Galapagos!

Buen Dia! I've been sitting on this blog thing for a while, it's been getting increasingly harder for me to do this. I'm not sure exactly why but I think part of it is I feel the blog doesn't even remotely encompass what is actually going on and does a little injustice to me, my trip and the people in it. However here I am to attempt to update the few of you that might still check in on this. Things have changed since the last blog, I have an addition to the travel team. Dj came down from California, quitting his job and ready to jump into the abyss. So Dj flew into Guayaquil in Ecuador and I picked him up at the airport. We had no plans other than me picking him up. When we met up at the airport we decided to walk over to the 2 airlines that fly to the galapagos and one of them had a flight to one island for the next morning and we bought the ticket and just like that we had a 'plan'. Back to the hostel, organizing the things in my car and packing for the galapagos for a 2 week trip and we're off just like that. We have no clue where we're going, where we're staying or what we're doing. Most people have all these pre booked tours on boats and here we walk onto an island we haven't heard of with zero clue what to do. But this is the type of travel I'm used to now, use my spanish to walk around and ask people where are good places to sleep/etc. We get on a ferry boat and then a bus to a town that is supposed to be a good jumping off point for activities. Landing a basic hostel room we're at least here with a room to sleep in while we get our bearings and sort things out. First morning we walk to a protected beach nearby and we are just blow away by what we stumble onto. Along the path on the walk to the beach are giant cactus trees unlike anything I've ever seen, birds flying all over and butterflies accompanying us to the beach. We step onto the beach & it seems we've stepped onto the moon. Milky white sand, soft and fine, with turquoise blue waters & hardly any signs of other humans. One of the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen, if not the most. There are giant marine iguanas walking around, huge pelicans gliding in the air, birds, butterflies and even a little bit of surf. We go for a swim and start to soak it in...here we are on the galapagos, a place both of us of only dreamed of from watching on discovery channel. A relaxing day at the beach building sand castles, catching up as I haven't had a chance like this to just talk to one of my friends in well a long time. Next day we're walking around looking at giant land tortoises which are so huge with crazy shells. We find soliterio george who is the only one of his kind, nobody in his species exists any more. Galapagos are very interesting when it comes to evolution and species. They host a load of endemic species and loads of interesting things around the animals on different island and how their shells might form based on food or all kinds of crazy facts. The animals in general on the galapagos are different than anywhere I've ever been. They aren't used to having predators so they don't move when humans get close, including the birds. The wildlife surely runs these islands and you are just a mere spectator. It's amazing and indescribable really. Another day passes and after some chatting around Dj & I are on a boat to another island, San Cristobal. This island is supposed to have some good surf and some cool wildlife so it seems like a good option for us. Another day of having to search out a place to stay, in the heat, but we keep our at times conflicting views on prices and places along with both sweating to death and eventually I ask around enough to land us at Cabanas don jorge. Such a basic little house but a house with a kitchen swung outside of the little town with it's own beach right out front. And for 12.50 per person per night we were sold, we found our home for the rest of the trip. Things were just working out and we couldnt' have found a better place for us. This island has a nice little boardwalk area which has a park with some slides and such but instead of their being kids playing in the park, there are hundreds of sea lions playing and walking on the boardwalk. It's so funny and entertaining to watch when they're trying to sleep. Our first day we take a taxi to a beach on the other side of the island that we've heard of and of course it's another day of being blown away. The wildlife is always just right there, whether it's frigates, boobies, iguanas, sea turtles, etc. And this time it's black lava rock meeting white puka shell sandy beach with big hawaii style surf. There is 1 surfer in the water and another on the beach who walks up and introduces himself. This guy turns out to be a character that we interact with the entire trip, his name is Fernando from Brazil but we forget his name and rightfully name him stoney baloney. He's kind of like a lord of the ring character with the strangest ears I've ever seen. He's really nice and tells us so many funny stories that Dj and I had wished we'd video'd a dinner session