off the alarm and went back to sleep. I rolled out of bed about 11 and spent the day wandering the city, taking pictures, laughing at some lady who asked me what my sign is, shopping for last minute souvenirs and ended up finishing my trip with 7 pairs of shoes instead of 6. Yes I am that big of a loser. I sat in the middle of the 22 lane street and watched people, for about 90mins just soaking it all in.

Tomorrow night I’m headed to the airport and will say goodbye to the Latin World. For the time being. if I’m lucky I’ll make both flights (flying standby here and atlanta) and be home by Monday before most of you read this post. In the morning however I’m hitting up the antiques market to find my ACA medal, track down another ice cream cone or two, and see if I can avoid getting lost within blocks of my hotel like happened Friday between paying and shipping. Ideally I’ll get a post in tomorrow before I fly out. For now I’ll throw in a few more pics and then I need sleep since it is 3 am.

Until then, Cheers or Take Care or Much Luck or Sincerely or Con Amor or Saludos or Chao or a word that signifies closure to this post. Oh and there is a ‘behind the scenes’ for Beverly Hills Cop 2 on tv right now. Damn I’m going to miss this place

I read the news today oh boy...

2008-04-23T20:46:00.000-07:00

8:47am- I’m woken up by the people above me playing what I think is a cello. They were playing until 1 last night and then at it again this morning. I was up until 3:15 or so thus 8:47 is a bit early.

9:15am- My alarm goes off on the phone. I hit snooze.

9:25am- My alarm goes off on the phone. I hit snooze.

9:35am- My alarm goes off on the phone. I hit snooze. I realize that my hotel room doesn’t have a clock in it anywhere.

9:45am- My alarm goes off on the phone. I hit snooze.

9:55am- My alarm goes off on the phone. I hit snooze. Takes a minute to fall asleep as I try to reconcile the dream I just had about not being able to find my spindle kit to make a fire (yes starting a fire with no matches is possible) for the manager of the hotel.

10:05am- My alarm goes off on the phone. I hit snooze. Again try and figure out the fire thing for a second.

10:15am- My alarm goes off on the phone. I hit snooze.

10:16am- Finally get up.

10:18am- Email Natalia to find out if I have a shipping quote yet. Turn on the TV and settle in on ER. A show I never watched once until this trip. Not sure I’ll watch it when I get home but it’s in English.

10:22am- Open the HP Mobile Workstation, my Office Season 4 episodes 1-9 torrent is done. Only took 6 days. Episodes are all available online if you live in the states. They aren’t viewable down here so I have to go the BT route.

10:37am- Start converting the office .avi files to mpeg4 for the IPOD so I can watch them on the flight home.

10:53am- Got an email from Natalia. Still no quote.

11:04am- William Joseph Carroll sent me an email from his ‘work’ trip to Oregon. Pic of him with his 22lb 36in King Salmon from a trip on the river yesterday. Glad it was him and not me.

12:39pm- Office files were corrupt. 2.2gb and 6 days of downloading and no worky. Bummer. So I messed around with those for bit and no luck. So I started over with 8 individual torrents for each episode and we’ll see what happens. Gilmore Girls and Scrubs were decent though. Spent some time cleaning myself and other things you do in the bathroom including a good nail clipping. I’m dressed and headed out the door to see the city, get some food, take a few pics, get some sun on my Ushuaia-blanched head and do some good ole’ fashioned people watching.

12:57pm- Still here IM’ing the Trunk Monkey about the joys of Lasik recovery and Land Cruiser moderation.

1:24pm- The new Jack Johnson is playing in my cab on the way over to the Automovil Club Argentina office. Driver had no idea what he was listening to. Or I didn’t understand him when he answered my questions. I have some stickers from the ACA but want to track down one of these. They have an antiques market here in the city on Sunday. My flight is scheduled for Sunday night so I’m going to go see if I can track one down there.

1:42pm- I leave the ACA and take some pics of the nearby sculptures and plazas. I feel weird taking pics in crowded cities. Makes me feel touristy and at this point I feel like I’ve gone a step beyond a ‘tourist.’ Maybe not since I’m looking to buy antique souvenirs for my truck.

1:49pm- I get my buddy pass confirmation for my flight home. THANK YOU Barbara.

2:14pm- Wondering around Northern BA looking for a bite to eat. I wander into what I think is a mall looking for a food court and find an ice cream stand. Chocolate Chip and Swiss Chocolate in a waffle bowl for my lunch. Perfect.

2:45pm- The mall was actually a large 18 screen multiplex in a 200 year old renovated building. A movie was not on my agenda and even now not sure why I did it, but I was there, it felt right so in the theater I went. I decided on 21 since it’s in English and I’d heard a bit about it. I enjoyed it. But then again I’m easily amused by movies about people with badass math skills. Good Will Hunting, that Russell Crowe/Ron Howard movie I’m drawing a blank on, Pi. Numbers+me = total confusion. Previews for the movie? Run Fatboy Run, We Own the Night, King of the Streets, Ironman, Super Agent86, and Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. Why does this matter? I have no idea but I was able to translate the titles from their Spanish Equivalent so there they are. I think I got them right. Coke, with ice, and Runts for snacks. Pineapple in the Runts down here.

4:49pm- A quote came in from Ushuaia. 22 days from the start of the process. Still no ship date though. Yeah I’m glad I came here. (see 6:17pm)

5:02pm- Andres was my cab driver on the way back from the north end of town. He talked the whole time like he thought I could understand him. I just said ‘oh si?’ a lot. Oh and threw out ‘en serio?’ once or twice.

5:18pm- I went shopping for toys. It’s J’s fault. He spotted these toy Land Cruisers when we were in Castro, Chile in the corner of some hole in the wall junk store. I’ve been searching every town since. I estimate 200 stores I’ve walked through. Nothing. If the stores I checked tonight didn’t have them none of them will. Bummer really. Thanks J’s for sending me on a scavenger hunt with no reward.

5:33pm- Back at the hotel. Settle in to do nothing. Okay to stop sweating and do some packing.

6:17pm- Quote came in from Natalia for shipping out of Buenos Aires. Less than 2 full business days since I started the process here. Headed down in the morning to pick it up and over to customs to start the paperwork of getting my truck out of here.

6:43pm- go to my truck grab my huge duffle bag, my ipod, two books and some other miscellany to get packed for the trip home.

7:14pm- lit up brickbreaker (video game on the blackberry) while getting rid of some of the sugar I’ve taken in today. Legs fell asleep from sitting on the throne for too long. Damn game.

7:28pm- browsed the internet for awhile. Land cruiser stuff. Ebay looking for ACA medals. Indiana Jones trailer etc.

8:10pm- went for a walk to find dinner. BA is a bit of an enigma. A quick overview reveals a city of wealth, healthy economy and cleanliness. Walking around at night that all changes. The shops in my neck of the woods put all their trash on the street corners each night and it is cleaned up by the sanitation crews. Filthy at night, sparking clean in the morning. However before they get clean up the piles are ransacked by the impoverished for anything they can use. I saw two young girls waist deep in trash, tonight, ripping open bags and sorting through the contents. Fairly sad.

8:58pm- I ended up at McDonald’s for dinner tonight. I don’t eat there in the states and didn’t really want it but sometimes I just don’t want to go through the 90 mins process of eating in Latin America just for a chicken sandwich. To be honest with you, sometimes eating alone, for that long is depressing. Last night I ate a pizza in a crowded joint while watching the local BA club dominate a club from VZ. It was fun and intense. But tonight I just knew I needed food and didn’t care what it was. I was more than happy to eat quick, and head back to my hotel where even watching dumb TV makes me feel less alone.

9:08pm- Done with my chicken sandwich, coke with ice again and fries. I ordered and ate in less time than it takes a waiter to even acknowledge your presence in a real restaurant. Oddly I enjoyed it.

10:08pm- David Archeleta rocked it on American Idol

10:14pm- grabbed a coke from fridge. Need to get some work done tonight.

10:23pm- Cracked open the laptop and finally caught up on some lingering emails from last week.

11:12pm- Finished this post as well as some cheesy movie on FX about the same time. Hopefully you enjoyed my day as much as I did.

don't try to figure it out

2008-04-22T21:22:00.001-07:00

Oh I forgot a few things in my last post so you get two today/tonight/this afternoon or whenever you read it.

Trying to apply North American logic proves frustrating and fruitless when difficult situations arise but in the past 48 hours I have had two that are just baffling to me.

Insurance is mandatory in Argentina for all vehicles. I bought insurance in Coyhaique, Chile for liability only, that covered me for Chile, Bolivia, Arg, Uruguay, Brasil, Paraguay. I paid $28 or so from a company call Mapfre. Well it expired on Saturday. I drove Sunday without it and then spent 2 hours Monday morning buying new insurance. (then wasted another 2 trying to scan my documents to email to the shipping agent here in BA) So I go to ACA, the ARG version of AAA. They can’t insure US vehicles. They guide me to a Mapfre Agent in Bahia Blanca. Mapfre Chile can insure US vehicles but Mapfre ARG can’t. So he calls someone, gets a phone and fax for chile and says call them. So I head back to the ACA office. They call 6! companies before they find one that will insure me. So my logic tells me if Canada required someone to insure their car companies would be lining up to do it. Not here. It’s the law and finable but no one will do it. So I head over to the company they found and I get a policy. I ask how much it is for comprehensive, just in case, he tells me $2200. I asked 4 times and made him write it down in pesos and dollars. Yes that number is right, $2200 for one month. Liability only ends up being only $70 but for Arg only. Needless to say when I was in Chile I should have got 2 months. They require it but won’t sell it. Genius plan.

I arrive in Buenos Aires and go to the shipping company to work on that process. They can’t load my truck into a container until I show proof I’m leaving the country. Makes sense right? They don’t want me sticking around and stealing a job. Oh wait how can I buy a ticket when I don’t know when I can put my truck into a container? All Americans are rich you can buy a $2k flight then eat the ticket when we can’t get you out of here. If I had believed what the guys and gal in Ushuaia told me I’d be out $36k in plane tickets. I told them to get me a quote and assure me it is happening in a contract then I’ll book my flight. After that I’ll find a place to print it off. Who uses paper tickets anymore? Okay I could have made this rant a lot more humorous or cantankerous but it’s 1:30am and I’m tired. Just remember. LOGIC DOES NOT APPLY in South America.

you never know

2008-04-22T20:58:00.001-07:00

First let me give you a rundown of the movies from last post.

Star Wars

Dead Poets Society

Flatliners

Untitled

Silverado

Cannonball Run

Tin Cup (seriously underrated sports movie)

Top Gun

Back to the Future

Shawshank Redemption

Can’t Hardly Wait

A Clockwork Orange

Elizabethtown (mediocre movie but an appropriate line)

Good Will Hunting

I enjoyed assembling the quotes but it took a long time. I could have butchered them all and just typed what I thought they were but wanted to be accurate. Then of course I butchered the final Star Wars line.

So, I am sitting in a hotel in Buenos Aires. The Apart Hotel Flamingo I believe it is called. My room is just a titch on the large side of normal. I asked for a single and I got 3 beds (1 king, two singles), a kitchen (the apart part) and a decent sized although poorly laid out bathroom. From the throne to lying in my bed is 31 steps. Yes I counted. More importantly that’s like 90 feet. I could park Ruby in here and still have plenty of room for 2 beds and the bathroom. It’s very odd but I like it and reasonably priced. I managed to fit into their parking garage by less than an inch. BA is not designed for tall Land Cruisers and on that note…

I have made a bad decision or two along the way (staying in Ushuaia for 3 weeks being one of them) and managed to luck my way into some very good experiences. I will have to say however that yesterday I made a decision that would pretty much assure my status as a genius. Not in the legimate IQ status but pretty damn clever. After the wise move to leave Ushuaia (and get more accomplished in 4 hours regarding shipping than I did in 15 days there) I followed it up with one that was even much more wiser. (why do I feel like I need to explain that is joke?) So as I was rolling north through the wind and desolation of Argentina I was unsure of the best way to approach the second largest city of my trip. I wanted to make it Sunday but it was just too far. The rumors and reputation of the southern Argentina winds are 100% true. At times 30mph and pushing my top heavy truck all over the road. It was very tedious driving and after back to back 16 hour days I was torn between staying an hour outside the city or coming into the city at night. The benefit of late night is little traffic. The downside? Hard to read signs, lost in the wrong neighborhood, hotels are full.

I came in last night and first thing that happened I got lost. The fault however was not mine but that of Lonely Planet. They had the right address for the hotel I wanted but it was wrong on the map. I found the map location quickly. Graffiti, abandoned buildings, empty trash filled streets. Awesome. I parked the truck and walked up to the corner to look around. A guy on the street says hey then the first thing out of his mouth. Your lights are very bright. Or some approximation thereof since I was confused at his greeting and didn’t fully understand his Spanish. I told him that yeah I know they are bright. After a few minutes I was in his little market using his phone to call the hotel. I was about 20 blocks away but they had a room. The shop owner couldn’t read so when I showed him my map we had to ask a patron to help us. Hey good thing they are people shopping at midnight. We found it on the map then I had 4 more people help explain how to get there. All were super friendly, complimentary of my truck and my trip, one even said he’d join me if I kept going.

Back into the city and I got lost. This time my fault. Missed my turn, got stuck in the middle of 9 de Julio (which is a 22 lane road) and couldn’t get out. So my 5 min drive took 20 mins. Finally I found the hotel and parked the truck. I spent most of the morning walking around town working on shipping and one thing dawned on me. This town would have destroyed me had I come in yesterday. Buses, taxis pedestrians, one way streets, alley ways passing as streets and did I mention a 22 lane road that I would have had to use and cross? It was hard enough to get across it on foot let alone in Ruby. So I am at the end of my trip (I hope for real this time) and I think I’ve learned a few things about getting around. You never know when your experience and judgment will kick in. Not driving at night is the standard tenet of Latin American travel but without question it was the right move yesterday. I’d still much rather prefer small towns and having spent 2 months in the sticks Buenos Aires was quite a shock but I made it into the city unscathed. I feel very safe walking around and enjoy the people I have met so far. Granted I am just here to get out of South America but the fact is I am glad I’m here and think I would have missed out had I shipped home from Ushuaia. I just wish I would have decided to come here two weeks ago. I have a special post planned for tomorrow. Be excited. Be very excited. Okay that might be an exaggeration. But I’m sort of giddy about the prospect.

(oh and some pics from the a few sunsets on the drive north, ushuaia, the flatness that is ALL of southeast argentina, enjoy)

OK ESN:0-7341800

2008-04-19T18:42:00.001-07:00

This thing might be getting a lot of use soon. I am lost (in a good way) in Bolivia, Chile, Argentina or Paraguay
ESN:0-7341800
Latitude:-44.2554
Longitude:-66.1391
Nearest Location: Uzcudun, Argentina
Distance: 4 km(s)
Time:04/20/2008 01:42:14 (GMT)

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-44.2554,-66.1391&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

This took much longer than I planned.

2008-04-17T22:05:00.001-07:00

Yoda: Try not. Do, or do not, there is no try.

John Keating: They're not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they're destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. [the students lean in] Listen, you hear it? [whispers in a raspy voice] - - Carpe - - hear it? - - Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.

Joe Hurley: I don't know. Not thinking about the past or the future. I don't know it's difficult to explain, maybe impossible.

David Labraccio: Yeah, dying is quite that way.

Nelson Wright: Today is a good day to die.

Lester Bangs: Aw, man. You made friends with them. See, friendship is the booze they feed you. They want you to get drunk on feeling like you belong.
William Miller: Well, it was fun.
Lester Bangs: They make you feel cool. And hey. I met you. You are not cool.
William Miller: I know. Even when I thought I was, I knew I wasn't.
Lester Bangs: That's because we're uncool. And while women will always be a problem for us, most of the great art in the world is about that very same problem. Good-looking people don't have any spine. Their art never lasts. They get the girls, but we're smarter.
William Miller: I can really see that now.
Lester Bangs: Yeah, great art is about conflict and pain and guilt and longing and love disguised as sex, and sex disguised as love... and let's face it, you got a big head start.
William Miller: I'm glad you were home.
Lester Bangs: I'm always home. I'm uncool.
William Miller: Me too!
Lester Bangs: The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what we share with someone else when we're uncool.
William Miller: I feel better.
Lester Bangs: My advice to you. I know you think those guys are your friends. You wanna be a true friend to them? Be honest, and unmerciful.

Stella: The world is what you make of it, friend. If it doesn't fit, you make alterations.
Paden: I'll drink to that.

Mel: How long before we stop?

Terry: Eight hours!

Mel: Da-D-Damn! I gotta go to the john!

Romeo: Then do it. Quit fucking around

Charlie: When I first met you, you were larger than life. Look at you. You're not going to be happy unless you're going Mach-2 with your hair on fire and you know it.

Marty: What about all that talk about screwing up future events? The space-time continuum?

Doc: Well, I figured, what the hell!

Red: Goddamn it, Andy, stop! Don't do that to yourself! Talking shitty pipedreams! Mexico's down there, and you're in here, and that's the way it is!

Andy: You're right. It's down there, and I'm in here. I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy living or get busy dying.

(much later in the movie)

RED (Narrator): Get busy living or get busy dying. That is goddamn right.

Angel Stripper: Fate! There is such a thing as fate, but it only takes you so far. Then it's up to you to make it happen.

Alex: Initiative comes to thems that wait

Claire: I want you to get into the deep beautiful melancholy of everything that's happened.

Sean: Son of a bitch... He stole my line.

So I stole a bunch of lines from movies. Some good. Some bad. Some awful and obscure. (I would be beyond impressed if someone knew ALL of these WITHOUT the help of IMDB.com) Basically I’ve lost my mind and would rather quote others than type myself. I’ve shaved my head again and am still rocking the Frenchman appearance if that is an indication of my normalcy. Tomorrow I’m cleaning the car, buying more car insurance since mine is expired, and heading north to Buenos Aires. I am done waiting for people to do their job. 3 weeks of waiting and still no quote thus I’m headed to a larger port. Over 2200 miles but I expect to arrive there Monday sometime. Some of you may be tempted to use the word ‘heroic’ right now about me for taking on such a task. Yeah let’s roll with that. It sounds good. The quotes above are relevant to my mindset, or continuing adventure or just a nice long distance inside joke with friends. I alternated colors to distinguish the movies.

