See all the photos from the final Argentina segment here…

In late 2007, after a year of traveling west around the globe mostly in a charitable tuxedo, I returned to the US and immediately launched back into my old, high-energy life. I organized a big social event in NYC and then headed directly to Maine to work at a high-minded conference called PopTech. One affliction that long stretches of traveling brings is that you quickly get used to the ease of living in the moment and your ability to create and follow intricate schedules greatly suffers. Not yet understanding this fact, I had given myself no time to acclimate and I quickly burned out. Actually, it was a very similar feeling to the edge that I’d found myself approaching a few months before this trip: way too over extended and way too much going on. A few of my friends who were also working at the conference noticed the shift in my energy but overall, I managed to keep it together. On the final day I quietly slipped off the grid, escaping to my sister’s wild life sanctuary in the woods of Ithaca, where I spent a few weeks working on web projects, helping Victoria care for broken animals and plotting my return to LA in a more mindful way.

In order to not repeat my error this time, I decided that the best way to return to LA, without experiencing the full effect of culture shock, was to incorporate a strategic plan:

1. DO NOT return directly to my old loft (which is always a hotbed of roommate activity). Instead my sweet friend Daphne offered to pick me up at the airport and let me use her warehouse as a halfway house until I was ready to officially emerge.
2. DO tell everyone else that I was returning on a later date so as far as my groaning coworkers were concerned, I would launch directly into meetings on the day I got back (which is actually three days later than the reality).

Daphne happens to live in downtown LA near the largely Hispanic fashion district; an unexpected but welcome twist. After dropping my bags we went for lunch and as we walked down the street it didn’t feel that much different from many parts of South America: countless Latino vendors were selling a spread of cheap clothes, trashy lingerie and all sorts of blinking, buzzing and whirring nick-nacks. A dark-skinned mustachioed man was selling ice cream from a styrofoam box on wheels; he rang his bell to get our attention while a guy missing a few teeth smiled at me, trying to entice us with his bacon wrapped hot dogs. I politely declined both. Prior to my departure I would visit this area of downtown and was always a little surprised by its chaotic street scene. Now it seems like a clean and quiet version of any street you’d find in La Paz, Bolivia.

So here I sit, in a thick armchair that rests on an unfinished wooden floor in the middle of a sparsely furnished, 4000sq/ft loft. On the desk in front of me, besides my netbook, is an old typewriter, an old and very inaccurate framed map and a small statue of a fat, naked sailor. Outside in the harsh sunlight, a fire escape looms over the busy street scene. The bell of the ice-cream vendor is still audible amid the cacophony. On the table near the rugged kitchen is a bust of a Victorian society woman and a collection of Eiffel Tower souvenirs. At the other end, Daphne’s roommate Hillary, a seamstress, is sewing some custom curtains. Daphne, a ceramist, who was cruising by earlier on roller-skates, is now giving a class in her workshop in the room next door. I’m drinking coffee from a colorful hand-made clay mug. This is the calm before the storm; in the days following, I will have a slew of meetings (probably involving emotionally charged people), speak at two events and oversee both the Mindshare event and a Syyn Labs installation at TEDx, all while finding time to fit in a show of my photography at a gallery party. But Daphne’s giant loft and it’s eclectic pieces of art offer me a refuge until I’m ready to emerge, when I will boldly walk outside into the spring sun, raise one fist in the air and shout “God damn, it’s good to be back in LA!” But I’m not quite ready yet.

OK, before I face that, lets back up a little, to twelve days earlier when I was crossing the Bolivian border into Argentina. Three things were immediately striking: the cleanliness of the streets, the almost immediate smell of parrillada (the classic Argentine BBQ meat) and the breezy comfort of the pair of girl’s socks that had somehow found their way into my clean laundry at the last hostel; they have stars on them and are very lightweight. At the long line on the Bolivian side I met Anthony, a dusty Brit with angular features and a south London accent. After making it across the border to the town of La Quiaca, we jumped on the first bus going south and began to volley the usual traveler banter. As my trip has been coming to its close I’ve found more of my thoughts turning towards the return – and how things could (and should) change. Anthony was nearing the end of his trip to so I posed him the same question. After giving it a moments thought, he began:

“My mates thought I was crazy, coming alone on a trip like this. And truthfully I didn’t know what to expect either – I’ve never done anything like it. But it’s been brilliant!” He paused and looked out at the passing desert landscape. “I used to be such an arrogant, superficial git. I’d only go to the best clubs and date the most fit girls – you know, models. And if either didn’t work out, I’d act really miffed. I’m starting to see how meaningless all that was – I honestly don’t think I’ve ever been as happy as I’ve been down here.” He smiled a deeply content smile. “I hope I can maintain this feeling when I return, but I’m a bit worried I won’t be able to.” I told him that the doors had been opened and that like it or not, he’d never be the same again.

“Sure, old habit patterns, people and situations will be available again – and you may even slip back into some, but your awareness of them, and your scope of perception will be forever different.” I told him, and was simultaneously instructing myself, to try to figure out what to change before going back. As we approached a tiny desert town called Tilcara, I decided that it seemed like as good as any to get off. I bid farewell to Anthony, the friendly ‘ex-wanker’ as he’d described himself, and hopped off the bus onto the dusty road.

Tilcara’s adobe buildings and cobbled streets offered a quiet respite to catch up on writing. During the day I also got a chance to explore the quebradas (or ravines) in the surrounding hills. As I headed up the dry river bed I scrambled over rounded rocks of bright purples and reds. I passed some donkeys that were hauling goods to the next desert town via the intricate series of mountainous paths. The path I was on became more steep and began skirting the edge of craggy cliffs. A solo bearded goat stood precariously close to the edge and was yelling (or whatever goats do) over the edge. I looked down to see a slew of his goat-friends hopping between rocky out-crops on their way to the top. After moving through a large area of low desert flora, punctuated by the occasional tall and thick cactus, I came to the opening of a ravine called El Gargantua del Diablo – ‘The Devil’s Throat’. The once powerful rover, now only a trickle, had carved a steep “v” through the hills over centuries, leaving the rock smoothly curved in many places. After hopping around the stream I eventually reached a small but picturesque waterfall. It was high enough, and the cliff walls smooth enough, that it prevented me from going any further, so I turned back. For the entire hike I was considering my imminent return to LA and the numerous tasks at hand. In the last three months I hadn’t had one excessive emotional flare up or moment of harsh self-judgment, which I was often prone to. Even amid the passport hassle I’d managed to keep calm and level headed. In three decades my mind had never felt so stable, inspired and creatively fulfilled. In a moment of great clarity I realized that it wasn’t just important, but imperative that, like Anthony, I try to maintain this mindset as much as possible when I return home.

After two pleasant evenings of candlelit dinners, writing my journal while being serenaded by folk music troupes, I found the romance between me and my netbook somewhat insufficient. I was craving some human company and was looking forward to seeing Anna, the pretty Latvian who I’d met on a Bolivian train journey a few days earlier. I decided not to linger any longer around pleasant but sleepy Tilcara and decided to head to Salta earlier than planned, to find some peaceful places to write. Anna would arrive a few days later and had requested that I find a place to stay and plan an adventure for the day after her arrival. I am good at things like that so was happy to oblige.

After arriving in Salta and being rather unimpressed with the hostels near the main square, I found a place about 10 minutes away. It was an extremely friendly hostel, and even had a nice little garden equipped with Wifi. However, upon heading to bed that night I found that I wasn’t the only one in my room, and when I turned on the light I saw about ten cockroaches scuttle into the shadows. Adding to this rather revolting reality was one large insect which was flying around noisily, that is until it had a fateful and juicy encounter with a rolled up newspaper. Most insects generally want to stay as far away from you as possible, so as long as we all kept to ourselves, I figured we’d all be happy. To minimize the chance of a continuing relationship with my six-legged roommates, I balanced both my large and small backpack, and the rest of my clothes and shoes on a chair in the middle of the room. I pulled the bed out from against the wall and used my cotton ‘cocoon’ bag that I’d packed for such occasions. Oddly enough, perhaps energized by the fear of going to sleep, I did some of my most productive writing in this shabby room. Besides the more fun blog posts that I’ve been releasing publicly, I’ve been working on some more personal items throughout the trip, such as a creative ten year life outlook, a collection of some of my deeper thoughts and visions and a loose protocol for my return to the states. At about 5am, with a cramped back and my contact lenses firmly dried to my eyeballs, I finally fell asleep, leaving the lights on as a hopeful repellent to any creepy crawlies who decided they might want to get intimate.

The next morning I made my excuses to the landlord, noting that the room needed a thorough cleaning, and went on my way, back towards the center square. After passing through the doorway under a grubby sign, I found a charming and more importantly, insect-free little hostel called El Alcazar which gave me a good rate for a few days. I also booked Anna one night in her own room and planned a day trip to a winery which apparently had some stunning surrounding scenery. I was looking forward to surprising her with all of my planning, somewhat aware that I was allowing my expectation to swell, but rather sure that it was warranted.

For a few years of my adolescence, thanks to the artistic and nomadic lifestyle of my Italian-American mother, we had lived Italy where we still had a handful of cousins. We spent countless hours enjoying cappuccinos in the piazzas of Rome’s historic center where, in her relentless creativity, she was regale me with tall tales of the neighbors. The scandals of Antonio, the cavorting chicken man, and the jealousy of the butcher, his brother, who was cursing his days through the Mad Cow crisis. She would wave at the old mafioso, charmingly known around the neighborhood as ‘Papa’ and give a friendly nod to his dashingly good-looking pimp of a son, who would perch on his scooter all day, making sure his brown leather shoes remained unscuffed while directing high class call girls where they were needed. To this day I still love sitting at cafes and watching people go by. Furthermore I have to say that Salta, in fact Argentina in general, is home to some of the most stunning, tan-skinned beauties that have ever blossomed on the earth’s green surface. At times their beauty is so striking that mere words can’t capture it; instead it is best described by describing the effect it has – a sort of dreamy wave that courses through a red-blooded man’s body manifesting into a series of fragmented snap shots of raunchy imagination. I also have to completely reprimand the Catholic Church – if you’re going to make ridiculous rules than please do a better job enforcing a more strict dress code on your school girls; I feel like I’m going to burn in the bowls of your sulfurous hell just for glancing at their giggling pseudo-innocence.

Finding it difficult to avoid my lecherous thoughts, I tried to figure out just where these pangs of lust were coming from. Is their root in a man’s yearning balls or his compulsive brain? Probably it starts in the former and then reaches the head, which tries to craft a solution to the madness. It’s a fact that as the time between a man’s sexual releases gets greater, so does the erraticism of his thoughts and vividness of his imagination. Surely it differs between men, but after a few days without any release I can acutely feel the presence of a restless energy in my body. As the intensity expands, lustful thoughts begin to spring from a growing number of possible avenues. The sharp curve of this energetic growth is often indirectly proportional to your standards, which can drop precipitously, especially in times of decreased inhibition. This is where the term “She’s an Arctic 10” comes from – this refers to woman who you don’t find that sexy, but you know if you lived in the Arctic for 6 months, your standards would probably shift. Eventually it gets so bad that even inanimate objects, like a naked mannequin or a mere artistic expression such as a sexual painting, can be enough to set your mind on a path of desire. And so, surrounded by this almost debilitating multitude of beautiful women, I began to ponder why our idea of beauty exists at all. In many ways, even though I see it present in myself, I find such superficial attraction quite a nasty trait – but there must be solid reasons why it evolved. Perhaps it’s a way for us to choose healthy mates? But, that doesn’t seem to fit, especially when it comes to the current idolizing of super thin model types, whose diets of Coke Zero and cocaine leave them with frames that can barely hold the fashions that they’re modeling. Perhaps the flexibility of attraction is a reflection of the times? For example, in a world of obesity, the attraction to slender figures lies in their (perceived) ability to control themselves. But many men, especially the cliché of African men, love curvy women. Is this a contextual relic of a more tribal history where wider hips and stronger frames promised healthier children and the more likely survival of the mother? We can also see that during many times throughout history, and in many cultures to this day, more girth indicates more prosperity – which is obviously closely linked to attraction. Attraction also surely has roots in the fueling of our egoic structures. What else, apart from wanting to be seen with such a aesthetically blessed creature, is the drive – especially in situations where the women is question is a high maintenance bitch? Like an expensive or rare sports car, this ‘trophy’ might outwardly indicate an achievement of high status, and sure they may be fun to ‘drive’, but they’re often not worth the hassle of what it takes to maintain them. Conversely there’s the cruel old joke that big girls are like Vespa’s: they’re fun to ride until you friends see you on one. Personally I used to be exclusively attracted to slender women, but some months ago I experienced the joy of a ‘big girl’ and it was amazingly fun. We wrestled around and she was a gracious lover. It was a very soft experience. A wide new door had swung open in the hallways of my perception. Society puts conventionally beautiful women on pedestals to offer girls an idol of what perfection looks like, and men the ultimate object to obtain. It’s so horribly shallow but deeply entrenched and at its root, mostly a device to sell more stuff to both sexes. Either way I’ve been finding that the more you observe your blind reactions, the quicker they begin to fade and as the Sunday church bells rung my head returned to the present moment.

As the evening descended I dropped my laptop at the El Alcazar and walked around town for a few hours enjoying a pre dinner ice cream, which was fast becoming a slightly dangerous habit. Eventually I stumbled on a pedestrian street full of restaurants, bars and discos. I decided this would be the perfect place to bring Anna for her first night in town. Many of the bars in Argentina are are bit different than what we’re used to in Europe or the United States. Most of the time there’s no actual bar and people sit and drink at separate tables in their own groups. This can make meeting new people, especially if you’re on your own, more challenging – prompting the rather bold move of just sitting down and engaging an existing group. I’d actually successfully done this a few times (the foreigner angle helps) but it requires boldness not just in action, but in language too – and when your Spanish is only mediocre it can be a little tiring. When you’ve been on your own for a while you start missing the cozy company of regular friends.

The next morning while doing some hotel-room yoga (my self led classes are pretty half-assed I must say – but I was making an effort to battle the empanada bulge) I began watching Forrest Gump. I remember I’d enjoyed the movie years ago but now I saw it with different, more astute eyes. The wonderful skill that Forrest continually displayed was the ability (fair enough, in his case seemingly due to a slight mental retardation) to live completely in the present moment, with no expectation of where it was leading. All of his actions were rooted in curiosity and enthusiasm and hence most of the outcomes turned out positively.

So the moment that I was looking forward to finally came – and what a surprise: Anna arrived with all the warmth of a Latvian winter. It was bizarre and more than a little disarming. The passionate exchange that we’d shared only days earlier had been replaced by an emotional distance. After checking her in at El Alcazar we walked over to their hotel where she’d planned to meet a couple of English guys who’d been on her bus.

“Lets all go out to dinner together!” She exclaimed. No big deal, I thought to myself, and took all three to the romantic restaurant that I’d scoped out the night before. The Brits turned out to be really humorous and we all laughed well in to the night, which lightened my mood. Anyway, the next day they were heading to the Foz de Iguazu so I’d have another chance to get Anna to warm up, without them distracting us, on our day trip to Quebrada del las Conchas (AKA Ravines of the Seashells or Vaginas, depending on the context).

It was a bright morning and it was going to be a relaxing day of being chauffeured around the neighboring countryside. Raul was our guide, a skinny and humorous forty year old who zoomed though the mountain roads while stuffing coca leaves into the growing wad in his cheek. We darted over red rocky passes and through verdant green valleys, stopping to take pictures:

“Lets get Raul to take a picture of us together!” I said in a playful way, hoping to see Anna’s mood improve.

“Lets just do it later, he’s sitting in the car now.” Umm, OK. And so the day went. We visited a winery where the grape-pressing machine malfunctioned and started projecting grape juice all over the floor.

“That’s never happened before.” The guide said, visibly surprised, while a worker ran for a mop. I couldn’t help think that we were dragging the dysfunctional vibes with us. Don’t get me wrong, we had some fun moments, such as debating whether goats make good pets: are you able to house-break them? Will they eat all your books and pillows? What about ramming issues? Either way, the Posada de las Cabras restaurant, where we stopped for a break, bred goats on the premises so I inquired as to their price.

“USD$250 for a male, USD$500 for a female” The girl behind the counter said, a little surprised that I was asking such a question. Upon further interrogation, she said they were trainable (although this may have just been part of the pitch to get me to buy a goat). Besides my aspirations of goat training, I also revealed to Anna two new business ideas: RetardedBigCats.com which breeds large cats, such a a leopards or jaguars, which suffer from mental problems, leaving them docile.

“We could also remove their claws and teeth.” I said seriously. “And you just need to feed them a meaty Jello and clean up their drool occasionally.”

“You call yourself an entrepreneur? You’re a monster!” She shrieked.

“When that gets shut down for any number of crimes against animals,” I continued, “and more importantly while the genetic engineering is refined, Permapuppies™ will offer the cuteness of puppies right up until their old age, when they’ll probably perish prematurely of hobbling arthritis.” For a moment I could see her expression change to a mask of horror: surely this guy is joking. OK, perhaps I wasn’t being my most romantic self but at this point I was hoping to see Anna display any sign of emotion other than cold detachment, even if it wasn’t going to be passion.

On the way home I kept smelling goat.

“Raul, did you secretly buy me a goat and put it in the truck?” Raul had only only ingested a mixture of coca leaves and coffee all day and his eyes bugged in their sockets.

“Haha! No!” He swerved in the road, avoiding an imaginary obstacle. “It’s the coca leaves. Smell!” He shoved the almost empty green baggie under my nose. Indeed, it smelled like a farm.

We made it home safely and decided to go get some dinner. As we looked at the outside menu of a restaurant near the El Alcazar, I turned around to catch a costumed folk dancer in a wide brimmed hat laughing at me and pointing at my hat, joined by an equally elaborately costumed girl. They both looked away.

“Lets not eat here.” I said and walked back onto the street. Maybe they weren’t laughing at me, I lied to myself to avoid letting my emotions rise. Just then some more laughing came from behind us. I turned around once again to find the folk dancer looking at us and laughing. Now my reactions got the better of me:

“What the hell are you laughing at buddy? My hat?” He stopped laughing and backed into the doorway. “You think I look stupid? Look at your stupid hat!” As soon as I said it I was ashamed at how quickly I had reacted. And of course Anna had been oblivious to the entire exchange and was noticeably surprised which caused a little more embarrassment. As we headed down the street these feelings graduated to a mild, but caustic anger. Unfortunately, the longer we spent together the more annoyed I was getting. In my unbalanced mental state she offered little more than a representation of failure on my part and dishonest intent on hers. After managing to get through dinner without incident we walked home, during which time she remarked multiple times at her tiredness and eagerness to read her book. Each time she said it, what I actually heard was: Don’t think anything is going to happen tonight buddy. I said goodnight to her from my doorway and basically just shut the door in her face. It was actually rather funny in retrospect. In a mere 24 hours if felt like I went through a full and doomed relationship with her, from early hopeful joy, to rocky ground, to raw aversion. I’ll even thank Anna for the great lesson in expectation: hope for the best and expect the worst. The next morning on my way to get a coffee, I saw her across the street and looked the other way as I walked by. That was the last time I saw Anna the Latvian.