with him. He's kind of one of these guys that has drifted all over the world, somewhere in his 40s and he's spent the last 3 months on the galapagos. I guess if I don't put an end to my trip I might end up this way... We chit chat for a bit, go for a surf in pretty intimidating conditions with shallow rocks on the inside but all in all really fun. Over the next 2 weeks we get to know all the surfers on the island, all 8 of them, and get on water taxi's to drop us off on reefs and pick us up later or walk to the break near our casita. We do one snorkel tour one day that turns out to be amazing. We're brought out to this rock called kicker rock and the water here is the deep dark blue. There is a split in the rock which has a current pulled thru it and we swim thru this part, with a million fish, turtles, sharks and eagle rays. I'd never seen an eagle ray before but swimming over a giant set of eagle rays was so cool. Same with the white tipped and black tipped reef sharks, something I'd never swam with either. Snorkeling in galapagos you see all the fish you'd see in a dream aquarium, it's unbelievable. The day trip included some stops at some small other islands that had the bluest waters that made me think we were in the Caribbean somewhere or tahiti or something. except we're seeing blue footed boobies and frigates with their puffed out red throats flying around. SUch a crazy experience. More days back on the island surfing, relaxing, snorkeling with hundreds of sea turtles, sea lions, puffer fish, clownfish, etc. Walking to the surf near our house proved always a challenge as all of the marine iguanas blend into the lava rock and so do the sea lions so you have to be careful where you step. One time trying to enter the water I couldn't get by the sea lions, they weren't liking how close I was walking to them but they were blocking the entrance so I tried to slip by which prompted one of them to jump off the rock into the water and come barreling at me....I had to use my surfboard as defense and ended up falling down but all in all it just created a big laugh for us. The last few days we caught amazing surf, 15 foot faces breaking across this bay with perfect peeling rights. SO much fun. We left galapagos on such a high, with a few cuts and bruises on us and our boards and a giant smile on our faces. We both still can't believe we did but it was so worth it. The galapagos has to be one of the best places on earth to visit.
My plan with this blog was to catch up to right now but now I'm running out of time so I'm going to leave it as just galapagos. Next installment will include 3 flat tires, hitch hiking with 1 flat in the rain, pushing the ladies car who picked me up and then broke down in the mud, driving to guayaquil city, running around bribing customs, police, getting searched by police dog, them trashing my things and my car trying to rip all the plastic out and check for drugs and finally getting my car in a container bound for Panama. By the next blog I should be on another continent. Have some friends and family coming to costa rica in a few weeks so we're trying to make it there but it hasn't been easy to accomplish this. hope everyone is healthy and HAPPY doing just what they want....that's what I'm doing. chau, jesse

Back in the groove of things

Well I have avoided blogging for a while, I'm not sure why but I had internet the entire time I was suffering with my kidney stone saga in Lima but I didn't want to write again until I was better. And then when I got better, I avoided internet and camped for a week on the beach. I guess I left a lot of things open ended after the last blog, issues with my health, no drivers license, border crossings, etc. As always a lot has passed in a short time. First things first, my kidney stone has been s mashed (twice) by a procedure called Lithrotripsy and I've passed all the little bits over a 2 week period. It was quite an intense experience, one of those "character building" experiences. I had to navigate the health system alone and in spanish while in excrutiating pain. This included xrays, blood tests, urine tests, physical exams, lithotripsy (twice) and many farmacy trips. It was good practice for my spanish & it's these situations that make me learn a little more. I learned how to get to and from the hospital for 25 cents instead of a 3 dollar taxi & I learned loads of new hospital terms in spanish. I suffered tremendously & experienced the horrible process of getting a catheter removed with no pain meds. I walked out of there feeling like I had been defiled, embarassed & then had to just catch a bus back to my hostel where I landed on a friday night with backpackers all around having fun & wanting to chit chat. I crawled in my room yet again and hid away. My story was too weird to chit chat and I've traveled so long and my story is so strange that I can't even relate to the avg person traveling anymore. Anyways after getting the catheter removed, I started unloading sandy like sediments within my urine. I had one final test to ensure I didn't have an infection & then I got cleared from the doc. The hospital happened to be across the street from bus station and I begged and pleaded my way into my final consultation to be before the 5pm overnight bus left and so the doc saw me at 440pm, gave me the green light and I ran across the street and got on yet another 18 bus ride back to my car. When I got to my car I decided it was time for a fresh start so I just started driving towards Ecuador. That night I couldn't find accommodations so I slept in my truck, it was hot. The following morning I went to the border, with no drivers license, and hoping I could pull it all off. I was also down to my last few Soles along with the fact that gas in Peru is twice as expensive as Ecuador so I was trying to hold out until I crossed the border and could use my US dollars as Ecuadors' currency is US dollars. This proved to be an added stress as the light on my truck was on when I hit the border. Exiting Peru was easy for me as I am familiar with the process for my truck there. I got to the Ecuador side & their system was down so they made me drive to another spot to get my passport entered, while the light on my gas tank was lit up. There was 1 gas station with about 40 cars in line so I figured I just have to get in line and wait. They're all there because the price of gas is so cheap in Ecuador & though I wasn't in Ecuador, this gas station was techincally in Ecuador. I waited an hour, got up there only to find out they only had Diesel! Just wasted more gas, still haven't entered the country & now I've decided to try to get in the country & find the next gas station. I managed to talk my way in without my drivers license. i was asked for it twice but avoided answering directly & kept handing the copy I have. somehow it worked, I was in and I now was worried I wouldn't have enough gas to even start my car. I got to the next closest gas station, another line of cars and I made it to the pump where they would only give me 10 dollars of gas....well I talked my way into 20 dollars but they limit it to 10 dollars per car so peruvians don't come over for gas. On the road again it felt really liberating to be healthy, in a new country and back in my truck. I hadn't really traveled in my truck in a while at this point and with all these positive things I was really over the moon. Decided it was time to make the journey all the way to the coast, another 6 hours of driving. I was pulled over twice and managed to get away with having no drivers license. I finally get to the coast town, pull in a beach called ayampe and make a 'wrong' turn and end up in front of a guys hotel that he is building that I know from Virginia Beach. Random crossing. It turns out they are still working on things but welcome me to stay for free if I'm up for helping out. I stick around, get to enjoy these guys ups & downs as they stress on their new lives in Ecuador, fresh from the states, and under construction with a 1 yr old baby. It's funny to see how far I've adjusted to this life when these city folks get here and DON'T EAT SEAFOOD and only eat chicken breast....which you can only get a supermarket 2 hours away. They call me "the drifter" and laugh at my daily meals of vegetables or me eating at the little local fish market or making my granola every morning. I also invented a little coconut coffee drip which still needs a little more touches to make it perfect. A few days here & it was time for me to really disconnect so I did a little camping trip up the coast for 5 days. Camping was fun but as always turned into some random adventures. One night it was pouring so I decided to drive south and then it started to get close to dark so I took a dirt road off the main coast road and figured I could find an empty spot to sleep for the night. I found a dried up riverbed with nothing around, parked and hoped for darkness to come so nobody could even see me. The sun was setting & up walks a drunk guy who I can barely understand as he slurs his spanish & asks me for food or money or something. He also tells me it's dangerous to be there. Then some kids ride up on a pass above on their bikes and stare at me for a while so I'm starting to doubt my choice of spots. Sure enough shortly after a guy pulls up on a motorbike to ask me what I'm doing there. he said some people in town saw me & they want to know what I want and what I'm doing. I'm actually setting up my stove & cutting veggies so I show him my set up and tell him I just want to camp for the night. He tells me it's not safe & insists I come to his house for the night. SOooo before you know it, I pull my big american truck in front of his house and out pours his kids & nephews, wife, and other family members all to stare at me and ask questions like I'm some strange alien. They're all really nice, the kids are cute and it's quite humorous really. I sleep in my truck bed and when I wake up in the morning everyone in town has passed by to see who I am and what I'm doing. Nobody can believe my truck and my sleeping spot. I break out my skateboard and get the kids doing runs down