These are not the droids you’re looking for.

move along,

dmc

Gallery Update

2008-04-14T11:37:00.001-07:00

I forgot to mention last night that my Gallery has been update with every country but Mexico. Enjoy.

still here

2008-04-13T20:10:00.001-07:00

And what has the waiting done to me? Well apparently shaving my beard into some sort of French stash and goatee was a good idea. I broke out my puffy coat due to the cold. I had to change hotels. Watched 4 days of Masters and 3 Sox/Yanks games so the week of waiting wasn’t miserable. It’s raining and cold. Doesn’t seem to be changing. I have no hope it will happened this week either. If I don’t have a shipping date by Friday I’ll get on the road and head north. Still torn on Buenos Aires or Arica, Chile. One will be cheaper to ship the other will be cheaper to get to. $2.20 for gas in Argentina and $5 in Chile. I’d get to see some more of Argentina which would be nice but at the same time I’d rather not live off a credit card for an extended amount of time.

The waiting has really broken my spirit. And not just the waiting but the lack of control. I wrote a few weeks ago about how wonderful it has been to spend a portion of my life living decision by decision and doing what I want. Now I’m stuck here, going on two weeks, unable to do anything while I wait for others to do their job. It’s frustrating, it’s tiring and frankly it pisses me off. That was how I felt Tuesday when I got passed off from the guy who gave me hope last Friday to his little helper whom I sure will do nothing to get me home anytime soon. In the mean time a boat came and went and my truck is still outside filling up with water. So there have been no updates on my blog, I let emails sit for 8 days with no reply. The fact is I’ve been here and I’ve been broken. Two weeks ago I was sad that my trip was over. I didn’t want to be home. I wanted to keep going and see more of the world. The waiting, and sitting, complacency and lethargy have done one significant positive thing. Changed my mind.

Right now I’m excited to get home. I’m looking forward to being back in the desert, out on the golf course with my friends, sitting at the Training Table on Thursday for a nice long lunch talking Cruisers. All those things I missed, then forgot about, are becoming exciting for me again. Fountain drinks and water out of the tap. Long conversations. More than anything that is what I’m looking forward to. I had a cab driver who spoke English the other night. I think I scared him with how much talking I did. I’m not just excited for the talking part either. I can’t wait to have someone talk to me and I understand all the words. I love to drive. I love being behind the wheel. Right now I’d take a cramped window seat on a Delta flight over a 3k mile road trip to Buenos Aires in a heartbeat. I caught up on email tonight and got this attempt at a blog written. I hope to add some more this week and if the clouds ever rise above 1000 feet I’ll go get some pics of the snow and changing leaves. Until then enjoy the fact that I have a mustache right now.

i'm just typing

2008-04-07T22:02:00.001-07:00

Yep. Nothing more to it than that.

Lucila- Monday afternoon, “yeah it’s not a problem. We can get you out of here, we do it all the time.”

Lucila- Friday afternoon, “I’ve never done this before, there are other agents in town you should go see who do it a lot.”

Yeah perfect timing there. Thanks for helping me kill a week in Ushuaia. She did send me to Marcelo who I am much more confident in and will no doubt get me on a boat. Lucila was very nice and tried hard though. Could have saved a ton of time and stress by giving me Marcelo’s info last Monday.

So yep, no Fenway Park. I’m still in Ushuaia. Going on 9 days now. Once in a lifetime chance missed but so was this trip so I’m not going to complain too much.

I had the hiccoughs. Those who don’t know me personally are asking themselves. “who cares?” those who do know me personally are laughing pretty hard right now since you know that I had them for 3 days and early on reached the exasperation point and was sighing after everyone. Three days of acid, burping and the inability to eat in public without being embarrassed. Do NOT send your secret tricks for getting rid of them. I’ve tried them all and believe me NONE work.

It snowed in the mountains here and is down in the low 30s tonight I think. Getting cold. Still no southern lights though but I’ll keep wandering at night hoping.

I’m losing my hotel room in 2 more days so I REALLY hope to be on a plane. Oh and it’s Masters weekend which is even a better reason to be on a plane so I can enjoy the best 6 hours of TV all year on Sunday.

The leaves are changing. Beachwood turns a very burnt orange color. Some link the name Tierra del Fuego to this very phenomenon.

Kansas won in OT. Beauty of technology. Props to Mr. Brian Hanson for letting me log into his Slingbox.

I was mad last Friday about not making it to Fenway for the ring ceremony. Then I got over it. Saturday morning I was fine. I’ve accepted the fact that nothing will happen quickly getting my truck home. I need to figure out my ship date so I can get flights reserved because the last minute flights from Ushuaia to SLC are PRICEY.

I’m dying to play golf. I think I’ll do it tomorrow. Southern most course in the world. Oh and I’ve played the Northern most in the western hemisphere in Fairbanks, AK. Yep, I’m a dork.

There are things in South America that remind me of the US in 1998. Main street Ushuaia at 1am is one of those things. Whether it be a Peugeot 206, Chevy Astra, Ford KA, Fiat Clio or any other 2 door hatchback the Fueginos (as they are called) think it is still cool to cruise the drag with the over the top bass rattling their windows and in sync pulsating neon lights under their car. They haven’t caught up to the bumble bee exhaust craze of the rice rockets of 2002 yet but they have all figured out a huge hole in, or completely missing exhaust makes just as much noise.

have I talked about how LOUD South America is? I don’t recall if I have. The people, the cars, the tv, the garbage trucks, the police cars, everything is loud. Somehow louder than ‘normal.’ It’s hard to ever find quiet because there is none. Argentina compounds the problematic search for solace in that the people never sleep. Ever. Doesn’t matter the day of the week. They are awake 24 hours a day. Really it’s true. 3-7 pm is the only time there are not dozens of people on the street or in the room next to yours talking loudly. It’s not just a southern phenomenon. When justin and I rolled into Formosa at 4am the streets were teeming with people. Old young, doesn’t matter. No one here sleeps. I think they are taking the Cosmo Kramer/DaVinci approach and sleeping 1 hours out of every 6. Right now at 2 am there are 5 girls walking down the street outside jabbering and sending texts. It’s so confusing and for a light sleeper it’s misery. I wake up every 45 mins by some interruption or another.

My truck has been parked on the street for 8 days and no issue. I like Ushuaia. Safe town.

I am packed and ready to go. I was so hopeful for my trip home yesterday I pulled almost everything out of my car and packed it for the flight. The Vokey 56 degree stays with the car. Bummer. I have to buy a new wedge when I get home. No big deal if you’re normal but for neurotic people like me that means I have to buy 3 new wedges; 52, 56, 60 because you need consistent spin and groove wear on all 3 clubs. “just wait” you say? They are saying the truck might take 2 months to get home. A lot of golf to be played between now and then.

Okay no more typing. Goodnight. Or morning. Or afternoon as it were.

the end end.

2008-04-03T08:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took a drive. I had to empty the tank so I could use the gas on that roof rack before the truck goes in a container. More importantly I had to go the end of the road. I rambled about how my arrival in Ushuaia was anything but triumphant. It got me thinking a bit. Ushuaia was the destination but it wasn’t the town itself. It was the town’s location. But the location didn’t sink in until yesterday. 75 miles or so southeast of here I found the end of the road. I love to drive. I think that is obvious and goes without saying since I’m at almost 28k miles in 5 months. The end of the Dalton Highway in Deadhorse AK and the end of Arg Ruta J are the two farthest points apart from each other in the western hemisphere and now I’ve driven to both. (some people know that Inuvik NWT Canada is farther north than Deadhorse but because of the east/west travel Deadhorse is the longest distance from Ushuaia via road)

So yesterday about 2pm I the afternoon I arrived at the end of the road. Then the emotion and reality set in. I was there. I was done. My only choice was to turn around. It would have been poetic to have the road just end with a sign. But nope. There was a gov’t radio tower and house with an affable yet tacit gentlemen with very mean dogs making the pic taking iffy and sort of ruining the aesthetic. But the emotions were very true. And what were the emotions? Honestly a bit overwhelming. Pure satisfaction. Excitement. No tear. No sadness. Just a sense of accomplishment followed by a large void of loss and lost. The dream is over, the planning and preparation, the staring at maps and looking at websites for the last decade is now fulfilled. What next? What is next on the horizon. I have no plans. I can still live moment to moment and day to day because there are no long term goals. (although the mind has been scheming since yesterday about 5pm) So what I am doing now I’m sitting here watching Gilmore Girls and typing a post since it is raining again and my windshield is leaking. I’m going to go start smacking skulls and get my truck in a container by tomorrow (I need this to happen since you can only live in a hotel room for so long) so I can get on a plane and go watch the Sox get their World Series rings. But just a bit more about the town of Ushuaia.

I think I may have come across as disenchanted with the town the other day. The exact opposite is the truth. I really like this town. It’s location was the destination but the town itself has a lot offer. It offers something far different to me than to most of you however. This town is very familiar to me. It lies rather sinuously between the placid Beagle Channel and the glacier covered Darwin Mountains. Aside from all the Spanish being spoken this town would not be out of place in Southeast Alaska. The main drag of tourist shops and restaurants, the port and sightseeing cruises, the wet and washboard roads are all reminiscent of every seaside tourist town I know. Having lived in Sitka and Juneau this town feels comfortable to me. Like home. It has a lot of things I know and therefore the stress of waiting here is more frustration of being out of control of the situation and not one of discomforting surroundings. Even the Spanish isn’t that bad. The three and half weeks with justin and j really helped my comprehension. I’ve found that I’m pretty damn good at understanding people now. But somewhere I’ve forgotten how to speak it. I spend a lot of time eavesdropping over dinner and I’m doing pretty good.

Four dinners in this town. Three at parillas the other at a pizza joint. I’m not dying to eat red meat but if you could go to Morton’s or Ruth’s Chris and pay Sizzler prices would you pass it up? Yeah I didn’t think so. The ricotta, basil and walnut ravioli I had on my off night was pretty damn good though. All in all I like it here. Great food and the best pananderia of the trip. Now if I can just find an available 20ft standard height container heading to the city they call Long Beach I’d be set. Hope to use my connection to work some more on the gallery tonight. I’ll let you know.

OK ESN:0-7341800

2008-04-02T11:15:00.000-07:00

If you ever decide to get in your car and start driving south. the link below is as far as you can go. the end of the road.

This thing might be getting a lot of use soon. I am lost (in a good way) in Bolivia, Chile, Argentina or Paraguay
ESN:0-7341800
Latitude:-54.9748
Longitude:-66.7447
Nearest Location:not known
Distance:not known
Time:04/02/2008 18:16:09 (GMT)

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-54.9748,-66.7447&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

hotel montreal redux

2008-04-01T20:15:00.001-07:00

Ushuaia, Arg is a grand town. I’ve seen all of it. Four times. The doldrums of shipping are upon me once again. Instead of the grand and lovely ant infested Hotel Montreal of Panama City this time I’m in Hosteria Alakfula or something like that. The difference is I like this hotel. The people are super nice and I’m dining in a way that would send a vegan into therapy. However I am still slipping into a funk. The joy of reaching my destination and the excitement of seeing my friends and family again is fleeting.

I wake up check my email. I walk down to the panaderia and get some breakfast. Come back check my email again. IM friends at the old job. I then go for a nice long walk since I haven’t fully fixed my truck yet. Then I come back to check my email and then go get ice cream. Then I walk some more, today I took a nap, and look for souvenirs even though I’m fully stocked I think. I go get laundry or an Ushuaia stamp in my passport then I watch tv. Maybe IM friends, check my favorite message boards then I go for another walk. By now the sun is down and the beef is being cooked on the spits at the Parillas so I choose one of the 30 and eat ribs, steak, chicken, sausage roasting right in the front of the restaurant. Two nights ago I was right by the table where the cut the meat, or I should say chop it and it was fun to watch the patrons flinch at the flying juices. Then I get more ice cream and come back here.

I’m currently trying to get out of Ushuaia, ARG or Punta, Arenas, Chile. My first email regarding shipping was sent March 12^th. Yep that’s right over 3 weeks ago and I still don’t have a quote, a shipping date or destination port. It’s a grand old time and has nothing but positive effects on the psyche to sit and wait while the excitement of attaining a decade old goal is killed by losing control of your situation. The other day I posted about how amazing it was to have a life of total freedom. Well now I have none as I sit here and wait. So I consume massive amounts of cow product and oh how wonderful it is sitting in my belly and I wait. And I check email and I wait. Then I walk and I wait. Meanwhile flights are going up in price and Fenway Opening day is drawing close. I’d just be happy if they told me I had to drive 4k miles to Santiago to meet a boat. At least then I would feel like something had been accomplished. But no I’m sitting here waiting. The waiting would be fine if I knew I was here for 5 days, or 10 days. But the fact is I might have to get in the car and leave for Punta Arenas as early as tomorrow. So it’s not like I can just go hop on an all day sight seeing cruise or go hiking. I'm stuck. So there you go. Ushuaia, Argentina, a town you can see 4 times in 3 days. It is pretty though. and has great food. The jokers in Panama need to come down here and take a cooking lesson or two.

It's about time

2008-03-30T21:06:00.001-07:00

Only 5 months and 30,000 miles on the odometer but I made it to Ushuaia. Took me long enough. And what an ignominious arrival it was. Not the glory, emotion and fanfare I anticipated. Well that wasn’t the expectation but frustration and embarrassment was not the way I envisioned it all those years ago. Although oddly enough Ushuaia is almost exactly how I thought it would be. It’s obvious the ongoing discontent between Chile and Argentina no longer involves land mines and militarized borders but it’s more subtle than that. You mention to a Chilean that you are headed to Ushuaia and they get mad and tell you Punta Arenas is a far better destination. I told my hotel clerk I was planning to ship out of Punta Arenas and you would have thought I just called his sister a whore. Part of what I assume is just more passive aggressive disharmony (can I really use discontent and disharmony in the some paragraph? Wow I need a better vocabulary) is the island of Tierra del Fuego. It is split between the two countries and the Chilean portion is flat and ugly and full of sheep and rye grass. The Argentines have the mountains, glaciers, the ocean, lakes, and forest. So what does Chile do? They allow their portion of the highway to fall into utter embarrassment. For a country with such splendid highways and scenic back roads the condition of Ruta 257 has to be intentional. It is the worst road I have seen outside of Baja or Bolivia. Dusty and potholed with a huge crown and awful ruts down the sides. It was a brutal 75 miles. And ugly too. Take northwest Utah/southeast Idaho and press it flat as a board. Yep that is the northern half of Tierra del Fuego. Brutal. Within 10 miles of crossing the 30k mark on the odometer I get not only my first rock chip of the trip (a miracle in and of itself I lasted this long) but the second also. Both quarter sized. So now I have an excuse to replace my leaking windshield. Cross the border into Arg and smooth as silk pavement. I stopped for a pizza last night and thought I heard a grinding noise coming from the rear end of my truck. I found a place to camp and this morning woke up full of excitement for the sunshine and the hour long drive into Ushuaia. Put the truck in gear and heard the noise again. It got slowly worse down the winding canyon road to the ocean. I pulled into town, took a pic of the Ushuaia sign and went in search of a hotel with a parking lot. Found two, both too expensive. By now the noise was a loud screeching metallic sound. I rolled out west of the city, parked on the side of the road and began my search. It sounded like a driveline so I took out my rubber mallet and started smacking things. Nothing. Figured it might be one of the rear brakes or ebrake. Hadn’t swapped rear pads all trip so I began that project. I needed it. Then the rookie mistake. My dumb ass forgot to chock the front wheels. There I am basically hugging the rear driver’s side rotor taking the caliper off and then Ruby decided to roll off the jack. I managed to get out in time but I was a bit rattled, and even more embarrassed because the foursome on the tee box next to the road had just asked if I needed help and I told them I was totally fine and had it under control. So then I had to get out the hi-lift jack, which because of the amount of travel in my suspension was maxed out getting the bottle jack back in place. Let’s say 4 hours to rotate all 6 tires and change brake pads. Oh and it rained the last 90 mins of that time too. That project in a garage with a floor jack and air would take 45mins – 1hour at the most. Never did find an issue so I climbed back under the truck. Now that the truck had rolled forward I could see that the cap on the rear ujoint on the rear driveline was cracked. Sweet. By this time I was sick of the rain and mud and being cold so I drove back into town, ignoring the stares, waves and points at my howling rear driveline and found a hotel. Ruby is sitting parked on the street below waiting for me to go down in the morning and pull the rear driveline. It’s 2wd from here on out. Should be fun going back through the Chilean fiasco they call a road. I had a wonderful dinner of steak and potatoes, some excellent ice cream again and now, finally, it is starting to sink in that I am here. And with that a new paragraph.

You all might be expecting some ‘follow your dreams’ rant tonight but that’s not going to happen. There are plenty of books you can read or seminars to attend for that spiel. What I am going to talk about is what it was like to fulfill mine and I’ll hold off on the emotional confusion I have from being here for a later date.

The hardest thing to explain or have someone else fully understand is the factor that J brought up in his guest post. I mentioned a few months ago of how it felt like this trip has lasted years. I mean that in a good way. Think back to the last vacation you went on. After a week you can’t believe how fast the time has gone by but it also seems like the previous weekend was months ago. Now extrapolate that over 30 weeks. Only 3 or 4 times have I travelled the same road more than once. Essentially every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every week of very month for five months has been a new experience. It is no wonder my mind is tired and I have a hard time processing what is going on. It’s been inundated with new information nonstop since I left. I was not a sedentary person before my trip. I lived a pretty active life. I still feel like I’ve learned and experienced more in the last 5 months than the previous 10 years. Hell I’ve been surviving using a language that is not my own. That alone has wrought a huge change. But what about these experiences? What are they? Why are they so impactful? Fairly simple actually.

