¨Actually, it was infected and a lady spent 5 delightful minutes squeezing creamy pus out of my infected bite-hole with the side of a pair of scissors.¨
-talking to my friend about my bug bite from the jungle-
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Today I spent about an hour inhaling and exhaling into a bottle. I squeezed the bottle with my hands and then would hold the air in with my mouth over the top and breathe through my nose. Then I´d slowly let the air out by letting some air escape from my mouth and do it again. I generally try to live up to frequent self-cultivation, I´m not really sure if inhaling and exhaling in a bottle is in anyway edifying. It did compell me to write this blogpost.
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Last night I took an overnight bus for 18 hours. There was a movie probably entitled ¨ghost rider¨ about how Nick Cage sells his soul to save his daddy and then has to work for the devil. When he goes to work Nick´s head turns into a flaming skull and his hands and motorcycle light on fire as well.
He had to fight the devil´s rebellious sons. I couldn´t leave, or turn my face away as I was stuck on a bus, so I fell asleep. Given the circumstances I feel it was the only fitting response to that kind of movie.
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Actually I didn´t sleep well b/c the fattish father of the pre-teen girl sitting next to me snored like an outboard motor. When the girl got on the bus she was crying because she didn´t want to go on vacation this weekend with her family, she wanted to stay at home in Lima with her friends. I can understand, life is hard when you´re a tween.
I must have felt some homesickness as well, because I dreamt I was at home or at some pretend land far-away home where there were friends from college, friends from home, family from home and kinda weird kids who weren´t really my friends, who I didn´t really talk to, but sort of remember from my elementary school. They were there too. Like I said, i didn´t sleep very well.
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I had ideas of surfing today. It´s too bad that I never made enough positive associations with physical activity when I was younger, ´cause now it´s hard to motivate myself to do anything physical. I´m not sure what time it is, but I think it´s too late to go surfing (I also don´t want to get sunburned). Sometimes I ask myself, if I was James Duesterberg and I was travelling for 10 months, would I stick to a work-out routine? I bet I would.
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While I was sitting on the beach today deliberating surfing a lady who from afar looked beautiful came and sat down near me. She was beatiful, but she was older, maybe 40 or so. I´m not sure how intentional her actions were,when she satdown next to me but I decided then that youth is more beautiful than facial or body structure. Carpe Diem Y´all.
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I just lost my room key. Surprise Surprise.
A guy just lent me his pocket knife to help me sharpen my pen. He´s an old guy from Switzerland with flat, short hair and a HUGE beard, like ZZ-Top. He´s been travelling for 4 years and has taken lots of cargo ships around the world.
I just found my key.
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When I was in Lima I hung out with an American who waits tables in Florida. He said he made $150 a night minimum and on weekends made around $400 a night. Assuming he worked from around 6 PM to 11 PM that´s $80 per hour for taking orders, bringing plates etc. I thought about when I´m older if I had a $400 bill at a table, how much would I tip? $40? $80? The question made me anxious.
Then I thought, why can´t it be a cultural norm to give BIG tips to teachers instead of waiters? I think it´d do more for society than helping this guy blow 3 grand in Peru (He was a nice guy though).
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Today and yesterday and the day before yesterday I ate ceviche. Unlike Mexican ceviche, Peruvian ceviche has big CHUNKS of fish and other squirmy sea creatures like squid and octopi and clams all cut up and dressed with lime juice. The idea is that the lime enzymes ¨cook¨ the fish pieces, but where I just ate the ceviche it took 15 minutes prepare. The people had to cut the fish and pour the lime over it fresh and now my stomach hurts. Actually I had to stop writing this blogpost to run to the bathroom of my hostel - I barely made it!
take care of yourselves you guys.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
A few adventures
So, I´m still traveling.
It´s true.
And recently I had one or two funny experiences, so I´m writing.
I´m still writing (sometimes).
It´s true.
I went to this town called Rurrenabaque. It´s located in the Amazon Basin of Bolivia. From there one can do tours to wetlands or pampas and see alligators and birds and anacondas and river dolphins.
Well, I did that, saw birds, alligators, monkeys and swam more or less with river dolphins, but I was unable to see anacondas and nobody on our trip caught pirahnas. In fact, the highlight of the trip is that I fell down, twice.
A little background. It´s the wetseason in the pampas now, so the river is quite high and the tours are carried out on riverboat. Our lodging was a series of raised houses built of wood that sit just above the water´s edge.