the dirt street. Then they get me on their little bikes and take me on a tour to show me off to everyone in town. They're so proud that I'm at their house and hanging out with them. EVeryone comes out to say hello and smile and stare. It's quite funny. They try to get me to go to Church but I manage to say goodbye after they gave me bananas, a spoonful of sugar from a sugarcane & a reused pepsi bottle that they made me take a taste out of which was full of sugar cane juice. They made me promise to return, opened the doors and basically told me I was part of the family now. So funny how quick to open up their home and give me things. After this I head back down to Ayampe to get back to my friends spot. When I arrive news of his first guests are on their way. It's professional surfer Ben Bourgious & a guy Jerry taking video for a new Reef surf video. I'm a big fan of this surfer and for the last week it's been him & I surfing up & down the coast of Ecuador. He likes having a surf companion and I like pushing my surfing with someone who is on another level. He's around for a little while longer & I am actually about to go surfing with him right now so I think I'll end the blog. I hope you're all staying warm, those that are in the snow....I'm sweating bullets as I type this blog! chau

Almost a year

Hola whoever still reads this. It's been a while since I've been on the blog thing, partly because I've been staying in an area with no internet access (and no electricity or running water) and partly because I have been having "issues" lately with a few things that are making my life complicated. We have crossed into a new year since I last wrote anything and I can't seem to believe that it's the year 2010 and that I am still on the road. I am just shy of 1 year, I left on Jan 14th 2009. As the new year crossed I did reflect on the past year just a bit. I actually haven't sat back and thought about what I've done on this trip because I'm usually staying very present and just doing whatever it is I'm doing at any given moment. But thinking about it all, it seemed a bit surreal. I went through 11 countries in 2009 and did it in my truck. Such an amazing cultural experience and language experience. I surfed some amazing waves in amazing places all through central into South America. I also tried a bunch of new activities in some cool spots - sandboarding in Peru, Rock Climbing in the Andes, river kayaking in Colombia, Scuba diving the Caribbean & more. It seems like I'm always learning whether it be language, culture, sport, being creative or just something within myself. The reflection of the year is somewhat overwhelming to grasp. I know that most of this trip I have been living very in the present moment without worrying to much about what's going to happen down the road. Who knows how it will all play out but the journey has been unpredictable and amazing. Since the last blog a bunch of things have happened. While on the Caribbean side, travel mate Andrea & I decided to go to Tayrona national park for a night. We went through the travels of collectivo's & bus to get there & then hiked in. In the late afternoon we arrived to a spot where we can rent some hammocks and set up for the night. It was hot, really hot so we jumped in for a swim and then I got a chill. The sun was setting and I kept getting colder even though it was hot. As night fell in, I was shivering with a fever and I didn't bring much with me because I envisioned sleeping on a hammock in shorts as it was super hot. But I froze all night. Next day we hike out and it's a miserable hike as I still had a fever, around 103. Bus & collectivo back to civilization and get in a hotel room in Taganga. The next few days I went from freezing to sweating with a headache & nausea. Andrea patiently played nurse and worried for me until it was too much time & I had to get out and go to a clinic. Small private clinic in Santa Marta, get tests done and the verdict is I have a failing kidney/infection. The clinic gives me prescriptions which includes a pack of 5 needles & antibiotics to inject in myself. My thoughts when I got back home were "aren't you supposed to have some training to inject yourself.." Turned out, I didn't have it in me to do it so I returned to the clinic everyday for a week and paid them the equivalent of 50 cents to do it each time. Along with being sick, I had a shortage of money so along with playing my nurse, Andrea was flowing me cash to help me limp along. So fortunate for me to have her, not so fortunate for her to get stuck with me. I get back on the road to recovery, we head towards Cartegena and I'm still slow moving. We are now trying to cram in some travel as we spent so much time still while I was sick and now it's close to Christmas when Andrea heads home to Austria & I head who knows where. So after 1 day in Cartegena it's off to the zona cafeteria & get back onto my first activity in a while, treking an area with palm tree's and pine tree's. Still tired but survive. Another crazy mountain bus ride & we're in a cute little town with cobblestone