I apologize to any female readers but the following analogy will be a bit more germane to the male audience. I made a comment to my friend Traske a few months back about spending hours on the road in Colombia and not remembering having any conscious thought. Just the other day in Torres del Paine I realized I’d been staring at a mountain for almost two hours with nothing going on in my head. So think back to when you were 11 or 12. If you struggle to remember back that far (paul) watch Stand By Me and the chat Gordy, Chris, Teddy and Vern have around the campfire. Annette from Mickey Mouse Club. Goofy being a dog. Cherry Flavored Pez. Then recall that time when you and your friends had no concerns. The time in your life when you could spend an hour or a week building a track in your neighbor’s field for bmx races. Or scrounging supplies for the jump on which one of you would inevitably hurt yourself or your bike. Or the time you and Chad Hawley rode your skateboards to all three 7-11s in South Davis County (WX, Centerville, Bountiful) to get Slurpees only to realize you covered about 20 miles that day. BB gun wars, baseball and basketball games, riding atv’s, building tree forts, playing Zelda, Metroid or Contra. When you would wake up, call your friends and whatever you did you did and it was a blast. No concerns of mortgages, time clocks, deadlines etc.

That has been my last 5 months. I can’t think of more than a dozen times where I actually had something to do. 6 of which involved friends and airports which was something I was excited to do. Some days I woke up at 6am (hot as hell beaches in Costa Rica or Mexico, bitter cold photo taking of Cerro Fitzroy) Some days I woke up at noon, just in time to check out of my $12 hotel. If I liked a place I’d stay far longer than planned like Huaraz, Peru. Some towns I got there and couldn’t flee fast enough like Guatemala City. Making decisions one at a time without concern for the next is a very pure process. When I got to La Esperanza the other day and there was no gas I decided to go to Rio Gallegos instead of Puerto Natales. I had no idea what was in Rio Gallegos except gas stations so that’s is where I went. Torres del Paine would be there if I took 1 day or 3 days to get there. The headaches of border crossings and petty policia are very minor in the grand scheme of life. They cause great frustration in a trip like mine because they are such a contrast to the contented bliss I spend the rest of my time wandering in. But it hasn’t all been contentedness. To paraphrase Everett Reuss I have been moved by the natural beauty I have seen to the point of tears. (he possibly killed himself over it) Or at least manly pseudo crying. Of course it also usually came after a few days of very little food or sleep where my system was just overwhelmed but again I’ll use the word pure because that is how I felt at those moments. There are many people who questioned my logic in quitting a job I liked and spending all my money to go on a ‘road trip.’ I appreciate their concern and practical approach to living. But that has never been me. If I feel like doing something I do it. If I feel like saying something I don’t hesitate. For 33 years there were always conditions or consequences to such an attitude. I’d need to evaluate my vacation time or arrange with my friends around their vacation time. Did I have the money or would I credit card it and pay it off later? As I got older it began to involve the school schedules of my friends’ kids and mortgage payments. That is the normal life and the one most of us live. I will not feel any guilt or frustration going back to that life. I was happy in that life. But for 5 blissful months I DIDN’T live that life. There were no schedules and no concerns other than ‘what do I feel like right NOW.’ And it’s 1 am again. Before this post gets even longer I’m going to call it a night.

I’m sure the mental and emotional turmoil will hit me even harder over the next few days and I’ll do my best to share it with you. Luckily I have the task of shipping to keep my mind occupied. Or is it preoccupied? It took until Ecuador to realize that I was on my dream trip. My guess is somewhere flying over Ecuador on my way home the reality of the finality will sink in. Until then I’ll just live moment to moment. Of course one of which means lying on the wet road and pulling a driveline tomorrow. Yep enough of this melodrama. For all my cube jockey friends I hope my bliss lifts your Monday morning spirits. Oh and just because it is that time of year and my mind is now looking toward home….

LET’S GO RED SOX!!!

OK ESN:0-7341800

2008-03-30T19:04:00.001-07:00

This thing might be getting a lot of use soon. I am lost (in a good way) in Bolivia, Chile, Argentina or Paraguay
ESN:0-7341800
Latitude:-54.8052
Longitude:-68.3005
Nearest Location: Ushuaia, Argentina
Distance: 1 km(s)
Time:03/31/2008 02:04:43 (GMT)

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-54.8052,-68.3005&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

2008-03-29T09:47:00.000-07:00

Tried to edit my post from my phone but couldn't do it. So an addendum to 'confusion' from the actual road. The majority if not all of the pics in the Argentina and Chile folders inthe gallery are new. A handful are from j the rest are all mine.

Since I am so pleased with my out of nowhere JJ refrence I am offering up a free Expedition Americas sticker to whomever names the source first. Just leave a comment below with your name and I will have Darren send one to you. Yep a trivia contest from the southern tip of the world. Or at least pretty close.

confusion

2008-03-29T07:51:00.000-07:00

I made some changes to the gallery last night. Going to add pictures country by country. However I was working on the gallery directly and not in the frame of the website. It will need some tweaking but that might have to wait until I get home. Here is the direct link to the gallery. I’ll figure it out. I’m just not that smart when it comes to that stuff and honestly I gave up about midnight last night and watched the NCAA tourney on the laptop instead.

Along with that confusion comes the confusion of where I am sitting. Punta Arena, Chile. A day’s drive from Ushuaia. I’ll be there tomorrow morning. How do you reconcile 10 years of dreaming and planning coming to an end in less than 24 hours? If I knew how I wouldn’t be asking you. I’ll gather my thoughts, like JJ trying to figure out how to get his ambulance through the roadblocks AND let Victor fix the slipping transmission. Unfortunately it won’t be as easy as radioing the flatbed truck in front of me. Yes this little obscure allusion made me laugh out loud. I am such a dork. Why any of you would be following along on my journey still baffles me but I hope you find as much entertainment in reading it as I do in writing it. So Ushuaia awaits and off to my filthy dirty truck I must go. Oh wait I need gas and lunch and over to the market for some grub for camping tonight.

Enjoy the gallery. I’ll send a SPOT out tomorrow and write a few words. Maybe a lot of words. Have a wonderful weekend kids. Or if you get this on Monday morning make that ‘week.’

OK ESN:0-7341800

2008-03-27T16:06:00.000-07:00

This thing might be getting a lot of use soon. I am lost (in a good way) in Bolivia, Chile, Argentina or Paraguay
ESN:0-7341800
Latitude:-51.0412
Longitude:-72.9098
Nearest Location: Estancia Pudeto, Chile
Distance: 8 km(s)
Time:03/27/2008 23:08:58 (GMT)

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-51.0412,-72.9098&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

here it comes

2008-03-25T22:45:00.001-07:00

Another late night ramble. I have no idea where I’m headed with this but usually these turn out the best. It all starts out with losing my internet connection. Sweet. I may be typing for my own benefit.

2am and kicking it with an awful piece of Argentine beef in my stomach. Last two nights were excellent. I gave the tri-fecta a shot and failed. Joint was recommended by my hotel which is odd since this a nice place and the food was awful. Why am I in Rio Gallegos, Argentina tonight and not Torres del Paine, Chile? Because La Esperanza had no gas. Station was out of gas. Really. So the YPF’s lack of fuel forced me to head here. It is good since I’m trying to arrange shipping home. Which is starting to shape up a bit like Panama. Oh Joy! If you any hook ups don’t be afraid to send me their info. So I’m getting some email done, then tomorrow after a late checkout I’m off to Chile and some more hiking. I need a good night’s sleep but tonight is not that night. Last night was another back of the car night. The wind blows here non-stop. I got 17mpg today with the 40mph tailwind. It’s also the wind I slept in last night. My truck is like a sailboat. It gets blown all over the road and is just as bad while parked at night. Needless to say I slept poorly last night. But hey I have a single bed with peach colored sheets on it tonight to make up for it.

I really have no clue where this post is going. I should give some props out to Jim Jackson while I have the chance. Jim works for ARB-USA. For those not in the cruiser world ARB is a manufacturer of off road products and for a long time was the only real aftermarket supplier for Land Cruisers. My bulbar, my snorkel, my suspension and my pimp 60liter freezer/fridge are all imported by ARB USA from Australia. Jim and I met at SEMA a few years ago and as they are responsible for all the Americas he has connections through ARB distributors all throughout my route and has been giving me contacts along the way. While in Chile he one contact resulted in a series of contacts that resulted in specific info on the Atacama to visit, a sweet lunch and afternoon in Copiapo, another contact in Osorno which resulted in another contact to get my exhaust re-welded and repaired as well as a trip to the airport. It’s amazing to how much comfort you get from locals knowledge. Doesn’t matter if it’s a simple ‘go here to camp’ or if it’s trusting someone to work on your car. Seriously Jim’s contacts have been invaluable all along my entire route. So thank you sir.

It finally happened. The white noise in the background is finally complete. I have seen an episode of Friends in every country on my trip. More importantly however I was able to catch and episode of 30 Rock tonight. In my mind it has surpassed The Office, My Name is Earl, and Curb Your Enthusiasm as the funniest show on TV. Of course that is subject to opinion. It pains me to say as much too because I think Jason Lee is the funniest man alive. If Earl doesn’t convince you go watch Mallrats or Chasing Amy. Yep I’m running out of things to say. It is almost 3am. Maybe I’ll add some more in the morning as I’m trying to track down a shipper.

Oh did I mention I could possibly attend opening day at Fenway Park? Yep I need to have Ruby Claire on a boat by April 6^th. 10 days is doable right? Either way I’ll be done and headed up home by tax day. Good thing I filed that extension right? So not a lot tonight but something. This is more like a daily log and guess what. Nothing happened today. Oh I did have ice cream again. Ahh now I’m smiling. Argentine ice cream……

insert clever title

2008-03-23T22:58:00.000-07:00

Some more random thoughts that may or may not contain another story about Latin American restrooms. Or lack thereof. You have been warned.

I’ve taken some good pics lately. If I may toot my own horn. But sometimes the camera slides down your backpack and you don’t make it across the rocky stream in the 10 allotted seconds.

A gas fill up in San Pedro de Atacama cost $168.00.

The tomato, basil, goat cheese empanada I had in San Pedro may have been my favorite meal of the trip.

I need to correct an error. Not Just Knee Deep Funk is Funkadelic NOT Parliament. My IPOD pointed out that mistake to me the day after the Lazy Descent post. But cut me some slack. That was in my kindergarten years. To me it’s all George Clinton and the P-Funk All Stars anyway.

Although it might be unwise it is indeed possible to get a fully laden expedition weight 80 series Land Cruiser in the air. Yep all 4 tires. Smooth as silk landing too. Gotta love the ARB comp springs. Done by choice, not accident. Had to do it once although I’m not sure that the middle of Patagonia hours from the nearest town was the right choice.

Me and my IPOD. I’ve really learned to enjoy Led Zepplin, Morphine and Mike Doughty. Artists I enjoyed but never went out of my way to listen to. That has changed. Artists I’m not sure will make the rotation ever again. Van Morrison and Pink Floyd. Yep had enough of both for now. And for a long time to come.

I’m almost out of Sprees. I picked up a movie theatre size box at the Pilot Truck Stop in Mountain Home, Idaho while chatting with my boy Eric V and they have lasted this long. Granted I didn’t open them until Bolivia but I’m saving 2 for the road into Ushuaia.

Karma sucks. I’ve been mocking Stewart Scott’s listing (did I spell that right?) eye for years on Sportcenter. Well that and that he thinks every athlete is his best friend and guess what I realized tonight while making sure I have two eyebrows instead of one. Yep even in Patagonia I tweeze. I realized my eyes are sucking back into my head and you can’t even see my upper eyelids anymore. Damn Stewart Scott.

Everytime I see a kid with down syndrome the whole world seems smaller to me. At the tiny Chile/Arg border crossing a car showed up right behind me. The couple had a son with down syndrome. As weird as this sounds it is a reminder that despite ethnicity, policitical or religious differences people are still faced with the same challenges everywhere in the world. People I know at home struggle with the same issues at the couple I met at Paso Roballo, Arg.

It’s 2am I shouldn’t be writing right now.

Calafate is the Sun Valley of Argentina. Just about as much English spoken here too. Except they’re all Canadians.

My goal by summers end (I have a lot of time to think) is to be a sub 5 handicap. With no money to play golf I’ll have to resort to practice since it’s free. It will be a challenge but might just be doable.

Speaking of Calafate. The gas station had to fill their tank. Shut down for 30 mins. I then sat in line for 40mins to get gas.

Speaking of Calafate again. I showed up here stinking and dirty. All I wanted was a shower. 6 days of camping and one long sweaty hike. Sometimes I should look at a calendar. Easter weekend. Like Moab during Jeep Safari or Daytona during spring break. Not a room to be had anywhere. All the campgrounds full. No public land open to camp on. Found a spot in town to camp. Went to bed at 4 because of the many drunken Argentines on vacation.

Argentines on vacation means very attractive women everywhere. The rumors are true.

Other true rumors. Arg beef is excellent. Had a Poor Man’s Steak (eggs, grilled onions, French fries) the size of baseball bat barrel. Accompanied by pepsi though. Great steak. Cheap.

I no longer yearn for Breyer’s Vanilla Bean Ice Cream. They LOVE their ice cream here on the east side of the Patagonian Andes and take delight in the presentation. All that weight I lost in Bolivia and Chile is back.

***WARNING THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH CONTAINS CONTENT UNSUITABLE FOR PEOPLE WITH CLASS AND DIGNITY, YES IT’S SIMILAR TO MY COSTA RICA POST***

Leading up to my hike to the Piedras Blancas glacier I had been surviving on granola bars, pineapple juice and coke. Like 4 days worth of that. Some bread thrown in every now and then. After my hike I rolled into Chalten. A town of 25 hotels, 30 restaurant and bars and not one ATM and they only accept cash. There I found Patagonicus Pizza where I partook of some bottled water, a damn tasty lamb, oregano and mozzarella pizza followed up with a piece of lemon pie. I liked it so much I bought a tshirt and planned to eat there the next day as well. I hit the road out of town to take pics of the sun setting behind Cerro Fitzroy. I was playing with my camera and writing in my journal when the gurgle happened. I looked around, nothing but steppe and scrub for miles. Trouble. I was too far from town to make it. I grabbed my roll and baby wipes (no time for the shovel) and made a sprint toward the only bush taller than 10 inches that I could see. All 24 inches of it. Did I mention the wind was blowing 40mph hour. No lie. Luckily the bush sat on the edge of a tiny ravine. Split second decision on which side to face into the wind. And as Neil Young so poetically penned, ‘there ain’t nothing like a friend, who will tell you when you’re just pissing in the wind.’ So I took an angled approached and let fly. It was bad. 4 days of gunk forced out of my at a very rapid pace. Wind almost knocked me over. THAT would have been bad. A very traumatic experience. A cold windy disaster beneath what is possibly the most sublime tableau I have ever seen. Then wave two hit. After it was over I actually utter out loud to the beauty around me ‘I’m sorry Argentina.’

***THOSE WITH INTEGRITY CAN START READING AGAIN NOW***

Again I need to learn to proof read before I hit send.

Isn’t there some basketball thing going on in the states right now? I forgot all about it.

J made me a peanut butter sandwich on the fly while rolling through the altiplano of Bolivia that was 3lbs of peanut butter and one tiny piece of stale bread. It took him 30 mins to clean the peanut butter off my knife. Don’t let him make your kids lunch.

Have I talked about my ant infestation? In Panama I picked ants while parked at the Hotel Montreal. I mean ANTS. All over my car. Ants marching across my dashboard from vent to vent. Dozens at a time. Crawling all over my legs and arms. When I opened my tool bag in Colon to take my tent off, 1000s of ants came pouring out. Disgusting. I actually ended up shaving my legs in Cartagena because all day long it felt like ants were crawling up them while the ac was blowing. Somewhere in Ecuador they disappeared. Figured it was the cold or elevation. Then in Lima they showed up again. Away they went in Cuzco and I thought they were gone for good after a week in the Altiplano. I was wrong. They began their march again in the Gran Chaco. Yep 2 month of tiny black ants everywhere in my car. However now I think they are finally all gone. Haven’t seen any since my second sojourn in the Salar de Uyuni.

It’s now almost 3am. I am SLOW tonight.

I bought my mandatory insurance for Argentina while in Chile. Computer wouldn’t accept my US address so the agent used his office address. Guess where I’m going to fwd all my junk mail?

I crossed 25,000 miles on my trip somewhere between Cochrane, Chile and Tres Lagos, Argentina.

After hundreds of stops, thousands of miles and a 100 bucks spent at the AAA office in SLC someone finally asked for my international drivers license. Glad I had it. Could have meant losing another tshirt.

I went shopping for shoes yesterday. Apparently 6 pair isn’t enough. What is wrong with me.

My REI Dividend was $110.48. yep do the math. You sure you want to go on a trip like this. Too bad I don’t get points from Menlove Toyota Scion. Oh wait they gave me cash. Thanks Wes.

I’m going to the Perdito Moreno glacier tomorrow. Named after a dude who rerouted a river from the Pacific to the Atlantic oceans. Yep that is right. Played mother nature on a river’s ass to claim the land for Argentina over Chile. Funny story in my eyes.

I could be to Ushuaia by Tuesday if I wanted to.

I’m spoiled. J and I spent a few hours kicking it at the base of Volcan Osorno. His first time ever seeing the glacier. Me and my lack of tact pointed out how mediocre the glaciers actually were. I’ve spent my whole life with intimate access to amazing landscapes and natural wonders. I forget sometimes how lucky I have been to have lived less than 2 miles from an enormous and beautiful glacier in Juneau, AK or that my parents were taking me to awe inspiring canyons of southern Utah since I was a wee lad. It was good to see J’s awe at the glaciers. Reminding me of how I should be.

I saw Cerro Fitzroy and I was in awe.

Enough for now? Yeah I think so. Off camping for another week or so. Part two (or would it be 4 of 5) of random thoughts isn’t too far out. Amazing Chilean hospitality and the lady in the junk store with the haunting blue eyes.

Speaking of haunting. I can’t get the Atacama desert out of my head. Awake or asleep it is there. Even after all I’ve seen since it haunts me. I loved that place. Not sure I’ll ever experience something like it again.

where am I?

2008-03-21T17:04:00.000-07:00

It has been a few days since the last post. Blame it on desolation and lack of internet options. When last we spoke your humble narrator was just pulled out of his lazy descent by two kind strangers. (although I appreciate all the supportive emails as well and once I get a good connection I will reply to each one.) I’ve attached the pic of Luis and Odile from the next night after our ferry ride. Upon further conversation I realized that our chance meeting the night before had helped them too. Two days in lovely Quellon will do that to you.