So anyways, I was walking to where six hammocks are strung out to relax and one of the floorboards gave way and I found myself suddenly stuck with legs dangling below the deck and unable to get up. Maybe that´s what it´s like when you fall and your old. I don´t know.
Then, when we were taking our car ride back to town we found a semi that was stuck in the mud and blocking the road. The driver of our car tried to go around the truck, but we ended up getting stuck as well. So then we all had to get out and push. The road was a pile of mud for miles and miles and so when I decided get out of the car by jumping out of the car to miss a puddle I slipped and fell, this time in the mud. People laughed, my clothes were muddy, it was the highlight of the trip.
But that´s not why I´m writing, I wanted to tell yáll about a boat ride I took after my pampas tour.
A little background (deja vu?)
I´m in Rurrenabaque, a town within the Amazon basin and set on a large, jungle river. I´´m travelling with these two Belgian girls who came on our pampas tour and we´re looking for a more adventurous way to return to La Paz. I arrived by flight, but needed something ¨more authentic¨ than a bus or plane. So we ask around and this guy ¨Waldo¨ says we can take a boat UP the river and it will take 2 days to arrive, he says we can stop off at a waterfall and play in waterpools created by the falls. So we think about it for about 5 minutes, pay the money and then *poof* we´re on a boat the next morning at 11 AM, it was supposed to leave at 7:30.
Now Waldo told us that it would be 2 guys working the boat and the 3 of us, but once we get on the boat we find four other guys there with us. So I´m a little annoyed by their presence, ´cause I thought it was going to be private. We go up the river for 2 hours in the rain, the river is surrounded on both sides by dense jungle and then we spot the waterfall. The guide points at it and we chug on past...no stopping...until...one of the four extra guys in the boat spots a group of spider monkeys up in the trees.
They yell, ¨Mari mono¨! ¨Mari mono¨!
And suddenly the boat pulls over 2 guys start loading up their rifles and jump out to hunt mari mono. I´m thinking. This IS funny, should we do something to stop it? Should I go watch? If they catch one, am I going to try it? Keep in mind this is in a national park, a jungle with some of the highest biodiversity in anywhere. And then we hear a couple of rifle shots, but no dull - thud.
After about 15 minutes the guys return, dejected. The capitan asks what happened, one guy says he hit the monkey in the side, but he didn´t fall and he´s just clinging to the tree, but will be dead tomorrow. So they killed a monkey and didn´t even get to eat it.
While this is going on 2 other interesting things happened. I had my first experience with ¨real jungle´. About 2 minutes after the boat pulled up to the river bank these adorable little flies or mosquitos or sand flies come up to the boat. The three of us are all wearing sandals and the flies for whatever reason love to devour our feet (I think it´s because there´s more veins there). The flies are so small, almost like gnats that you can´t really kill them, you can only swat them away and when they bite you, they leave a cute little pool of your blood at the top of the bite, and they itch worse than mosquitos, worse than chiggers, worse than death (almost) and they don´t go away, it was 2 weeks ago and they still itch, (sometimes).
The 2nd ¨funny¨ thing I found out was that the four people whom I resented for being on our boat were not just joyriding, nor were they getting a lift. They´re looking for a dead brother. About a week before when we left, one of the four´s brothers from a town called Guanay swam out into the river and drown in a whirlpool. The brother and his 3 friends have been plying the river back and forth for the past week looking for the body, so the family will have something to mourn over.
So then I didn´t feel so angry about having these 4 in the boat. Life can be humbling sometimes.
We continue up the river and then ¨el capitan¨ starts picking up people along the river waiting for a lift. The people are standing on the banks of the river, in what looks like dense jungle, with maybe only a boat as a sign of civilization. They wave and yell for us to pull over. I´m not sure what´s going on here, we obviously paid far more than these people are for the lift, they´re coming into the boat and making us stop, giving the satanic flies more opportunities and taking up lots of space, so, of course, I´m passive aggressive angry once again.
The day passes more or less the same. Finally night comes on, it´s becoming hard to see and ¨el capitan¨ pulls over on what looks like a deserted river bank. We unload ourselves and the cargo and then follow a small footpath through some jungle to a small clearing where there´s a fire, some pots and pans and few houses. At this point, we don´t know what´s going on. Like, where we´re supposed to stay, if we can cook etc. The 4 guys looking for their brother start cooking, finish and give us a plate of food, clean the pot and then let us start cooking. I make a pot of rice and some vegetables with tomatoes (we forgot to bring any protein).