streets called Villa de leyva. Nicely festive with Christmas decorations and we head to another national park to hike up to this lagoon. Quite the climb, still tired but survive the day without any real problems. After this we're off to Bogota where Andrea catches her flight back to Austria & I pick up a flight to Ecuador. Arrive in Ecaudor and hop an muggy miserable overnight bus ride to Mancora in Northern peru. Then another bus to Talara & then a collectivo to Lobitos where I am anxiously awaiting the first site of 'mi casita' aka my truck in almost 2 months. I left it when my mom came and have been doing the normal backpacker thing. Definitely after that trip 'home' I was happy not to be a backpacker anymore. So I thought. Of course my battery is dead so I'm not going anywhere but I don't need to either. This is now Christmas eve, I made it back to my home in time to spend Christmas with basically my only friend down here. A friend who works in Lobitos and who I met almost a year ago in Nicaragua. Her, a few volunteers at WAVES, some others & I are all invited to a Peruvian Christmas which they celebrate on Christmas eve. I think we were 9 gringos, all piled into the hardly available transportation - tuk tuk's and some ladies car - & we show up in a local neighborhood in Negritos and are welcome into a home. It was a good cultural experience I spent the night talking with the man of the house and he schooled me on history of the area, Peruvian Christmas customs, gentleman ways of standing with the ladies in the street and just overall good spanish practice. They served us dinner at 1am that night, we were all exhausted and the kids in the neighborhood were all running around the streets. Christmas day our same group of gringos all pitched in to make a huge Christmas feast after I surfed in the morning. Christmas turned out really nice in the end, different but nice. Then there was New Years, I got to put my truck back in use for what it's good for. I went exploring the barren lands outside of Lobitos in hopes of finding an empty beach I can drive on, we could camp on and have our own wave to surf. With some help, I found a decent spot and the volunteers, Naomi & I went to ring in the near year by campfire. Nice piling everyone in the truck, driving on the dirt roads & getting some slight adventure. To me driving my truck around on crazy roads is something I'm slightly numb to now so it was nice to have all these people who had never been in a big american truck or driven on the beach and such get all excited about the bumps & jumps and all. Mellow New years eve and fun day of surf alone on New Years day worked out well. Back to Lobitos & I'm realizing that though I'm disconnected to the internet I really need to sort some things out. The good thing about having friends help you, like Andrea, is that it enabled me to really sort out some of the logistical issues I have to not having a drivers license or bank card. Money is becoming and issue & my car's temporary permission to be in Peru is expiring on the 14th of January. I can't particularly drive without a drivers license. I get hassled enough when all of my documents are in order so one can only assumed how it might be if I'm missing one. These issue's are then combined with more lower back pains that are starting to be fairly unbearable or unbearable to hang around other people. Another day of really bad pain then blood in my urine & I realize I have to really do something about this problem. I'm basically far from a real city and don't want to do another mom & pop clinic. I pick up a bus ticket & overnight it to Lima 18 hours away. I arrived a half hour before the appt with the Urologist I called before getting on the bus. I was sent to start a series of tests which lead me to not being able to eat the last 24 hours along with doing a cleansing to prepare for today's tests. And so now the tests are done but my results aren't going to be ready until Monday where I will reconvene with the Urologist. Doesn't sound too bad except for the fact that I have other issue's. My car has to be out of the country on Wednesday & I'm only having a follow up to see what's wrong with me on Monday. And I'm 18 hours away from my truck. I also don't have a drivers license. So I spent the day, after my tests, going to the US embassy & to the peruvian transporte to see if I could somehow get a drivers license. I only managed to get additional pages in passport which I also needed. So I am kind of in a bind and supposedly can only get a new drivers license in person in California. Not enough time to fly home & I need to get my health back on track before I do anything. So time will tell, my next stop is to see & police to see if they can help me with a permission to drive with just a copy of my license. That will help me in Peru, who knows what will happen at the border of Ecuador. I'm sure these things should be sorted one way or another by the time I blog again. As always I have crammed too much into one blog but there you have it. Happy new year everyone!

What goes up must go down!