After spending the day at a street-side cafe in the central square, I walked over to the bus station and booked my bus ticket south to Mendoza where I planned to spend the final days of my trip sipping local Malbec wine and gathering my thoughts. The bus would depart the following night so I decided to book a horse riding trip to a rural ranch for earlier in the day. After getting back to El Alcazar I enjoyed a Torrontes wine accompanied by a platter of goat cheese from the Posada de las Cabras and dry sausage and olives from a local delicatessen. I blazed through the rest of Ben Elton’s Blind Faith, which was not only an entertaining read but also a fantastic satire on current beliefs through the lens of a ridiculous future society. In a similar way to Neil Stephenson’s Snow Crash, it made me consider what it takes to really spread new ideas and beliefs through a society; while it might seem that prompting real change in such a giant system is impossible, you can easily see that its happened numerous times in history so there must be certain protocols and patterns. At the very least it’s an interesting thought experiment and prompts the profound question: if you could spread something throughout society, what would it be?

The day at the ranch, which was actually a two hundred year old, former convent, was not only entertaining but also had a dose of nice synchronicity thrown in. The small group of travelers included me, an older Dutch guy called Fred and three Dutch students that had dressed up like cowboys for the expedition – complete with check shirts, cowboy hats and Marlboro reds. We each got assigned to noble steeds and were given a quick tutorial on how to use the reins. After that we quickly launched into the lush, humid jungle surrounding the ranch. Apart from turning to bite my angle a few times, my horse was well trained and after an hour or so we emerged into an area where we could reach a gallop. The Dutch girl and I led the pack; we sped passed the others and down a path that led through the fields back towards the ranch. We passed grazing horses and a pink church that was built in the 17^th century. We galloped though fields of bright purple flowers flanked by forests full of trees covered in fuzzy ‘tree beard’. Eventually, thanks to our horse’s speed and ‘auto pilot’, we arrived back at the ranch a full five minutes before the others, both completely red-faced and exhilarated.

As Miralgo, our polite guide, grilled our lunchtime parrillada I began talking with Fred who turned out to be a really interesting and dynamic guy. Not only is he in the Dutch army reserve, routinely helping in places such as Afghanistan, but he also teaches leadership training courses to Dutch businessmen. His techniques are rooted in spirituality, without really delivering them so explicitly however.

“A lot of spirituality is nice, especially when it comes to understanding personal growth and learning how to lead others. But most people think you’re a little crazy if you get too mystical.” He explained with a wry smile. “I find it more effective to deliver the lessons in other ways. What I’m interested is in making people understand through experience” This is a core technique from Vipassana too, I told him. “Absolutely – very important. For example, I might ask for everyone to count the number of red objects in a room and then to close their eyes. Then I ask how many blue objects they saw.” He erupted into laughter. “It works! It gets them thinking differently – being more aware of the world around them.” Of course he was completely right. To get people really interested, you need to appeal to them with more than just theory – you need to trigger as many senses as possible to emote a deep reaction. We went on to discuss our personal methods for maximizing serendipity and how to keep your life dynamic – of course he liked traveling by himself for the same reasons as me, both to maintain control over your situation and as a recipe for more random interactions. He expressed his interest in the numeric cycles of Mayan time and tried to explain the complex systems to me and the Dutch kids. While interesting it quickly became hard to remember the details and made me realize why I like Vipassana’s teachings so much as they’re so easy to explain. The technique is simple enough for the layperson to learn yet the results are felt almost immediately; both of these traits are crucial if you want something to be spread widely. We parted ways and both seemed pretty sure that we’d meet again.

That night I jumped on the bus for Mendoza, arriving twenty hours later, in the mid afternoon of the next day. The situation that unfolded was somewhat unexpected but luckily my expectation reserves were already depleted so I was more amused than annoyed. I had met a very sweet Israel girl on the bus and together we took a taxi to the main street of hostels and bars. We soon found out that every single hostel on that street was full. Then one kind hostel owner called a bunch more in the surrounding areas – which were also all full. In addition to forgetting that it was Easter weekend and not having made a reservation, we had also arrived on the same day as Operacion Vida, a Christian music festival promoting ‘Amor en Accion’ with a weekend lineup of bands, was scheduled to begin. At that moment an Australian guy entered the hostel, apparently in the same situation.

“Why don’t we all try to find something together?” Netali said.

“Why not? It’ll be fun.” I said with a somewhat forced pleasantry.

That night, after gorging on steak (are you seeing a pattern here?), we crammed ourselves into a tiny, two bedded room that the helpful hostel owner had helped us track down. I was sharing a bed with Brent, the Auzzie, while Netali slept in the bed next to us. I had been imagining my final few days in a peaceful natural setting – and now, in the same bed as Brent’s smelly feet, I couldn’t help but smile at the different plan the cosmos seemed to have for my final days in Argentina.

The next day we headed to Maipu, a town about 30 minutes south of Mendoza, for a wine tasting tour. The great joy is that there are so many wineries in the area – almost 2000 in total – that you can just rent a bike and do a wine tasting bike ride! Argentina, and the Mendoza region in particular is almost unparalleled for wine-making for a variety of fortunate reasons. Besides access to increasingly more sophisticated techniques from international experts, Mendoza occupies a very low rain region area which also happens to have access to large amounts of nearby meltwater from the Andes. This means that local vineyards have almost perfect control over their irrigation. Also the diverse terrain of the surrounding areas means that without going too far, you can have vineyards at varying altitudes which are perfect for different strains of grapes. Furthermore, the climate is well suited for wine production, offering low humidity, and a good variable different in night an day temperatures, simultaneously promoting growth and richness of flavor. As a final benefit on an international level, after the Argentine economy took a dive in 2001, the diminished value of the Peso makes the wine incredibly good value and about 50% of all wine is exported. As we toured a few vineyards we were told about the process and allowed to sample an array of fantastic Malbecs, Cabernet Sauvignons and even a few superb whites. Most surprising to me, and perhaps to some of you, is that there’s only grapes in wine. I know that sounds a little stupid – but I always assumed when they talked of bouquets that contained rich plum, delicate orange zest or a sprinkle of cinnamon, I actually thought that those flavors were added. But it’s all just from the grape (and maybe a little from the barrel it ferments in)!

We ended the day at a place called Club de Olivas, run by a jolly man called Oswaldo. The Club de Olivas specializes in growing olives and sells a variety of infused olive oils and tempanades. After a brief tour of the grove we ended up in the kitchen where Oswaldo explained the full variety of things he created. All sorts of liquors, from Grappa to award winning Irish Creams to Absinthe all were concocted under his watchful eye. He also had a secret recipe for his own Dulce de Leche, mixing them with ingredients like coffee bean chips and coconut. Finally he let us sample his homemade chocolates – which were pretty richly decadent. When I left I expressed my gratitude to Oswaldo:

“I wish you lived in my town, so we could be friends! You’re awesome!” Perhaps I was a little too jolly from the wine; I think he knew I just liked him for his skills in the kitchen.

I was a little inebriated by the end of the day, but that wasn’t the reason I almost fell off my bike. The left pedal had worked loose and finally fell completely off when I put pressure on it. I tried in vain to reattach it, but a crucial nut had been lost along the road. I tried to pedal with only one pedal, which was way more difficult than I imagined, so I found myself walking the final mile back to the rental shop. I found it pretty humorous that before this trip I had imagined the freedom I was going to have with my new motorcycle license, hair blowing in the wind, only to find that it was close to impossible to find motorcycles for rent in the places I visited. The couple of leads that I did find were ridiculously expensive and wanted at least USD$100 a day and a USD$2000 cash deposit. So the closest I got to this freedom was pedaling the day away on a bike in wine country, and now, even that freedom had been stunted. I laughed again at the irony. But in many ways I know that if I had been riding a motorcycle I would have faced a large amount of challenges, from the seemingly endless, windswept expanses of Patagonia to the death threatening cities of La Paz et al. Of course I’m not saying it wouldn’t be a grand adventure – of course it would – but one for another time, when I employ better planning, probably including importing my own bike.

That night we’d moved to a room with three beds and had our own bathroom, but it had no door, which made timing your various bodily processes pretty crucial to avoid group awkwardness. The next morning, over a breakfast that consisted largely of the Dulce de Leche with coconut that I’d bought, I realized this was kind of a ridiculous situation and I had to make a move for my final two nights.

“He guys, well it’s been a super nice time with you. So it’s my last two days and I think I’m going to splash out a bit and get my own place somewhere.” And to make sure there was no hurt feelings: “I need to do some writing and work best in my own space.”

“It’s OK,” Netali said. “I think I’m leaving for Buenos Aires today.”

“Where are you going to go?” Brent asked, a trace of dejection in his tone.

“I don’t know amigo. I’m going to pack up my stuff and go make some calls. But I gotta get out of here.”

I found the local call center and proceeded to make a few phone calls. All hotels in the center were even more full than they’d been before so I turned to the Maipu map and started calling a few of the inns that were listed. At first the places I found were hugely pricey but eventually I got a stroke of luck when I found a more budget one who’d had a cancellation. La Posada Rural was at the southern end of the collection of wineries but seemed like a pleasant and affordable spot – and the kind owner even offered to pick me up from the center of town.

About an hour later I was in a car, speeding through Maipu, speaking in my butchered Spanish to the owner of La Posada Rural. Vicente was a thirty-five year old Mendoza local who’d bought a small farm house some years ago and built some cabins behind it. He ran the business and his widowed mother helped keep the place looking trim. He’d had a girlfriend but they recently broke up.

“She was a little crazy.” He said, whirling his finger next to his head. “But many girls in Argentina are crazy. Are they crazy in America also?”

“Vicente, my friend, they’re crazy all over the world. But we still love them.” We both laughed as he pulled into the gate of La Posada Rural.

Now this is the place that I was imagining for my final few days in Argentina. As we parked under some shady olive trees, a couple of black Labradors bounded up to me, tails wagging. After introducing me to his sweet mother, who insisted I tell her if I needed anything, Vicente led me down a path, under an apple tree, to a line of three two-floor cabins, opening the door of the middle one.

“This is your cabin. I hope you like it.”

“I love it Vicente, you’re awesome. Thank you.” The cabin had the perfect rustic charm combined with modern functionality. The windows were a little loose in their frames but the bathroom was immaculate. The pillows were a little lumpy but the linens were clean. I even had my own kitchen. After dropping my bags I went outside, picked an apple off the tree and went to explore the grounds. Immediately behind the cabins were about thirty rows of grape vines, completely full of juicy, dark grapes. Vicente saw me from across the lawn.

“Tomorrow they are picking all the grapes to make wine.” He shouted. “You can help! And also I can take you to a winery that my friend works at!”

Later that day I found a little bench and read the free sample of Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Discipline that I’d downloaded at the beginning of the trip. After tearing through the handful of freebie pages, I immediately wanted to read more. So I powered on the GSM wireless chip of my Kindle, which promptly accessed the Amazon store, and I downloaded the rest of the book for under $10 from the middle of this rural setting, surrounded be vineyards. In a moment of parallel, Brand’s words appeared from thin air and make the case in the first few pages that the real game changer that we have these days in order to help save our environment is technology.

After a quiet evening and deep sleep I awoke on Easter day to my last full day in Argentina. The vineyard was teeming with grape pickers, who were collecting the grapes into baskets and dumping them in to a large truck that was already about half full. Later that morning I visited the Alta Vista winery thanks to Vicente’s connection and was blown away; it was far more impressive than anything we’d seen on our touristy bike tour. Our guide led the small group of tasters, all who’d had to call to reserve a spot, on a tour through the renovated facility. It had been established in 1899 but back then the wine it produced was not of the best quality. Then one hundred years later a French family bought it and began making some radical changes to improve the quality. Now they produce 2 million bottles of wine a year which I thought was huge, until the guide said that some wineries in the area produce 15 million! . Alta Vista’s range of about ten wines, some of which have won multiple medals, all come from about 300 hectares around the region. All of the grapes are brought to this facility for fermenting in large concrete or steel tanks, and when ready, a stint in the oak barrels in the cellar. Then at the end of the process they are bottled up in the next building and either shipped out, in the case of white wines, or aged further, in the case of their reds.

That afternoon, while I was sitting in the garden, making some notes and plotting of my Returning to the States Protocol, Vicente approached me with a small white object in his hand. He held it up as he got near, it was a USB modem.

“My friend, I bring you Internet!” He exclaimed without realizing how dramatic he sounded. And sure enough, from a small garden, surrounded by olive trees and vineyards I went online to send some final, pre-departure emails and find out my flight information. I know I’ve mentioned technology a lot in my writing, but I can’t express deeply enough with how amazed I am with just how online the world actually is. Besides just enabling more ubiquitous Facebookin’ or providing more places you can access pornography (I’m three months clean by the way), the impact that this will have on the future of knowledge dissemination and cross border communication is actually impossible to over-state.

As I collected my thoughts a few things became obviously clear to me. First of all, and perhaps most importantly, I decided that I would not be returning to live in LA full time; the city is just too distracting for me. I remember that when I lived in LA often a week would go by and I’d look back on it, feeling like a lot my time was spent keeping busy, but not actually creating anything. Of course I was continuously working hard to put on the monthly Mindshare events and to keep Syyn Labs moving along, but in terms of my own creative fulfillment, I had felt frustrated and unproductive. Of course I am aware of some my compulsive tendencies so this needs to be carefully considered, but in contrast I can now say, after the last three months, that I feel so amazingly fulfilled though my writing that it’s crucial that I maintain it when I return. And to do that effectively I know I can’t be in LA full time.

On that note, I realized that the last three months of short and cyclic spurts of a city-nature dichotomy was perhaps a perfect balance for me. In truth, most of my work can be done online, which gives me the privileged opportunity to choose where my office is. While taking advantage of this fact I would like to continue to take my meditation practice further, which would simultaneously benefit greatly from a more peaceful setting. I’d actually already begun to set this plan in motion some weeks ago when I’d talked with my LA landlord and he’d offered to let me use the guest room for a part time rental price. With the money that I save each month I can probably find a cabin in the woods, perhaps near the Vipassana center, and still have some money left over!

Time not spent in LA or in a more natural setting, will be spent in San Francisco or otherwise traveling around, crashing from time to time and friends places (at least until they get sick of me). I’m striving to continue a backpacker style existence in my won country – lightweight, agile and dynamic. Meanwhile, I want to continue to write small articles, maybe even finding a large blog or magazine column in which I could regularly document interesting and inspiring experiences. Furthermore I intend to edit all of these South America chapters into a cohesive novel.

In a recent but inspiring moment, I had the idea to sell my sports car (which admittedly has been fun to drive) and get something more suited for the upcoming 2010 road trips. Maybe something that doesn’t require so much maintenance. Maybe something that I could sleep in and not be too uncomfortable. Maybe something that I can strap a surfboard to the top of

As I sat in the garden, nursing a glass of Cabernet, the dog next door started whining and barking. Eventually I got up and after storming across the grass, shot it the meanest look I could muster over the fence that separated us. It immediately shut up and crawled into his dog house. In a moment of insight, I saw a deep metaphor in this complaining mutt: if you’re going to make a lot of noise to attract attention when you finally get it you better have something to say! A lot of my life I feel like I’ve been whining and barking, but not really known why, or what for. Throughout the last three months, starting with a vision that I had at the Vipassana center before leaving, and carrying on through Argentina, Chile and Bolivia, I’ve been thinking deeply on precisely this matter. What is my larger goal on this planet? If anyone finally pays attention to me, then what do I have to say? Improving on my rather nebulous, previously stated goal of helping people engage themselves, each other, and the planet in a more intentional and mindful way – I’ve now begun to see how the various avenues of my life are converging to help achieve this end goal. I’m beginning to refine these thoughts into an interesting insight into human behavior: what makes us tick? What the current overarching problems in the system? How can these deeply ingrained patterns be tuned? I’m exploring the ongoing convergence of science, ethics and spirituality and envisioning what the path forward could look like and how new tools, like technology, will play a unprecedented role. Such progressive ideas are sure to win me support as well as harsh criticism (as early conversations on my travels confirmed) – and I have to be ready for that as I proceed. Together with the input from a few close advisors, I’m working on the first draft for public release in order to begin the conversation and develop the idea further.

My final morning in Argentina was cold and a thin layer of frost adorned the newly naked vines. After a breakfast of eggs (it seems like some a mouse got into the bread during the night, which now lay scattered on the counter) I packed up my things and loaded them in to Vicente’s car; the generous host had even been kind enough to offer me a ride to the airport. As we sped down the country lane, past endless rows of grape vines, small irrigation canals and gently swaying weeping willows Vicente exclaimed:

“Baby Jesus! It’s cold this morning!” He rubbed his hands together, while keeping the wheel steady with his knee. “It is the end of Summer. Now it is Autumn.” He was right. By coming down to Argentina I’d exchanged our winter for their summer and now it was beginning to get colder. Whereas Autumn would soon descend on the southern hemisphere, I was returning to the beginning of our Spring. Suitably, this prompted the realization that now was a moment to define, embrace and actuate the changes needed in my life. An imminent vector shift.

Ghandi once said that “we must be the change we wish to see in the world”. We don’t need a special occasion or date to make a change, just an awareness of the power of the present moment. After all, the present moment is the only thing that we truly possess.

See all the Isla del Sol pictures here…

Back in La Paz and on second thoughts not much has changed: it’s truly an insane place. There’s no stop signs or round-a-bouts. There’s some street lights but no one seems to really pay attention. Instead there’s a system of honking: if you’re about to speed through an intersection, you honk and hope. If anyone gets too close, you don’t slow down, you just jab a series of short honks. Dogs chase the wheels. Indigenous women and children fly out of the way. It’s chaos, but it seems to work. At some of the busiest intersections you might see an odd sight; various characters trying to protect the pedestrian public. Individuals in zebra suits or the rather elaborately costumed ‘seven dwarfs’ (Snow White apparently had the day off) who run into the intersection during red lights and prevent pedestrians, and themselves, from being hit.

As you walk around, one of the weirder aspects you might notice is the attire of the swarms of shoeshine boys. Ashamed of their role in society, they mask their faces almost completely to prevent identification. At times I faced five different masked youths, only their eye sockets visible, and always had to apologize for the fact that my worn out sneakers really didn’t need a shine. They look vicious, but they just want to shine your shoes. Booths sell blackmarket items and any DVD you could can imagine. At times, especially around the plethora of food stalls in the center, a wonderful smell will reach your nostrils – perhaps the ‘broaster’ chicken (which is neither broiled nor roasted but fried), only seconds later for it to be replaced by a stench of fetid water or the decay of raw meat.

Don’t get me wrong, as the highest capital city in the world and pleasantly surrounded by mountains, La Paz has it’s charm. It’s a somewhat elusive charm, but if you observe it without recoiling, you might find it amid the chaos. Life bursts from every crevice. Multitudes of people hustle in every direction. There’s a stunning amount of photocopy shops and lawyer offices, both which probably fuel each other and in turn the huge amount of governmental bureaucracy that the whole system feeds upon. Modernly dressed business types swarm next to out-of-place looking indigenous women, known as cholitas, who wear an absurd amount of pleated petticoats. On their backs, on top of ornately woven shawls, they carry colorful sacks stuffed full of goods and even the occasional kid. Their whole amorphous caricature is crowned by a precariously placed bowler hat, or summery bonnet, that covers dark hair twisted into long, twin braids. Many of the park benches are occupied with young (and less visually appealing, even occasionally quite old) lovers who are happy to put on quite a show – usually led by the extremely assertive males. And how could I ever forget the value meals? No, not MacDonalds, which graciously has yet to permeate Bolivia, but the incredibly cheap lunches offered by hole-in-the-wall restaurants. As you negotiate the streets, scampering for safety when sidewalks often just disappear, you will see many chalk boards outside small doorways advertising meals that are currently being cooked. There’s usually just one set menu which is comprised of a little appetizer, a salad, a main course and a dessert – often for just 10 Bolivianas. That’s less than $1.50 for a damn decent meal! In truth most Bolivian is fairly bland for my taste, but that’s nothing to sneeze at – well, hopefully. I didn’t see the kitchen conditions.