Then the guys start drinking and we start getting ready for bed; the guys let us use this tent over which they draped a piece of plastic. We squeeeeze into the tent with no windows and no ventilation and try to sleep, but it´s damn hot. After about an hour of not sleeping, we hear this loud shouting, wailing and crying. The guy who lost is brother is shouting, ¨Mi Hermano! Mi Hermano! mata me!¨ (my brother my brother, kill me) At one point he stumbles upon our tent as well.
Then we wake up, get back on the boat and another moreorless uneventful day passes until the boat is basically full and i´m having flashbacks to Africa buses, brimming at the edges, so I go up to finally complain to El Capitan, who says we´ll talk at the next village. We arrive at the village, and El Capitan tells me the other 4 guys don´t want to go further, he doesn´t want to go further (´cause it´ll cost too much) and that he´ll refund us to get to the next town.
So, we do that, take a 2 hour taxi to the town of Guanay, then buy some oranges and take another 2 hour taxi to Carnavi, then it´s only 4 hours back to La Paz, but we´ve basically ran out of money. In all the little pueblitos in Bolivia there´s only these really crap banks that give you money for a 5% comission. We pooled our money so we would´n´t have to pay them, but then we arrived in Carnavi with about $12 between us, which wasn´t enough for 3 back to La Paz. We could have withdrawn more, except that the crap banks (Prodem banks) were closed because it was late Saturday, and there´s no ATMs anywhere.
Meanwhile the 2 Belgian girls are discussing going to another town Coroico, whereas I want to get into La Paz, that night so I can go out on a Saturday, but like I said, there isn´t enough money.
So i start asking trucks going out of town if they´re going to La Paz, so then the girls will have enough to go to Coroico. It doesn´t take long until a Coca Cola truck driver says, sure, hop in the back.
Worst decision of my life.
So, I hop in the back, which is stacked high with crates of empty coca cola bottles. The sun is shining, it´s about 5 PM. I´m on the back of the truck, sitting on my bag just enjoying the scenery, looking forward to a night out in La Paz. After about an hour, though, I notice some cars are going on the same path far quicker than we are. So, I think well, maybe it´ll take a couple more hours, like 6 hours instead of 4 to La Paz. I´m okay with that, I can get in at 11 PM and still go out, no problem.
Then night comes on, we are taking hairpin turns in an enormous truck at a murderously slow pace. Fortunately I have a birds eye view about 12 feet above the road of the 800 foot plunges below if we somehow slip off. We pick up another man and wife pair along the mountain trail, and by now it´s getting late, around 10, and we stop for dinner. I have 3 dollars in my pocket, but I want to save as much as possible in case the driver asks me for money for the lift. So I buy 2 pieces of bread for about 30 cents. Then I ask the driver how much longer they think it will take, and they say 5 or 6 hours.
I spy a few other parked cars hopefully on their way to La Paz. Most look full or with families who aren´t liable to pick up hitch hikers. I finally ask 2 guys if they´re going, and if I can go. The passenger says yes, but the driver looks not so sure...then I say, can I just get my bags and he says, no it´ll slow him down, and he gets in the car and drives away. *Poof* go my hopes of going out in La Paz.
So, I jump back into the truck, eat some more pieces from the bread and fall asleep on my bag and wake up at about 11 PM under fairly hard rain. I put on a raincoat over my soft-shell jacket, but both jackets are only water resistant and other than my sleeping bag that´s all I have to keep me warm. We drive for another 30 minutes or so and then the driver decides to pull over and go to sleep. By this point the rain is really pouring down hard, it´s probably about 40 degrees outside, with wind, and all my clothes are soaked through. Thank God for the 2 hitchhikers who got on the truck. They brought a big piece of plastic with them. They give me some to use, but it only covers my legs. So I sit in the rain and wind, wet, shivering, unable to sleep or think or do anything but wait for morning. I can´t keep myself from shivering and I can barely feel or move my hands or feet. Finally at about 4 Am do I realize that there´s more plastic than I had thought and enough to cover my entire body. so I pull out my half soaked sleeping bag from my backpack and put it around me and pull the piece of plastic over my body. I lay there another 2 hours or so trying to conserve as much body heat as possible until we start moving again, and I can at least imagine some end to the cold. We drive for another 2 hours or so, some of which is downhill, which is great because the half filled coca cola bottles tip over and pour out ice-cold water onto my legs.