The next morning after my last post dawned clear and sunny. I drove down to the southern terminus of the Pan-American Highway. Took some pics, found a place to eat lunch and took some more pics. The ferry arrived nice and late. 2 hours late. We finally left Quellon at 9pm . A 5 hour ride across the ocean to Chaiten was a piece of cake. Almost Famous, The Office and DMB at Piedmont Park on the DVD player while I attempted to organize my thoughts for Overland Journal. I failed. After taking a very casual conversational approach to my blog it seems as though I’ve forgotten, not sure I ever really knew to begin with, how to write proper and grammatically correct prose with structured paragraphs and flow to the article. But I’m working on it. I said goodbye to my new French friends, found a place to park and slept in the back of my truck that night because it was so late, (3ish) and it was cold. I woke at the fine hour of 11am. A good solid 8 hours.

Another glorious day in Chile. The Carratera Austral is a sometimes rugged, sometimes placidly paved road through incredible scenery. I was trying to amalgamate a collection of landscapes to convey to you, my dear readers, the beauty that I was travelling through. One part Teton National Park, Wyoming. Two parts Banff, Alberta. One part Glacier Bay, Alaska. One part Rhohan, in Middle Earth during the Age of the Elves. Or exchange that last part to the place in New Zealand that they used to film the land of the Rhohirrim. Then as I began the long circumnavigation of the, surreally, Dr Suess-esque blue, Lago Buenos Aires it dawned on me the ideal description for the beauty around me. It looks EXACTLY like Northern Patagonia. Sorry. That’s the best I can come up with. Found a place to camp as the rain hit. It rained for about 18 hours. Had the worst meal and service of my trip in Coyhaique, Chile. Two hours for a crappy pizza and Fanta. First time I haven’t tipped also. Slept again that night in the rain near Cochrane. Did I mentioned it rained for 18 hours straight? Yep standing water on my passenger floorboard due to a leaky windshield.

Yesterday was another glorious morning however. Cold and clear. Then an even more glorious thing happened. I crossed into Argentina in my shortest border since Mexico. 30mins including the 15 min drive between stations. I was poking through the book on the Argentina side. 8 people came through this week. He averages about 25-30 a week. This was about 2 hours into my morning. A morning that would be the start of one of the best days of my trip. I managed over 500 miles of washboard and sealed gravel. Another 80 or so of pavement. It took about 50-60 miles for my arms to loosen up but I settled into my groove. I’m ready for the Baja 1000. Got our truck bought yet Darren? Actually the roads were rather pleasant, gorgeous desolate landscape and then another conversation. This time with two guides at the gas station in Tres Lagos. I was looking for a camp spot and they said push on to Los Glaciares National Park and camp there. I told them I didn’t want to miss anything in the dark. They urged me to do it. Said I wasn’t missing anything in the 90 min drive.

Los Glaciares was my destination today anyway so I trusted them. The full moon began to light the landscape and dull the surrounding stars. Then I had my epiphany. Clear skies and towering Patagonia peaks in front of me. Yep much like the beach in baja I was up until 2am taking pics again last night. Woke early to take some more. Went on a 6 hour 10 mile hike today. Good hell my left knee is shot. I forgot how torturous it can be to hike on a glacial moraine. So with a sore knee and sunburned nose I’m sitting on the side of the road typing this post waiting for the moon to rise again. So along with Luis and Odile I’ve included pics of Lago Buenos Aires, last night, this morning, my lunch spot, and my sunset this evening. (just added them and you ended up with 11, you can only guess how many I have for the gallery when I can ftp to my server. )

Apparently Cerro Fitzroy, the major mountain in the pics, can be shrouded in clouds for weeks on end. It seems as though Ma Nature is making up with me for all the rain she dumped on me in Ecuador when I spent days surrounded by 18k foot volcanoes and never saw one of them. She certainly is a fickle gal isn’t she? I need to figure out what I’ve done to swing her to my side and keep her there for the next two weeks as I wander through the southern tip of the world. Tomorrow another hike then off to the South Section of Los Glaciares and some more hiking. I hope to post before then but we’ll see. It seems as though I’ve hit the region of the world where my SPOT isn’t 100% either so if two or three show up it is because the last four have failed. Did I mention they have ice cream next to the internet café? Well they do. And with that I’m done. Back to town to send this out and get some ice cream. Enjoy the pics. I guarantee I had more fun taking them. And sharing makes me feel pretty damn good too. I’m a lucky man. But we’ll save that for the next post. Oh wait the next one is more random thoughts (I’ve been taking notes) THEN we’ll get to the lucky man post. See I told you J leaving would mean more posts to read.

OK ESN:0-7341800

2008-03-21T14:24:00.000-07:00

This thing might be getting a lot of use soon. I am lost (in a good way) in Bolivia, Chile, Argentina or Paraguay
ESN:0-7341800
Latitude:-49.3696
Longitude:-72.8189
Nearest Location:not known
Distance:not known
Time:03/21/2008 21:27:01 (GMT)

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-49.3696,-72.8189&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

2008-03-18T18:43:00.001-07:00

Another guest post this fine evening from the Carraterra Austral. This one come from J. I told him I would leave his post unedited or commented on but I lied.

I like it a lot. J is a huge backpacker and hiker and was worried about how he would take to my style of road trip but I think it had an impact. Part of his post mirrors a conversation he and I had while camped at the base of Volcan Osorno. Too many people rely on guide books and magazine articles to choose their next destination. We both think there is a lot more satisfaction, even if it isn't the perfect spot as identified by Outside or Lonely Planet, in picking a spot on the map that has cool topography or a dirth of inhabitants and finding our way there. Enough drivel from me, on to the wonderful words (he is going to force me to write better after this) of J Arthur Ralls....

Everyone counts their fortunes differently, and another friend of mine and I used to proclaim that it is he who dies with the greatest number of experiences, not dollars, who winds up the richest. If that is the case, then I just made a huge deposit into my account. Like many "rich" people there was some luck to my fortune, and as is most often true, it arrived in the sense of that commonly quoted phrase "it's not what you know, but who you know" that counts. Knowing Dave (or "DCon") was my fortunate investment. So if I have any "financial" advice to readers it is this: make friends with a slightly-obsessed 'Cruiser fanatic or become one yourselves. I've already been indoctrinated and converted, going so far as to give a name to my own cruiser...in traditionalist frenetic fashion. What would cause such monomaniacal behavior? Perhaps it comes from inhaling the icy thin air as your vehicle--and your lifeline-- slowly but steadily carries you to the top of a 17,900 foot Andean cerro; or by the confidence instilled by it as it brings you over labyrinthine landscapes from long-evaporated senderos. This entry is not intended to be about the Toyota Landcruiser however, or any other particular vehicle (though I have difficulty in condoning anything but the 'Cruiser). It's about taking a road journey and what it strips you of and what it brings you to. Replacing the flat panel of your monitor with the curved panoramic view of a windshield in alien territory is a thrill and a therapy that is wholly rewarding. A back-roads ramble forces you to peel away all senseless and unnecessary material and mental clutter so that all that is left is what will fit into your vehicle (DCon claims I could have done a better job of this...at least materially). What follows is a freedom which allows you to view unfettered the world in it's most raw elements of earth, water and sky. Few places offer such minimalist grandeur in greater amplitude than the Andes of the Atacama desert. Rising up from the coasts of Chile and stretching to the hinterlands of Bolivia and Argentina, the Atacaman Andes paints a shockingly stark yet vibrant picture of overwhelming proportion. It's a place of bare necessities, and because of such there are no distractions. It's a place so open and ample that you can fully unfurl the sails of all your thoughts and let them fly out across the landscape. Thus DCon and I launched into it's heart, armed only with a map, a couple of cold Coke's, and Dave Matthew's Band. In a sense, we followed the bull-bar of Ruby Claire. Some 1,600 miles later (roughly) we had watched the desert towers grow verdant with the replete rainfall of far southern Chile. The rich details of changing landscape and culture are too voluminous for anything less than a book. I could actually recommend one, but I'd rather focus my point on advocating the writing of your own...even if it never makes it to paper. Go take it trip! Fill your memories with things like chocolate-covered alfajores, cold carbonated water, Alpaca-knit hats, national park pamphlets, dusty pillows, souvenir mate (mah-tay) mugs, or whatever your particular path has to offer! It doesn't have to be to Bolivia, or Chile. Go cross a state border or visit a lake you've never been to. Pick the faintest line on the map as your road, and then sit back and watch a new world unfold.

Thanks for the post Jota.

With that I bid you all a hearty goodnight.

a lazy descent

2008-03-17T12:30:00.001-07:00

I stumbled across a magnificent peak today. If it is possible I didn’t even have to climb to get there. Perhaps it’s because it was an emotional peak and I’m using a common cliché to describe the day I had.

After 3.5 weeks of travelling with someone I woke today to solitude. Solitude that really sucked. It has been raining for 2 days straight, I slept rather poorly in my overpriced hotel and I ventured out onto the road southward. Because J and Justin have a shared loathing for rap music I started my day with some good old Public Enemy and yes 911 is a Joke. I moved on to NWA, Dr Dre and then rounded it out with Digital Underground and the OG George Clinton. Despite the rain and repeat miles (j and I had been here earlier in the week)my spirits were high and I was excited for the road ahead. Somewhere between the ferry to Isla Chiloe and town of Quellon everything went south. Maybe I should have thrown on some Tupac. Regardless of the cause I was miserable.

When J was here we watched Long Way Round (the documentary of Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman’s around the world motorcycle journey) during the boring Central Chile stretches and killing time waiting for the wind to die down in our Altiplano camps. I never should have watched the final episode. It stirred emotions about the impending finality of my trip that I’m not ready to deal with. The harsh reality of renewed solitude, dreary grey weather and dropping temperatures only added to the thick blanket of reflective melancholy that has been covering me for the last week. It doesn’t help that it is Sunday. I can anticipate half a dozen emails each day M-S. Sunday however is usually silence. Very rare is the Sunday email. The thoughts, as I spiraled deeper into my funk, no not knee deep funk (okay that is an obscure Parliament reference that I feel needs to explained) the funk that morphed my melancholy into an authentic malaise ran something like this…

I miss Kitty Pappas’ Steakhouse.

I miss Breyers Vanilla Bean Ice Cream.

I miss clean water.

I miss Thursday lunches with my friends Ryan, Adam, Paul, Cory, Jason, Dave, and Occasionally officer Lange.

I miss Training Table and Crown Burger.

I miss C22.

I miss playing golf while arguing baseball and politics and work with my friends in the intense summer heat.

I miss the search for and pure feeling of a well struck 3 iron.

I miss having a vocabulary. I miss talking to people in English about things beyond just ordering food, booking a hotel, asking for directions or talking about my trip.

I miss sitting on the porch and talking about nothing for hours.

I miss grass. Oh man I miss grass.

I hate the sound of my exhaust.

I hate the squeaky roof rack and rear hatch.

I hate my dusty dashboard and gauge cluster.

I hate the feel of my steering wheel and uncomfortable driver’s seat.

I hate missing half a tooth and shaving my head with the $9 crappy clippers I picked up in Chiclayo.

I would kill for toilet paper that is not made of 220 grit sandpaper.

I would love to drive through a town and not have to suppress the gag reflex because of the stench of garbage and dead animals.

I’d like to sleep in a room with walls that aren’t hollow, where I can’t hear neighbors snoring and the massive dog population fighting in the streets until 4 am.

I would love for Bob Barker to find his way to South American TV and talk about the benefits of spaying and neutering your animals to control the pet population.

I am really, really, really getting sick of being stared at wherever I go. Gringos are not that special. Just ignore me please. It was two years of people staring at me in Alaska that made me such a socially inept freak to begin with and it’s getting old really fast. Say hola or yell at me, anything. JUST STOP STARING.

I’m frustrated with my poor Spanish and even more frustrated with my inability to understand people.

I just want to be home.

Now I can hear each of you right now. Sure the phrasing may change from town to town or mind to mind but essentially it goes like this…

“dave what the hell is wrong with you? You’re living your dream and mine too, you’re on your way to Patagonia and all you can do is feel sorry for yourself? I’m stuck here in this cubicle dying to be outside and you’re sleeping in the Andes. You suck and you need to grow up.”

It’s okay. If I were home reading a similar bitchfest my response would be the same. 12,000 miles from home with uncertainty ahead and the bad fog of loneliness creeping in it ‘s very easy to venture too far down the path above. So there I was in the middle of Isla Chiloe hoping to get an email tomorrow (which will be today by the time I post this) saying my boat was leaving Ushuaia next week so I’d have an excuse to bust ass there and head home.

Then a funny thing happened. The ferry was delayed 24 hours. The town of Quellon is a hole. Dirty, gross and your basic fishing town. But oddly not at all like the fishing towns J and I visited last week on the same island. Those towns had charm and personality. This town has nothing. So what is the funny thing? I stumbled upon Luis from Spain and Odile from France. A multi-lingual couple “on holiday’ from France backpacking through Patagonia. They too are stranded here because of the delayed ferry. I spent about 6 hours in the hotel restaurant chatting with them about their trip, their jobs, politics, my journey, language, and the inflatable evacuation slides on Airbus airplanes. I was instantly pulled out of my funk and my mood brightened. Amazing what conversation with a new friend will do to your soul. From the proverbial valley to the clichéd peak my day ran the gamut.

And yes it included the Humpty Dance, which as we all know IS your chance to do the hump.

OK ESN:0-7341800

2008-03-17T10:56:00.000-07:00

This thing might be getting a lot of use soon. I am lost (in a good way) in Bolivia, Chile, Argentina or Paraguay
ESN:0-7341800
Latitude:-43.1391
Longitude:-73.6173
Nearest Location:not known
Distance:not known
Time:03/17/2008 17:59:04 (GMT)

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-43.1391,-73.6173&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

A guest appearance

2008-03-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

Since I can't find an internet connection in the glorious town of quillon chile I am going to fwd justins Blog entry from my phone. Enjoy. I am also sending out a spot message from the southern terminus of the Panamerican Highway. I wrote a nice long Blog past last night but is sitting in my outbox waitng for a connection also. If I track one down it will be a 3 post day.

"The only uneventful hour of the 10 days I was in South America with Dave, was the time I was waiting in the Airport in La Paz to fly home. Other than that it was one adventure after another. Bolivia far exceeded my expectations, Argentina left me wanting more, and Paraguay was better than I had remembered. I would be hard pressed to pick a favorite part of the trip, but if I had to, I would probably say it was the treacherous mountain road from Camiri to Sucre Bolivia. River crossings, washed out roads, beautiful tropical landscapes, water falls, high mountain villages, etc, made this 18 hours of the trip unforgettable. Dave, if you ever want to go back to South America in your Land Cruiser count me in for the ride.....

Justin Kirkham"

two lingering topics

2008-03-15T20:10:00.001-07:00

I’ve found the motivation to recount the tale of my shipping adventures but first, La Policia.

So Chile has reminded me that I need to expand upon my experience with the officials through the countries of my trip. Chile only has one police force. It is the first since the US. All others have 3 basic forms of legal enforcement. The names may be different but they are essentially as follows.

Military

Usually on the road, random checkpoints, first stops after border crossings. Very abundant in Guat, Colombia, Peru, Panama. These guys are usually serving their mandatory one year in the military. Young, cool, like to joke around. Usually check the papers, make fun of me for my bad Spanish and wish me well on my trip. Give me a military checkpoint any day. I like these guys. Make me feel safe and always have a good time. They are the ones who were so helpful during my lost hours near Medellin, Colombia. I am grateful for all the military guys I have met along the way.

Tourist Police

Primarily found in the larger cities. There to cut down on petty theft and crime. Oddly enough most are female. They are PERFECT for asking directions when lost, are always helpful when not distracted with traffic duty. The name may change country to country but essentially there to help out the tourists, gringo and otherwise, in the larger cities. Not as cool as the military guys but still amiable and good to have around.

Transit Police

These are the petty little bastards that as far as I can tell are around to do nothing but harass Americans. These are the guys who will walk 75 yards through 4 lanes of traffic in Mexico City to single me out for $20. The guy who stole my knife in Panama from the center console, when I caught him he just asked if he could have it, meaning I am taking this or you’re not getting your passport back. The same guys who will stop me and justin at 4am, keep asking questions until they find one minor thing they can charge me with then demand $200 for the made up charge. I refused to pay and spent an hour arguing with them. When we finally paid a far lower price they pretended like they had done US a favor by taking our money. I’ve begun taking the approach with these people that I am going to try and say the most ridiculous thing I can to them just to make myself laugh. Things like ‘you know your belt doesn’t match your shoes does your commanding officer know that?’ I need to find a way to entertain myself in those situations. When I quickly pay the bribe I get mad. When I fight it I get frustrated. When I try and negotiate I just get tired. Not once have I had a good feeling coming out of one of these transactions. I’ve paid probably $500 to these jokers on my trip. I’ve yet to figure out how corruption is the ‘latin way’ but it is frustrating. If I was breaking the law, or acting inappropriate fine me. Don’t do it because of my fancy truck and your perception that I have money. All gringos have money is the theory. The one that really pissed me off was a guy in Peru just south of Lima. Transit police. Looked at all my docs and was set to let me go. Then he says he wants my sunglasses. Oh I’m sorry. He wanted something ‘American.’ I was not giving up my sunglasses to some petty bully with nothing better to do than harass me. I need them and no way in hell was he getting that expensive of a bribe. So he kept demanding something ‘American’ before he would let me leave. I searched and searched my car for something cheap to give him. What did he end up with? A DMB concert t-shirt from the fall of 1998. Yep that’s right a 10 year old tshirt from my trip to a Halloween concert in Oakland. Worst of all he sat there and smiled through the whole thing like we were bonding as some sort of friends.

If I had to venture a guess I’d say I’ve been stopped 200 hundred times on my trip so far. Only about 20 of those have required a bribe to continue on. It’s obvious those 20 put a sour taste in my mouth for the ‘authorities’ of latin America. I try to remember all the good experience and long term I’m sure I’ll forget the bribes. Most of all I wish that I had all the money these guys think I have. If that were the case I could just keep going and gladly pay the bribes along the way.

Now I am sure you are just dying to know what it is like ship a truck around the Darien Gap. It all begins with trying to forecast what day you’ll arrive in Panama. Once you establish that date you email 25+ shipping companies/agents trying to get information on shipping a vehicle to Colombia. You think 3 weeks notice is enough to get replies. You finally get replies 6-8weeks later. That is not an exaggeration. I was in Peru and still getting replies to my initial inquiries. After spending 3 days in the Hotel Montreal in Panama City still trying to track down a company you finally find a name after a 6hr Google search. You call this name, Evelyn Batista at Barwil and find a true saint. You go visit her and she explains to you the entire process and it goes like this.