After surviving Death Road I retired early to the Hotel Milton with a bottle of Pacena – the local brew – and a hand-packed sack of home made potato chips. I watched the Spanish version of Law and Order and finally passed out.

When I woke up it was still dark outside and Law and Order had been replaced by an infomercial for Cellufree, promising to finally remove that cellulite if you just plastered these miracle strips to your body before bed time. I was in a cold sweat and had wrestled all the sheets into a ball so I was now lying directly on a stained mattress. Waves of nausea seemed to emanate from my very bones themselves, shuddering to my intestinal area. For a while, as I always find with food poisoning, I writhe around in bed for a while until I realize it’s not going away and I summon the courage to go purge myself. I worshipped the porcelain deity until the sun rose while Cellufree’s spokeswoman unsympathetically observed my misery.

After what seemed to be the 5^th run through of Cellufree, I pulled on some clothes and went downstairs. I had to call the US Embassy to check the status of my passport as today was meant to be the day that I could pick it up. After that the place was to head to the Bolivian immigration office to get a new departure ticket. Oh let me tell you about the dire importance of departure tickets: a piece of paper so incredibly important that if you want to leave the country without huge hassles and paperwork, you better not lose it when they hand it to you upon entering the country. I crossed the street trying not to wretch at the smell of the neighboring butcher and entered the centro de llamadas, where those without cell phones go to make calls. As I stepped into the booth I could hear the cholita in the booth next to me screaming into the phone how someone owed her 4 Bolivianas. Ater working out the cryptic system of dialing the US Embassy put me on hold for 15 minutes. The cholita was now close to tears and for a moment and as I looked at her, I felt like I was going to vomit all over the glass that separated us. I sat down and tried to breathe in a calm, slow pattern. Finally I was taken off hold:

“Sorry sir, it’s waiting to be approved by the consulate – can you call back later?” I didn’t tell her that made me want to vomit. Instead, I gratefully made it back to my room without public embarrassment and spent the rest of the day in bed, trying to eat some bread that I’d nicked from the dining room. On my third visit to the centro de llamadas the Embassy told me to come in the following day to pick up my new passport. That night as I lay there I suddenly realized that 1000s of miles away, the Mindshare crew was preparing for tonight’s event. And I was nauseous and alone in this crappy hotel room with sickening, green wavy wallpaper. I watched the clock. In LA, the doors of the 740 Club had just opened. Flipper the English door man was no doubt there, flanked by one of our sexy female volunteers, handing out badges. The two Adams were probably looking sharp and welcoming the first arrivals with wide smiles. The Syyn Labs posse was probably gathered around clinking beers and talking about new developments. As I fell asleep I realized that over in LA, the presentations had begun, and people were probably having a blast. When I was eight years old, I got sent to boarding school in England – I don’t get lonely or homesick much as a result – but this was surely the loneliest and most pathetic moment of my trip. Just sleep it off big guy.

The next morning came and things initially seemed rosier, no doubt helped by a strong course of the antibiotic Cipro, which I’d picked up the day before. I was hungry and so after a refreshing shower – the one perk of Hotel Milton, besides the friendly staff, was the shower. As I ate my Americano breakfast (which is just like the Bolivian breakfast of bread and coffee, except you get a scrambled egg too) I considered my situation: Team Bolivia had now given me a double whammy, scoring against Team Doug with a out-of-left-field passport theft and a food-poisoning goalie error. I actively try to not be superstitious at all, the logic being that as soon as you let a couple of superstitions into your life it’s a slippery slope of blame and expectation. However as my mother always cried:

“Bad things come in threes!”

I know it was stupid to think but I couldn’t help it, I had to finish this game before Team Bolivia scored a third time! As I washed down the dry bread with an incredibly sour, freshly squeezed orange juice (it might have been lemon juice) I continued playing games in my head. I pondered the decision I’d made to stay in Sucre an extra day. Besides missing the company of the lovely Kim who’d I made tentative plans to meet with in La Paz, the decision had seemed to set me on a path of unfavorable occurrences. I couldn’t help think that if I’d come a day earlier, I would have not been on the same bus as the passport thief and probably would have avoided food poisoning. Eventually after an audible “You can go screw yourself”, directed at th voice in my head, which seemed to get the attention of a French couple at the table next to me, I downed my cafe con leche and left the dining room and caught a taxi to the US Embassy.

After clearing the assault course of searches and detectors at the entrance I found myself at the passport window. I had been happy with the picture but out of respect they had stretched my face into a long, cartoonish version of me. “you can go screw yourself too” I thought to myself this time; it was only good for three months anyway.

“If you lose this one, then you’ve got problems. We can’t do a third so easily.” The clerk warned.

“Sure thing, gracias amigo.” I pocketed the passport and pushed through the series of bomb proof doors back into the chaos of La Paz.

The next stop was the Bolivian Immigration so I could get my visa renewed and a duplicate departure card. After reeming me for $80 and sending me on to the third line and disgruntled characters, I ended up next to a fellow American called Khaled. Khaled was in the process of trying to sort his life out after his entire bag had been stolen in an elaborate charade at a local restaurant. Some guys in suits had caused a distraction in one direction while his bag was lifted off the seat next to him. Before he knew it the men, and his bag, were gone. Besides all his money, cards and passport, it had contained his professional USD$1200 camera and worst of all, all of his photos from the last few months.

“I’m slowly making peace with it.” he said, although I could sense a deep underlying remorse, “All it took was a second! The worst thing is I was going to use those pictures to make some money. So they even robbed that from me!”

At this moment in my self-pitiful day, I finally had a moment of clarity and Khaled’s story got my mind back into a positive trajectory. Sure, a few annoying things had happened, but it wasn’t so bad. Khaled was certainly worse off than me. More importantly, to distract myself from negative thoughts I was determined to find a something serendipitous in the coming days so I could say to myself: “If I hadn’t come to La Paz a day late than BLANK wouldn’t have happened!” A far more positive task for your brain to be assigned. After a few early goals against Team Bolivia (the salt flats and the mines), the score was now neck and neck. This was turning out to be quite a close match. Stay on your toes boys, it’s not over yet!

By the time that we got to the front of the line they utterly disinterested looking clerk said that the head honcho who okays new visas wasn’t coming in today, so we’d have to come back on Monday.

“How can what takes one minute at the border take so long at the head office?” Khaled asked her. She just look at him, shook her head, and said:

“Monday.”

After saying goodbye to Khaled and planning a celebratory drink for Monday evening at a local bar, I booked a side trip to Isla del Sol where I would pass a few days while my visa was finalized (I made sure to make some photocopies before leaving the immigration office). After pushing passed shoeshine boys and cholitas I had finally found a somewhat civilized cafe where I was able to recover from the day’s bureaucracy with a cappuccino and a slice of apple tart. I checked my email and saw a message with an alluring subject: “Are you in La Paz?”. The last time I’d seen Ted Reilly had been over two years ago in the delightfully decadent town of Vang Vieng in Laos. I’d spent the day with his merry throng of traveling buddies floating down a river in inflated inner tubes and getting increasingly imbibed as we swung off rickety structures into the cool water. The next day we’d gone our separate ways – he’d continued south and I headed to Hong Kong to begin the first leg of the www.tuxedotravels.com. The email read:

“What´s the game bro? Are you coming to La Paz? if so come visit me at the Adventure Brew Hostel – I’m the bar manager here…”

I left the cafe and decided to track him down. As I entered the Adventure Brew – which proudly makes it’s own beer, I recognized Ted’s delightful face coming down the stairs.

“Look at that good looking chap!” Ted blurted loudly in his thick English brogue.

“Well hello gorgeous!” I said, instantly remembering why we’d enjoyed each other’s company. Ted showed me around the place and took special pride in the theme nights that he’d arranged for this weeks bar schedule. Poker night, quiz night and costume night were among the offerings.

“It’s the easiest job in the world – but don’t tell them I said that! I’ve already been here six months and just renewed for another six!”

“Are you serious?” I asked. ”Honestly Ted, I have to ask, just what the hell is keeping you in this place?” Ted stood up and walked to the bar window, which offered a great view of the city.

“Look at this place!” He exclaimed, “It’s like we’re in India!” Haha, it was true, La Paz certainly felts like it had been sprinkled with the Delhi mayhem.

“But we’re not in India, Ted.”

“I know, that’s what makes it so crazy!” His smile told me more than his words. He was happy here – and who can argue with that?

Before leaving the Adventure Brew Hostel I decided to book my final night in La Paz there after I returned from Isla del Sol. On the wall was a flier for ‘Cholita Wrestling’ that promised a unique experience – portrayed by a drawing of two cholitas grinding teeth and pulling each other’s braids. This flier seemed to underscore one of the main things that was depressing me so much about La Paz. As I walked back to the Hotel Milton, I couldn’t help but look at the colorful indigenous women and feel sympathy for them. It reminded me of that trick that fancy waiters can do with table cloths; the entire natural setting had been whipped from underneath them and replaced by a loud and filthy city. While most of them are selling goods, many of them are begging, hunched into a right angle and in the worst cases uttering barely audible whimpers. It’s just so incredibly wrong that this many old women are begging – but people speed by, no time to notice them. And lets be fair, of course it’s not just here; all over the world tragedy is on display every day – in many cases far worse than the lives of these cholitas. The vast populous of this planet is so occupied with inane and completely inconsequential distractions that there’s no bandwidth to notice or to care. One day we will understand that when any of us is suffering, we are all suffering. As I reached my hotel I found an old cholita sitting on my steps.

“Hola Senora.”

“Hola gringito.” She smiled, proudly displaying her gold rimmed teeth.

My bus left La Paz early the next morning and I found myself sitting next to a lively and colorful English girl.

“What did you think of La Paz?” She asked.

“The only thing I really enjoyed about La Paz has been leaving it.” I said rather bluntly.

“Oooh, crikey… but me too!” She giggled, “I didn’t want to say anything, you know, so not to offend anyone, but I bloody hated it!” We both laughed and shared our war stories. As we ascended to the heights of the city the downtown apartment blocks gave way to shoddily constructed brick shacks that seemed to be literally stacked on top of each other. The town’s poorer folk live in these areas, overlooking the prosperous lower sections. Soon, after skirting the hillside and weaving over crests, we reached the countryside. I felt like I could finally breath freely again.

It turns out that Jen was a surfer and made me promise that when I returned to California that I would take it up:

“It’s bloody heresy that you live in California and don’t surf.” She playfully, but harder than expected, punched me in the shoulder. “Just get a board and strap it on top of your ride. Or put it in the car with you. Once I slept with three other surfers and two boards in a rental car our Route 1 for a month – that’s how brilliant California is!” I promised her I would give it a shot.

Eventually the talkative Brit tired herself out and fell asleep, partially on me. After having to get off the bus and boat across a small stretch of water (while the bus precariously went on a separate raft) we got back on the bus and finished the trek to Lake Titicaca. Lake Titicaca is not the only name that schoolkids, (and even sometimes immature adults) can get a kick out of in Bolivia. How about the charming town of Poopo. I’m serious. If the butchering of Inca words wasn’t so well documented than I would have been certain that a 7 year old had made these names up.

Eventually we hit the town of Copacabana. Hardly comparable with Brazil’s town of the same name, but Bolivia’s Copacabana still maintains it’s own quaint appeal, sandwiched between two hills and a pleasant waterfront. As I waited for the boat that would take me to the island, I had a coffee at a waterfront cafe. As I was looking out at the crystal waters, a shoeshine boy came up to me and gave the regular pitch, which was met with my regular excuse. However Javier was so sad that my shoes didn’t really require shining that my heart finally melted when he pulled out a grimy USD$1 coin:

“You can change me?”

I gave him a couple of dollars in exchange for his grubby coin. His intense depression lifted only mildly as he thanked me and shuffled on his way. Then two familiar faces approached, Cam and Adelaide from the Uyuni Expedition. I love how you run repeatedly into travelers on the same circuit. We exchanged stories and they gave me some Isla del Sol tips, where they were just returning from. Their next stop was Peru, and they might even make it to LA by the end – I humbly offered my tour guide services if they did. My boat had arrived and so I left the cafe and said goodbye to the sweet Australian couple. After walking down the most wobbly and hammered together pier I’ve ever been on, a group of tourists boarded the boat for Isla del Sol.

The name aside, Lake Titicaca is no joke friends. The Inca’s believed that the lake itself was the birthplace of both the sun and moon, as well as many of the first Inca rulers. It’s incredibly deep in parts and throughout the ages the water level has risen, submerging an Inca settlement that has only recently been discovered. As we approached the rocky hills of Isla del Sol, a stepped texture that cut into much of the exposed hillside became apparent. These are the remains of the original terraced irrigation system that the Inca had built by 1500AD, some of them still being used to this day. Only a few thousand people live on the island, most of whom live by means of a subsistence lifestyle, augmented by a handful of tourism bucks. As we pulled into Challa, the main town on the southern tip of the island, I caught a glimpse of the Inca staircase that ran from the shore to a series of paths that spread out towards the top of the hill. Each side of the stone staircase was areas carpeted in lush grasses and foliage. The source of water required to maintain this is a gushing spring that shoots out of the hillside into a series of mini canals near the top of the stairs. As I hopped off the boat I was already more relaxed and thoroughly looking forward to the weekend on this beautiful island.

“Hi, I am David and I will show you to your hostel!” A little local kid wearing a baseball cap and a power rangers t-shirt was facing me off on the pier. Normally I would have made an excuse and continued on my own esteem, but I instantly liked this kid. He was honest looking, sweet and I decided to entertain the whims of my new tour guide. We began to ascend the stairs and due to the steepness combined with the altitude (Lake Titcaca is one of the world’s highest navigable lakes) I was quickly gasping for breath.

“The Inca have a saying,” David said, also breathing heavily, “Ama sua, ama llulla, ama khella! Don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t be lazy!” He grinned. “Come on, just 10 more minutes, gringo.”

After reaching a pleasant hotel near the summit, I tipped David a couple of bucks and checked in to my $6, lake-view room. Not too shabby! I wondered how I was going to return to my pricey LA loft, but the more I thought about it the more I realized it didn’t necessarily have to. I put the future out of my mind, for in the present I realized, having only having eaten a little of Jen’s Toblerone hours earlier, I was damn hungry. The hostel restaurant wasn’t open so I found a nearby spot and feasted on some quinoa soup and llama steak. Feeling revived, I continued the rest of the climb to the top of the hill, to a town called Yumani. After exploring the various indigenous stores that were selling all sorts of soft alpaca woven goods, I found a little cafe on the cliffs edge. As I stared out on one of the most beautiful scenes I’d ever witnessed I felt almost overwhelmed. The splendor of the island, the deep blue of the lake flanked by the mountains of Bolivia and Peru in the distance filled me with intense emotion. I found myself wanting to say things to far away people. To express to my family and close friends the gratitude and love that I had for them. I wanted to write a poem to all the lovers who I still care for. During this trip, which has provided so many close iterations of city life juxtaposed to more rural journeys, I’ve realized that being in nature always brings out my humanity – it literally makes me feel more human. Isla del Sol is such a blaring contrast to La Paz, a place where the locals, while still having to work hard, actually seemed happy.

After the sunset, I headed back to the hotel and passed a similarly awestruck tourist couple.

“Is this place for real?” I asked.

“It’s beautiful!” One girl exclaimed.

“I know, but seriously, is it for real?” I said.

“What do you mean?” Her manfriend asked.

“I mean, it is so perfect that it seems fake. I’m wondering if after the tourists leave if they all go somewhere else and live in shitty shacks like La Paz?”

“Oh, I see. I’m not sure.” He replied.

“Haha! Me either, if it is real, it makes me wonder why more places couldn’t be this awesome!” My initial oddness evaporated and we all agreed how nice that would be and went on our separate ways. As I descended the rest of the cobbled path to my hotel an old thought was rekindling in my mind. For some time my group of Burning Man friends have been talking about starting a permaculture style village. A place where we could have fun, learn survival skills and in a semi-joking way then have a place to go live if the world’s social order has a melt down. When I see places that are actually doing it, I realize it’s not that out there of an idea. If the NIKKEI and DJIA and the rest of the world markets collapse, I guarantee that life on Isla del Sol wouldn’t change too drastically. Of course, I always have a habit of over romanticizing things; much of these people’s daily work is incredibly hard, back-breaking work. But ideally this will happen enough in the future that robots will do the hard stuff and we can spend our free time playing strange instruments, making art and designing fun outfits to wear while we dance and sing around a fire and consume home brewed mead. As I said, I have a habit of romanticizing stuff.

The next morning I awoke to the sound of a nearby donkey, which means a few raspy gasps followed by a couple of loud, complaining honks. I decided, rather thank joining any tour, that I would go explore the island myself and do a round trip hike to some ruins on the northern tip of the island, 8km away. Over breakfast I approached a group of tourists who were pouring over a Lonely Planet guide book.

“What are you guys up to today?” I asked.

“We’re going to visit the floating islands.” One girl said.

“Oh, I heard that’s cool!” Actually I’d heard it was a bit of a tourist mecca, perched on top of floating reeds in the lake. However, I also heard that it was pretty interesting in that the inhabitants use the reeds for food, clothing and other things besides just floating on. I also heard that recently a large area of the island had been sawed off and let loose, because that family had become Mormons. Apparently when neighbors had disputes on the floating islands, they could just saw each other free – how convenient!

“Can I take a picture of that book’s map?” I asked.

“What?”

“Well I’m going on a hike and I figure at least having it on my camera is better than nothing!” They laughed.

“That’s a good idea actually!” I didn’t bother telling them that I was a Technomad, and this is just one of our many meat-space hacks.

There is no motor vehicles on Isla del Sol, just a series of paths and the occasional staircase. I decided on a counter-clockwise route that would take me through a small town near the north of the island, where I planned to get some lunch before continuing to the ruins. Then I would head back to Yumani, over the Inca path that followed the crests of the island’s hilly terrain. At first I followed a path but I soon veered off into the terraced hills, surprised by how large the were up close. At times I had to climb on all fours and find zig zagging routes through them while being careful to not step on the crops of any that were still functional. I passed numerous grazing llamas, donkeys and a large pig, sitting in a muddy hole that it had dug. It watched me suspiciously as I passed. After getting lost numerous times I eventually found the path that led me to Challapampa. In this tiny town that sat on a beach lined isthmus I ate some more soup (Bolivia loves their soups) and fantastic Titicaca trout. A friendly chicken joined me for lunch so, not having any grain readily available, I gave him a french fry. It seemed to welcome this and pushed it around in the dirt for a bit before gobbling it down. It eyed my up with a beady orange eye until I gave it another. It seemed satisfied and clucked its way back onto the dirt road, on its way to do whatever chickens do in their spare time.