Hola, buen dia! So after riding high for some time now, I was bound to be grounded again. It seems that this is always true in this trip & in life, you can't stay high forever. This trip is always like a roller coaster ride but has mainly been me at the top just enjoying the adrenaline and fun. I've been gone almost 11 months now and it's pretty crazy to think that I haven't had many bad things happen to me, specifically haven't been robbed (not including payoffs to cops, military & customs). But the thing is with good times or bad times is how you react to it and feel about it is just something in your head. So my trip started from Colombia and deciding I would go to Venezuela and spend maybe a week or so there. I had a friend flying into Caracas so I had a mission to get myself there so we could then go out & travel. I started off leaving San Gil Colombia which was hard to leave with all the fun adventure activities to be had & nice people. So I waited until the last possible minute to get on a bus to the border which was supposed to be 7 hours long & then cross into Venezuela via collectivo and then get on an overnight bus to Caracas which would have been another 14 hours on the bus. So I left in the morning and the 7 hour bus ride through crazy switchbacks in the Andes & an even crazier bus driver somehow managed to take 10 hours. Which landed me at the border at around 9pm and from what I read the last bus left at 7pm. Sooo my backup plan is to just get a hostel room and go a day late. Border towns are hectic & hot around here when I get out a guy tells me there is another bus at another town further away & that he could take me there. I wasn't sure about the money exchange situation and I heard some about what happens in Venezuela with US dollars but I didn't have any US dollars. So I was changing money & not fully aware of all the scamming going on & so I wasn't moving or deciding fast. The rates I was getting made the taxi ride & bus far seem really expensive compared to any other latin country. But I wanted to get to this bus & just arrive rather than dealing with the alternative so I changed my money & took this taxi guys word on this bus. "Confiame, te ayudo" is what kept coming out of my taxi drivers mouth when talking about the bus in the town an hour away. Then he stopped to pee on the side of the room & went into the store & came back with a 6 pack of beer to accompany him for the ride. Night time, switch back mountain roads & beer are a good mix. Getting into Venezuela was an immediate change from Colombia, it was almost like crossing into northern Baja from San Diego. Venezuela is immediately in your face & the border patrols are giving me strange looks & suspicious questions to why in the world would I be in Venezuela. Apparently the political climate is fairly hot towards the USA. But they give me the stamp in & I'm back in the car with the driver & on my way to survive this ride & get on this bus. We show up at 11pm, he still repeating the line above as he sees my doubts and then he drops me off outside of the bus terminal. I've over paid for the ride & run off to catch the "bus" that wasn't there & the night guards at the bus terminal let me know that there hadn't been a bus here for a while. And now I'm standing in the street, taxi gone, after 11pm in Venezuela with my 2 back packs and not in a friendly neighborhood. And because of some of the money exchange debacle at the border, I didn't get much money and though I had enough to get my taxi ride & bus ticket with a few Bolivares left over for some food & then I'd get more money in Caracas. Well the taxi from the bus station charges me a bit because it's late & he knows I'm stranded and then I get to the hotel & I don't have enough money to stay there. So I opt to search for an ATM. There is one near by & in all latin countries I have had no problem pulling out money from an ATM however this one has an additional question about a number I don't know what it's talking about & I can't get money. meanwhile it's midnight, everyone (taxi, hotel guy) has said it's "peligrosisimo" here....really dangerous. And I have a drunk guy trying to get too close to my transaction because his bank card isn't working either. I flag down a cab & ask him to take to another atm, it's just getting later & I just want to get in a room & call it a day. But we go to 5 different ATM's before I am able to get out money. The cabbie came up to help and tried to check out my PIN number & then attempted to "hang on" to my card. I got that back & got back to the hotel which was way overpriced for my exchange rate & now the cabbie wants way to much money because he's taken me around & now seen me with a pocket full of money. He also offers me a hooker or brothel he can take me to. I fight away from another bad deal, frustrated & get to sleep. The next day I can't seem to get anything done right, finding internet to give Andrea & heads up that I wouldn't be at the hostel I said I'd be at proved to be tough to find. Even though I was in a big city. And the friendliness was just not there, asking people for help just wasn't like it's been in all the spots I've been in. So I find a bus to Caracas which will get me there early on Thanksgiving morning. It's a doubledecker bus, nice seats, too much A/C and horrible C grade movies in Spanish. All is fine, I'm sleeping and then we're woken up & told everyone off the bus with your ID. No problem, I'm off & as soon as the military see my USA passport then tell me to get my things from below the bus & go to this trailer. Everyone else gets to get back on & wait for me. I'm brought into a private trailer room & made to first declare how much money in each denomination I have and then pull all of it out & put it for him to count. Stern questioning about what I'm doing in Venezuela, what drugs I have or do, and again what money I'm carrying. I'm then made to strip completely nude so he can assure I have no drugs & then pull everything