Finally we arrive at the top of La Paz, I see we´re driving past where I should get off, but I´m too worn by this point to do anything but wait. The other hitchhikers finally ask the driver to pull over and they start to get off. The guy goes first and then the girl second. I´m so eager to get off the damn bus that I start decending before the girl is down. I can´t really feel anything in my hands or feet and it´s only about the 3rd time when she tells me that I´m standing on both her hands that I realize what I´m doing. I jump off, apologize profusely and then pay the bus driver the $1.30 he asks for. I get a minibus to downtown, and can only think of a hot shower. I arrive at the hostel and then take about an hour to check in, unpack my bag and get my shower. Everything I´m traveling with is soaked through, except for a shirt and I can´t keep myself warm the rest of the day.
It´s true.
And recently I had one or two funny experiences, so I´m writing.
I´m still writing (sometimes).
It´s true.
I went to this town called Rurrenabaque. It´s located in the Amazon Basin of Bolivia. From there one can do tours to wetlands or pampas and see alligators and birds and anacondas and river dolphins.
Well, I did that, saw birds, alligators, monkeys and swam more or less with river dolphins, but I was unable to see anacondas and nobody on our trip caught pirahnas. In fact, the highlight of the trip is that I fell down, twice.
A little background. It´s the wetseason in the pampas now, so the river is quite high and the tours are carried out on riverboat. Our lodging was a series of raised houses built of wood that sit just above the water´s edge.
So anyways, I was walking to where six hammocks are strung out to relax and one of the floorboards gave way and I found myself suddenly stuck with legs dangling below the deck and unable to get up. Maybe that´s what it´s like when you fall and your old. I don´t know.
Then, when we were taking our car ride back to town we found a semi that was stuck in the mud and blocking the road. The driver of our car tried to go around the truck, but we ended up getting stuck as well. So then we all had to get out and push. The road was a pile of mud for miles and miles and so when I decided get out of the car by jumping out of the car to miss a puddle I slipped and fell, this time in the mud. People laughed, my clothes were muddy, it was the highlight of the trip.
But that´s not why I´m writing, I wanted to tell yáll about a boat ride I took after my pampas tour.
A little background (deja vu?)
I´m in Rurrenabaque, a town within the Amazon basin and set on a large, jungle river. I´´m travelling with these two Belgian girls who came on our pampas tour and we´re looking for a more adventurous way to return to La Paz. I arrived by flight, but needed something ¨more authentic¨ than a bus or plane. So we ask around and this guy ¨Waldo¨ says we can take a boat UP the river and it will take 2 days to arrive, he says we can stop off at a waterfall and play in waterpools created by the falls. So we think about it for about 5 minutes, pay the money and then *poof* we´re on a boat the next morning at 11 AM, it was supposed to leave at 7:30.
Now Waldo told us that it would be 2 guys working the boat and the 3 of us, but once we get on the boat we find four other guys there with us. So I´m a little annoyed by their presence, ´cause I thought it was going to be private. We go up the river for 2 hours in the rain, the river is surrounded on both sides by dense jungle and then we spot the waterfall. The guide points at it and we chug on past...no stopping...until...one of the four extra guys in the boat spots a group of spider monkeys up in the trees.
They yell, ¨Mari mono¨! ¨Mari mono¨!
And suddenly the boat pulls over 2 guys start loading up their rifles and jump out to hunt mari mono. I´m thinking. This IS funny, should we do something to stop it? Should I go watch? If they catch one, am I going to try it? Keep in mind this is in a national park, a jungle with some of the highest biodiversity in anywhere. And then we hear a couple of rifle shots, but no dull - thud.
After about 15 minutes the guys return, dejected. The capitan asks what happened, one guy says he hit the monkey in the side, but he didn´t fall and he´s just clinging to the tree, but will be dead tomorrow. So they killed a monkey and didn´t even get to eat it.