After lunch, on my way to the ruins, I came upon a local family doing their washing by the lake side. The wife was holding a large blanket on the surface of the water while the man was beating the hell of it with a stick. A couple of kids were playing in the pile of dirty laundry and I seem to remember a llama was keeping them company too. After getting lost some more (the Lonely Planet map was hopelessly inaccurate) I eventually got to the Chincana ruins, a series of corridors and roofless rooms with tiny doors. Within the labyrinth is a sacred well that the Inca would use for purification purposes. There were other things to see like a sacred table and sacrifice slab but I didn’t linger too long, evening was approaching and I still had a few hour walk back to Yumani. The return trip was way more direct and blazed over the crests of hills, led by the trail that was still paved in many parts. The sun ended its day in a glorious blaze of reds as I neared Yumani, arriving just after dark.

I had planned to finally do some gift shopping (first time in 2 months) and bought some presents for my family at a store that was still open. I dropped about USD$50 on such a large bundle of woven items that the ecstatic store owner estimated that it had collectively taken her close to 300 hours of work. Luckily I was able to get rid of some big bills on her, although how she’ll change them, I have no idea. The change situation in Bolivia is absolutely ridiculous. No one can break any notes larger than 20 Bolivianas but the ATMs only spit out 100s and 200s. Even at the end of the day at my hotel in the capital they would look at me and apologize for not having change. Where are all the small bills people? What the hell is going on?

Completely exhausted I entered a tiny pizzeria that had only two tables. The whole place was lit by a kerosene lamp and a couple of candles on the tables. Against the rough stone wall next to the door sat a pizza oven. A jolly looking man in an apron emerged from the kitchen, strutted over to me and shook my hand.

“Buenvenidos amigo!” I instantly thought he was awesome. He sat me down and fussed over the table, arranging the napkin and candle a couple of times before asking me what I’d like.

“Una pizza por favor. Que me recomienda?” He proceeded to ask me if I liked a long list of ingredients. Before he was able to finish, I just replied:

“Que tu piense!” Saying that whatever he thought was good, I would enjoy. He smiled and shuffled off to the kitchen, humming a little song as he gathered the necessary items. After some moments a women came in:

“Aaah, buenos noche senor!” She was obviously his wife and proceeded to ask me the basic travel questions while she rearranged the candles and napkins again.

Eventually the most amazingly delicious pizza emerged from the oven in the corner. The pizzeria owner and his wife brought it to me and placed it before me, both staring at it with pride as he served me a slice. I took a bite. They watched. I took a bite; it was really damn good pizza.

“Senor,” I began quietly, slowly rising to a crescendo: “Este es una pizza SIN comparicion!” They were both delighted at my exuberant confirmation that this was the best pizza I’d ever eaten.

As I ate the fantastic pizza, which literally had about 10 different toppings, and drank some smooth and mellow red wine I read my Kindle by the light of the candle. It already felt like a strange juxtaposition to be reading on such a hi-tech device in such a low-tech context but even more so because I was still chomping through Kurzweil’s: The Singularity is Near. Seriously, this book mush be like 600 pages at least. What do these people know about the Singularity? I asked myself. Not much probably. I imagined that they had never even been on the Internet. In fact, they probably didn’t even have cell phones. And that very fact provoked an interesting realization that it didn’t really matter. Advancement will continue to move forward, as long as it can, at an increasingly accelerated rate. It’s unfortunate perhaps, but inevitable, that all humans will not be in the foreground of this; the digital divide is too great. However, the local people of Isla del Sol were once claimed by the Inca, then by the Spanish and today by Bolivia. So whatever forces supposedly lead them, such rural groups are somewhat expected to follow – but if it doesn’t really affect them negatively, they probably don’t really care. They just get on with living in the present.

The next day, on the boat back to the mainland, I sat on the roof of the boat with a large group of friendly tourists. I told them about the TED conference (which some of them had heard about) and about Mindshare in LA. They were excited about a more accessible version for our age group and asked a lot of questions. Throughout the trip, I’ve always seemed to be a handful of years older than most other travelers and take a bold, perhaps even overemphasized pride in the age difference. I talked about my theory of living by iteration and my determination to not just go back and repeat the same loop. It was funny, at one point they were all just looking at me for what I was going to say next. I apologized for my compulsive social behavior so I interjected some questions of my own. After a couple of minutes one girl turned to me and said:

“You know, I never looked at it like that. This time, when I go home, things are going to be different. I’m not going back to a job I hate, just so I can save up to have the next escape.” You go girl!

As the bus descended into crazy La Paz I felt so relaxed that it didn’t even phase me. After getting off, I calmly negotiated the traffic and checked in to the Adventure Brew. I walked down the main street towards the immigration office so I could pick up my freshly visa’d passport. I barely got stressed when a large parade divided the street and blocked my way (it was Bolivia’s yearly display of aggression towards Chile for stealing their coastline). I waited calmly as immigration looked for my passport among stacks of papers spread across 3 desks. I didn’t flinch when they told me I need more photocopies. I almost didn’t flinch when they stamped my passport and then told me I also needed to photocopy the stamp. Take a breath. “Gracias senor.” I calmly walked passed begging cholitas when I went to pick up my bus ticket and quietly observed the insanity unfolding in every direction. Just chillin’. Isla del Sol: Goal #3 for Team Doug.

On my final night in La Paz I met up with Khaled and a few English girls he was having drinks with. He’d since hired a private investigator – who had also offered him his services as an assassin. The shady character, who’s Khaled had engaged for a retainer of USD$20 per day, was currently scanning the black market for the camera but we both knew it was a futile affair. The rest of the night unfolded into such a display of debauchery that I can’t even write about it. However if you meet me in person, just ask what happened in Bolivia at Route 36. Either way when getting out of the taxi the following morning at 8am, just a couple of hours before I was due to leave La Paz, I handed the taxi driver a 50 Boliviana bill. I expected him to refuse it for its size, instead he tore the corner.

“Este es falsificado.” He handed it back, it was a counterfeit!

Goddamn, Bolivia! You got me! That’s the third! I paid him in small change and retreated from the morning sun into the dark hostel.

A couple of hours later after having not slept at all, I boarded the bus that would take me to an overnight train and then to another bus into Argentina, arriving 30 hours later. Traveling in such a manner is incredibly helpful for development of one’s patience. Four hours after leaving La Paz, after the bus had gotten stuck in a muddy road and we’d all had to walk for a mile, I found myself at the train station in Oruro standing next to a tall, sexy brunette. Maybe I’d stood next to her. Or vice versa. I can’t remember. She looked eastern European.

“There better be something to eat around here. I haven’t eaten all day.” She was slim and she was hungry. As a burly guy with extra fat stores you can deal with long times without eating, but when you’re quite slender and lean I suppose immediate sustenance is more of a pressing issue.

“I suggest we load our bags onto the train and then you follow me. I will bring you to where the food is – it’s a gift I have.” I smiled.

“You’re American?” Sexy accent.

“No, I’m Californian. Big difference.” She laughed.

“I haven’t met many Americans – they always seem to travel in large groups.”

“That’s not how I travel. I roll solo. Nimble and free.”

“Nice to meet you, I’m Anna. I’m from Latvia.” We shook hands to make it official.

After loading our bags we had twenty minutes to find some food so we quickly walked down a few blocks until we found a market. After buying some bread and chocolate for the train (actual food was incredibly elusive) Anna stopped by a juice stand.

“We should have some smoothies.” She said. “You’ll thank me on the train.” Her accent made it sounds like I had no choice. I liked her strength. The stall lady whipped up a concoction of milk, mangoes, bananas and sugar.

We clinked the glasses and watched each other humorously as we downed the delicious drink in a few large gulps.

“OK, we gotta run!” Anna’s athletic frame moved through the streets with the grace of a gazelle while I hobbled behind her, completely filled with smoothie. We made it onto the train a few minutes before it left.

As we found our seats in separate carriages, a softcore mariachi musical soap opera was playing on the screen. The man would do a macho song. The women would do a tearful retort. The man then followed with a remorseful song. The woman dramatically sang a bold response and tossed her head around. And so it went on. After an hour or so, Anna found me:

“Do you want to know something funny?” She asked.

“Sure.” I smiled. Truthfully, it didn’t really have to be funny, because just listening to her talk was enjoyable.

“There’s a food carriage the next car down.” We both laughed. “It’s full right now, but come find me in a little bit and we can go get something to eat.” She smiled. “It will be our first date.”

Some hours later, after a dramatic farewell on the platform, Anna left for Uyuni and I continued to the border. However, by chance she was heading to Salta directly afterward and we planned to meet there in a few days for a second date. And Team Doug hits one into the back of the net in overtime! The crowd goes wild! The referee blows his whistle and announces the final score: BOLIVIA 3 : DOUG 4!

Going into Bolivia, I had known it was going to be more challenging than Argentina or Chile but it was also one of the most beautiful and diverse countries that I’ve ever visited, bringing me across salt flats, deserts, mountain passes and humid jungle. The communities I passed through ranged from small miners towns to lush farms to quaint, colonial style villages to the urban chaos of La Paz. Even as it had tossed me around like a rag doll, I had enjoyed it and rolled with the punches. However it was the last two weeks of my trip and I was feeling exhausted from all the adventures. Knowing myself well enough, I knew I needed to relax and get my head ready for my return home. The emails have already started: “So when exactly are you getting back?” Soon enough amigos.

At the border I hopped on a bus headed into Argentina and decided I’d just jump off at the first town that I liked on the way to Salta (incidentally home of the empanada AKA saltena). As we headed south my thoughts came full circle and I realized that if I’d left Sucre early I wouldn’t have been on that train and I wouldn’t now have a sexy date for Salta, where the outdoor cafes and candlelit restaurants are apparently lovely – but even more so when you can share the experience with a lovely person.

Appropriately enough, I was excited to get back to Argentina for the very reasons that I’d wanted to leave in the first place: the functional, laid back and easy way of life.

Oh and also some damn good meat.

See all the pictures from La Paz and Death Road here…

La Paz, goddammit, if you weren’t so damn formless and concrete I’d want to punch you in your filthy face. And just when things were going so well in Bolivia! By chance, on my last day in Sucre I’d run into Adelaide and Susie and we’d all agreed that the Bolivian crime stories we’d heard about didn’t really seemed well founded. And then you go and kick me in the nuts. Was it really necessary?

I was in high spirits when I boarded the night bus from Sucre to La Paz. The previous few days had been productive and relaxing and the upcoming week was going to be an enjoyable exploration of some of the sights around La Paz (Spanish for ‘The Peace’); biking dangerous, cliff-hugging roads and visiting old Inca ruins on Lake Titicaca. I’d made it a habit to catch up on writing and emails on these long bus rides and had worked for about 6 hours until my netbook battery died. After that I looked out the window onto moonlit expanses of the Altiplano until I eventually drifted off into a sporadic cycle of dreams and semi-consciousness.

At 7am the bus PA system buzzed loudly and announced that we would soon be arriving in La Paz. Outside the window an ugly looking city slapped my dried out contact lenses. I poured a capful of water into each eyeball. ‘Oh well,’ I told myself, ‘give it a chance, the bus stations are never in the nicest areas’. As usual, when the doors open the locals always rush for the door, and I typically take my time – after all, they need to take the bags out of the cargo hold which takes about ten minutes. As I slid on my shoes I looked down at my backpack, which I’d stored directly under my legs – I noticed that the zipper to the pocket where I keep my passport pouch was open. I reached inside – nothing. I’ve been working hard at not blindly reacting to situations and was was impressively calm – there must be another explanation than theft, It must have fallen underneath my seat. I checked – nothing. I checked inside the backpack – nothing. Well it won’t do any good to freak out, I thought, so I patiently waited for my large bag to be unloaded on the curb.

After avoiding the shady taxi touts I hailed a taxi from the street and headed towards the Hotel Milton, which the Lonely Planet had described as a 70′s hotel, featuring ‘red vinyl studded walls, painted murals and funky wallpapers.’ When I arrived, they wouldn’t check me in without a passport, but being a functional Technomad, I simply logged into Gmail at the front desk and printed out a scan that I’d sent to myself before the trip. This was good enough to get access to my funky yet somewhat dingy, $15/night room. The next thing I did was call the Grand Hotel in Sucre – there was a possibility that I’d left it in the room (even though I knew I couldn’t have done that as I’m far too aware of my packing protocol!) Of course they hadn’t found it. I just couldn’t believe someone would have been so bold to go underneath my legs during the night and unzip my bag – and almost more odd to me was that they hadn’t zipped it back up! There was a chance it had gotten stolen before I boarded at the bus station, but it would have taken an amazingly observant and dexterous thief to unzip the hidden zipper and remove the snug pouch.

I mentally took inventory of what I’d lost besides the passport: USD$100 backup cash, my vaccine passport, 2 backup credit cards (luckily I still had my main card in my pocket), SIM cards for all my various cell phone plans, my international and my US driving license. The very thing I loved about the pouch (that my deceased grandfather had given me almost 20 years ago) was also it’s very weakness; it conveniently kept everything in one place. I cursed myself for streamlining the theft.

The next step was to cancel the credit cards, it was only about 8:30am by now and the companies were relieved that no erroneous charges had yet been charged. New cards would be waiting for me in LA. The next step was to get over to the US embassy – but first I lay down for a while and tried to mentally center myself by observing my various emotions. This is both a Vipassana meditation technique and the main insight in the current book I’m reading, ‘A New Earth’ by Eckhart Tolle. Negative situations like this are of course regrettable, but they offer a wonderful and experiential (vs. theoretical) insight into a very primal side of your mind and your ego – so why waste the opportunity to analyze it?!

First of all, I felt really stupid. I’m meant to be an expert traveler! I lamely said to myself. Upon observing this feeling I considered what the fuel was behind it; it is purely an egoic reaction stemming from the typical mindset of ‘It won’t happen to me! I’m way too smart!’. This belief helps your ego feel superior to others. But when you get a reality check, your ego feels less super and more average, more normal. Luckily, human adaptability is such that this can be one of the quicker feelings to fade away; the sooner you can remove blame, both from yourself and others, the sooner you can get back on the path of a happy existence. Ultimately it is only your ego that has been hurt, not the deeper you (the being your ego would rather you didn’t know about), to whom this whole affair is rather meaningless and fleeting.

Then there’s the logistical hassles. Oh crap, that’s going to mean hours in embassies or at a DMV when I return home. or Great, I just paid for five year visa’s for Argentina and Bolivia and now they’re gone! Is Bolivia even going to let me out of the country without my stupid tourist receipt? True, it’s going to be a time drain, and more than likely cost some money to fix, but the experience will only be as bad as you let it be. Still, all I could think was if I’d arrived a day earlier as I’d planned, then all of this would have been avoided probably – but that’s a stupid and futile psychological game to play. Do I want to hang on to this and keep bitching, churning out more negativity, or would I rather just move on?

The next thing, and significantly harder for me to deal with, is the nostalgic loss. The passport that had carried me through the last eight years of adventures contained ornate stamps and visas that all held stories. They’re just stamps, I thought to myself, it’s impossible to rob the memories and experiences from my being. Even the pouch itself has seen me from a mere pre-pubescent kid into my adulthood. However, while hard, nostalgic losses are overcome in two simple ways. First of all, the realization that external objects do not define you, they merely give the ego something to identify itself with – thus tricking you into thinking they’re very important. While you can certainly enjoy and cherish objects, it’s important to realize that these things neither define nor add real value to the deeper you. While it’s easy to say it can be hard to really believe sometimes – but just let time unfold and the acute upset gets blunted relatively quickly, especially for such trivial matters.

The final emotion that I sensed in myself was the worst of the bunch. I’m sorry to say, I was feeling some serious pangs of anger. I couldn’t help but imagine what would have done if I had caught the thief mid act. Oh I would grab his head and kick it! I’d break the bones in his hand so he thought twice about stealing next time! I’d stab him with my fruit knife!. As I lay there looking at the horrible green, wavy design I could feel my pulse begin to get faster and my muscles twitch with some pre-ejaculate adrenaline. This was a despicable emotion; what would that accomplish, besides getting me in trouble and delivering more negative energy into the whole cycle? I didn’t know who had taken my wallet, but it was likely that the thief is already being punished, so trapped in his own miserable existence that this is how he navigates the world.

Content that I’d at least observed, if not fully overcome, my blind reactions, I had a shower, cursed my stupidity a little more, and made my way to the US embassy with the appropriate forms and rather sexy new passport photographs. Unfortunately, La Paz itself did nothing to help calm me down. What a chaotic city of honking vehicles, horrific smells and ugly buildings. I felt like I was the passenger in a game of ‘Grand Theft Auto’ as the taxi narrowly avoided old women and children who leaped out of the way as he accelerated. Loud Reggaeton, interspersed with advertisements in Spanish blared on the radio. A plastic Jesus, which hung the rearview mirror, shimmied to the music as the driver cursed a minivan that cut him off. It got me there in the end and it’s hard to complain though when a 10 minute taxi ride costs seventy-five cents.

After I had breathed in the guards face (I didn’t get a good answer for why I had to do that) and left the two metal detectors behind (I really do carry a large amount of tech at any one time) I entered the concrete and steel castle of The US Embassy. Besides the usual feeling of sterile practicality, it was actually a welcome refuge; it was spotlessly clean and the pristine bathroom had soap and paper in the dispensers. In filthy cities there’s nothing quite like the feeling of washing your hands – aah, the little luxuries that you miss! For USD$100 they hooked me up with a temporary ‘emergency’ passport, thankfully expedited by my various printed out scans of my passport, drivers license and credit cards. On the way over I’d also stopped to get a police report at the tiny, type-writer equipped tourist police station that was next to a questionable bar called ‘Love City’. The guy that helped me at the US embassy, who interestingly was not allowed to tell me his name (why not at least have a stage name like Splitsy Pacific or Muffy Paradise then?) also informed me that I would have to visit the Bolivian Immigration and Argentine Embassy too in the coming days. What an unexpected and fun adventure! Think of all the possible things that might emerge and would not have not have happened otherwise! I tried to sell myself but I saw through my shallow ploy. Truthfully though, we only see the path that unfolds and it’s impossible to be aware of all of the things that a bizarre twist of fate prevents. There’s a great story from war time Japan about a wise grandfather and a young man. While out tending to his father’s flock, a young man found a stranger who had gotten lost in the wilderness and was very weak. The young man gave him some food and water and pointed him in the right direction. Some days later the stranger visited the young man and gave him a horse as a gift. Oh what a great man, and what a lucky son we have! His parents exclaimed. We’ll see, said the old grandfather. The young man loved the horse and rode it every day. One day, after being too foolhardy he fell and broke his leg. Oh curses to that damned horse, what a terrible thing to happen! His parents lamented. We’ll see, the old grandfather replied. Meanwhile the second World War had broken out and the air force was looking for young men to enlist, in particular to become kamikaze pilots. Of course the young man was in no condition to join the army. Oh what luck! Our son must stay home with us! His parents rejoiced. We’ll see, the wide grandfather said.

After leaving the embassy, I decided to walk back to the Hotel Milton. A beer at an outdoor cafe would be a welcome treat after the last five hours of bureaucracy. I walked for an hour and didn’t find one place other than a couple of dark, dingey caves, which looked like they’d only add to my negativity. Eventually I got back to the Milton and by this point was pretty much swearing at the world, and this horrendous city, out loud. Cholitas (indigenously dressed working class women), wearing bright colors and rather silly looking little bowler hats, sat among piles of vegetables while others asked me for money. Bolivia has already robbed me! I thought to myself. I really wasn’t liking my bitchy mood so, as was customary when it occasionally surfaces, I felt it was going to be necessary to remove myself from public engagement ASAP. All I was looking for at this point was a mini-market to buy a cold beer. There was a ridiculous amount of paint stores, raw meat shops and stands selling electrical trinkets and odd things like toilet seats and spray bottle nozzles. At times smells so horrendous, like old meat and faeces, reached my nostrils that I felt like I might vomit. I felt like I was losing my fucking mind. I was quickly spiraling downward into a really nasty mix of thirst, exhaustion, stress and self pity. I finally found a place where I bought a couple of bottles of beer and a large bag of cheese puffs. I entered the Milton and just kept climbing towards the roof – I needed to be away from people and ideally not in my somewhat depressing room.