out of my bags "rapido" onto the floor. Suspicious about me because I have no job yet am traveling, the money doesn't add up. But he let me go eventually & I don't know what or if he took some money but I got away. The bus had been waiting, everyone is staring on my return as I'm the only gringo on the bus and we're off. I sleep, restless with bad dreams and awake to Caracas at 6am. Thanksgiving morning. I decide I'm going to try to find the subway & figure that system out rather than drop more money I don't really have on a taxi ride. So I trudge my things out of the bus terminal, hit the streets ask some unfriendly people where the metro is and eventually find it. It's clean & simple to figure out, I have one change to make & I'm there. The first ride is tough as I have a big pack on my back & a smaller one on the front and the car is jammed full so I'm having to bump everyone to get in & out. I get out, find my transfer and wait in a somewhat orderly line to load and this time I have one back in my hand & the other on. I guess my good luck, comfort in these foreign nations or laziness all kicked in because I felt my wallet in my pocket & thought about the fact that I normally wear my shorts with zippers to close the pockets but this time I wasn't. I'm off 2 long sleepless days of traveling by bus, 23 hours worth of bus time. I do nothing, the door to the train opens, people pile out, a guy grabs my bag to yank it on, I pull back & get pushed around jump on and that guy jumps off. The door shuts, I know right away. my wallet has been picked. So mad at myself at this point. My drivers license, my ATM card, credit card & cash. Not that much cash really but the ATM card & a drivers license are both essential for my trip. Stunned angry at being gotten by that action & then the train ride is over. I find my way to the hostel where my Austrian amiga has already landed and begin calling bank institutions and such. We decide we'll give Venezuela a shot even though it is so far really expensive and my day had been pretty crappy. We catch a bus to a town near the Caribbean and a national park, plan on taking another bus in the morning. However after getting a cab ride to town, we walk around with our back packs to no avail at finding even a remotely affordable place to stay & we're walking, at dark, in a sketchy neighborhood where everyone is just staring at us. Then the rain comes, we still have no place to stay. After some attempts at using the public pay phone to call the bus line & find out about buses to the border of Colombia we just decide to head back to the bus station & hope for a bus. There was a bus, we were just about out of local currency so we sat & ate our crackers and avocado while waiting for another bus. I had some time to reflect on what thanksgiving would have been like at home and for sure missed the idea of spending that time with loved ones & their amazing food! However bad my day was though, I still felt pretty fortunate. I, thankfully, was traveling with Andrea who was willing to help me with money until I could figure out how to get money. Another overnight bus and we arrive to a town called maracaibo which is still like 2 hours from the border of Colombia. We are waiting for the cheapest options so we have a car that will take us but they have to wait for 3 more people. The cars in this particular part of the world are funny, they're all 70's maybe early 80's american big Caprice's or something large & really ghetto. For instance my driver didn't use a key to start the car, he had it rigged up with some wires below. Entire inside torn to pieces, windows don't roll up. The funny thing was there were a million of these same, old, horrible, hoopty, almost non-driveable cars. It was like a junkyard from the states make to somehow work again. Two hours later, penniless in bolivares, we make it to Colombia with no more crackers, money, nada. But I have some pesos from colombia so we're able to get yet another bus for another 4 hour ride to Santa Marta from which we made it to the beach town of Taganga. So thankful to arrive, lay in my hammock, pay 10 dollars or less for the room with an ocean few & just decompress from the madness of the past 4 days. Taganga was planned on my travel route as a destination to take scuba courses as they're some of the cheapest courses in the world. However, getting cash isn't something I can do easily so at the beginning I just enjoy some slow days around here trying to figure out ways to get money or transfer money electronically to Andrea which to do so to foreign nations presents a bigger hurdle. We manage to figure that out, she loans me money as I transfer it online & I'm temporarily back in business. Then we start our dive course. We've now done 6 dives in 3 days, as deep as 90ft which I'm told by another experienced diver was a little dangerous since we didn't know what we're doing and my equipment failed me so I had no air & had to share my way up. It was a bit scary really & my instructors didn't believe me that my equipment was a problem and I didn't have all the underwater hand signals down enough to communicate as you can't talk that entire time. I eventually ran out of air, much much quicker than anyone else and finally I got a breathable mouth piece connected to my guides tank. In the end seeing the underwater world was cool experience & I'm glad I finally got to give it a try. With all the ups & downs, the ups still far outweigh the downs and I'm very thankful to still be on this amazing adventure learning a language, cultures & more about myself. And though Venezuela wasn't great, I did have one magic moment when a guy jumped on a bus to sell something that actually caught my interest - a natural remedy to dissolve kidney stones that comes with ingredients translated to english "Cat's Claw" or "lions tooth" but so far it seems to be stirring something up in me so maybe it will all have been worth it as this fixes my ever nagging problem. Saludos!