When you enter Panama you get a vehicle stamp in your passport and sign a document stating you will not sell you car in Panama. When you leave the country by plane you have to have proof that you didn’t sell you vehicle and that process goes like this. You wake up at 8 am and go to Evelyn’s office to get all the shipping documents. You then proceed to the Policia Touristica and they inspect your vehicle to make sure it is the same as when you entered the country. That process takes about 2 hours. Then you roll, on foot, across the street with the document confirming your car is the same one and fill out more forms. Here you sit as you watch one woman take 3 hours to type up 5 forms. If you’re lucky yours is on top. If you’re not it’s on the bottom. You spend most of that time fighting the urge to offer to type the document yourself but don’t want to offend so you sit and watch as she hunts and pecks and moves the electric typewriter around the preprinted form only to be interrupted every 30 seconds by flirting co-workers and telephone calls. After you get permission from the police to leave the country you then have to go to customs. Fortunately Evelyn gave you a map to find the customs office buried in the back of some industrial park with no sign. Even then you have to ask for directions 3 times to find it. This process goes smoothly with the matronly old woman very excited to hear your story and almost forget to stamp your passport. All this done you have to hightail it back to Barwil finalize the paperwork. At this point you have 3 days to get your vehicle out of the country. Of course you can only shop up to load you truck in the container one day in advance or else you pay a fee for each day it sits there.

So back to Hotel Montreal for another night where the employee apathy and disdain for hospitality and customer service make you question why you have stayed in the same hotel for over a week now. Two days go by, including a mandatory detail and wash of the truck, and you drive up to Colon on the Caribbean coast. Luckily Barwil has an employee that will help you get all your docs stamped and negotiate the enormous maze they call the port. This only takes 6 hours. Another 2 to enter the port and load the truck in a container. I talked about the separation anxiety I had with my truck at that time but it needs to be remembered. 3 months of making sure you truck is nice and safe and suddenly you are alone. Truck is locked up in a container out of your control. Back to Panama City on a bus and one more night in your stunning and memorable hotel

The next day you check out at noon for your 8pm flight at the airport and eventually find yourself in Cartagena at 11:30 at night. A 3 day delay on your boat leaving Colon gives you a chance to explore the amazing city and hang out with friends. One of the few positive benefits of this awful process. Finally you get an email stating your truck is in port. You’ve managed to track down a Colombian shipping agent who can get your truck out of the port. They hook you up with Lucedes, one of their runners, to walk you through the process. Day one starts at 3pm after the email arrives. Some paperwork (I don’t even remember anymore what it was) get filled out and stamped. Day 2 arrives and you finally get your truck out of the container. You park it and go to lunch. Why? Because you get a randomly assigned customs agent and that is unchangeable. Mine, a nice portly woman, very friendly and hard working. 8-11am and 3-5pm. Yep 5 hours a day. So after a great lunch of chicken and patacon you return to the port and wait. As you wait for your inspector to finish with her other containers you get in the most bizarre conversation ever with one of the dock workers. For 20mins you try to figure out why he wants to buy your shoes. He keeps saying he wants them and asks how much they are. You continue to inform him you will not sell your shoes and if you do what are you expected to walk around the burning hot dock in? finally it dawns on you, he doesn’t want the actual shoes on your feet but shoes like yours. A good laugh is had by all and still you wait for inspection. Finally you get your inspection. 30 seconds of it. Papers stamped and back into the office. More paperwork done, and finally 8pm on day 2 your truck is back in your possession. Just in time to get gas for your empty tank that you had to have before you loaded it in the container.

Grand total: shipping, agents, extra nights in hotels, meals, calls, flights etc just over $2k to get your truck around the Darien Gap. The money is one thing. The days of delays and hours spent waiting for a paperwork is the real killer.

And yet I’m glad the process is so difficult. It separates the wheat from the chaff. Yes I just compared myself to a grain. Although I’m not sure which part. It requires a commitment to which the casual traveler is not willing to acquiesce. The satisfaction of traveling with your own vehicle through South America is that much greater due to the difficulity of getting it here.

Lots of words tonight. I hope they were enjoyable. J left for home earlier today and now instead of talking to friends I’m back to conversing with my keyboard. That bodes well for more than SPOT posts between now and Ushuaia.

OK ESN:0-7341800

2008-03-13T16:09:00.000-07:00

This thing might be getting a lot of use soon. I am lost (in a good way) in Bolivia, Chile, Argentina or Paraguay
ESN:0-7341800
Latitude:-41.1333
Longitude:-72.5356
Nearest Location:not known
Distance:not known
Time:03/13/2008 23:12:26 (GMT)

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-41.1333,-72.5356&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

OK ESN:0-7341800

2008-03-12T08:36:00.000-07:00

This thing might be getting a lot of use soon. I am lost (in a good way) in Bolivia, Chile, Argentina or Paraguay
ESN:0-7341800
Latitude:-41.822
Longitude:-73.4965
Nearest Location:not known
Distance:not known
Time:03/12/2008 15:38:45 (GMT)

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-41.822,-73.4965&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

more pics

2008-03-07T20:54:00.000-08:00

As you can tell from the numerous SPOT messages recently I have been camping since last Saturday. My friend J is here and we are sending them out to keep his family updated on his progress. Loaded up a ton of pics tonight in the gallery. Well they don’t actually weigh 2000lbs but 89 is quite a few. Bolivia and Chile. All desert. And what an amazing desert it is. I’ll find time to write more words on Sunday night when we get to Copiapo. Hopefully the pics can entertain you until then. Between j and I there are about 1800 pics to look through over the last 5 days. If I try really hard I might finally be able to come up with why I prefer the desert to all other landscapes. I can feel it. Just not sure I can express it. 8 years of longing for a trip through the Atacama may have led to disappointment. My experience so far greatly exceeded my expectations. Wow is that alliteration? 3 words starting with ‘e’ in one sentence. Or is it assonance? One of them I’m sure. On that note, time for bed. A nice clean sleep after 5 nights with no shower. Not sure I can handle it.

OK Unit Number: 0-7341800

2008-03-06T17:27:00.000-08:00

This thing might be getting a lot of use soon. I am lost (in a good way) in Bolivia, Chile, Argentina or Paraguay
Unit Number: 0-7341800
Latitude: -23.6878
Longitude: -68.3281
Nearest Town from unit Location: Tilopozo, Chile
Distance to the nearest town: 13 km(s)
Time in GMT the message was sent: 03/07/2008 01:30:10

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-23.6878,-68.3281&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

OK Unit Number: 0-7341800

2008-03-05T09:17:00.000-08:00

This thing might be getting a lot of use soon. I am lost (in a good way) in Bolivia, Chile, Argentina or Paraguay
Unit Number: 0-7341800
Latitude: -23.066
Longitude: -67.6697
Nearest Town from unit Location: Unknown
Distance to the nearest town: Unknown
Time in GMT the message was sent: 03/05/2008 17:19:51

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-23.066,-67.6697&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

OK Unit Number: 0-7341800

2008-03-04T10:53:00.000-08:00

This thing might be getting a lot of use soon. I am lost (in a good way) in Bolivia, Chile, Argentina or Paraguay
Unit Number: 0-7341800
Latitude: -22.1902
Longitude: -67.8193
Nearest Town from unit Location: Unknown
Distance to the nearest town: Unknown
Time in GMT the message was sent: 03/04/2008 18:55:22

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-22.1902,-67.8193&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

OK Unit Number: 0-7341800

2008-03-03T15:52:00.000-08:00

This thing might be getting a lot of use soon. I am lost (in a good way) in Bolivia, Chile, Argentina or Paraguay
Unit Number: 0-7341800
Latitude: -21.5065
Longitude: -67.6069
Nearest Town from unit Location: Unknown
Distance to the nearest town: Unknown
Time in GMT the message was sent: 03/03/2008 23:54:26

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-21.5065,-67.6069&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

OK Unit Number: 0-7341800

2008-03-02T14:50:00.000-08:00

This thing might be getting a lot of use soon. I am lost (in a good way) in Bolivia, Chile, Argentina or Paraguay
Unit Number: 0-7341800
Latitude: -19.9353
Longitude: -66.863
Nearest Town from unit Location: Unknown
Distance to the nearest town: Unknown
Time in GMT the message was sent: 03/02/2008 22:52:55

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-19.9353,-66.863&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

6 pairs of shoes

2008-03-02T04:31:00.001-08:00

Yep, that’s right. I have 6 pairs of shoes with me on my trip. I guess that is one of the luxuries you can indulge when you roll solo in a SUV. The list…

Vasque hiking boots, full steel shank, crampon compatible for Patagonia and hopefully Antarctica.

Salomon trail running shoes. Easy to slip on, comfortable, covered in mud.

Adidas running shoes. More comfortable, lighter, and not as hot as the Salomons. Felt like a waste until Cartagena where I walked for 5 days. I was glad I had them.

Chaco sandals. Primarily for the ocean and beach. Sometimes for longer walks where bugs/snakes aren’t a concern.

Chaco flip flops, quick hikes, short saunters through town, showering in iffy motels.

Reef wicker (no other way to describe them) flip flops. For driving. Very thin, absorb the sweat, cheap and easy to throw away when I get home.

So after all I have been through over the last 10 days why would I be talking about shoes? Well I posted a bunch of pics in the gallery. You’ll notice a ripped and bloody big toe. That is exactly what you get when you wander through a under-construction gas station in the wicker Reefs. Among the other highlights, the 14 year old kids ‘piloting’ me and Ruby Claire across Lake Titicaca on a single vehicle barge. Many Salar de Uyuni pics, the Falls of Iguazu. Sunsets in the Gran Chaco and Altiplano. Toothless locals enjoying a hit of coca. A rampant addiction that affected the majority of the men Justin and I talked to in Bolivia. Crowded colonial streets. Water and more water. We missed the worst of the flooding in Bolivia (although it is raining so hard outside right now I’m not sure tomorrow is going to be so easy) but managed to spend a bit of time dealing with the effects. The river that almost swallowed my truck, a dark pic of the muddy creeks we crossed dozens of times. Draining the diesel fuel out of my tank at 11:30pm. And a few pics of the town of Huari.

I’m going to save most of the time spent with Justin here for print because it was that memorable and adventurous but I want to talk about Huari and the surreal event that occurred there. Huari is a town about 3 hours south of La Paz, Bolivia en route to the Salar de Uyuni. How we ended up staying the night there is the result of a dozen different factors, any one of which would have changed the course of our evening.

Justin’s flight was 2 hours late arriving in La Paz. I spent 3 hours on the phone with AT&T trying to fix my phone at the hotel. The abundance of toll booths between here and there. The blockade outside the town of Oruro. Essentially a bunch of upset locals filling the road with rocks and burning tires. Getting lost in the disgusting town of Oruro. By far the dirtiest, grimiest, lest appealing town of my trip. I could try to describe it but I would fail. Since camping was on the agenda we stopped in Cha’llapata to track down food. That took 25 mins to find some bad bread. A few more stops clarifying the right direction with locals and then Huari. As we were passing through on our way south to camp we spotted a kid in a KC Royals hat carrying a laptop. I backed up the truck and rolled down the window.

“are you guys really from Utah?”

“yep”

Brandon is in Huari with the Peace Corp helping them with obtaining potable water. Come to find out there were 2 Peace Corp volunteers in the tiny hamlet of 3000, primarily indigenous, Bolivians. Not only that but 3 others from the region were also in town because the blockade outside Oruro had altered their plans. Having been alone and spoken with very few native English speakers (my Canadian friends on motorcycles) since the first week of December I found myself in Huari at a table eating dinner with 6 other Americans. I really struggled to wrap my head around it. To make the night even more surreal after returning to our $4 motel we sat and chatted with Jessica for over an hour. A young lady, and Fulbright Scholar, from Texas researching the role of females in the indigenous cultures.

So our time in Huari satisfied a few different needs. I was able to speak English exclusively for a few hours. We gained insight into the local culture and community from people living there amongst them. Info you can never get from the locals as you pass through. They are too hesitant to open up to strangers. I felt like I was asking way too many questions, to the point of sounding like a 5 yr old arguing with a babysitter. ‘but why?’ and ‘how come?’ and ‘what about?’ they were good to answer the questions Justin and I threw at them and more importantly for me I felt some sense of Americanism in the heart of the Bolivian Altiplano. I wasn’t looking for it and didn’t realize how much I missed conversation, true communication, but I found it in Huari and it felt good. A very unexpected and appreciated gift in the middle of my journey.

Huari was not only the site of the unlikely gathering of Americans but also a very quirky town in itself. Home to the Huari Cervezaria it is very different from all other towns in that it is clean. The brewery pays a staff of locals to clean the streets of trash and debris. They also take all the water from the community and employ very few of them in the plant. A very weird arrangement. The shared ‘bathroom’ at our Alojamiento required the following procedure to flush. You had to carry water, in a cut in half milk carton, from the 55 gallon drum of collected rain water and dump it into the toilet. Luckily for me one trip was sufficient. I’d hate to see how many trips it would take if I had really used the toilet instead of just adding a fresh coat to the putrid urine scent. The whole town was this way. Sacrificing their water to the brewery, that employed very few of them and clouded their skies in exchange for clean streets. A weird town. A surreal evening. Both I doubt I will ever forget.

Justin flew out yesterday and J is arriving in a few hours. More English and the entire length of Chile lie ahead. But first another stop in Huari on the way to the Atacama.

OK Unit Number: 0-7341800

2008-02-29T11:36:00.000-08:00

This thing might be getting a lot of use soon. I am lost (in a good way) in Bolivia, Chile, Argentina or Paraguay
Unit Number: 0-7341800
Latitude: -19.1258
Longitude: -66.4154
Nearest Town from unit Location: Thola Palca, Bolivia
Distance to the nearest town: 2 km(s)
Time in GMT the message was sent: 02/29/2008 19:39:03

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-19.1258,-66.4154&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

OK Unit Number: 0-7341800

2008-02-27T03:40:00.000-08:00

This thing might be getting a lot of use soon. I am lost (in a good way) in Bolivia, Chile, Argentina or Paraguay
Unit Number: 0-7341800
Latitude: -23.2731
Longitude: -59.1635
Nearest Town from unit Location: Estancia Rinc*n Charr*a, Paraguay
Distance to the nearest town: 15 km(s)
Time in GMT the message was sent: 02/27/2008 11:42:40

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-23.2731,-59.1635&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

tired

2008-02-24T17:52:00.000-08:00

So I’m attaching a pic to verify that the last SPOT message was indeed in the middle of giant, rain covered,salt flat and not a Google Earth anomaly. I last slept yesterday at 8am. Once I recover from the fatigue I’ll give an update of the day’s events. 300miles of dirt and washboard. Entered Argentina. 700 miles of pavement. Entered Paraguay. Filled and drained my truck of 102 liters of diesel fuel. Filled with 105 liters of gasoline. Spent 90 mins arguing with and mocking, in English, the petty tourist police in Formosa who were trying to extort a bribe at 4am for a bogus made up charge. Was refused, then offered, again denied, and eventually granted passage into Paraguay. Although I’m pretty sure it isn’t legal. Had my phone die, magically start working, then die again. Had dinner with 7 gringos (peace corp volunteers) in a town of 3000 indigenous Bolivians. Visited 17 ATMs trying to find one that actually worked. Descended thirteen thousand feet and increased 70 degrees in temp and somewhere in there I managed to eat a tiny bag of mini oreos and a bottle of coke.

One of the best days of my trip. No place I’d rather be than here in Asuncion, dead tired, hungry and sweating again. Awesome.

OK Unit Number: 0-7341800

2008-02-22T08:31:00.000-08:00

SPOT. on a mountain in peru or ideally in the desert.
Unit Number: 0-7341800
Latitude: -20.3271
Longitude: -67.0233
Nearest Town from unit Location: Colchani, Bolivia
Distance to the nearest town: 10 km(s)
Time in GMT the message was sent: 02/22/2008 16:33:50

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-20.3271,-67.0233&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

Colombia V

2008-02-20T20:37:00.000-08:00

Yep that’s five with a ‘V’. Anyone remember that show V from the early 80s? I think it was a miniseries. If I have an connection I would dial up the good old IMDB and check it out but I’m writing this sans internet in my hotel room in La Paz, Bolivia. I rotated my tires today and put in front brake pads. Forgot to top off the fluid, will have to make sure I do that at the gas station in the morning. First gas stop since the first week of December where Expedition Americas will have 2 members. Justin arrives seven hours from now. Good thing I’m up late typing a blog post. And with that, back to Bogota…

I awoke in the lovely, or at least passable, Hotel San Sebastian and opened my window to a brilliant sunny day, with busting streets below and Montserrat towering above. I took my time getting going and called another name/stranger from IH8MUD. Alvaro had sent me an email about a month before my trip. We chatted about plans for the day and decided to go to dinner that night. Alvaro, his wife Liliana, and 14month old (I think) daughter Mariana. They pulled up to the hotel in a beautiful silver 80 series Land Cruiser. I had seen pics but in person it was even better. It is also nice to know trucks with snorkels get stared at in Colombia too. It’s not just an American thing. I hopped in and we proceeded up the hill to a great view of the city. Somewhere in passing I had mentioned to Alvaro that I was looking for a Bolivian guide book in English (odd that I’m now in Bolivia writing this post) next thing I know it we’re at a mall looking at 2 book stores. I kept thinking we were there for a restaurant but nope. Just a stop so the gringo could find a book he could read. We struck out and climbed back in the truck for dinner. On the way I discover we’re taking the scenic route past the LDS Temple in Bogota. I think Frank (from Cartagena) had mentioned to Alvaro that I was LDS and they thought it would be cool for me to see it. I took some pics for my friend D who is a facilities manager for the church and then we were off to dinner. I had what I’ll call a chicken stew. It was really potato soup but was so loaded with veggies and meat it felt like a stew. Damn tasty. After dinner they took me back to the San Sebastian. The long way. I was meeting them in the morning to go wheeling with some locals and instead of leaving me to my own devices they drove the very route I would need to take to get to their home.