As I reached the roof level I found a door that led out onto a terrace – score! It offered a spectacular view of the city, and while the architecture is still a bunch of ugly filthy crap, the red brick shacks that clung to the sides of the surrounding craggy mountains added a spark of some visual beauty. Beyond the sprawling town, snowcapped peaks of 6000m pierced the dramatic clouds. As I drank the cold brew and piled cheese puffs into my face, I was aware that all day my feelings had been a little skewed and maybe La Paz wasn’t so bad. Either way, this was the moment to turn it around. Two bottles of Pacena deep and feeling poetic I decided to go to my room and write this story – documenting situations always helps me put them behind me.

And so here I lie on a horrendously ornate bedspread in a light blue tiled room, with edges lined in a wavy green and yellow pattern. Honestly, it looks like the pattern monster got sick and vomited all over the place. There’s a TV that won’t turn on without a remote, and there’s no remote at the desk that matches. There’s a German couple having lou sex in room 210. There’s a screaming child outside my window that is audible even among the honking traffic. You can’t change the world around you; you can either fight that fact or roll with it. I’m going to roll with it. Everything is going to be alright and tonight I’m going to get into some mischief, I feel it already, in the rate of my pulse. But first things first – and that’s to head downstairs and to book myself on tomorrow’s mountain bike tour on the 65km road to Coroico, AKA ‘The Most Dangerous Road in the World’ where multiple tourists die every year. Yes, that should take my mind off my passport – and anything else not directly related to staying on the path, and away from the 600m vertical drop.

See all the Potosi pictures here…

Diego Huallpa had searched everywhere for the lost llama but there was still no sign of him. ‘Stupid animal,’ Diego thought, ‘and he was just about ready for market! My father will kill me’. By this point he was far from home, the sun had set and so Diego decided to build a fire to keep himself warm. As the fire grew hot, Diego noticed as a shiny trickle oozing from the ground beneath the fire. ‘Holy Incan Sun God!’ He exclaimed, ‘Those strange-talking, bearded white folk are going to be SO happy with me – they love this stuff!’ It was 1544 and Diego Huallpa, a local Inca had just discovered the wealth of silver that lay beneath Cerro Rico (or Rich Hill) as it came to be known. And indeed the Spanish Conquistadors were so grateful that they called in more of their friends, enslaved the locals and began hollowing out the mountain.

For the following few centuries, the mines of Potosi bankrolled the Spanish Monarchy and were so productive that it was a popular boast that a silver bridge could have been built all the way from Potosi to Spain and still produced even more silver to carry across it. Besides 12 hour shifts, the working conditions of the mines were atrocious; many perished from accidents, silicosis (basically a seizing up of the lungs) and from working with dangerous materials, such as mercury, in the smelting mills. It’s been estimated that from 1545 to 1825 as many as eight million Africans and indigenous Bolivians died from the appalling conditions.

At it’s height, the population of Potosi swelled to almost 200,000 but as the silver dried up and the international trading price dropped, the town was dealt a blow from which it never fully recovered. These days the town has about 10,000 inhabitants and most of the remaining mines are ‘cooperative’ , meaning that they are run by the miners. Some silver is still found but most of their profits come from zinc and lead. The conditions have improved only mildly since colonial times and the same driving force pervades in the minds of the miners: ‘I might be the lucky one to discover that next vein!’; a far more optimistic view than considering the odds of your early demise by silicosis. But enough of the theoretical descriptions; when I hit Potosi I found a guide that would take me deep into the mountain, where Tio (aka the Devil), not God, was the boss.

Truthfully I felt lucky to even get to Potosi. A week earlier the nations buses had been on strike, lamenting the addition of a new law that would mean suspension of a driver’s license if they were caught driving under the influence. I’d already known that drunk driving was a problem in Bolivia since the salt flats of Uyuni where one of the drivers of the 4x4s got so drunk that a tourist had had to drive for the rest of the day. In any case, the striking bus drivers were trying to push an addendum to the new law, which meant implementing a ‘three strikes and your out’ policy. Amazing idea you idiots. But it was only 8am and as we bobbed and weaved up the mountain our driver looked passably sober.

After emerging from a nondescript shack where we were given boots, coveralls and some stylish hard hats with attached lamps, the first stop that our cheery guide-cum-miner Efra took us to was the miner’s market. Here he suggested that we purchase some gifts for the miners whom we were about to visit. Just your basic supplies: bags of coca leaves ($1 each), a few sticks of dynamite ($3 each) and some bottles of soda (the miners didn’t eat while underground). He was annoyed by the fact that the guide book suggest bringing cigarettes and alcohol as the miners already had lung problems and seemed to enjoy the 98% proof booze a little too much without our help. Instead I decided to buy an extra stick of dynamite, a detonator, fuse and a bag of fertilizer which Efra promised would make a better explosion: “This one is for the miners!” And he threw it on the ground. “But this one,” he said with a smile, “is going to be for us!” And he put it in his mouth and bit down on it.

The group of about eight tourists got back in the bus, gifts in hand and the heaving vehicle continued its laborious ascent up the thin cobbled streets. Potosi is above 4000m, and the summit of Cerro Rico significantly above that. I was beginning to get another piercing headache from the altitude so I followed the lead of the locals and pulled some coca leaves from the transparent green sack that I’d bought at the market. I pulled the thick stems off and pushed the leaves into my mouth one at a time, chewing for a bit and then gathering the bitter pulp into a ball in my cheek. It had the sort of medicinal intensity where you think ‘this must do something!’

Efra then took us to an ore processing plant, which looked like it hadn’t changed much since the 16^th century. These days the pulleys were powered by electricity instead of mules and slaves, but the rest of the mechanics were probably still the same; paddles skimmed foam off the top of sedimentary containers and little circular wheels picked up chemicals with which it doused the ore, helping it separate. One ton of ore might get you 400 Bolivianas worth of minerals these days – just over USD$50. We handed some bags of coca leaves to the workers, one of whom stared lecherously at this one French girl and said something, certainly inappropriate, in the indigenous language of Quecha, still widely used by miners. They both laughed.

Eventually we turned off the main road onto a little dirt path that led past a few mines. Amazingly, even though Cerro Rico has passed it prime, there are still around 500 functioning mines operating in the area. The previous night I’d been in the mood to watch some TV but since the screen of the TV in my room had been replaced with an old newspaper, I met up with some German friends to watch a movie at their hostel. We had watched a documentary called “The Devil’s Miner” about the Potosi mines in which a 14 year old boy was struggling to keep his family fed, after his father had died, by working in the mines with his younger brother. Bolivia does have laws against child labor but it is rarely enforced, especially when the children are there by their own volition, such as in this case; the reality is, miners make more money than shoeshine boys. It amazed me that amid the chaotic conditions the boy, Basilio Vargas, still finds time to play with his siblings – including his feisty little sister – and the ability to laugh. The adaptability of humans to their surroundings is always something that I find intriguing – especially since it goes both ways. Like the story of the amputee and the lottery winner; a year later both reach reach comparable levels of contentedness and suffering.

As we approached the entrance of the Candeleria mine (which was one of the first established in 1545) I could make out dark stains around the entrance where llama blood had been splattered. This was an offering to Pachamama, the Earth mother who they hoped would protect them and lead them to the most profitable veins. Once inside the mines however, Tio (or ‘uncle’ in English) was who the miners had to respect and depend on. Each mine has a large statue of a demonic being, including horns and a giant phallus – after all, you don’t want to insult the Dark Lord by giving him a tiny penis.

As we entered the mines we turned on our headlamps. A thin track ran along the ground and after a few minutes of hustling through the thin tunnels Efra yelled at us:

“A wagon is coming. Soon! Get against the wall!”

We scattered like nervous chinchillas, finding small nooks against the cold, damp tunnel walls. A few seconds later a 1 ton wagon bullishly groaned by, pushed by two miners who barely acknowledged us. Soon after that we came to a fork and turned left, into Tio’s shrine. The smiling demon sat before us, his head almost at our height. Covering his arms and laying at his feet were the daily offerings of coca leaves, 98% proof alcohol and cigarettes. The miners have a fearful respect of the Devil, and unfortunate accidents and bad luck are usually blamed on miners who provided shabby offerings. In ‘The Devil’s Miner’ a Catholic priest had expressed the difficulty he had in trying to convince the miners that they could find Jesus everywhere.

“Not in the mines, they say. Down there is the domain of Tio.” He shook his head. “But at least they come to church and embrace Jesus on Sunday.” In such an intense situation it’s probably bet to hedge your bets. The reality is that the mines are a dangerous place, and in the case of accidents, the police rarely get involved. So if you discover a thick vein of silver, be careful who you tell – jealousy could leave you buried even before your lungs fail. For this reason many miners work in small groups, preferably with their family members.

At first the tunnels were cool and the air wasn’t too bad. In some places parts of the arches from 1545 were still in place, an somber connection to the times of the horrendous conditions and enslavement. These rocks had surely heard the cries and screams as the slaves had been beaten and abused. As we got deeper the air became clammy and warm. There were air tubes that pumped air from the surface, but they were of questionable effect. Efra led us passed working miners, upon whom we bestowed our various gifts, and eventually he led us down to level two, which involved the descent through a low ceilinged array of tunnels and rickety ladders. There we met two men who were shoveling large piles of ore into rubber buckets which, once full, were being winched up through a small hole near the ceiling. The pile was endless, with still others bringing in more ore constantly in wheelbarrows and dumping it at their feet. They looked like the kind of guys who could use some high calorie lemon soda, so Efra pulled a bottle from his bag.

Eventually we reached the fourth level down, after having to move through a tight series of passages on our hands and knees. As I lay on my belly in the dim light, waiting for the Dutch guy in front of me to more his jolly ass, the sound of a distant dynamite explosion pulsed through the surrounding rock.

“Don’t worry,” Efra smiled, “it’s from another mine.”

There was a moment there where I started feeling a little nervous, a little trapped and a little unhappy. By this point the air twas thick with an alkaline dust and I’d wrapped a damp bandanna across my face (another Burning Man trick!). At times like these I find it useful to incorporate a useful technique from Vipassana meditation; I close my eyes and observe my breath until my mind calms down. Find your center and realize that this moment, like all moments, are fleeting. Why be averse to something so transient?

At the deepest part of the mines we met a solitary, 13 year old boy named Nelson. Nelson was at the dead end of a deep tunnel, hand drilling a slim hole into which he was soon going to stuff some dynamite. After he lit the fuse he would only have a few minutes to run down the tracks and scramble through the tunnels before the shock-wave ripped through the entire mine. A wagon rumbled above our heads, dislodging a fine rain of dust from the rotting beams that kept it, and us, happily separate. It was time to head towards the entrance.

As we retraced our steps up narrow crawlspaces and avoided hurtling wagons full of ore the groups pace subconsciously quickened; it was apparent that everyone was looking forward to seeing sunlight. We’d only been in the mine for a couple of hours but a lot of these guys worked six days a week, eight hours a day – and that’s when they didn’t pull double shifts. Before leaving for the mines in the morning and upon returning their wives would serve them multiple bowls of llama stew to give them some long lasting energy for the days work. But no matter how much llama stew, coca leaves and lemon soda, this was a rough existence.

As if the tour hadn’t already been wild enough, Efra pulled a stick of dynamite from his bag:

“Look, now I’m a terrorist!” He laughed as he lit the fuse and then pushed it into the hands of the tourists so they could take pictures holding a lit stick of dynamite. Just as the smiles were fading and people began to back away he handed it to a miner who ran out into a field with it and through it in a hole and dove behind a rock. The explosion shot earth 50ft in the air and vibrated the ground beneath our feet. You have to love the lack of rules in developing countries.

As we trundled down the mountain in the bus, which now seemed somehow more luxurious, I thought about the life of the miners and their belief in Tio. Like any humans that face extreme harshness in their day to day lives, faith gives them hope and something to believe in. Surely when your day to day life is hell, then it feels good to be told that it’s all for a purpose, a distant heaven where all your dead friends and family would be and your pain would be taken away for eternity. That might just be enough to keep you going.

I absolutely understand the need for this yet simultaneously have a deep disdain for blind faith; so this posed an interesting debate in my head. How could you ever ask these miners to abandon their faith? You couldn’t. In fact there was a strange moment in ‘The Devil’s Miner’ where Basilio admits that Tio was probably just created to keep the miners working, however even in his moment of logic, he still finds it easier to live with this faith. I continued to ponder this and realized that there are levels of faith, some more socially benign than others. In truth it seems like the real blind faith that needs to be targeted isn’t in situations such as Basilio, it’s at the higher level; the corrupt government who bleeds its people dry while attending Mass on Sunday. On a global scale it’s the radical right wing Christians and militant Islamists who want to impose their beliefs on the rest of the world while not tolerating any other path. These groups and individuals are surely more malignant than simple laborers who put faith in the Devil and Pachamam for protection. Faith is beautiful when it connects people, and tragic when it segregates. Sadly the latter is faith’s typical trajectory, proven time and time again, for millenia.

In a somewhat depressing moment I asked myself how much has really changed since 1545 when powerful tyrants, morally empowered by a twisted dogma laid claim to a distant land, exploited its resources while enslaving and converting its indigenous population? These days the powerful tyrants work in more subtle ways, which is even more threatening because it makes it hard, especially for the misinformed and ignorant masses, to tell who the enemy is. Ultimately if the higher levels can be reached, if they can be shown the misery that their actions are propagating on themselves and the world around them AND that there’s a happier way to exist, then the trickle down affect would reach everyone, even those deep underground, working in the world of Tio.

See all the pictures from the Uyuni Expedition here…

God damn borders. Ever since I was about nine, they’ve triggered an uncomfortable feeling in my gut. The reason? From a young age, I had collected a large array of knives. It started as the standard going-away-to-camp-for-the-first-time Swiss Army knife but soon evolved to more unique additions including a kuhkri that my sister Victoria had bought me in Nepal and a goat-skin sheathed machete from her time in Africa. Even my parents had given me knives – it wasn’t a weird fetish, just an honest, affection for the shape and design of the instrument.

So there I was, in Heathrow Airport, surrounded by 3 security guards, one of whom was gripping a semi-automatic weapon. I had just walked through the metal detector and had apparently triggered the ‘this guy has a large piece of metal on him’ alarm. My mother approached the metal detector:

“Madam, please wait right there!” The guard with the gun blurted. I instinctively put my hands up.

“What are you carrying?” One of the guards asked me.

“I don’t know. Honestly!” I honestly didn’t. I got patted down and, from a hidden pocket inside my jacket, the third guard fished out a rather large and intimidating butterfly knife. This style of blade is illegal in pretty much every developed country, including the UK, due to its favorability among criminals. As was customary when authorities got involved in my childhood, my mother always came to my questionable rescue:
“I’m his mother, I’ll take care of his punishment!” I smiled awkwardly. I heard this line many times and it usually meant a fate worse than what any uniformed authorities could legally bestow; she had a tough disciplinary streak which would have my pants down and any reachable, spank-worthy object in her hand almost instantaneously.
“You’re a terrible mother!” The more superior looking guard exclaimed. “What kind of mother would allow her son to possess such an item?” At this point I was relieved to see her matriarchal terror turned on the unsuspecting guard:

“How dare you question my maternal ability, you rude little man! Now we have a plane to catch to Italy! Let us through!” The guard was obviously taken aback, but before the situation progressed any further a British Airways representative emerged from behind in the line.

“Excuse me sirs,” He calmly spoke in the Queen’s English. “I believe I’m the pilot of their plane. He’s just a boy, so why not just confiscate the weapon and we’ll all be on our way.” In a concession that would probably never occur in 2010, the head guard relented and we past into the gate area – but not before my mother simultaneously thanked the pilot and flashed the guard her meanest of Italian vendetta glances. For now it seemed I was spared. I never got my prized butterfly knife back but ever since then I’ve had a deep apprehension of borders and metal detectors. Occasionally it’s totally unreasonable; for example, when I see drug dogs, I can’t help but think, what if I am smuggling condoms full of cocaine in my ass and I don’t even know it!? Either way, these days I always double check my pockets and refuse to be anyone’s mule.

The border into Bolivia was hardly frightening but it was impressively in the middle of nowhere. In every direction the only other sign of human existence was a dismantled school bus, otherwise it was just open desert and mountains. A group of about 20 tourists were in line, all having been dropped off by the same bus and getting ready to split off into Jeep-sized groups of 5 or 6. When I reached the front, the burly and bulletproofed guard took my passport and grimaced:

“Estados Unidos!” He threw the passport down, stood up and assumed a boxer’s stance. His face then lightened up and he laughed. “No is OK, but you must pay.” He pointed at a poster explaining the fees, but I was already expecting this. Like many countries in South America, Bolivia now imposes a reciprocal fee, mirroring the charge that we impose on Bolivians visiting the US. My passport got put into a paper envelope, further sealed by an absurd amount of staples and was then handed to Herman. Herman was the driver of our 4×4 and didn’t speak a word of English. By this point though, thanks to my iPhone’s dictionary and verb conjugating tutelage, I was now able to carry basic discourse and understood that he’d be keeping my passport until I paid the fee at the immigration offices in Uyuni.

Herman and I emerged from the small building into the bright desert sunlight and approached the rest of our posse, who had gathered their bags by our red and rugged Toyota Landcruiser. There were 6 of us, not including our quietly smug driver; it was me, Alessandro, Susie from Scarborough, England and the sweet Australian couple, Cameron and Adelaide. The sixth addition to our posse was Marianne, an older Canadian writer and photographer, who immediately seemed happy to fill the maternal role and offered us sunblock and cookies. Herman strapped our bags to the top of the truck along with some gasoline, a canister of propane and a bunch of other supplies. It would be about 3 days until we reached dependable services so we had to carry all of our necessities.

I happen to be very fond of games of chance when the odds of winning are statistically in my favor. For example, while the girls took the back seat and Marianne assumed the front, it meant that the boys would ride in the middle row and one of us was going to have to ride ‘bitch’. So, if you play a game of chance for such an outcome, your odds of winning are 2:3 – a decent bet, and way better than anything you’d find in Vegas. However, I especially like playing games of chance when I have the upper-hand from a psychological standpoint and ever since my favorite scholarly-hippie Dustin Boyer taught me to some psychological trickery, I always suggest the game of ‘rock, paper, scissors’. I don’t always use the trick, and I promised Dustin I wouldn’t publicly share it, but needless to say, Cam lost and was riding in the middle. The group of 4x4s loaded up and one by one shot off into the vast desert.

Day 1 took us to 4600m (x 3 1/3 = ~15,200ft) via a few spectacular lagoons. Laguna Blanca is a sodium rich lake, dotted with pink flamingos and black ducks that feast on the plentiful microorganisms. The 4×4 kicked up grit as we zoomed across great expanses, flanked by multicolor hills rich with mineral deposits of copper, iron and sulfur. At Laguna Verde, a small shift in the wind can dramatically alter the green tint that the dissolved copper creates. While we took photos I also took some time for stretching, push-ups and even used some matching rocks as makeshift weights. It’s inevitable that some people think this is funny, but I could care less; too many empanadas and fancy cakes in Chile had left me feeling a little soft, and the intense heat of the desert always prompts some body tuning.