While this is going on 2 other interesting things happened. I had my first experience with ¨real jungle´. About 2 minutes after the boat pulled up to the river bank these adorable little flies or mosquitos or sand flies come up to the boat. The three of us are all wearing sandals and the flies for whatever reason love to devour our feet (I think it´s because there´s more veins there). The flies are so small, almost like gnats that you can´t really kill them, you can only swat them away and when they bite you, they leave a cute little pool of your blood at the top of the bite, and they itch worse than mosquitos, worse than chiggers, worse than death (almost) and they don´t go away, it was 2 weeks ago and they still itch, (sometimes).
The 2nd ¨funny¨ thing I found out was that the four people whom I resented for being on our boat were not just joyriding, nor were they getting a lift. They´re looking for a dead brother. About a week before when we left, one of the four´s brothers from a town called Guanay swam out into the river and drown in a whirlpool. The brother and his 3 friends have been plying the river back and forth for the past week looking for the body, so the family will have something to mourn over.
So then I didn´t feel so angry about having these 4 in the boat. Life can be humbling sometimes.
We continue up the river and then ¨el capitan¨ starts picking up people along the river waiting for a lift. The people are standing on the banks of the river, in what looks like dense jungle, with maybe only a boat as a sign of civilization. They wave and yell for us to pull over. I´m not sure what´s going on here, we obviously paid far more than these people are for the lift, they´re coming into the boat and making us stop, giving the satanic flies more opportunities and taking up lots of space, so, of course, I´m passive aggressive angry once again.
The day passes more or less the same. Finally night comes on, it´s becoming hard to see and ¨el capitan¨ pulls over on what looks like a deserted river bank. We unload ourselves and the cargo and then follow a small footpath through some jungle to a small clearing where there´s a fire, some pots and pans and few houses. At this point, we don´t know what´s going on. Like, where we´re supposed to stay, if we can cook etc. The 4 guys looking for their brother start cooking, finish and give us a plate of food, clean the pot and then let us start cooking. I make a pot of rice and some vegetables with tomatoes (we forgot to bring any protein).
Then the guys start drinking and we start getting ready for bed; the guys let us use this tent over which they draped a piece of plastic. We squeeeeze into the tent with no windows and no ventilation and try to sleep, but it´s damn hot. After about an hour of not sleeping, we hear this loud shouting, wailing and crying. The guy who lost is brother is shouting, ¨Mi Hermano! Mi Hermano! mata me!¨ (my brother my brother, kill me) At one point he stumbles upon our tent as well.
Then we wake up, get back on the boat and another moreorless uneventful day passes until the boat is basically full and i´m having flashbacks to Africa buses, brimming at the edges, so I go up to finally complain to El Capitan, who says we´ll talk at the next village. We arrive at the village, and El Capitan tells me the other 4 guys don´t want to go further, he doesn´t want to go further (´cause it´ll cost too much) and that he´ll refund us to get to the next town.
So, we do that, take a 2 hour taxi to the town of Guanay, then buy some oranges and take another 2 hour taxi to Carnavi, then it´s only 4 hours back to La Paz, but we´ve basically ran out of money. In all the little pueblitos in Bolivia there´s only these really crap banks that give you money for a 5% comission. We pooled our money so we would´n´t have to pay them, but then we arrived in Carnavi with about $12 between us, which wasn´t enough for 3 back to La Paz. We could have withdrawn more, except that the crap banks (Prodem banks) were closed because it was late Saturday, and there´s no ATMs anywhere.
Meanwhile the 2 Belgian girls are discussing going to another town Coroico, whereas I want to get into La Paz, that night so I can go out on a Saturday, but like I said, there isn´t enough money.
So i start asking trucks going out of town if they´re going to La Paz, so then the girls will have enough to go to Coroico. It doesn´t take long until a Coca Cola truck driver says, sure, hop in the back.
Worst decision of my life.
So, I hop in the back, which is stacked high with crates of empty coca cola bottles. The sun is shining, it´s about 5 PM. I´m on the back of the truck, sitting on my bag just enjoying the scenery, looking forward to a night out in La Paz. After about an hour, though, I notice some cars are going on the same path far quicker than we are. So, I think well, maybe it´ll take a couple more hours, like 6 hours instead of 4 to La Paz. I´m okay with that, I can get in at 11 PM and still go out, no problem.