Morning came WAY too early. We were supposed to meet the rest of the group at 7 which meant a 6:15 start for me. I drove the empty Sunday morning street of Bogota to Alvaro’s home. We loaded up and set out for the meeting place. A group gather, then another group showed up, next thing I know there are 20 trucks in the gas station parking lot headed out on separate wheeling trips. I took a ton of pics, introduced myself. Forgot every single name in the group I was with and off for the hills we went. Along the way I was truly shocked at the number of cyclists out on the road. Thousands. Yep that’s right thousands of riders were headed for the hills as well. I stopped count after the 15th group with more than 50 riders. We passed them for 30 miles. Insane.

We stopped about 30 mins out at a roadside stand and noshed on some fresh bread for breakfast. I loaded up on the rolls, pan do bono I think, for a lunch of peanut butter and honey pan. Another truck, our trail leader, joined us in the tiny town of San Francisco and within minutes were at the trailhead. Along the way we I took dozens of pics of the amazing vistas, snowcapped volcano, gravity defying hillside farms and the locals staring at us as we drove through.

As we prepped for the trail, airing down, more introductions, arranging trucks, the nerves hit me pretty bad. There is not a lot of mud wheeling to be had in Utah. It’s a desert. Snow, slickrock, high speed dirt, yes. Mud no. These guys were in their element. I was not. I was the 4^th truck in the line right behind Alvaro. As we began our way up the rocky, slick, muddy, narrow trail someone informs me that one of the guys had rolled his truck on this very trail. Just what you want to hear when you have the heaviest, tallest truck in the bunch. I did have one thing going for me. I am a damn good driver. Wait I mean I was one of only 3 trucks with lockers front and rear. I won’t bore you with the details of the trail but I will say Ruby Claire performed like the amazing beast she is. Only 3 trucks didn’t use a winch. The fj40 leading the group, me and Santiago in his Range Rover V8 powered, Defender 90. Now the thing is in my neck of the woods, the winch is usually a sign of failure or humiliation. It means you didn’t have the skill to get over the obstacle or made a mistake and got yourself stuck. In the rain and mud of Colombia the winch is no different than a locker or big tires. Just a tool of the truck. No shame. No embarrassment.

The thing that stood out the most for me about the day was exactly how normal it was. About the similarity of wheeling with my friends at home. There was a lot of laughing. A lot of little kids on the trail. More laughing. Guys giving each other crap. Guys helping each other out. Now I couldn’t understand 99% of what was being said but I was laughing too. It’s contagious. A few of the guys went out of their way to speak English with me. Some very well. Others just cheered me on and we did our best to communicate with my poor Spanish. From the second we hit the road I felt like one of them. Not like an outsider. Senor Connors from 10 countries away was welcomed into the group without hesitation.

Then a funny thing happened which just sealed the deal for my long term friendship with Alvaro and Liliana. I was out taking pics and hopped back in the truck for my turn at the hills. Liliana and Mariana were in my truck hiding from the rain and looking for a ride up to their truck. I had the Dave Matthews Band, Live at Piedmont Park dvd playing, Warehouse was the song to be more precise. Liliana started singing right along. Come to find out her and Alvaro are huge fans. The only ones they know in Colombia. (now I need to explain to those of you who don’t know me personally why this is so significant. My first dmb show was August 2, 1996 at the Horde Festival at Park West, UT. Since then I think I’ve seen 38 more shows, collected thousands of hours of live shows and travelled all over the country to see them. And that just scratches the surface of my neurosis)

The rain hit pretty hard near the top of the trail and we set off back into Bogota. I said goodbye to the Fullsizes4x4 club, got separated from Alvaro and Santiago on the way back into the city and went straight to the hotel. It was a great day of wheeling. I laughed a lot, got wet and muddy and felt very much at home on the muddy hills of Colombia. I put all the pics from that day here.

I hit the mall the next morning, and spent 20 mins arguing with the joker in the ticket booth for the parking lot. First he said I couldn’t park there because I was too tall. Yet it was an outside lot. Then, as the cars began to line up behind me I pointed out a Land Rover with a roof rack and gear just as tall as me. Then he tried to tell me I couldn’t park there because I wasn’t from Colombia. Finally someone with more power showed up and told the kid he was an idiot and let me in. Even now I still have no idea why he didn’t want me to park there. I tried to find the DMB dvd for Alvaro but struck out as it hadn’t been released in Colombia. I had picked mine up in Costa Rica and was disappointed not to find a gift. I ate at Crepes and Waffles again and went back to the hotel. Once again I went to dinner with Alvaro and Liliana. You’ve seen the pic of the two of us with our bibs on. A nice steak. Back to the hotel I burned some DMB for them and went to bed. In the morning I dropped it off and said goodbye. It was then that Alvaro gave me some more good news. Santiago had spoken with his grandparents who lived on a farm in Southern Colombia near Cali. They had welcomed me to camp on their property on my way to Ecuador. Another generous offer from a stranger in Colombia.

I have to head to the airport to pick up Justin in 6 hours so I’m calling it a night. Tomorrow we’re off toward Sucre and the wilds of Bolivia. Ideally I’ll have better luck with a connection than I’ve had today. Apparently AT&T lost their Blackberry service today and thus no connection for me. I’m going to send this out from the hotel computer.

come one, come all

2008-02-18T21:08:00.000-08:00

To the most erratically updated and sometime incoherent show on earth.

Those of you blessed with very basic deductive logic and the slightest disposition to care may have noticed the discrepancy between my planned 14k miles and my current 19k+. Honestly the original plan was 14-18. Now we’re looking more like 25-26 by the time it’s all said and done. So what does that do to my 10 month plan? Well it cuts it down to about 6. So again deductive logic, or just simple math means that I have about 2 months left on the road.

Two months that I hope to be the most exciting for me and for you. Let’s just look at what lies ahead. World Highest Navigable lake. (tomorrow), Worlds Most Dangerous Road, World Largest Salt Flat, World Driest Desert, Highest Road in the Western Hemisphere, World Southernmost City, Worlds Second Most Voluminous Waterfall (okay that one is a stretch) but I guess superlatives aren’t necessary when you can lay claim to those titles and I am visiting them all plus Patagonia, the Gran Chaco and if things work out right Antarctica.

So did I grossly misread my maps? Maybe. Did I not fully understand the size of some of the countries? Absolutely. I’ll try and come up with an allegory (or is I a metaphor? Does it matter? do you care?) or maybe just and example that will help explain my miscalculation. One I think a lot of you can relate to or understand.

Remember the first time you went to Moab. I do. I was 7 or 8. But let’s take it to the adult era when things like buying gas matter. If Moab doesn’t work for you pick a nice area in your state that you find truly amazing. Moab is about 230 miles from Salt Lake City. You figure you can run down there for the weekend mess around and come home 600 miles round trip tops right. Well as you begin the descent into town from I-70 you are suddenly and rapidly overwhelmed by the beauty of the red rock, the desert, the La Sals, the clean air. As you pull into town you cruise the strip to check it out, hit up City Market for Granny Smith Apples, Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter, some bagels and Coke. You overhear someone mention the artesian well north of town so you head out there to fill up your camel back. There you find out about the Moab Brew Pub. So back through town you go. Get some Jack Daniels Tri-tip and if you’re like me head out into the hills for a campfire and solitude before climbing into your sleeping bag. The next morning you drive north through town again to get to Arches to go see the park. Then back into town. Next morning you drive down to the Needles District of Canyonlands to hike the Joint Trail which you fall in love with and vow to return as frequently as possible for the beauty and to topple all the tacky and unseemly cairns the tourists have stacked up to prove they were there and ruin the desolation of the trail. Back into town for dinner and some nighttime wheeling out on Fins and Things or Onion Creek Narrows. Next morning you hit Dead Horse Point on your way out of town where you finally arrive home having turned 1100 miles on the odometer.

Now extrapolate that scenario across a dozen countries (with 5 more to go) and now you’ll know why my return is rapidly approaching. Long before leaving on my trip I told people it didn’t matter if my trip was 5 months or 15 as long as made it to Ushuaia I would be happy. I’ve taken the approach that I’m here to savor every minute and enjoy the experience, not extend my aimless wandering as long as possible at the expense of pleasure and enjoyment. So right now the thinking is after Ushuaia I will return to Chile and ship the truck home. To all those who contributed to my cause I can’t tell you how grateful I am. Your donations will allow me to ship Ruby back to the US with cash where as the original plan was to do it via CC and pay it off with whatever job I land upon return. I’m sure you can all appreciate the different between returning home penniless vs returning home over a grand in debt with no job right. Of course I still have a few stickers left to sell. Just enough to pay for the gas home from Cali or Galveston.

With this post I am vowing to each of you, my loyal and also my sometimes occasional readers, to update my blog far more frequently than the last few weeks and attempt to entertain as well. Quantity AND quality is the goal of Expedition Americas. So tell everyone you know that the roller coastes is approaching the apex of the first hill and the clicking of the chain is beginning to slow. The madness and g forces (nope they do not apply at ALL to this situation) lie ahead over the next two months and if you enjoy my blog I’m sure they will too. So come one, come all and I’ll do my best to make it worth your while. I hope to be caught up through Colombia, Ecuador and Peru by end of this week and can get back to present tense writing. I owe it to you and to myself to do so. Ideally I’ll get a high speed connection in La Paz this week and upload a few more of my 5000 photos for your perusal.

assorted assortedness

2008-02-18T20:12:00.001-08:00

Yes more random thoughts…

This title is nowhere near as clever and tidy as ‘random randomness’

A Citizen Eco-Drive dive watch works after 3 months of darkness. I swapped out the Luminox for the Citizen for some unknown reason. It had no power for about 2 hours then the solar power kicked in and my watch is working again. Neat.

Something peculiar happened to me twice in a week’s time? No I didn’t find myself on the pot without tp. That happened THREE times. I had two separate people ask me if I was Australian. Apparently my Spanglish comes with an Australian accent. Not sure how that happened. My English is still good ole talking too fast and slurring my words Dave Connors. It may be even worse now. I get so excited when someone speaks English I think I rattle off 50 words in 8 seconds. What do I get in return? The same confused and uncomprehending look I have given to hundreds of waiters, waitresses, hotel clerks, police officers and gas station attendants over the last few months. Yep I know that incomprehension very well.

One of the sites I find myself visiting when I get a connection is A Long Drive. Shreesh and I have distinctly different writing styles. His are thoughtful, intelligent, informative. He wants to learn Spanish to read Borges in the original text. I only read Borges because my professor made me. I talk about bodily functions and quote cheesy movies from my youth. He talks about the culinary wonder of Oaxaca. However I enjoy his words and am jealous of the pace and length of their adventure. Maybe you will too.

There is this tool I use to monitor site traffic. apparently there is a large fan base in Tallahassee. I also learned that if you search on google for 'Ushuaia Prostitutes' you'll get my site.

I drank a bottle of sprite, ate two granola bars, a small banana and 2 small pieces of bread over the course of 3 days. Since then I’ve had Alpaca twice, cuy (guinea pig) four fruit smoothies (mango, orange, strawberry, and some fruit I can’t spell mixed with carrot), peanut M&Ms, a pizza, a calzone, some chicken soup with rice, and about 8 bottles of water. I feel like I’m back to full health.

I walked into a bar last night in Cuzco after visiting Machu Piccu. I order dinner and looked up to see the NBA All-Star game on TV. It really hit home how out of touch I have been with my ‘old’ life. Having once attended All Star Weekend with my by Bush it always high on my list of sports highlights. The Freshman/Sophomore game might be the best bball game all year, college or pro. I watched about half the game, it was boring. I finished my meal, thanked the owner, Nick from the UK, former soundman for a few mid-level british rock bands, and went back to my hotel. I guess the NBA doesn’t matter too much. Nice to see Deron Williams win the skill challenge though. I’ve been defending him since day one in the face of all the Jazz Fan Chris Paul lovers.

At said bar I learned how to play Inca Darts. Throwing metal pucks at a golden frogs mouth. Weird. Good thing I don’t drink or I’d be still hung over tonight.

Missed a turn today and drove 40mins down the wrong road. Good tunes and beautiful scenery will do that.

Peru is HUGE.

3 more days and I’ll be able to talk English all day long as a friend joins me in La Paz.

I heard Radiohead in a restaurant. Was almost as shocking as hearing Jay Z’s 99 Problems at the Mickey D’s in Costa Rica.

Something else happened in Cuzco that hasn’t happened since Cartagena. I was offered the full gamut while walking down the road. Exact same approach.

‘hey man you speak English?’

‘almost exclusively’ (man I am one witty cat)

‘you want to come to a club tonight?’

‘no I’m pretty tired, just headed back to my hotel’

‘okay man, it’s a hot club though, here’s a flyer’

‘no I’m good I’m heading out tomorrow anyway’

‘you need anything else? I got pot’

‘no I’m cool, really’ as I continue walking toward nowhere

‘you want coke, heroine, I got it all? How about a girl, I can get you a girl too, they like gringos, they’ll do whatever you want’

‘nah I think I’m okay’

‘man it’s cool here policia don’t care it’s cool, no one cares, it’s cool’ apparently the word ‘cool’ is going to convince me to change my mind.

Speaking of women and money. I was at a national park near Huaraz. I paid my entry fee (did I tell this story already?) and filled out the form for my ticket. I’m talking to the large, smelly indigenous woman behind the desk in my best castellano. She asks where I’m from, I tell her the US. Then in perfectly rehearsed English, ‘can I have a tip?’ didn’t even skip a beat. I smiled, laughed, thought of dropping a Michael Scott ‘that’s what she said’ on her but told her I’d pay her on my way out. Oh whoops I was doing the loop. I am fine tipping people along the way. The guys at the garages are my favorite, hoping that will keep Ruby safe. But I refuse to tip anyone that asks for it. The waiter during my recent puke fest actually refused one and gave it back, said he was just doing his job. I think he felt bad for Sir Gringo in room 201.

There will be one more post following this one for the night.

a quick update

2008-02-15T20:25:00.001-08:00

So what have I done over the last few days with no internet connection?

Well, I’ve puked about 30 times, shat about 5 fold that number, gone through 6 rolls of very rough toilet paper, shivered, sweat, and fevered (yeah I know, that word doesn’t make sense but deal with it) my way through a set of sheets, destroyed the rear of a Toyota corolla taxi while going less than 5mph, paid $138 to get it fixed and went on my way, covered some of the most amazing miles of my trip so far, ran with my cruise control at 70mph at 14,900 feet, higher than any point in the continental US, took the 5000^th photo of my trip, passed 19k miles on the road, felt the desire to be home rather than here for the first time (cradling a fairly dirty toilet in a shady motel in your arms, while lying on the cold tile floor will do that to you. more than my own bed or a toilet i had a history and comfort level with I was totally fixated on drinking a 440z Cherry Coke filled with enough ice to make my throat burn from the cold while bs'ing at Corner 22 or on the porch with one of my friends),threw out my back after 2 days of bed rest and very violent dry heaving, had a sweet calzone for dinner and downed a bottle of water to try and rehydrate for dinner tonight, found a nice, but cheap, hotel to make up for the last two awful nights, spent 2 days in a hotel room with only one English language tv channel which showed the movie The Juror back to back, and finally tonight for the first time in Peru was able to connect to the internet via my phone. I’m going to put off Machu Piccu until Sunday to make sure I’m not stuck on a train vacating my dietary tract in one fashion or another. I think it’s the expedition gods’ way of reminding me that 5 star hotels are not appropriate for long term dirty stinky overland travel. I tried to sneak it in but I’m sure they noticed and I have been miserable ever since. However, I think I made it around the corner tonight, we’ll see. Tomorrow I’ll have time to recount the last few weeks in more detail since I’ll be kicking it close to home base. you know just in case.

high above the streets below...

2008-02-12T11:33:00.001-08:00

…I sit in my enormous and climate controlled five star hotel room trying to figure out whether or not staying here was the right choice. My bathroom with separate bathtub and shower is larger than some of the rooms I have had over the last few weeks. This luxury thing is nice and I am sure I could get use to it. But the reality is I only have so many Marriott points to spread around and this hotel is no different than one in Chicago, Seattle or San Diego. I am here to experience South America not posh digs and superb customer service. The king size, 6 pillow comfort with ice I can use is very nice though.

How about we have a little chat about real South America and the beauty and filth that is Peru? After leaving Mancora and the beach I took the advice of the hotel manager and took a right down a road through a field of oil pumps and pipelines. I never would have been on that road without and recommendation. I trusted the advice and kept driving. After about an hour I found a road under the pipeline and out onto the beach. Oh wait I talked about that in my Randomness post. Let’s just ahead to my visit to the shaman.

So I woke up in Chiclayo and headed east into the mountains and the ruins of Sipan. Sipan is a tiny little town, dirt streets and roofless cinderblock homes in the middle of an amazing valley. It reminded me a lot of the Coachella Valley of Southern California actually. Massive lifeless desert mountains framing a green fertile valley but instead of golf courses and condos there were sugar cane farms and irrigation canals. The Sipan ruins are small, still being excavated and world famous for their preservation. National Geographic ran two articles on them back in the late 90s when they were first unearthed. If you want the real reason I went there it’s because my guide book regarded them as a true Indiana Jones adventure (people were killed over the treasure during its’ discovery 15 years ago) and what kid my age didn’t grow up worshipping Harrison Ford in either his Han Solo or Indiana Jones personas? So out I went to the tiny ruins, possibly no larger than a football field, or futbol pitch as it were, and gazed upon a skeleton of a warrior exactly where it had been placed a few thousand years ago. And also the skeleton of a priest, and a king, and some children. And the immaculately preserved pottery. Amazing.

Back into Chiclayo I went. Parked at the hotel and went to see the Shaman. The market in town was large and like all SA markets has dozens of booths stacked on top of each other selling the same knock of nike backpacks and tshirts, then rows and rows of shoes, purses, clothing. What makes the Chiclayo market unique is the southwest corner. It’s a collection of fortune tellers, shaman and sooth sayers. If the tarot cards, robed septuagenarians , and mystical music didn’t give away the product for sale the massive amounts of incense, marijuana and BO would have. If I’d been one to partake the amounts of hallcenignes was unlimited. As far as I could tell something similar to peyote was the chosen method for dreamweaving in Peru. I asked about it but couldn’t understand the replies. I search for an English speaker to give my money too but no luck. The last thing I wanted was to miss out on my fate and future because it got lost in translation. So I took in the odor of the area, bought some bananas and another Vallencia jersey and walked back to the hotel. I stayed another night and had a excellent dinner of grilled chicken and French fries. I have taken the approach in Peru that I roll without a schedule. No alarm clocks, no pushing myself too late into the day. Wake up and drive. When I get tired I stop. If I want to keep going I do. That would change dramatically on my way to Huaraz the following day. But guess what? It’s check out time here in the I’ll have to finish this story from another bed or café later tonight. Chances is are it won’t be with 6 pillows, a/c and a down comforter though. Time to get back to life on the road.