We passed the hours driving in stints of conversation, quiet thinking and games such as ‘What is your porn name?’. If you’ve never played this game, it’s surprisingly easy and hilariously effective. All you have to do is take the name of one of your pets and combine it wit a street that you’ve lived on, resulting in your porn name. We laughed at our concoctions:
Mariann: Frisky Sherwood
Me: Muffy Paradise (definitely not in the heterosexual market)
Adelaide: Spiltsy Pacific
Susie: Peanut Byward
Cameron: Goldie Soldiers
Alessandro; Billo Retta. OK, Alessandro’s didn’t really work so we changed the rules for him, substituting his favorite pasta instead of street name. So watch out if a tanned Billo Macaroni shows up to fix your plumbing!

That afternoon we passed through the desert of Salvador Dali, where the rocks are reminiscent of his psychedelic paintings. Oddly shaped formations jutted unexpectedly out of the otherwise featureless sand – it just needed some large ants, elongated figures and melting clocks to complete the effect. At the Laguna Rojo the others relaxed in the thermal baths while I went off to snap some macro photography. Brightly colored mineral deposits sat in clumps around the edge of the lake while still more encrusted the sides and beds of the warm spring streams. Greens, whites, browns and the odd tufts of sturdy grasses created rich textures around the blood-red lake.

Leaving Laguna Roja I was promoted to DJ in the front seat and got to share some of my favorite Burning Man style, deeply reverberating bass sounds with the others which I thought were completely relevant for the sulfurous and bubbling geysers we came upon. As usual they trippy electronic music wasn’t received with too much enthusiasm so I resorted to a mix of more poppy tunes; in a stylistically regrettable pinch, there’s no better cross cultural bond than Abba’s Dancing Queen.

So I have a little bit of an impulse purchase problem, especially when it comes to new technology. Just before leaving had paid about USD$80 for a slim solar charger that can recharge anything that is powered via a USB. So far, in the last two months I hadn’t needed it yet but I was sure this desert trip would finally allow me to tell Tammy Lee, an incomparably sweet friend of mine who’d playfully mocked my impulsiveness, that it had been hugely invaluable. However as my iPod battery drained I noticed, not without a little annoyance, that a car-charging iPod cable hung from Herman’s cigarette lighter. God dammit, I’m never going to use this thing! I thought. My self judgment was shaken into oblivion as a herd of brown and white vicuñas vaulted from the side of the road. Herman blasted a rather comical sounding horn, the kind of thing a child’s firetruck might sound like, only at an ear piercing decibel. The vicuñas scattered in terror.

After a long day’s driving we finally reached a couple of narrow, one storey buildings that abruptly appeared on a rocky expanse between Laguna Colorada and an up-crop of tree-less mountains; this would be our home for the night. We unloaded our things and had a nap, before being woken up by a grinning Herman who insisted that we go for sunset at the Laguna. As we descended the steep hill towards the colorful lake, we came upon a bunch of grazing llamas who were enjoying the tough lakeside grasses too much to be bothered by us. The lake had streaks of red, white and green from the dissolved borax and sodium and algae that bloomed on the surface. A distant storm over the Bolvian altiplano (the high, flat section of the country, surrounded by mountains) punctuated the sunset with electrical flashes. I came upon a dessicated llama; only tufts of hair remained on its leathered, taut skin. It’s empty eye-sockets stared intensely ahead while it’s mouth had stretched into a thirsty grimace. It probably died of exposure and surprisingly didn’t have a single scavenger’s bite, a sign that indicated how little life actually survived here.

It was only inevitable that one of us was going to get altitude sickness. You never know who it’s going to be. In fact it’s so hard to predict that you might be fine on one excursion and deeply effected on the next. Whatever the case, the thin air and lack of oxygen can really mess with your head. The symptoms include nausea, severe headache, dizziness, severe fatigue, lack of appetite and slow brain function. In fact, a Bolivian high altitude expression is ‘Walk slow, eat light and sleep by your poor, lonely self!’ indicating that any large expenditure of energy can be rough on your system. Cam was the worst affected and had been in a daze for most of the day – Herman suggested that we all get dosed up on coca leaf tea. In fact I got so hyped up that after a simple dinner, when almost everyone else went to bed, I decided to remove my babbling self from the remaining group and go for a solitary desert walk. I looked up at the bright stars and tried to remember the things that Stella had told me at the Las Campanas observatory. The Southern cross and Orion. The Magellan galaxies. Saturn and Mars. I saw numerous shooting stars and, still in a coca infused state, was well on the way to plotting the next 10 years of my existence when I realized that somewhere in the featureless darkness, the inn had turned off it’s generator and things now seemed extremely cold and reference-less. Luckily as I retraced my steps my eyes detected a pinpoint of light in the distance – it turned out it was coming from a battery powered lamp in the kitchen and it led me all the way back. I went to bed, still too amped from the coca tea to sleep so I read the Bolivian Lonely Planet book with a reading light (yes, on my Kindle) until I got tired: do you know that the Andean condor has a 3m wingspan and can drag 20kg cadaver with ease?

On Day 2 everyone felt shitty. I distinctly felt, even though not a drop of alcohol had been consumed, like I’d drunk a bottle of tequila the night before and was now having an aneurysm in the rear left of my skull. At around 8am (the lack of decent sleep was certainly not helping) we met at the breakfast table in sunglasses, resembling a group of drug addicts in the depths of cold turkey. While the fancy-pants tour on the table next to ours feasted on more pancakes than they could consume, we ate dry bread and sugary spreads. More importantly though, we all forced down a cup or two of bitter, coca leaf tea and amazingly after packing were all feeling much more normal, even Cam, who now didn’t look like he was so close to death.

We had a large distance to drive and Herman blazed along, through open expanses of sand, in shallow river valleys and over rocky hills. The first stop was the Stone Forest, which was yet another sudden appearance of strangely shaped rocks, formed by the erosion of long vanished waters. The harsh winds and flying grit had further smoothed the rocks and provided the backdrop for some fun pictures before we moved on. By this point, Susie and Adelaide were becoming experts at jumping out of the cramped back seats and reinserting themselves amid the bags with surprising agility. We all traded snacks, lip balm and sunblock. However, it was looking good that we weren’t going to sing any group songs.

We passed more lagoons, smoking volcanoes and a little town where we stopped for a few basic supplies and where I played with a little kid and a stray puppy. We stopped at a lake for a picnic and Herman prepared a delicious fried chicken and pasta salad – mayonnaise of course was abundantly provided. (Argentina, Chile and Bolivia all have a little problem with mayo-addiction, and every supermarket has an entire aisle dedicated to it). We drove through salty mud flats where we found a remote cemetery in which the crosses where fashioned out of railway iron. We went through a pseudo military post where Herman gave ‘gifts’ of wine and eggs, passed ancient cliff dwellings and finally into the small town of San Martin where we’d be staying that night.

As we pulled up to the inn it was already getting dark. There was no electricity yet and the flowing hot water that we’d been promised was a pathetic, cold trickle. A Swedish couple from another 4×4 was freaking out. Amid the chaos I decided to dip out and explore the little, mud-brick town. I found a pleasant central square (most towns have one) where I read my guide book and tried to figure out my next move upon hitting Uyuni the next day. While it was nice to travel with the group I was feeling two things: I was filled to the brim with adventures and needed some time to reflect and write, and I was missing the solitude where I found this more possible As if to underscore the latter, Susie and the Australians appeared and coerced me to return to the inn and join them for wine; I didn’t put up much of a fight. On the way back we found an odd couple: a sheep and a llama that appeared to be great buddies. Any place one would go the other would follow – for some reason this made us all very happy and I added it to my growing mental bank of metaphorically-thick children stories.

After returning to the inn and peeking inside the kitchen, Allesandro and I made a pact that we weren’t going to eat any meat that came out of that dank room. I used to think I was invincible until I visited Nepal in 2007 and got a case of giardia so bad that it stuck with me for weeks – talk about a socially awkward condition; it was like Satan had made a new home in my intestines and was having a party with his favorite, gaseous bacteria. Anyway, these days when in doubt, I stick to being vegetarian. Luckily, as if to anticipate our concerns, the dinner was a simple pasta with tomato sauce which we enjoyed on rickety chairs in the austere glow of a single, unshaded fluorescent bulb.

When I got to bed I was grateful for possessing earplugs – besides rather potent feet, Alessandro had a serious snore on him – and I barely remember sinking into my squeaky trench of a bed before falling into a deep, dreamless slumber.

The final day began at 4:40am and as I tried to blink some moisture into my contact lenses I began to muse that I was really going to need a vacation from this vacation; I’d never worked so hard at recreation! I woke up to an mini-argument between Susie and Alessandro. She apparently been awake for hours because of his snoring and had been constantly beating him with her pillow. He was annoyed that he’d been disturbed and was of the mindset that if you can’t sleep it was your problem. Either way he threw a sock at her which took things to the next level. I went to the bathroom and decided to give the cold trickle of a shower a pass, instead performing a quick handy wipe cleanse (a fantastic skill learned from my time in the desert of Burning Man).

We had woken up at the crack of dawn so we could hustle to the Salar de Uyuni, the world’s most expansive salt flats, for sunrise. After packing the cars, we bounced and weaved through the difficult roads until we abruptly hit a smooth surface that crunched like ice under the tires of the 4×4. We had reached the edge of the salt flats. The darkness was slowly lifting as a deep red gradient on the horizon met the receding midnight blue of the night sky. As we came to the edge of the shallow water that covered parts of the Salar, this gradient was perfectly reflected in reverse on the smooth surface. I’ve never seen anything like it; at times it was impossible for even your eye to perceive any discrepancy in the reflection. The Salar is so flat that even a half inch of water can cover large swaths of it uniformly, and the shallow ripples created from the 4×4 don’t have the chance to propagate far enough to disturb the illusion.

Just before sunrise we reached another dry patch and got out to take pictures. I was in my own world and walked off to explore a distant fleck of black on the horizon. I was listening to an unbelievable musical mix that my good buddy Dr. Tristan Ursell had sent me which was fantastically appropriate for sunrise on this flat, white planet; “A Minimally Distorting Lens” pulsed and fizzed through my dome-piece as I ventured on my own path. The other day Cam had walked off and Adelaide had said:

“I don’t know why he does that sometimes!”

“Guys need to do that occasionally.” I had assured her, but I had kept thinking about that moment. It’s true; at times I have a compulsively active brain which often nesessitates the need to achieve mental stillness; I can do this most effectively in solitude. Only when this stability has been reached can I then propagate a content and peaceful mindset to others. So girls, that’s why some guys have to walk off occasionally. ‘It’s not you, it’s me!’ Seriously.

By now the sun had risen and I’d reached the distant black fleck, which only turned out to be a seemingly misplaced pile of rocks. Realizing that I’d been lost in my head for some time I turned to look at the 4×4 and noticed that Alessandro had also gone off on his own but was now walking back. I decided to head towards him and we met about 50m out onto the reflected surface, yet still in only about ½ an inch of water. We took some fun pictures, agreed that this was the most strange place we’d ever seen and returned to the 4×4 where people were hungry and needed to pee. I was mildly annoyed that we had to leave this dreamy landscape so soon but such is the reality when traveling by committee.

For the next hour we drove at about 50mph across the salt flats towards the other side – but it felt like no matter how fast we went we didn’t get any closer. In fact the Salar de Uyuni is spread over 10,582 square kilometers (4,086 sq mi), which is roughly 25 times the size of the Bonneville Salt Flats in the United States. It was slightly unnerving to think that we were cruising on a thin crust of solid salt (only a handful of inches in some places) and below that was cold, briny water. On the other hand we had calculated that in the last 5 years Herman had completed this trip about 180 times so the odds were good that he knew what he was doing. We asked Herman if he’d ever lost a tourist; he just laughed. It’s interesting to note that the Salar is so flat and large and has such clear skies that it makes an ideal location to calibrate the altimeters of orbiting satellites.

Just before reaching the other side we came upon single level structure; the first hotel made entirely of salt. Real glass windows and wooden doors were sandwiched between bricks that had been excavated from the Salar’s crust; you could easily see the layers of salt and fine sediment. The hotel was in a state of disrepair and many of the walls were sagging. Almost comically, the walls had signs posted requesting that visitors ‘please don’t pee’ on the hotel. In the front of the hotel sat a few tables and broken benches made of the same salt bricks. Herman busied himself making breakfast while we explored. Inside the building was a pseudo-museum with salt sculptures and a few, still functional rooms which seemed to be occupied exclusively by Japanese tourists. We’d had been offered the chance to stay at a salt hotel but had politely declined; while quite a unique experience, they pump your excrement right into the water below, which is not only kind of revolting but not so great for the environment.

After a delicious pancake breakfast we were on our way again, passing salt harvesting operations that scraped layers of the salt into piles and then transferred them to trucks. We finally reached a small town at the other edge of the Salar. While Herman found a kitchen in which to cook the lunch and the others did a little shopping at a series of handicraft booths I set off around town to explore. It was a very strange place. First of all, like San Pedro, all the buildings were made of baked mud bricks. Many were falling a part but some new ones were being built in what seemed to be a continual process. There was barely a soul around, probably because this was a salt mining town and they were all off mining salt on the Salar. As I walked through the empty, decomposing town, a hauntingly romantic Spanish song emanated from somewhere amid the buildings. A nice local lady broke the eeriness when she walked by and engaged me in conversation. She said the place used to be a lot more pretty when the trains worked, now everything was falling apart and no one cared. She said that I would enjoy the thermal baths to the north more. I didn’t tell her that I was the kind of tourist that preferred roaming around abandoned buildings than lazing about in thermal baths. I thanked her for the information and she disappeared into a thin alley.

On the way back to the 4×4 I walked past a fence made of train track cross-ties, the perpendicular part that supports the rails. Inside the fence was a Catholic shrine. As I continued walking I noticed that next to it was another fenced off area, which had a large TV satellite inside it. I couldn’t help but find some amusement in this: two side-by-side, and hugely different forms of extra-terrestrial communication. I wondered which would prompt more complaints from the locals if vandalized.

The final stop before Uyuni was the train cemetery. This is an unbelievable collection of turn of the 20^th century steam powered trains that had been left to rust after their useful period elapsed and funding dried up. What seemed like hundreds of salty and eroding machines stood on a few decaying tracks, in a stark reminder of our earthly impermanence. Much of the sheet metal had been oxy-acetylene’d off for scrap but what remained was still wonderfully ornate in its complexity. A ridiculous amount of pipes, nuts and knobs adorned the old steam engines and we had a lot of fun climbing on them and taking pictures, while carefully avoiding scrapes among the tetanus glazed death-traps. Herman fixed lunch which I politely declined; the sheer amount of flies and the questionable source of the meat after 3 days had me sticking to my $5 imported Pringles. That’s right, perfectly decadent.

By the time we hit Uyuni it was a double whammy culture shock. First of all, we’d just been in the wilderness for 3 days and suddenly Herman was basically like: ‘OK, here is the bus terminal so you can plan the next portion of your travel. Adios amigos!’ and secondly Bolivia was far more rugged than anything I’d experienced in Chile or Argentina. I knew this was going to be the case and was in fact looking forward to the challenge, but I just hadn’t acclimated yet. So as the others, including Alessandro who had a tight schedule to keep, plotted their way immediately to La Paz ,I decided to stay in Uyuni for the night to relax and gather my thoughts. After I checked into a semi-completed hotel (my floor was completed but the two above me were not) I met up with the group at a pizza spot in the main square. We traded pictures and talked about how fun the trip had been. I don’t know it was fatigue or over analysis but there was a weird vibe at the table, in particular directed at me from Susie. For the last couple of days her playful jabs at everyone had become increasingly directed towards me, and increasingly less playful. She constantly laughed at my Americanisms and my choice of writer’s vocabulary. Others were even noticing it and it was more a comment of her, than of me. It takes a lot to aggravate me so I played it off, but as a final oddity, it seemed as she felt that I was abandoning the group. “Oh, you have big plans for Uyuni, do you?” Rather than let anything come to a head I simply enjoyed an ego-snack by telling myself that she was attracted to me and like many people who don’t leave behind this relic of adolescence, this was how she was dealing with it.

After lunch, rather than dragging the goodbye out further, we parted ways outside the pizza place and since I hadn’t finished my beer I turned to a table with a cute blonde girl who I thought I recognized – such meetings and re-meetings are typical when traveling on the same route as others. “Hey!” I said more confidently than I might with a stranger, “Can I chill with you while I finish this?” She had an unbelievably large smile and when she removed her glasses I noticed her blue eyes and also realized that I’d actually never met her. Nevertheless, I sat down and returned a large smile, at this point mostly due to the fact that I was once again going solo. Kim offered a welcome change of positive energy; a bright and gregarious American girl, taking a trip before starting her PA medical degree in South Carolina. We immediately hit it off and spent the rest of the day together.

The next morning she was heading to the salt flats and I was heading to the old mining town of Potosi. I gave her the rest of my handy wipes, she gave me some Q-tips and a course of the antibiotic Cipro just in case Bolivia had any intestinal surprises in mind. We made plans to meet again the following weekend in La Paz if our schedules worked out as planned.

Either way, as I headed to Potosi, I felt inspired and once again independent. When you travel you meet people and you visit places. Some you like, some you don’t. You move on. You begin again in a new place with a new group and a similar set of questions. Where are you from? How long are you traveling for? What do you do back home? What are you going to do differently when you return? That last one is always the least asked but most important in my opinion, so I always ask it of others. When turned introspectively, I’m happy to say that this trip has already provided the objectivity and clarity that I was hoping it would – and a glimpse of what needs to change when I return. I’ve had a surprisingly deep vision of where my being is headed, identifying the emergence of a very real, and deeply-needed social shift, the foundation of which I have been subconsciously building for years.

In these final few weeks of my trip I intend to clarify these thoughts and to plot the course for the next iteration. I still intend to get back into Argentina and find that much fabled motorcycle in Bariloche, but for now, this bright and plant-filled courtyard of the Grand Hotel in the charming town of Sucre seems like the perfect place to be. And for $18/night for a private room and bathroom, functional wifi and a gourmet meals for $5 on a plant-filled patio, why should I rush to anywhere else?

See all the pics from San Pedro de Atacama here…

Valparaiso, in the days post-earthquake. Even with the current situation, I could tell the Pata Pata hostel owners were getting a little tired of me ringing the bell, using their kitchen and being a wifi parasite – all under the pretense that I was visiting Alessandro, my friend who was staying there. After only sleeping at Pata Pata for one night, I’d moved to another place around the corner where I had my own room and avoided their screaming child, all for only a couple of dollars more. So in a cunning move, after a couple of days of ‘hanging out’ in their cozy lounge, I bought them gifts of chocolate and wine; this offering was well received and prevented the imminent and awkward ‘what are you still doing here’ conversation.

The TV news coverage of the earthquake became increasingly more dramatic as the situation in Concepcion spiraled into what resembled civil war. People were looting and burning stores, the military were enforcing a curfew by firing shots into the air and numerous buildings were in a state of collapse, all while the death toll continued to rise. I looked into options of heading south to offer my help but was told that the addition of my non-fluent and hungry mouth might not be the best help in this situation. However, my Chilean friend Matias suggested I share link a for people to donate and I promised to post various options here… Even if you can spare only $5, that would be a huge help!