Then night comes on, we are taking hairpin turns in an enormous truck at a murderously slow pace. Fortunately I have a birds eye view about 12 feet above the road of the 800 foot plunges below if we somehow slip off. We pick up another man and wife pair along the mountain trail, and by now it´s getting late, around 10, and we stop for dinner. I have 3 dollars in my pocket, but I want to save as much as possible in case the driver asks me for money for the lift. So I buy 2 pieces of bread for about 30 cents. Then I ask the driver how much longer they think it will take, and they say 5 or 6 hours.
I spy a few other parked cars hopefully on their way to La Paz. Most look full or with families who aren´t liable to pick up hitch hikers. I finally ask 2 guys if they´re going, and if I can go. The passenger says yes, but the driver looks not so sure...then I say, can I just get my bags and he says, no it´ll slow him down, and he gets in the car and drives away. *Poof* go my hopes of going out in La Paz.
So, I jump back into the truck, eat some more pieces from the bread and fall asleep on my bag and wake up at about 11 PM under fairly hard rain. I put on a raincoat over my soft-shell jacket, but both jackets are only water resistant and other than my sleeping bag that´s all I have to keep me warm. We drive for another 30 minutes or so and then the driver decides to pull over and go to sleep. By this point the rain is really pouring down hard, it´s probably about 40 degrees outside, with wind, and all my clothes are soaked through. Thank God for the 2 hitchhikers who got on the truck. They brought a big piece of plastic with them. They give me some to use, but it only covers my legs. So I sit in the rain and wind, wet, shivering, unable to sleep or think or do anything but wait for morning. I can´t keep myself from shivering and I can barely feel or move my hands or feet. Finally at about 4 Am do I realize that there´s more plastic than I had thought and enough to cover my entire body. so I pull out my half soaked sleeping bag from my backpack and put it around me and pull the piece of plastic over my body. I lay there another 2 hours or so trying to conserve as much body heat as possible until we start moving again, and I can at least imagine some end to the cold. We drive for another 2 hours or so, some of which is downhill, which is great because the half filled coca cola bottles tip over and pour out ice-cold water onto my legs.
Finally we arrive at the top of La Paz, I see we´re driving past where I should get off, but I´m too worn by this point to do anything but wait. The other hitchhikers finally ask the driver to pull over and they start to get off. The guy goes first and then the girl second. I´m so eager to get off the damn bus that I start decending before the girl is down. I can´t really feel anything in my hands or feet and it´s only about the 3rd time when she tells me that I´m standing on both her hands that I realize what I´m doing. I jump off, apologize profusely and then pay the bus driver the $1.30 he asks for. I get a minibus to downtown, and can only think of a hot shower. I arrive at the hostel and then take about an hour to check in, unpack my bag and get my shower. Everything I´m traveling with is soaked through, except for a shirt and I can´t keep myself warm the rest of the day.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Life is hard. It´s true.
I´ve lamented before of how moving on every couple of days can be tiresome lonely difficult, yet I´m sure that if I were to return back to the U.S. (as I wished for an hour or more today) I would be back in my small Amarillo town with little more clarity on my post-college ambitions and more stress than I create for myself in Argentina.
But today has been a difficult day.
I´ve been in Bariloche, the town where I spent Christmas for almost a week, waiting, preparing, fretting.
I´ve filled the time over this week: I went to a vista on a mountain, I went to the water-worn rock beach on the lake, I made a hommos dinner accompanied by fresh baked pita bread. I took a 2 day trek to a lake surrounded by jagged granite spires that´s popular with rock climbers, I´ve eaten disgusting amounts (around 2 pounds) of red meat in one sitting, I took 2 hours of one on one spanish school, walked to what I realized was a drive in movie and met an Estonian girl who did the same thing and has hitchhiked throughout Patagonia. I´ve filled the days more or less, but daily and sometimes more than daily I become overwhelmed by deep regret.
Regret of:
1) staying in Bariloche for a week waiting for friends of a guy I met in Ushuaia (the end of the world) to go trekking when I could be seeing other parts of south America.
2) not travelling together with a sweet German girl whom I met in my hostel, who I should have taken the effort to get to know, but instead did nothing, who I should have asked if I could travel with, but then never did and never saw again
3) Not working upon my 2 main goals of travelling in Latin America, improving my Spanish, improving my Salsa dancing.
So today I told the guys I´ve been waiting for that I didn´t want to go trekking anymore, that I´ve been waiting too long, just like they say in economics
my time waiting is a sunk cost, so why should it affect my current decision? It´s logical, isn´t it?