2008-02-11T10:54:00.000-08:00

Cashed in some Marriott points for my stay in Lima. Will have a real post up later today with all my adventures, and there have been plenty, from Peru.

OK Unit Number: 0-7341800

2008-02-08T10:21:00.000-08:00

SPOT. somewhere in ecuador. ideally on a dusty road circling some volcano
Unit Number: 0-7341800
Latitude: -9.047
Longitude: -77.6057
Nearest Town from unit Location: Yuraccorral, Peru
Distance to the nearest town: 1 km(s)
Time in GMT the message was sent: 02/08/2008 18:23:46

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-9.047,-77.6057&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

Colombia IV

2008-02-06T22:02:00.001-08:00

Despite my last randomness post this is part IV, not V. some of you may still be trying to figure out why I’m writing Colombia so far after the fact and why I didn’t want to ‘jinx’ it while I was there. Jinx was not referring to my safety or any sort of negative. The trip through and the people of Colombia had been amazing up that point and I didn’t want to ruin the bounty I’d stumbled upon.

Yet again, however I need to begin with a digression. One of the largest dilemmas I’ve had since starting this harebrained scheme back in May was Venezuela. How would I make it safely there, were the beauty, ruggedness and amazing spectacle of the 4x4 Fun Race worth the potential risks? One of the aces I had hidden up my sleeve was the land cruiser connection. Cruiser owners willing to show me the back country and avoid some of the more hazardous areas. The risk was worth the pay off until I got to Costa Rica. Then a couple of things happened to derail the agenda. I’m typing without and internet connection but a quick Google or cnninternational.com search will give you the full story. First Chavez lost and election that would have made him essentially ‘president for life.’ This started a bit of turmoil within his own party and inspired confidence in his detractors. I tried my hardest to ignore the US Media propaganda when it came to Chavez. But locals and credible print media are enough to let you know the guy is driven by fame, his loathing of US policy and values, and his not so hidden desire to be seen as a modern day Simon Bolivar. Yep that is me summing up the entire situation in one sentence what would really take volumes to delineate. Obviously I don’t know the whole truth but had to base my decision NOT to go to VZ on what I knew. However, even after the election my route still included VZ. Then the Emmanuel situation happened. That chaos spurs yet another hostage negotiation with FARC (look them up for sure, labeled my most gov’t as terrorist and a scary group regardless of title, Noam Chomsky be damned) that succeeded. Chavez acknowledging the guerilla group is a slap in the face of the Colombian democratic process. A few conversations with Colombian locals only confirmed this. So with a contentious border zone, Chavez reeling from his electoral loss and headlines being made of the Chavez/FARC relationship I decided to save VZ for another trip. I felt right about it then and still feel right about it now.

And with that I find myself, climbing groggily out of bed in clothes from the night before in lovely downtown Medellin. After checking out and finding my truck intact and safely parked where I left her I decided to bail on the inversion choked City of Internal Spring and heads toward Bogota. There were plans to go wheeling on Sunday and I figured if got there Friday night I could enjoy the city on Saturday on foot. The road form Medellin climbed aggressively to over 9k feet. Near the airport in the high mountain valley is a series of new round-a-bouts. None of which had signage yet. After going around in circles, literally I pulled over and looked at my map again. As I was doing so 2MPs rolled up on a 175cc motorcycle. My experience with the military in Colombia had been very positive but after the lowlife crooked police of Panama I was still skeptical of all uniformed ‘authorities.’ I explained my dilemma. I needed gas and the road to Rio Negro. They agreed to show me the way. So I followed them to the gasolinera, filled up the tank, bought a Coke for me and two Gatorades for them, then explained I needed to find an ATM for all the tolls between there and Bogota. Yep I know risky thought. ‘hey follow me to the bank.’ But I was out of cash and knew I would need it. So they took me to the airport. Told me to park in front of the terminal. I asked if it was okay and one replied ‘you’re with us, you can park wherever you want.’ So I ran in to the airport, got my cash and climbed back into my car. They then led me 8 MILES! to the right turn off. All going 45mph in the thin air and rainy streets. Once I got to the turn off I ‘arranged’ my money so I make it easy to give them a low cost bribe. They got off the bike, shook my hand and wished me well on my trip. Just like that. 20 mins police escort through the hills east of Medellin.

Back on the road I rambled through hills, valleys, farms, river, towns, on my way to Bogota. About 40 mins outside of Bogota I pulled over to look at my map, organize my truck and plan my route of attack for the city. Venturing into large foreign cities is quite the adventure. Luckily Bogotá was one of the more organized cities I’ve visited. But typically I always stop outside the city, memorize the route I want to take and a few of the larger arteries, accept the fact that I’ll be lost 10mins into the it and get my mind right for the ensuing chaos. Bogota is over 8million people and was by far the largest city since Mexico City. Even more exciting I was hitting it right at dusk. Dusk and rush hour but I’ll take some daylight and congestion over darkness any day.

So I descend into the valley and onto the streets of Bogota. 10mins in per usual I am somehow in express lanes going toward the city. Okay that works. Wait a minute. It’s only me, buses and taxis. How did that happen? I know I followed a normal car in here. Okay just roll with it. Oh crap these lanes go into the transit center. Guess I’ll roll with them. Sweet a few thousand people out on the curbs waiting for taxis and buses. This CAN’T be right. Hey I’m right, that police officer is flagging me down. I explain to him I have no idea what happened and just took a wrong turn. He stops all traffic, that would be a grand total of 16 lanes while I back out of the terminal, across 6 westbound lanes and 4 east bound lanes to the proper area. 100s, if not 1000s of horns blaring. Sweat dumping off my head, my back, my netherlands, everywhere. The gringo in the big truck always draws stares, that night it was stares, smiles, laughter and a bit of guile. Expedition Americas in its finest and in retrospect one of its most humorous moments. Back on track I kept heading east into the city. And heading east. And heading east. This is a big town. I find an artery and head south. Once I find the area, La Candalaria, where my hotel is I realize I can’t go left. So I make the 3 right turns to get to my hotel. But find myself on another bus only road. Dammit not this again. It’s pitch black by now and I’m tired and lost. But I keep driving around. All the roads lead OUT of where I want to be. So I give up and pull an Amazing Race. I ask a cab driver if I can follow him to the hotel. He says sure and we agree upon $2. Once there ,they’re full. I try 2 more. Full. Find a 3^rd, they have a room and parking. I take it. The 5 mins turned in to 25 but the driver still only took $2. It’s now 10pm and I just want to sleep. So I climb INTO the sheets this time and go to bed. The next day would bring new friends into my life, a tour of an amazing city and yet another example of Colombian hospitality.

For you, my dear readers, that will have to wait for another day. It’s 1am and wrote 15 emails tonight before starting this post so my burning eyes need some rest. Enjoy and more tomorrow.

random randomness

2008-02-05T21:56:00.001-08:00

75 pics or so added to the gallery. Southern Colombia, Ecuador, Peru. (yes the one of the reflection of my gut is intentional as is the uploading the one of my hand while trying to self-photographize, yep made up word)

After losing a filling in Costa Rica my tooth disappeared in Mancora, Peru. Either I’m tough as hell or the tooth is dead because no real pain.

Plugged the clippers in tonight, took the risk and lost. 220v fried them. So no beard or hair trimming for a while.

Missing tooth, scraggly beard. I’ll look like a bum. Like Cain wandering the earth.

Speaking of Cain. I’ve been doing what I call the ‘royale with cheese’ test every now and then. Checking in on US food joints to see how they differ and what is similar. KFC in Ecuador, Kentucky fried shrimp. Crispy only. No original recipe.

Camped on a beach by myself last night. All alone for miles. Took the recommendation of the hotel manager in Mancora, drove through an oilfield and a gate and found desolation.

Dunes and desert for 3^rd straight day. I’m very happy.

Took a bath tonight. Not a shower. A bath.

John McCain is winning. Hilary and Obama are both somehow winning.

Tomorrow I’m going to see a shaman and the Sipan ruins.

Found an adapter for my laptop.

Michael Jackson’s greatest hits somehow compliments the desert well.

Thanks to Jason Call and family I played the harmonica for an hour on the beach last night.

Gas is still $4.15 a gallon.

Inca Cola is awesome.

Truck is organized, ready for Justin to arrive 2 weeks from today. I hope I’ll have learned to stop talking to myself by then as well.

They sell microwave popcorn here in Chiclayo.

Some of the pics, a hat store with BYU hats in a Colombian market. Owner was totally shocked when I explained to him what BYU is. Sunset pics in Peru. Mountains of Ecuador, farms in Colombia. I really wish the pic of the girl in traditional dress and texting on her phone wasn’t blurry but if I had stopped she would have stopped texting. One of the traditions of Carnival is kids dumping flour on each other and spraying people with hoses or waterballoon. A kid in caught me with my window down and drenched me with a hose. Pics of my hotel on the beach and the resort town of Banos with its mineral hot springs. And I think a few equator pics.

Expedition Americas has gone international. Oh wait. Umm yeah that happened like 3 months ago. It is not longer Occidental. The Orient has accepted me into its home. I got a PM from a Cruiser owner in Hong Kong today on IH8MUD. I’ll post the link to his blog in the morning.

Umm what else? That is enough randomness for tonight. A real post tomorrow. Colombia V and Ecuador/Peru updates.

aahhh aridity

2008-02-03T20:25:00.000-08:00

If you look at the latest spot device link, which is bound to accompany this post if you get my blog updates via email you’ll notice from the Google Image that I am no longer in the jungle. I couldn’t be happier about it either. Don’t get me wrong I loved my time in the jungles of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador and I look forward to the jungles of Peru. It has been nice, however brief the respite, to find myself in arid air once again. The change is good. Not sweating all day, no need for the Johnson’s Baby Powder. The sopping wet carpet in my truck from the still leaking windshield finally managed to dry out for the first time in weeks. I can’t for the life of me find my outlet adapter for the laptop so tonight will have to be a very brief post until I can track the dumb thing down. I have taken about 400 pictures in the last 5 days so expect a gallery update including a few pics of my hairy mug (not on the balding cabeza of course) to find their way into the gallery as well once I get a highspeed connection. I stayed in a hotel last night that had inferior screens and woke up with 100s of mosquito bites. So when I’m bed ridden in Lima with Malaria you’ll know why. The real highlight of the last week for me is something many of you may find boring or trite. Others will know exactly what I’m talking about and understand my obvious glee this evening. I spent 4 hours driving up and down a desert wash today. At the top was a nice dry forest of cactus, rock and some weird scrubby tree that bares a slight resemblance in appearance and texture to the tamarisk. Not only did I get to rally the wash with a cold coke (the arb fridge is set to 29degrees right now) and some solid tunes (no somebody this time) but I also returned with 3 shades of mud on my truck. She hasn’t looked this pretty since the first, and yes there will be a second, Utah Cruiser Expedition (right click, save as, it’s a 7mb file.) I thought the locals stared bad before. You should see them now. Oh did I mention my hotel room is on the beach, I walked 90 mins tonight barefoot in the soft lush sand. All for the whopping total of $35. However I get to pay $4.15 a gallon to drive around so it all works out. You would think I would find a way to break this thing up into paragraphs but that would be too logical. Besides I’m trying to save battery power right? That requires extra key strokes. I’ll be driving again tomorrow so I can charge the fine hp mobile workstation once again but loading and resizing pics has taken its toll. But because of that toll you get some visual stimulus today as a the cherry on top of the this sweet, succulent, and extremely well thought out post from yours truly.

dmc

By the way Ken Romer is a solid cat.

OK Unit Number: 0-7341800

2008-02-03T09:20:00.000-08:00

SPOT. somewhere in ecuador. ideally on a dusty road circling some volcano
Unit Number: 0-7341800
Latitude: -4.1941
Longitude: -80.8386
Nearest Town from unit Location: Fern*ndez, Peru
Distance to the nearest town: 1 km(s)
Time in GMT the message was sent: 02/03/2008 17:22:26

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-4.1941,-80.8386&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

Colombia Part III

2008-01-31T20:48:00.001-08:00

So part III of Colombia is going to start off on a bit of a tangent. One of the more interesting games I’ve been playing along the way is the juxtaposition of my soundtrack. And by my soundtrack I’m referring to the ipod set to shuffle for days on end. It has provided quite a few interesting situations. Ben and I rolling into Belize City listening to Public Enemy and De La Soul. The hours I spent trying to find a tiny border crossing into Panama only to end up talking to a very elderly local as Prince provides the ambiance. I’m not talking the ‘acceptable’ Prince either. I’m talking about Prince and the New Power Generation ‘7.’ One of the more embarrassing is when I was listening to my high school dance playlist only to come across a military check point while Depeche Mode’s “Somebody” played in the background. My personal favorite is driving into the rainforest with Rodolfo in Costa Rica to the wonderful serenade of a 30min ‘Mr. Completely.’ The list goes on but the most surprising took place in Cartagena. After Frank and I moved some stuff into his new place we set out for dinner at a restaurant called Patacon. I was riding in the back when Frank turned up the stereo. On his mp3 cd. Nine Inch Nails. Now how that came to be I’m not 100% sure but Nine In Nails in the back seat of a Prado in Cartagena Colombia was something I would never have expected.

So speaking of Patacon I learned a few things about eating while in Colombia. One, and this has been one of the more popular photos in my gallery if the number of emails I have received are any indication, is that no matter how good the idea is, 30 years of tactile conditioning cannot be overcome. The idea of giving patrons glove to keep their fingers clean while eating the delicious grilled chicken is a good one and apparently I was the only one uncomfortable with it. The gloves over my fingers triggered responses in my head that what I was touching was dirty and not for consumption. Gloves mean rebuilding an axle or painting my rims. Working in the yard. Building a campfire. Gloves are there to protect your hands. Why am I protecting my hands from something I’m putting into my body? Yep that Pavlov guy was a pretty smart cat. Two is that plantains are used in EVERYTHING in Colombia. A patacon is just one of them. A mush of plantain deep fried to a thing crisp. Then you eat it with such items as carne asada, pico de gallo, pollo braso and various other condiments. It’s excellent. Lastly I need to confess my addiction. I stumbled across a restaurant in Panama that they also have in Colombia that has become my Mr. Brownstone. Crepes and Waffles. (sweet I just discovered they have a location in Lima) Yeah doesn’t sound like a place you’d find a gringo trembling from withdrawals and waiting for his fix. But it is. First time I went there it was while waiting for a movie. I saw the word ‘waffle’ and I had to have one. It had been a long time since I had a Belgian waffle and fresh berries and ice cream made it the perfect pre-movie meal. On my second visit I was introduced to the “Babydoll.” The Babydoll is a devine creation. A baseball sized scoop of icy vanilla bean ice cream wrapped in a well crafted crepe. This base was covered with 4 lengthwise slices of banana, whip cream, chocolate and caramel syrup. Add a coke and it is the perfect meal. All for less than $4 no less. So all the weight I lost eating rice, beans, and chicken came right back during my 14 days of Panama and Colombia. Those lbs were added during a state of pure bliss. The Babydoll. So music and food. That is a perfect topic after the header of “Colombia Part III” right? How about we see if I can make it to 1000 words tonight.

After my stay in Cartagena came to an end it was time to head south again and Medellin was the destination. Not only is it the namesake of a fictional movie starring Vince from Entourage but it was also the cocaine capital of the world only a decade ago. Yep that was my destination. The city is nestled in a narrow canyon and has the nickname “city of eternal spring” because of its climate. I was looking forward to a day or two there. Then I arrived. It was late due to an accident in the mountains on the way there. I rolled to the hotel recommended by Lonely Planet and the only one with a parking garage. As I’ve struggled with my whole trip, Ruby was too tall for the garage. Once again the hospitality of the Colombianos was revealed. I think.

The kid at the garage called 3 hotels looking for one with parking I could use and an available room. After finding one nearby I asked for directions. Instead of drawing a map he located the night manager who hopped in my car with me and guided me through the prostitute, transvestite and junkie filled one way streets of downtown Medellin at 11 at night. We found the hotel and I offered to give him a ride back now that I knew the location. He declined and I offered to pay for his taxi. He declined again, said “welcome to Colombia and have a good trip” in Spanish and walked out the door. Inside the hotel I found a very nice receptionist and that was the end of the ‘nice’ of the hotel. I snaked my way through the crowded lobby of drunken Parcheesi players and smoking teenagers and up to my room. After opening the door I instantly knew I had a very rough night ahead of me. I would be sleeping on top of the bed, fully clothed and no chance in hell I was getting in that cold water only shower. I found a fairly clean blanket in the closet wrapped myself in it and slept a rough 3 or 4 hours during the night. Morning dawned smoggy and filthy. But I guess that will be part IV.

Riobamba (lots of pics today)

2008-01-31T08:14:00.000-08:00

Riobamba Ecuador is nothing more than pass through town on the Panamericana. A clean town of 125k people nestled in a valley surrounded by volcanoes (or so I’ve been told it’s pretty much been raining since I got here and I haven’t seen a thing) has turned out to be an excellent stop along my way to Ushuaia. After my wheeling trip in Bogota. I guess I haven’t got that far yet. Well after the trip I noticed some fluid coming out of the breather hose on the front axle. Looked like a mix of diff fluid, grease and water. I decided the next chance I got I’d get the fluid drained and the knuckles repacked. I’m pretty sure I have blown inner axle seal but in the short term this would work until I have a chance to tear into it.

As you would expect I skipped a few towns and kept thinking I’d do it in the next town. Then the next town. As I was descending hill after hill after hill a vibration in my breaking began to get worse. As I rolled into Riobamba on Monday the plan was to get gas, grab some food and head south for a few hours then find a place to hotel. I stumbled across a Toyota dealership. I pulled into the parking lot and tracked down the service manager. I told him what I needed done. Which was a challenge since I don’t know ANY Spanish words to describe a vehicle. I did manage to schedule an appointment and got permission to watch/help the tech to make sure the issues weren’t lost in translation.