Alessandro had finally heard news that his friend in Concepcion was safe, but the off-road Bolivian trip they had been planning for months (and had invited me along on) was seeming less and less likely. Amid the chaos in the south, his friend had managed to steal a small amount of gas but the infrastructure was still too rough to negotiate and he couldn’t get out of town. We waited a couple of days, just in case the story changed but finally we bought two tickets north, promising to wait for him if he ended up making it out. On my final night in Valparaiso, I worked late into the night in the Pata Pata lounge, catching up on some LA work that I’d been neglecting. On of my remote tasks is to create and send out the mass-mailers, in this case one for Mindshare LA’s next event and one for Syyn Labs and OkGo’s video release. I always find it to be a bizarre feeling when I finally press ‘send’, imagining the almost 5,000 emails that get shot out in a matter of minutes to each list. That ethereal action alone propagates so many impossible-to-track interactions and serendipitous exchanges; it blows my mind every time. Just before logging off, I got an email from the non-profit organization that I had worked with during my charitably debauched 30th birthday party; 1700 nets had just been delivered to a slew of villages in Ghana, Africa – and all thanks to a week of eating cake and drinking champagne! I closed the laptop, more than a little burnt out and looking forward to a handful of offline days.

As the bus left the station the next morning, a cute Chilean girl moved down the aisle to her seat.

“Ciao.” Alessandro said, as she looked at him oddly. ‘Ciao’ happens to be Italian for hello and goodbye, whereas in Chile ‘chau’ is only used for ‘goodbye’. I infomed him of this and told him that this was certainly the only reason that she looked at him oddly.

“No problem. She is bona, but I like a little more pork.” Alessandro said. And as was quickly becoming standard in our exchanges, the conversation suddenly turned to girls. Of course man similarities exist across cultures, but there are also unique idiosyncrasies to get used to. For example, to get the attention of Chilean girls requires a much more assertive attitude than the typical western man projects, but this is no problem for Italians, Alessandro assured me:

“In Italy, if a bellisima girl walks, everybody stop and look. Many times I almost crash my car. What I can do? It’s in my genes.” The nice thing is, that even if a girl is not so into you, she’ll find a polite way of expressing it; a refreshing alternative to the swaths of western females that think the world, and its male inhabitants, should bow before their stunted femininity. And what’s even more sad is the men that happily assume this role, thus continuing the emasculating trend. We talked about the girls we’d met at the Valparaiso club and even though they were early twenties, Alessandro, who is thirty two, said they were too young for us. Somewhat surprised by the combination of his Italian genetics and sudden morality, I informed him that the existing standard for ‘dating age morality’ is the simple equation of ‘half your age’ plus seven. According to this system, as a thirty year old man, engaging women under twenty two is morally questionable, so I believed I was in the clear. In any case it had only been an innocent encounter, any potential passion cut short by the world’s 7th most powerful earthquake in recorded history.

After a couple of hours we arrived in Santiago, where we were scheduled to catch a connecting bus that would take us twenty-four hours north to San Pedro de Atacama. As we waited, we drank some coffees and watched TV in the terminal. It was refreshing to watch ‘TV Bloopers’, a favorite Chilean TV show of social pranks filmed by hidden cameras, instead of more earthquake coverage. For example in one skit the sound of kittens-in-distress came from a bunch of cardboard boxes and when people got closer a man in an alligator outfit jumped out, scaring the hell out of them. You get the idea, simple but hilarious. In fact we were laughing and chatting so much that we missed our bus, which was in fact at 7pm, not 7:30pm, and had departed from about 10ft away, directly behind the bench where we were sitting. Alessandro, who had identified the problem when he went to confirm the ticket, is just the kind of person you want to travel with; on his return he was smiling, showing no indication of stress:

“So, we missed the bus.”

I spun around like an idiot at first, somehow assuming that this might make the bus reappear – after all they’d been the last two tickets departing that day, but soon followed his calm lead. For an extra USD$10 we booked a bus for the following morning and to appease our feeling of stupidity, we both agreed that we must have inadvertently avoided some mangled alternate destiny. I made an unexpected call to my friend Matias, who generously said we could stay at his house and proved, yet again, to be a very welcoming host. After exchanging earthquake stories (he’d been with ten of his closest friends at a party at a 10th floor apartment!) I played with his pug (not a euphemism, see picture above), jumped in his pool and his housekeeper cooked us an excellent meal. The next morning he dropped us at the metro station and after hustling to the bus station, and waiting for our delayed bus, we finally began the twenty four hour ride towards the Atacama, the driest desert in the world.

Chilean buses, while not quite as plush as their Argentine counterparts, are pretty fantastic affairs. You can book the cheap clasico, which is a little tight but good for a strict budget, the semi-cama, which provides deeply reclining seats or the plush super-cama whose seats recline fully into beds. To assist the driver there is a steward, who passes out blankets and serves snacks. And of course there are flat screen TVs that project movies and TV shows for the duration of the trip. As we left the city, somberly noting some collapsed structures and cracked pavements that passed by, David Blaine, arguably the world’s most famous magician, appeared on the TV. ‘Street Magic’ is a show in which he walks around town, when he’s not busy publicly freezing or drowning himself, and drops the jaws of passerbys with his magic. In one illusion, he gives a basketballer a deck of cards and asks him to pick a card, and to show it to everyone except him. At that point he asks the suspicious man to shuffle the cards and finally to throw the entire deck into the air. As the cards lie on the ground, Blaine feigns the typical yet suspense building monologue: ‘Oh damn, this isn’t going to work… I think I messed it up…’ etc., but finally he approaches a basketball that is near the edge of the court. He rolls it over to the man, and handing him a knife, asks him to cut the ball open. To the amazement of the crowd that has gathered , the man cuts it open and reveals the contents: his card. In another illusion, he coaxes the wedding ring off a nice old lady who said she’s never taken it off since her marriage, and then he promptly bungles the handover and drops the ring down a New York sewer grate. ‘Oh, so I’m sorry.. Oh that wasn’t meant to happen! I don’t think this can work now… How much can I pay you for your troubles?’. Of course at this point her expression is one of fearful hope, exclaiming that this must all be part of the act, and just before she really gets upset he walks the lady, and the crowd, down the block where he picks up a tiny glass liquor bottle, which impossibly contains the ring. Tears of joy from then woman, applause from the crowd.

Of course these are amazing illusions and never fail to shock the witnesses, one man even fell to the ground laughing and exclaiming that Blaine ‘is a real goddamn magician’, but with each illusion Blaine is actually displaying that what appears to be magic is actually completely possible. As we left the city and sped through valleys blanketed in vineyards I considered that as humans, we so often mistake our extremely limited perception for ultimate truth; I can’t help but wonder what are we fooling ourselves about on a daily basis?

A little time later a horrendous smell reached my nostrils. It was the smell of damp feet. I turned up my nose, amazed that someone could be so rude in such a confined space. The guy in front of me even put his seat in the upright position and the cute, busty girl next to me turned to look out the window; it was at that moment I realized, in a terrible flash of guilt, that the smell was emanating from my very own flip flops. The last time I had worn them was in a hygienically-uncertain shower some days before, after which I had packed them without letting them fully dry. The moldy-funk had now been officially activated and was a shock even to its owner. At the next rest stop I walked barefoot through some sand, and upon returning to the bus, hid the offensive flip-flops in the only place I would really need them; the bus toilet. On my next trip to the toilet however, I noticed they had been removed, presumably upon complaint by a fellow passenger. Eventually the steward, probably seeing me barefoot at one rest stop, handed me a knotted plastic bag containing my flip flops. I mangle together an apology but he didn’t seem impressed. What a filthy backpacker!

By sunset I was amazed by the shear amount of climates and diverse scenery that we’d traveled through. It’s not really that surprising, Chile is about the same size north-to-south as the US is east-to-west, and we were covering almost half of that on this bus trip. Farms sprang up that used closely grown together cacti in place of fences. As we left the valleys, we passed rocky coasts and slowly the lush greens turned to arid browns as the vineyards and trees were replaced by dusty shrubs and barren expanses..

For the fifth time, an advert for sandwich bread appeared on the TV, followed by the media company’s pitch to attract more advertisers; happy to publicly indicate that their clients were guaranteed an ‘audienze cuativa’ that was not able to change the channel, thus ensuring the viewing of their advertisement! The honesty was impressive, but since I was only mildly interested in sandwich bread I decided to get some work done on my laptop. Being a functional Technomad, I had activated Gmail offline at the beginning of the trip and so even while I had no wifi signal, I was able to spend the subsequent five hours replying to neglected emails from friends asking if I was still alive and smoothing over the inevitable business nags. After that and still very impressed with my netbook’s battery, I watched two great videos that I had downloaded the previous night; one on the future of gaming and how it’s positioned to enter all sorts of unexpected areas of our lives and the TED talk of Sir Ken Robinson, who was lamenting the currently archaic structure of education that does not take advantage of a student’s natural gifts. As he received a standing ovation, my battery ran out and I fell asleep, happy that there was so many great people in the world, but as is always my concern, a great idea is a great idea, but the real measure of success comes with an idea’s execution.

I awoke to a bright, cloudless day, whose sunlight fell upon an austere desert, ringed by snow capped volcanoes and mountains that looked like they’d been touched by the brush of an abstract painter, brightly reflecting streaks of red and white mineral deposits. By the time we disembarked, between my social compulsiveness and Alessandro’s Italian charm we had befriended a good portion of the bus, including a cute English girl and a wonderfully sweet Australian couple with whom we walked towards the main street. Every structure in the little town of San Pedro de Atacama was adobe styled, made of baked bricks of mud, which gave the town a wonderfully rustic charm. Just below the surface however, San Pedro is a blatant tourist mecca, brimming with packaged adventure tours and delicious restaurants centered around fire-pits; but still, it made a welcome stopover.

As we went our separate ways on our hostel hunt, we made plans to hook up later, explore town and to research tour agencies advertising expeditions to the Salar de Uyuni, the world’s largest salt flats. Eventually Alessandro and I checked in to the Eden hostel which had clean rooms, spacious bathrooms and a charming, shaded courtyard which provided a welcome refuge from the sun’s intense rays. After showering and both leaving our shoes outside, we met the others for freshly squeezed fruit juices before hitting the dusty streets in search of the next adventure. Susie, a cute girl from the north of England, took her recreation quite seriously indeed and suggested that we book three excursions over the next thirty-six hours:

“It’s nice to have it all planned, and then we can relax for a day before leaving for Uyuni” which she called anything but ‘Uyuni’: Uuni, Unuyi, etc. Alessandro and I still held off on the Uyuni portion, hoping that his friend might still make it north.

Later that day we hit Valle de La Luna, where we were shown strikingly bizarre mineral formations, climbed around and stood at the base of huge cliffs of quartz and salt infused rock. As the heat expanded the minerals that had cooled during the chilly nights, the cliff let off the sound of tired and heavy cracking. Large piles of discarded rock lay uncomfortably close to the minuscule tourists. We decided to move on.

On our second day, deftly led by Susie’s delegation, we woke up at the ridiculous time of 4am so we could catch the sunrise at some local geysers. It was intensely cold, and a fine layer of frost covered much of the ground. I remember thinking that there was no way that it was going to be like the picture the slick tour agency had shown us – which was obviously snapped on a perfect day and then Photoshopped. However, as we arrived at the geysers, a giant valley of smoking vents unfolded before us. It was a glimpse of a different planet, one where fleshy humans surely could not exist! Our guide told us about the different types of geysers and was even able to predict seconds before one erupted in a giant, steaming column of super-heated water. He pointed at the mountains that encircled us on every side, telling us they were in fact fifteen volcanoes, five of which were still active. From the volcanic destruction of Chaiten, to the earth rattling mayhem of the recent earthquake in Concepcion (which NASA was now blaming for a significant shift in the earth’s rotational axis), I couldn’t help but feel incredibly tiny and vulnerable amid the natural power of this seismologically active country.

After returning to San Pedro for lunch, we found out that Alessandro’s friend, who was also Italian, was being sent directly home by his company and so the chance of him joining us was now impossible. We decided to book ourselves on the same 3-day Uyuni tour as the others; thankfully the agency had been kind enough keep two spaces for us. To celebrate we decided to spend the afternoon taking fun pictures on the slat flats, splashing around in local hot springs and buoyantly bobbing in super salty pools; getting wet in the middle of the world’s driest desert seemed like a perfectly decadent way to spend an afternoon. Incidentally I think ‘perfectly decadent’ would make a great epitaph, but since I intend to be cremated and spread across the earth by a hand picked group of my most adventurous friends, it might have to just be the title for my auto-biography. Our guide was a chubby and wonderfully friendly local called Danilo who regaled us with stories of his youth in San Pedro and his departure after Microsoft had seen some of his software engineering work and offered him a job. After a couple of years in Redmond, one day he’d just stood up from his desk and left the building. Later that day he was on a flight back home:

“That morning I had no idea that I was going to do it, but over coffee I saw a brief glimpse of my future in the faces of some of the old employees. I didn’t like this future. A few days later I was back in San Pedro and had enrolled in a outdoor leadership program. I’ve been leading groups in the outdoors ever since.” He grinned broadly, “Now, I am so happy, every day!” Then he turned to me and quietly confided: “And do you know, it is many times that a Dutch or Australian tourist girl asks me for a personal tour around town after the official tour is over!” He laughed loudly, startling the skinny French girl next to him. “It’s a good life!”

Danilo told us more facts about the Atacama, and said that in some places there had never even been a drop of rainfall recorded. “The dry heat preserves everything. The buildings last for a long time, even though they’re made of dirt. Even bodies! The indigenous people had a technique of mummifying their deceased relatives – and you could visit them – until the tribal people complained. But I saw them before, very strange!” Danilo explained the mummification technique which included replacing the organs with mud and sticks, and adding a wig of human hair before allowing the body to dessicate into human jerky under the desert sun, before finally wrapping it and burying it.

Before we parted ways, Danilo expressed his excitement for the upcoming “Running the World” competition that was coming to the Atacama in a few weeks. Every few years a handful of closely vetted runners attempted to complete a circuit of the world’s most challenging runs, one of which being a marathon across the Atacama. The last time, 300 runners had started the race but only 15 had completed it; the most surprising completion by a blind Korean man! No matter how hard you think you can push yourself, there will always be that blind Korean man to make you feel like a pussy.

On our last night in San Pedro, Alessandro made yet another amazing pasta dish for the group and afterwards I showed them the music video that Syyn Labs had created with the band OkGo; it was on YouTube’s homepage and had almost reached 4m hits in 3 days. It was in fact the first time I’d been able to watch it and I quietly felt a rush of pride for the team that I’d helped put together. I may not always be the most book-smart guy, but when it comes to seeing value in people and putting them all in the same place, I’m pretty on point. In my absence the team was getting interviewed by CNN, had been posted on all the biggest blogs and even Stephen Colbert was asking if a Rube Goldberg machine could work on his set!

The next morning we awoke early and packed, extremely happy to have a bag of freshly washed laundry to bring with us into the desert; it was going to be 3 days of very tight conditions in a 4WD Jeep. Alessandro smiled, which always made him look like a mischievous devil with angular features and dark eyebrows, and happily exclaimed:

“Aaah, it’s great! Today I change my panties!” I laughed out loud and explained the specifics of underwear in the English language. We left the delightful Eden hostel, walked down the dusty road, past colorfully clad local women and leather faced men, to a bus that was waiting to take us to the Bolivian border. I changed the last of my Chilean pesos and a sense of excitement bubbled inside me as we bobbed away from San Pedro, down the desert road.

I still have to write the update from Isla Chiloe to the Las Campanas Observatory but wanted to post my earthquake experience ASAP. See all the photos here…

It had been a wild couple of weeks while I raced to La Serena, in order to catch Stella Kafka, the most lovely observational astronomer that I know, on her last night of observation at the Las Campanas observatory. I blazed through Santiago and only spent about 8 hours in Valparaiso – the most colorful and expressive town I’d ever visited. I was sad to have to rush, but the invitation was too fantastic and in the end it was absolutely worth the race – the observatory felt more like a moon base and the stars were unparalleled in their clarity. I was Stella’s assistant for her final night and kept her awake while she searched for distant suns with orbiting planets that might, or might not, be appropriately stable enough to allow for a ‘habitable zone’. (I will write this story next – very cool stuff  – thanks Stella!)

I was at the bus station and in a sudden impulsive move, bought an overnight bus ticket back to Valparaiso – I told Stella that I didn’t know what it was, but something was calling me south again.

“I’m looking forward to reading what happens!” She said as we parted ways.

The next morning I arrived at the crack of dawn, and after a nap on the charming Pata Pata Hostel’s couch on Cerro Allegre (one of Valparaiso’s 44 hills), I finally found a peaceful place to finish my Chiloe story. As is customary after finishing a big piece I decided it was time for celebration and decided to hit the bars with a fun Italian fellow named Allessandro who I’d met at the hostel. He’d just arrived and I coaxed him out of his jet lag to join me.

Some hours later we had a first hand experience of the 7th largest earthquake in recorded history! I was rocking out to some minimal house (I’m having to adjust my musical tastes down here) in an underground club called La Sala when the columns of the room began to fluidly jiggle like jello. It was like the feeling when you realize you’ve had one drink too many – but I had only had a couple of beers so was a little confused. Before it clicked it, a very pretty girl grabbed my arm and pulled me towards the entrance while yelling ‘terramoto’!

The crowd heaved for the the only exit and as we finally emerged we noticed that fallen pieces of the building had crushed some cars that were parked outside. That was when I realized it was more serious than I’d originally thought – but we still had no idea of the extent of the damage. A minute later all of the town’s lights went out. Cars, trying to make a quick getaway, narrowly avoided stumbling pedestrians. The club emptied out and the bouncer told everyone to consider their items in the coat check as ‘lost’. As the club barricaded it’s doors, two fights broke out in the madness and a group of four of us headed away from the seaside street, fearing a tsunami. Street dogs ran around wildly, barking at nothing. We were four, two chilean girls (including the one who’d pulled me out of the subterranean confusion) and Allessandro who was babbling a creative tirade of Italian curses: “Porca puttana, que casino!” or “Pig prostitute, what a mess!”. At a dark bus stop we offered to wait with the two girls for their ride home. Finally, a packed collectivo. a psuedo taxi that picks people until they’re full, stopped and they managed to cram in for the ride. We walked home in the darkness amid broken glass, rubble and more than a couple of crazies that were shouting at the almost full moon. At one point a couple of kids said to me:

“Da me tu plata.” or give me your money.

“No, da me tu plata.” I replied and walked past. It may have helped that I was openly carrying a blade. It always seems that would-be muggers are less likely to go for someone openly carrying an unfolded knife.

Two days later the electricity was still out in some parts of the town (my hostel included) and it was impossible to find a way out of town as all the bus systems were down. While there’s a bunch to clean up in Valparaiso, it’s mostly superficial. The town, while still mostly standing other than some facades, roofs and balconies, felt post-apocalyptic. Many windows were smashed from their frames and few people came out in the following evenings – most probably staying home with their families. The cell phone credit systems were also broken, but in a generous move they opened up their networks for free use. The south was hit far worse, many roads and bridges collapsed and airports are closed. As the following days unfolded, news from the south hit the airwaves and it really looked like a warzone. Looters hit the stores, fully clad riot police threw tear gas and blasted the crowds with water cannons. A prison break led to 270 prisoners escaping. As is the typical human response in catastrophe, things get primal.