Aventura

Hola amigos! back at it on the blog action & I've been at it in full pace for some adventure action. Colombia has so many adventure activities, really as much as one can handle. There is amazons, Andes mountains, volcanoes, Caribbean coast. I have yet to make it very far, I have been in a town called San Gil and haven't been able to get myself to leave. Here the options seem endless. The first big blast I did (on the 21st of Nov) here was a day of white water rafting on what the rafting people classify as "class 5+". What does that really mean? The classes in rafting don't really mean much to me, all I know was that it had some exhilarating rapid sections that were crazier than any previous rafting sections I have done. The last section of the rapids, we hit a huge 3 meter wave and survived through it but then spun around and the next wave which wiped our entire boat out....except for the guide who managed to jump in the boat and hold on. I went under and it seemed like I was down for quite a while, long enough that I had to think about holding my breath and being spun around under water in rough rapids is a little different than the surf. It seemed like their was no buoyancy but eventually I popped up and a kayak was on his way for me to grab a hold & ride out the rapids in the water. I get back to the boat and my new friend, Julienne, is back on and her finger is bent the wrong way in what we think is a dislocation so I get the pleasure of trying to straighten back. I tried & tried but it kept popping back to a malformed state. In the end it turned out that I was yanking on a broken finger, not a dislocated one. Another guy gets back to the raft & he has a bloody nose & teeth. The rest of us were fine. All in and all everyone was still pretty excited about the entire trip, injuries and all. So after that day, the following day I went caving. Three guys & I head up to the this town & go exploring this cavern that ends up being about 80 meters below the surface. There are bats, stalactites, stalagmites and then in the very bottom there is a 5meter high platform where you jump into pitch black water that you can't see. It was really fun. After the cave we went to the central park of this small town to wait for a bus to get us back to San Gil. School was just letting out & the kids started to stand at a distance and stare at us like we were strange aliens. They slowly moved closer & closer to listen to our English. I was the only one who spoke some spanish so I started asking questions & the next thing you know about 30 to 40 of them had the tightest circle around us asking questions, laughing and just staring. It was really fun, quite strange but fun. I spent about 30 mins talking with all the kids, it was pretty fun. The next day a friend & I went on a little journey to track down some natural slides, pools and mini water falls. The spot is called Pescaderito (the 23rd) and it turned out to be a very chill, quite natural spot. I swam, dove, flipped & relaxed my way in the blazing hot sun. The following day, I still couldn't peel myself away from this area, and we went to hike & search for a waterfall spot. This time we found a bigger waterfall, 5 meters high, that had a perfect set up for some jumping & swimming. The next day I decided to sign up to learn something new, I had seen these safety kayakers when we rafted & I have seen them before and though it looked fun so I signed up for a course. I had my own guide the last 2 days and learned to eskimo roll, ride some small waves, approach some currents and do some little tricks. These are the small kayaks that you sit down in and get strapped in at the waist. They're quite lose, probably a similar feeling to when you first sit on a surfboard, I was all over the place and flipping way to quickly. Which meant I had to learn the eskimo roll quickly & I did learn it but it was pretty scary being stuck upside down a few times. After the second day I got a bit better, approached some bigger sections of the river & flipped my way out of disaster a few more times. It was good fun and now I'm really sore. I decided to take the day off today and I think I'm finally going to make my way to Venezuela tomorrow which means I have yet to make it to the Caribbean for my scuba course I want to get into. I'm meeting a friend in Venezuela and then we will travel back up into Colombia. Then I really need to get back to Peru for my car & figure out what I'm doing with myself next. It's been an exciting last month with sand boarding, rock climbing, treking, amazon action, rafting, kayaking, caving...man it seems like a dream really. Well it's time for me to sign off the net. This coming week is a holiday week and I will sorely miss being with my family and friends. I hope everyone has an amazing Thanksgiving!! Saludos