But then I didn´t know where to go, I haven´t researched Chili, I didn´t book a bus, I had already bought food and a bus ticket for 5 days for the hike, I flipped coins and thought, weighed, decided, wavered decided again and here I am finally resigned to an amazing trek through the mountains.
Well, I said life is hard.
It´s like Teach said in psychology, there´s a set-point of happiness that you vacillate around, so maybe you´re normally at mildly amused, but can fall into despair or rush up to ecstatic depending on your environment and body chemicals.
My ethos since high school has been to ¨swallow the world¨. Do and be as much as I can, try everything take in as many experiences as possible, but it´s not working. Trying to avail myself of every opportunity, learn be and do everything leaves me wanting and sad: I always think about what I´m missing, what I should be doing, how I could be improving (and competing with everybody around me).
Today I layed in my shitty hostel bed for more than an hour without the motivation to so much as take off my shoes or get headphones to listen to music thinking that I didn´t know where I was going next, what I wanted to do, that I hated my life all I wanted to do was go back to the U.S. but then there would be nothing for me there either, feeling hopeless and angry at myself for staying in this damn city for too long, thinking that I could still wiggle my way out of the trek but then where would I go anyways - uncertain and unhappy.
And then, I fell asleep, got up, got my headphones, put on LP3 by Ratatat, went out to get the few last things I needed for my trek and bought trout for dinner. And a smile appeared upon my face, I regained a much needed spring in my step. But it´s been like this for days, hopes rise and crash depending on my mood and the people i´m around and in the end i´m left feeling confused and rather hopeless.
Not to mention full of self-pity
I´ve lamented before of how moving on every couple of days can be tiresome lonely difficult, yet I´m sure that if I were to return back to the U.S. (as I wished for an hour or more today) I would be back in my small Amarillo town with little more clarity on my post-college ambitions and more stress than I create for myself in Argentina.
But today has been a difficult day.
I´ve been in Bariloche, the town where I spent Christmas for almost a week, waiting, preparing, fretting.
I´ve filled the time over this week: I went to a vista on a mountain, I went to the water-worn rock beach on the lake, I made a hommos dinner accompanied by fresh baked pita bread. I took a 2 day trek to a lake surrounded by jagged granite spires that´s popular with rock climbers, I´ve eaten disgusting amounts (around 2 pounds) of red meat in one sitting, I took 2 hours of one on one spanish school, walked to what I realized was a drive in movie and met an Estonian girl who did the same thing and has hitchhiked throughout Patagonia. I´ve filled the days more or less, but daily and sometimes more than daily I become overwhelmed by deep regret.
Regret of:
1) staying in Bariloche for a week waiting for friends of a guy I met in Ushuaia (the end of the world) to go trekking when I could be seeing other parts of south America.
2) not travelling together with a sweet German girl whom I met in my hostel, who I should have taken the effort to get to know, but instead did nothing, who I should have asked if I could travel with, but then never did and never saw again
3) Not working upon my 2 main goals of travelling in Latin America, improving my Spanish, improving my Salsa dancing.
So today I told the guys I´ve been waiting for that I didn´t want to go trekking anymore, that I´ve been waiting too long, just like they say in economics
my time waiting is a sunk cost, so why should it affect my current decision? It´s logical, isn´t it?
But then I didn´t know where to go, I haven´t researched Chili, I didn´t book a bus, I had already bought food and a bus ticket for 5 days for the hike, I flipped coins and thought, weighed, decided, wavered decided again and here I am finally resigned to an amazing trek through the mountains.
Well, I said life is hard.
It´s like Teach said in psychology, there´s a set-point of happiness that you vacillate around, so maybe you´re normally at mildly amused, but can fall into despair or rush up to ecstatic depending on your environment and body chemicals.
My ethos since high school has been to ¨swallow the world¨. Do and be as much as I can, try everything take in as many experiences as possible, but it´s not working. Trying to avail myself of every opportunity, learn be and do everything leaves me wanting and sad: I always think about what I´m missing, what I should be doing, how I could be improving (and competing with everybody around me).
Today I layed in my shitty hostel bed for more than an hour without the motivation to so much as take off my shoes or get headphones to listen to music thinking that I didn´t know where I was going next, what I wanted to do, that I hated my life all I wanted to do was go back to the U.S. but then there would be nothing for me there either, feeling hopeless and angry at myself for staying in this damn city for too long, thinking that I could still wiggle my way out of the trek but then where would I go anyways - uncertain and unhappy.