I found a hotel and checked in. As I was walking back to my car to pull into the secure parking lot there was a local taking pics of my Cruiser with his camera phone. To make a long story short he is the president of the Riobamba 4x4 club and invited me to go wheeling while I was here. I agreed, got a phone number and had a crappy dinner in the hotel restaurant.

Morning came and off to the dealership I went. We got the truck up on the lift and the vibration ended up being a bad tie rod end. Thanks to my boy Eric V. I had 2 spares and we swapped them out. The service was great, the price was right and off I went.

Yesterday morning I woke up and got ready to hit the road with the Ernan and the Riobamba 4x4 club. Which being a weds I was shocked. Well the club ended up being one truck and two people. We set off into the hills toward Volcan Chimborazo. The wheeling was mellow, muddy and muddy. Black thick gloppy volcanic mud but not hard. We passed an Incan Ruin and a natural spring where I filled up my nalgenes and continued climbing. Eventually we entered the clouds. Surprise surprise more rain on my truck. We stumbled across a wild version of a alpaca. Ernan told me the name but my attempt to spell it would be beyond embarrassing. So how about feral alpaca? Just look at the pic.

We finally reached the high point of the road. 15,900 feet. I got out and walked to about 17k. Oh and I finally found my first snow for the North American winter. We came back down, my breaking vibration was gone and I bought lunch, said goodbye and came back to the hotel. I called a few friends on Skype and went out for a walk and dinner. Pizza was the choice and it was damn good. One of the best meals I’ve had on the trip. Yep pizza was that good. And per instruction from guide book I did NOT use my hands in order to not offend.

My 3 days in Riobamba is a town I would have passed right through but the hospitality of locals, the scenery, the lack of sunshine, oh wait that is a bad thing, and a great pizza made it a great stop.

Time for lunch then back on the road toward Peru. Okay a few more stops but Peru by the weekend. Unless another town reaches up and grabs me like Riobamba has.

a teaser

2008-01-30T22:32:00.000-08:00

How adorable is this old woman? All 4 foot 2 of her. I went four wheeling today with guys I met on the street in Riobamba, Ecuador. Drove to almost 16k feet then walked to 17k. I’m far more acclimated than I was a few days ago. Too bad it’s been raining the whole time. Pics are only so so. However it’s 1:30 am so you’ll get the full story later tomorrow.

OK Unit Number: 0-7341800

2008-01-30T09:10:00.000-08:00

SPOT. somewhere in ecuador. ideally on a dusty road circling some volcano
Unit Number: 0-7341800
Latitude: -1.4752
Longitude: -78.8459
Nearest Town from unit Location: Unknown
Distance to the nearest town: Unknown
Time in GMT the message was sent: 01/30/2008 17:12:43

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-1.4752,-78.8459&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

Colombia Part II

2008-01-28T21:51:00.000-08:00

After lunch Frank, or Francisco as his mother calls him, asked me if there was any way I could help him move. After a lunch of steak and mushrooms how could I possibly say no. Frank had just moved to Cartagena from Bogota and was crashing with his folks until his place was ready. So Frank, his wife Andrea and I loaded up the truck with clothes, tv, dishes etc with the mattress strapped to the roofrack. I was sweating like a dog, the humidity and heat had my shirt soaked but it felt extremely normal. I could use the fancy right-click thesaurus that Microsoft offers, or even dig out my dictionary but the fact is ‘normal’ is the right word. Helping a friend move, piling stuff into a Cruiser is a pretty common practice back home in Utah and this felt no different. We stopped by the store to confirm delivery of new appliances and then hauled all the stuff up 18 flights of stairs. Oh wait that’s not right, there was an elevator. It just felt like I was clmbing that many stairs. Have I mentioned Cartagena was hot?

Next few days I hung out with Frank and Andrea. I wandered the old city, dined at outdoor cafes, attempted to haggle with the many vendors of fine Colombian goods and tacky tourist crap. I think I scored the former. Probably got hoodwinked and ended up with the latter. One of the highlights of Cartagena is the old Spanish fort. (pics in the gallery)I’m sure there is real name like Bastion or something like that but it’s 12:30 at night cut me some slack. It was built to protect their stashed gold from plundering pirates. It was the only fortress the Spanish built in the ‘new world’ that was never occupied or destroyed and still stands today very well preserved. I know this might strike some as odd but I think I enjoy it as much as the ruins at Tikal or Chitzen Itza. Perhaps it was the ability to wander freely amongst the ruins, or the passageways plunging into the depths of the stronghold, but it was an amazing structure and a great experience.

Another of the old Spanish buildings remaining in the town was the, crap I’m forgetting the name and my book is in the car. Ummm, Palace of Inquisition? That sounds right. They had rebuilt many of the torture devices used on heretics and criminals. (again I think I posted pics in my gallery.) They were neat to see but the thing that impressed me the most was that the altar still remained where the most egregious offenders were decapitated. Thought provoking to say the least. All of this in a tranquil courtyard with hanging garden.

Above the Palace of Inquisition was a museum dedicated to the history of Cartagena. Not just the Spanish history but the indigenous history as well. I’m not much of a museum guy but it was truly fascinating. One of the more intriguing exhibits detailed the construction of the wall surrounding the city and the various techniques used. Yep boring to read about, so I’m sorry. But it lead to a long hot walk around the entire wall looking for signs of the engineering detailed. One afternoon I got an email stating the my truck had arrived and it was time to go pick it up. This seems like another good time to break. My eyes are burning and if I quit now you have the detailed account of 14 hours, over two days, to get my truck out of port, and the following night spent in an hourly rate motel, home to prostitutes and transvestites to look forward to.

the damage

2008-01-28T06:50:00.000-08:00

Do the pics need words? She’s still a cute truck, parked ever so politely under the nearby waterfall right? And one of my hotel.

so it finally happened

2008-01-27T21:45:00.000-08:00

IT actually represents two things.

My inevitable confrontation with a Latin American bus driver finally occurred. They have been a thorn in my side since I crossed over to mainland Mexico. Yes I’m aware I’m the outsider but it goes beyond that. They have no consideration for anyone else on the road including each other. They adhere to no laws or common sense. They’ll stop anywhere to pick up a passenger. Sometimes they’ll be blocking 4 lanes of a city street. Stopped. No hurry. No reason to go anywhere. When they want in they push you out of the way. When the decide to stop everyone has to as well. This isn’t just the urban buses. This happens everywhere. Running cars off the road on the winding mountain roads so that they can pass at less than a mph difference between the one they’re overtaking. Every country, every city, every town has these buses and there is some sense of order but it is still frustrating as hell to try and drive without the IPDE process in full effect. It’s fatiguing. Saturday morning I was heading through downtown Quito on my way to the old city. A bus pulled off the curb (I’m in the left of 2 lanes) and I honk my horn to let him know I was there as per custom. I changed my focus to the 8 buses and 47 taxis in front of me that were my next challenge when I’m struck by the front left corner of the bus in the middle of my front passenger door.

Yep Ruby Claire is no longer the bad ass truck she used to be. Red paint has scarred the beloved and adored 1B2 (Toyota paint code for Antique Pearl Sage, limited to the 40^th Anniversary Land Cruiser), half of my rear fender flare is lying broken along the side of Avenida Guayaquil. I’ll take some pics tomorrow now that I’ve accepted the fact. But the fun didn’t end with the collision as I’m sure you can imagine.

It took a minute to find a place for us to both pull over then the bedlam ensued. The driver climbed out and started telling me it was my fault. His little shouter boy that recruits passengers is yelling something at me that was totally incoherent. When the driver realized I knew what he was saying he began to berate me even worse. I told him to ‘f himself’ and to call the cops. I knew it wasn’t my fault so I was fine bringing in the cops. That freaked him out a bit. Then the passengers started piling out. Some to get on a different selfishly driven bus, some to add their opinions to the situation. I was a bit unnerved and the 250 yards of cars honking their horns behind us didn’t help. I told the driver to call the police and we would move to a better place to park. He was still contending it was my fault and was pointing to some damage on his bus that would have been impossible for my truck to cause. I kept saying call the police and let’s go up the street to a better place to park. He finally relented and off we went. As we climbed the hill it dawned on me that it might not be best for me to get the cops involved. I’m the gringo in the expensive looking vehicle. He’s the local working man that speaks the language. So when the bus took a right I kept going straight and got the hell out of dodge. Insurance in Ecuador is not mandatory so I don’t have any and my truck can be fixed when I get home. I figured it was in my best interests to let the situation be. I suffered the worst of it anyway. I’m attaching a pic of the jackass driver (well his bus at least, 2107) for reference.

The day got much better from that point on. Obviously. How could it not? Over the course of next 8 hours I would go for a nice long walk along the lunar landscape of Volcan Cotopaxi and find a gorgeous campsite. It was rainy and relatively cold but the hike was very enjoyable and a nice diversion from driving. I then not only walked but drove higher than any point in the continental US. Drove to about 14,800 feet. Walked to about 15,200 then the nausea and burning lungs forced me down. Pretty cool experience to be driving that high, lost in a cloud with zero visibility.

Then IT happened for the second time that day. This it was 11 countries and 10 weeks in the making. As I stood on a windy ridge taking pics of the sunset, which included a cloud in the shape of an Imperial Star Destroyer, it finally hit me and I uttered out loud to myself, “Ecuador, I’m in f&@#ing Ecuador.” Yep the reality finally set in that I am a LONG way from home. Yes it did take that long. I have no idea why but last night the reality hit home. And to be honest with you, I couldn’t be happier about it. I attached a pic of me shortly after the epiphany. As a matter of fact I do always look that serious. I hate self portraits.

OK Unit Number: 0-7341800

2008-01-26T13:13:00.000-08:00

SPOT. somewhere in ecuador. ideally on a dusty road circling some volcano
Unit Number: 0-7341800
Latitude: -0.6572
Longitude: -78.4387
Nearest Town from unit Location: Unknown
Distance to the nearest town: Unknown
Time in GMT the message was sent: 01/26/2008 21:15:35

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=-0.6572,-78.4387&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

spot explanation

2008-01-25T20:34:00.000-08:00

I have a had a few inquiries about the SPOT device so I thought I would elaborate a bit more on how it works. It is a simple satellite beacon. The message you see in the email are static and I can only change them via the internet. That is why sometimes a message will say I may be on a boat even though I’m in Ecuador. Which would mean I haven’t had a chance to change it. Unfortunately their site is not one I can access from my phone which is where I do most of my internet work.

What you will notices is that the GPS Coordinates and accompanying Google Maps link are from the location where I send the signal. Sometimes I send them to let those close to me know that I’m okay. Sometimes I sent them to gloat that I’m on some remote stretch of beach. Sometimes they may be completely confusing like a random road in the middle of Colombia. These are really just for me to have for future reference like when I crossed 15k on the odometer. The last one today I think is pretty self explanatory but just in case you need help I’m including 2 pics in this post.

OK Unit Number: 0-7341800

2008-01-25T10:13:00.000-08:00

SPOT. my guess is Colombia or maybe on a boat on the way there. not quite sure when i'll use this again.
Unit Number: 0-7341800
Latitude: 0.0
Longitude: -78.1747
Nearest Town from unit Location: Unknown
Distance to the nearest town: Unknown
Time in GMT the message was sent: 01/25/2008 18:15:35

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=0.0,-78.1747&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1

Colombia Part I

2008-01-24T20:30:00.001-08:00

Time to pull up a comfy chair, a nice cup of hot chocolate and sit by the warm fire. (for those buried under the mountains of snow piling up in Utah) For everyone else I recommend at least a nice quiet area where you can tire your eyes by reading this nice long post. And yes this is only Part I. I was unsure on using roman numerals but I picked up a bootleg of all 6 Star Wars DVD here as a souvenir and now I’m inspired.

Colombia Part I however is beginning in Panama. I’m not sure how that is possible but I’m confident by the time I’m at the end of this post it will make sense. Or maybe not, I don’t really outline these things and sometime by the end I’ve forgotten where I started and heaven forbid I would actually proof read.

I entered Panama on New Year’s Eve. After a very long ordeal with shipping and finally putting Ruby Claire into the container (which I will eventually recount once I get over the frustration of the process) I found myself in the Panama City airport with 6 hours to kill before my 9:20pm flight on January 11^th. I was flying to Cartagena on a small Colombian Airline called Aires. Their ticket counter didn’t open until 7 and all the shops/restaurants were behind the security checkpoint. That meant 4 hours of sitting on the floor of the airport passing the time. I read a lot. I emailed. I called a few people via Skype but most of all I was left to ponder the late night flight into a country whose reputation was not one of security. It saved me $60 to fly late and to be fair I had read on numerous websites that the Colombia’s lingering reputation from the late 80s/early 90s was unfounded and the country was one of great hospitality and natural beauty. But this is still the same country of cocaine and murdered soccer players.

I got my ticket, entered security and after a dinner of crispy M&Ms (the restaurant was packed with an hour wait) I sat down at the gate and put on the headphones. Luckily I spent the last year before my trip getting very used to airports and downtime. Time came to board and things just got weird. Instead of gate 20, we were gate 20A. Which meant walking down some stairs and climbing on a bus. Me and 25 Colombianos. I found a seat next to a woman with 3 bags and settled in for the unknown. The unknown turned out to be a nice long drive (like 8mins) out onto the tarmac, past all the other planes and out into the darkness. Eventually we came out of the dark and pulled up to a dual prop plane. I thought it was humorous and a bit sketchy. Apparently I wasn’t the only one. All the other people on the bus were cracking jokes and laughing about it too.

We boarded the plane and out came the rum. And it wasn’t just one person. Two guys had bottles and they were passing out shots to everyone. The attendant passed out the sandwiches and muffins for the short flight and the lights went out. I settled into an episode of The Office on the ipod. After arriving in Cartagena I found a spotless airport, pleasant customs and immigration officials and hot humid air. I had booked my hotel while in Panama so I had to track down a taxi. It was then that I found what would be the first of many examples of a very friendly nation of people. I had no Colombian Pesos for a taxi and the airport was officially closed as ours was the last flight of the night. They actually brought our luggage all the way to customs for us. I tracked down a security guard and explained the situation. He opened up the airport, literally unlocked the front doors, I didn’t know airports closed, and walked the 200 yards or so with me to the atm to get cash. I went outside hopped in cab and headed for the city.

As we approached the city my expectations were greatly exceeded. I knew the old city was inside an old Spanish fort but I had no idea it was so well preserved. The wall was 20 feet high and 40 feet thick. Even the tiny Peugeot cab felt massive on the tiny colonial streets. My hotel turned out to be immaculately maintained if not in a loud section of the city. I was unsure what the next morning would bring but my first hour in Colombia was very indicative of the next two weeks.

I woke late the next morning to a bustling city street and intense heat. Oppressive heat. Blinding heat. Yep it was hot. I was too late for the free breakfast but I still wandered up to the roof to snap some photos of the city then out for a walk to check it out. I was meeting a total stranger/internet friend from IH8MUD.com for lunch and had a few hours to kill. I visited a few of the shops, grabbed some juice, sweat, wondered in amazement at the centuries old city and the fact that I was in South America. Oh and I was sweating a little bit. I got an email on my phone as I was walking around from my friends Erin and Kevin whom Ben and I had met in Guatemala. They had just arrived in Cartagena also (they sent their bikes by plane to Bogotá a few days earlier and had circled north to the coast.) so I stopped by their hotel to say hi. I had to meet up with Frank so I said goodbye and hoofed it back to the hotel to change into a dry shirt before lunch.

Frank and his wife Andrea picked me up in 90 Series Land Cruiser also known as a Prado. The first Prado I would ever drive just a few days later. He informed me that despite my misgivings and social awkwardness he said his Mom would not let him take me to lunch anywhere but her house. I relented in that I had no choice and figured my bad Spanish would mask the shyness and discomfort about having strangers invite me into their home. This isn’t an American/Colombian thing either. This is my inability to behave properly in civil society. Socially retarded as I like to say. And don’t call me socially challenged because that description is not accurate. I am not challenged. My social skills were, at some point in my life, limited, retarded. I’m not offended by the phrase. Accuracy is a far loftier ideal than spineless political correctness. Okay mini-rant aside…

We headed south out of the old city into Bocagrande to Frank’s parents’ apartment. A sparkling clean high rise with magnificent views and a cooling ocean breeze. Frank, Andrea and I shared a meal of soup, rice, steak, and mushrooms. A damn tasty introduction to Cartagena. Already the food was better than Central America. Something that would hold true throughout Colombia. I chatted with Frank’s dad Christopher on the balcony for a while. A truly amazing man that I would have loved to talked to for hours. He went to the states with a 5^th grade education and graduated from the University of Chicago with an MBA 6 years later. Yep doing his GED and undergrad work at the same time. Not sure how he pulled that off. He’d lived all over the US and had just recently returned to Colombia for ‘retirement.’ I don’t think building a hotel and 100 apartments on the beach is what most retirees do during their golden years. After lunch is when the truly great experience in Cartagena began. But for now I need to go to bed. I slept like crap last night and it was a long day. There will be some Ecuador posts interspersed through the Colombia write up over the next week or so. Why would I make it simple for you to read? But I hope you’ll all find it entertaining

EXTREMA LLANTERIA FSC

2008-01-23T19:43:00.001-08:00

and one more from the same day. this is what happens when your tires are too wide for your rims and you blow 2 beads on one trail. extreme measures to get 4 usable tires back on the car.

TOYOTA DE DAVE EN COLOMBIA

2008-01-23T19:40:00.001-08:00

a video sent to me by my boy Jairo. Me trying to learn how to drive in the Colombian mud

OK Unit Number: 0-7341800

2008-01-23T10:10:00.000-08:00

yes not the most exciting area in Colombia but I surpassed 15k on the odometer about that time. (the signal doesn't instantly send)

SPOT. my guess is Colombia or maybe on a boat on the way there. not quite sure when i'll use this again.
Unit Number: 0-7341800
Latitude: 3.9398
Longitude: -76.2806
Nearest Town from unit Location: Chambimbal, Colombia
Distance to the nearest town: 1 km(s)
Time in GMT the message was sent: 01/23/2008 18:11:54

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=3.9398,-76.2806&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1