And then, I fell asleep, got up, got my headphones, put on LP3 by Ratatat, went out to get the few last things I needed for my trek and bought trout for dinner. And a smile appeared upon my face, I regained a much needed spring in my step. But it´s been like this for days, hopes rise and crash depending on my mood and the people i´m around and in the end i´m left feeling confused and rather hopeless.
Not to mention full of self-pity
Sunday, January 11, 2009
I just hiked some of the most beautiful scenery anywhere, ever.
Unfortunately I still don´t have a camera, so you´ll just have to google Torres del Paine to see the fit-for-post-card pictures. But ya, it was amazing, but I didn´t have any friends to hike with. Actually I met this guy and we were going to go together, but he had bought a bus ticket for a different time than I, so we were supposed to meet, but then I went to the wrong camp and we never met up, so then I didn´t have any friends to camp with and I didn´t really bring enough food, so I had to eat bread and dried fruit, and I tried to throw my bag across a river, but I slipped right before the third heave, so it fell in the water, but luckily my Ipod and passport stayed dry and then it was cold cause my stuff was wet and I couldn´t sleep and I was feeling sorry for myyyself, and then I met these 2 Spaniards and 2 French youths who were really friendly and nice and then everything was Okay, and now I´m going to the tip of South America, Tierres del Fuego tomorrow.
I think I left out some stylistic flare, but that´s a summary.
Unfortunately I still don´t have a camera, so you´ll just have to google Torres del Paine to see the fit-for-post-card pictures. But ya, it was amazing, but I didn´t have any friends to hike with. Actually I met this guy and we were going to go together, but he had bought a bus ticket for a different time than I, so we were supposed to meet, but then I went to the wrong camp and we never met up, so then I didn´t have any friends to camp with and I didn´t really bring enough food, so I had to eat bread and dried fruit, and I tried to throw my bag across a river, but I slipped right before the third heave, so it fell in the water, but luckily my Ipod and passport stayed dry and then it was cold cause my stuff was wet and I couldn´t sleep and I was feeling sorry for myyyself, and then I met these 2 Spaniards and 2 French youths who were really friendly and nice and then everything was Okay, and now I´m going to the tip of South America, Tierres del Fuego tomorrow.
I think I left out some stylistic flare, but that´s a summary.
A side note of note
So my original posts were dark, heated and angry. During the majority of my travels in Eastern/Southern Africa I was taking Mefloquine. I checked on WebMD and they described some of the symptoms as follows:
In some people, mefloquine may rarely cause more serious side effects, such as depression, anxiety, paranoia, hallucinations, confusion, and psychotic behavior. Mefloquine has also been associated with tremor, mood changes, and panic attacks. If you have a history of depression or other psychological conditions, mefloquine may not be right for you. If you take mefloquine and develop anxiety, depression, restlessness, or confusion, contact your doctor immediately, because you may need to stop taking mefloquine and try a different medication.
So, can I blame all the bad moods and lack of compassion and outright anger on the pills I took once a week?
I think I can.
Happy Holidays!
In some people, mefloquine may rarely cause more serious side effects, such as depression, anxiety, paranoia, hallucinations, confusion, and psychotic behavior. Mefloquine has also been associated with tremor, mood changes, and panic attacks. If you have a history of depression or other psychological conditions, mefloquine may not be right for you. If you take mefloquine and develop anxiety, depression, restlessness, or confusion, contact your doctor immediately, because you may need to stop taking mefloquine and try a different medication.
So, can I blame all the bad moods and lack of compassion and outright anger on the pills I took once a week?
I think I can.
Happy Holidays!
Thursday, January 1, 2009
can´t handle the pressure
Man is blogging tough
I saw penguins, and then I made christmas dinner, and then I had 2 days on buses that started friendly and amiable, but slowly wore down my store of good will and burnt a deep blue frost into my soul. And then I saw a glacier, and drank for New Years, and drank Whiskey quickly because I started late, and now I´m going hiking.
I saw penguins, and then I made christmas dinner, and then I had 2 days on buses that started friendly and amiable, but slowly wore down my store of good will and burnt a deep blue frost into my soul. And then I saw a glacier, and drank for New Years, and drank Whiskey quickly because I started late, and now I´m going hiking.
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