The earthquake hit 8.8 on the Richter scale and lasted for a couple of minutes. Significant aftershocks were felt for the next 36 hours. Wine trembled in glasses like the classic scene from Jurassic Park. People reached for something solid to hold.

I’d felt compelled to return to Valparaiso after already heading north last week, determined to find something that I’d missed. And besides a town that I could really consider living in one day, it’s so full of art and creativity – so much that even an old prison has been turned into an art gallery, I also found an intense story of personal threat and happy survival.

Eventually the bus station reopened it’s systems and I planned my next move. This time, I was going to head significantly north. Allessandro’s vacation plans had taken an unexpected turn as his friend, who he was going to drive into Bolivia with, happened to live near the epicenter in Concepcion. The last we heard he was trying to steal enough gas from the broken pumps to drive north but it was unsure. So Allessandro decided to join me on the bus and we bought the last two bus tickets to San Pedro de Atacama, home of the driest desert in the world and a healthy 25 hours drive north. For now we plan to travel together for a while, hitting salt flats and some of the more severe roads in the world.

What could possibly go wrong?

The winding road towards the Carrera Austral. (See all the pictures here…)

The Chinese maid knocked and entered my Hong Kong apartment in one fluid movement. And by apartment, I really mean a single room so compact that that if you stood in the kitchen you could reach the door, bed, shower or desk in one step. She looked at me and then her eyes drifted to the two glowing monitors, mess of cables and electronic devices spewing onto my desk. From there, her gaze traveled to my bed where a giant map was spread out and covered in red circles and writing. Then, with a look of surprise probably due to the fact that the tiny apartment resembled the den of some gweilo spy, she backed out without saying a word.

It was 2005 and it was on my first Technomad journey. I had coined the term to use as a collective title for my travel stories and thus began the The Technomad Journals. However, the term became more than just a title almost immediately. I soon realized the power of being able remotely sustain yourself and furthermore if you could combine the lower costs in much of the world with the income of a Western job, it meant that you could live well and not work too much. (NOTE: The key here is you need to have the backing of Western clients or a company, not trying to convince a Thai restaurateur that he owes you money Technology has already begun to offer us this unprecedented experience – however, this was still the early days and with a suitcase full of hardware, I didn’t really understand the concept of lightweight living. 5 years later, devices are smaller, more capable and more connected than ever – and we are truly heading towards the possibility of a streamlined and wide spread Technomadic existence.

Oh boy was I smart! I had crossed the border from Argentina into Chile where I’d stayed in the charming town of Chile Chico for two nights, preparing for an impromptu journey, 500km north on the rural, and desolate, Carretera Austral ‘highway’. I was nursing a cold (probably due to my thoroughly failed wet-weather gear in the mountains near El Chalten) and was happy to catch up on some writing while consuming large amount of homemade bread washed down with instant soup. Everything was going to plan and I had bought a boat ticket for the next morning. In bed on my final night, I had tossed and turned until late; I’m not usually an insomniac but if I’ve digested or produced a lot of neuron-firing content before bedtime it takes me a while to settle down. The only boat headed to the other side of the vast Lago Buenos Aires was at 7am, but I was smiling because I’d realized that Chile was an hour behind Argentina, and I’d changed my clock hence buying me an extra hour of sleep. How smart I was, I thought to myself as I finally drifted off to my usual realm of surprisingly boring dreams. Yes, it’s odd, but I tend to dream about things like being at a supermarket or waiting in a line at the airport.

I awoke two minutes before my alarm, something that always makes me feel like it’s going to be a great day, had a leisurely shower, packed and went down to breakfast. As I walked into the kitchen I experienced one of those shortness of breath moments when I looked at the clock and it read Argentine time – it said 7:15!

“Que hora es?” I asked the owner of the hospedaje, who was up and getting ready for work.

“Siete y cuarto.” He knew that I had to catch the boat, but in his leisurely rural way, smiled, pointed at the clock, then at me and then rested his head on his two hands – the international symbol for sleeping. I grabbed my bags, said goodbye and ran out the door while projecting a slew of colorful language – my profanities fell on deaf ears of course, no one in this town spoke English. I ran down the street for five minutes to the pier, just in time to see the rear of my boat disappearing behind a peninsula. The only other guy on the pier was a construction worker who seemed equally amused by my unintelligible cursing.

“Manana. A la siete.” He smiled, then playfully frowned as he offered his advice which included a wave of his finger to indicate ‘no’ and then the international symbol for sleeping. So apparently Chile Chico uses Argentina time? What the hell, people!

I was upset at myself, then at my clock, and then at a rock which I kicked down the street. But I quickly turned my mood around, by laughing at myself: for someone who prides himself on ‘going with the flow’, I was certainly all ruffled up over a missed boat. Additionally, I will mention that if you enjoy writing, any possible upset has the potential to be the beginning of a story – if you just let it reveal itself. I had a determination to not go back to the hospedaje defeated so reframed this setback as the beginning of my dirt-road adventure around the gigantic lake. Truthfully, I hadn’t been worried about it at all, that is, until yesterday when I had told a restaurant owner of my plan and he pointed at the first 200km portion of the route on my map, and said:

“Muy Dificil! No mucho automobil” He had suggested that I get the boat, at least until the other side, which was more traveled. Come on now, how hard could it be to find a ride? Well, I soon found, in the local supermercado where apparently you buy the tickets, that the only bus leaving town was full. OK, well time for some hitchhiking, I said to myself, and crafted a simple sign out of an old shoe box with a marker I bought instead of a ticket. I posted up at the town’s main intersection – a bustling crossroads of the occasional car and a few street dogs that came by to smell the new guy in town (NOTE: I am still carrying my rusted metal pipe from Calafate…)

At this vantage point I became aware of one or two other foreigners coming through town and after friendly nods was exchanged, they would usually come by to say ‘hello’. In highly populated tourist areas, tourists tend to diverge, trying to avoid anyone that will spoil the illusion that they’re rare foreigners in otherwise untouched cultures! However, in towns with so few, we tend to converge because it’s just kind of nice to see someone as out of place as you. Next I met Kaste, an older German man who was taking a break from motorcycling Argentina’s rugged Route 40 to explore some Chilean farmlands. Kaste spoke zero Spanish – in fact it didn’t even seem like he was trying to learn any either, much to the amusement of locals who had gathered around his bike. The were asking how many cylinders, how much it cost, where he was from but all he could answer was:

“No Espanol!” They laughed to each other, until old Kaste probably felt so uncomfortable that he mounted his giant, grit-covered KLR and drove off, shaking his head at me. I had been passing the time by reading a pretty appropriate Sci-Fi novel called Snow Crash, which centers around the idea that language itself is hackable. Maybe he should read Snow Crash – or at least get a phrase book and make an effort.

After 3 hours, me and my wind blown sign had barely gotten a glance so, with the advice of a fat n’ jolly senora, I decided to move to the gravel road that led out of town – a way smarter idea, ensuring that all cars passing were actually going out of town. Under a sign that indicated the daunting distances to faraway towns, I met Victor. He worked for the local municipality and was heading over to a neighboring town – I think to visit his girlfriend, because his wife was away, or his wife’s siter, or both. I didn’t really understand fully but was amble to make idle chit chat because I had a secret weapon, one that Kaste could have benefited from greatly. Before leaving Buenos Aires, I had loaded my iPhone with a Spanish-English dictionary and a conjugator for the most popular verbs. Inputting quick taps between these two programs I was quickly being able to learn a basic and functional Spanish. I entered words that I heard but I didn’t know and speedily find nouns and verbs to mesh together into a butchered, but often intelligible sentence. After learning that Victor was a child of six, and father of three, what days our birthdays were on and the rest of the basics, we’d passed an hour under the sign, while thumbing a couple of cars with no success. Victor went over to a tree with a stick and hit it until some apricots fell to the ground. He offered me one – it was fantastic. At that point he picked up his bag, looked at me and said:

“Voy a mi casa.” As he tapped his watch. “Voy a regresar manana.” It slightly worried me that a local was giving up until tomorrow, but now in my 6^th hour, I decided to make a final stand..

It started to lightly rain as a very blonde and very wind-blown, red faced man in a colorful jacket and blue tights approached me on a bike.

“Waiting for a ride, I see?” But before I could answer, “I am Gunther from Austria!” He exclaimed victoriously. He then straddled the bike, and reached into his bike’s front pouch. His odd nature made me wonder what he was going in there for, but he harmlessly pulled out a can of already open pineapple rings which he poked into his mouth while continuing to look at me.

“Well, nice to meet you Gunther. I’m Douglas from Los Angeles.” Which seemed to aways have a more excited reaction than just saying “Estados Unidos.”

“Aah, like Michael Douglas.” He grinned. It’s funny, in non English speaking countries, this has to be the number one response when I introduce myself.

“Yes, exactly, except I’m not an old sex addict… yet!” Gunther either didn’t understand the joke or didn’t find me funny.

“And so! You are going north?” Wiping the pineapple juice off of his splotchy, reddish-white chin with the back of his sleeve.

“Yep, looking for a ride. What about you – biking north?”

“Yes, but no!” And laughed. “This next part of the road is difficult for biking. I prefer to get a lift to towns, and then ride around!” He now laughed some more, finding this idea funny. “And so, maybe see you!” He placed the pineapple can back in his front pouch and rode off in the direction that he’d come from.

Sometime later I was joined by two Chilean backpackers headed the same way – they were nice but it made me more concerned that I was now even less likely to get picked up; groups are less likely to be given lifts, but on the other hand, one of the Chileans was a cute girl – who tend to be infinitely more likely to get picked up, so perhaps it balanced out. We chatted for a while and to my amusement they thought I was Italian! Well, I am half-Italian but they said that I spoke Spanish with a slight Italian twang, a relic of having lived in Rome when I was young. I was beginning to think I might have to begin the glum march back to the hospedaje when I saw a little bus bobbing down the road from the supermercado – no doubt the full bus that didn’t have room for me. I stuck the thumb of my right hand and waved my left arm and smiled my face off. The bus pulled over and a French-sounding guy stuck his head out a window.

“We have space!” I scanned the faces inside and it seemed like he was the only other tourist.

The driver got out, an we arranged a $12 ride to Puerto Guadal – almost all the way to the main intersection of the Carretera Austral – which supposedly had more thru-traffic. Just as I had got into the bus, a large truck pulled up to the Chileans and had opened it’s rear doors where they were apparently welcome to sit with a bunch of logs. I felt jealous of their authentic hitching experience until I realized it had started raining harder and once closed in, there would be no way to look out. Suddenly $12 in a warm, dry bus with windows seemed like a great deal.

The driver bungeed my bag to the top, I crammed in next to a guy with a beret and a thick mustache and we were on our way! It’s truly a wonderful feeling, when you’ve been waiting for a ride all day and then you get one and you’re moving, moving on to the next adventure! I think I smiled for the first half hour as I pressed my face against the glass. While cloudy, the view of the mountains and lake was still spectacular. The dinky bus, packed with 10 passengers and one very serious driver, sped along gravel roads, past valleys and farms and along the edge of lake-side precipices. ‘He’s done this before’, I assured myself. We weaved around giant boulders that had fallen into the road, and passed the remains of a horribly mangled guardrail sandwiched by some bouquets of flowers. ‘Our odds are good – if we were in Vegas, I’d bet on us.’ Sometimes even logic didn’t really cut it, but I always remember the words of my Mom when she’d move us to another country or when she was plotting her next life move:

“There’s nothing to fear, except fear itself, Douglas. You could drown in a bathtub.”

We passed some graffiti on a bridge: ‘Patagonia sin represas!’ Apparently to meet the country’s growing energy needs, the Chilean government is considering the damming of some major waterways, which would cause some environmental problems, as well as displace families and take the livelihood away from many others. As I continued to travel, I saw this phrase increasingly often – showing that it’s obvious a big point of contention.

After two hours, and seeing only two or three other cars, we arrived at our last stop, Puerto Guadal. As luck would have it, one of the other passengers ran the tiny town’s hospedaje and promised to make us a delicious dinner if me and Pierre stayed with her. Oh, no thanks, I think we’re going to try the Holiday Inn down by the boardwalk and afterwards get some chicken wings at the Hooters next to the Casino. But seriously, there was not too much happening in the town of Puerto Guadal. The main action, which had turned the heads of a few locals, was the typical street dog chasing a pickup – but in this episode it was barking at another dog, in the back. Soon other local dogs had joined in and dragged the poor mutt out of the truck and were all having a showdown in the central square. It looked ugly but soon got split up by some men with sticks. Entertainment over, we went inside. As Esmerelda showed us in our rooms I got the feeling that Pierre wanted to stay in my room. There was no one else in the place so I made sure to say:

“Separado.”

The simple room was a floral print jubilee; I counted five different styles between the two bedspreads, curtains and patchwork of wallpaper. For what it lacked in style it made up for in coziness, with thick bedspreads and pillows so after a little walk to the quiet lake I decided to take a nap before dinner. When I went downstairs to join the group for dinner the entire family, a father and mother, two sisters, two brothers and a baby, had gathered around the table and was tucking in to a giant platter of grilled lamb.

“Aaah, bienvenido gringo!” The little brother playfully said as I joined them. I had a feeling that Pierre, who was sitting there grinning, had put him up to this. He had the stereotypical snobbery that people often assign to the French. Sometimes it’s just the accent, but sometimes, like with Pierre, it’s well placed:

“Everyone knows there really is no comparison to French wine.” He said, “However, perhaps Chile comes second place.” Even if true, the way he delivered it just sounded pretentious.

The lamb was tender, and even the baby got a piece to gnaw on, which everyone thought was hilarious. I offered everyone wine from a USD$4 bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon that I had bought – even the cheap wine down here was pretty damn good. We talked about dams, which everyone was against – but everyone still wanted more stable, cheaper electricity. Just for fun, I asked if they had Internet, and much to my surprise they had it at the library – additionally Esmerelda was excited to tell me that in April the tiny town was going to get high-speed mobile Internet. And so the disparate villages of earth get connected; whether by fiber, by copper or by airwave the net of information is seeking out all nooks and crannies of the planet.

After dinner Pierre showed us a slideshow from his trip to Antarctica using a DVD that the tour boat had given him. It turned out that they weren’t even his pictures, but still very cool and for a moment, although perhaps it was just the wine, I didn’t find him as annoying. After spending some time reading by the wood stove, I retired to my room alone which seemed to disappoint Pierre, and fell asleep in my floral cave.

The next morning I was woken up by the delightfully rural sound of chickens outside my window. The clouds had broken and the sun had brightly lit the back yard and surrounding lush hills. I went downstairs and entered the kitchen at the exact same time as a duck entered the door opposite from the yard.

“Aaah, Tomas el pato!” The father clapped, much to the joy of the little boy. The duck flip-flopped past the wood stove, to a bowl of grains that they’d laid out for the family’s favorite farm friend. Before leaving us the previous day, the moody bus driver, had told us he was continuing to head up the coast today and we could join him. Not knowing when the next ride would be coming through, I’d agreed to join him and so had Pierre. He promptly rang the bell at 8:30am and looked at his watch impatiently as we boarded.

The local buses also function as an easy way for locals to send items to other towns so on the way out of the village we picked up some boxes of various fruits and some dried goods. As the bus picked up a few more people here and there, I was happy to see how friendly everyone was. A young boy came onto the bus and sat down next to the same old man with a beret that had been on our bus yesterday – they didn’t seem related, but obviously knew each other. I always appreciate the friendliness of small towns, everyone knows their neighbors and says ‘hello’. Rural society is more transparent which means the incidence of sociopathic behavior decreases. Obscurity seems to breed sociopaths; any system, animal or otherwise, intrinsically acts for self if it can get away with it. True altruism is a rare occurrence as it’s not typically rooted in survival or genetic propagation, and certainly takes more effort than just saying ‘who cares?’. OK, I’m sure small towns can drive you crazy too, always being publicly accountable for all your actions, but somewhere between the intimacy of village life and the anonymity of a metropolis is a land of friendly existence. I began to wonder what it would be like if people had endorsement systems, sort of like the was you do on eBay, but in real life:

‘++AAA++ friend. Will hang out again!!’ or ‘Zero Stars! Poor boyfriend. Consistently inaccurate information given. Engage at your own risk!’

I’m not advocating a completely transparent system, of course it’s important to respect privacy, but there’s got to be a sweet spot where people can have the privacy they deserve while not being able to get away with being sociopathic assholes. Forms of this have already begun to happen – slowly – in many areas, from corporate greed to political agenda. Individuals and groups that would like to take advantage of the system are having a harder time doing it, thanks mainly to the transparency and communication that technology heralds. Chile, like any other country, has a political history rife with power plays and tactics for misleading the populous through deceit and manipulation. And then there’s the US’s involvement in Chilean politics, that aimed to bring down Allende’s pseudo-Socialist government in lieu of Pinochet’s rough dictatorship, that went undisclosed for 30 years. Some people might argue that the way to profitable peace has got to cost a little bloodshed, but ever the Utopian, I believe there’s got to be a cleaner path.

Apparently in this part of Northern Patagonia has an average of 1:1, people:km/sq and the roads are so curvy they’re called caracoles (snails). The next few hours of bumpiness, was broken up into iterations of scenic views and pee breaks until we reached the even more quaint and well named Puerto Rio Tranquilo. It has all the beginnings of a tourist town in the making; a great name, a fantastic view and even some local attractions like caves and rock formations, the prize being the ‘Catedral Marmol.’ or Marble Cathedral. When the road gets paved, this place will no doubt boom – and I felt privileged to see it before it does. It had started raining again but as we got off a few guides still approached:

“Catedral Marmol?”

“Do you want to go?” Pierre asked. Traveling alone is often the best way to travel. You move swiftly and don’t have to submit to decision my committee. Sometimes you even find people that you want to travel with for a while but then, you might decide to go separate ways. Occasionally for no reason other than comfort you pick up barnacles. You gotta know how to shake them. This was my chance:

“You know, I’m sort of still sick, I’m going to find a place to stay. Or going for a walk. Or I might go to one of those restaurants or cafes.” I made sure to offer a spread of my possible whereabouts. As I walked away, down the road, I waved: “See you later!”

I weaved through town and after the usual tactic of knocking on doors and asking for habatacion found a little, warm hospedaje. I still had this lingering cold so after throwing my bags in my room, stretched out in front of the little wood furnace for some cozy reading. I figured what better place than to start futurist Ray Kurzweil’s ‘The Singularity is Near’ than in front of a fire in a rural, disconnected town in the middle of nowhere. The book is close to 500 pages. I also have a few similarly sized Lonely Planet country guides and a slew of other books with me, all in the tiny little device known as a Kindle, weighing in at somewhere under a pound. The battery is good for a week or two or reading and if at any point I need to add a new title to my library, it’s equipped with a global GSM chip able to download a book in under a minute.

Later in the afternoon, it was still raining so decided to continue reading and writing from a little cafe along the main street. Nescafe has Chile by it’s smooth, tanned balls – so far every single cafe offers the rather nasty instant powder accompanied by hot water by default; I’ve only found a few places that offer a real drip or espresso coffee. This cafe doubled as a bakery and as is quickly becoming a problem for me, I couldn’t help but sample an empanada. Empanada’s in Chile are far larger and juicier than their Argentine siblings. I must have joked about the size of Chilean empanada’s for 5 minutes with the bakery owner and her three teenage daughters:

“Tu prefieres las empanadas mas grand, o mas chico?” And I had the cafe filled with girly giggles. “Con salsa picante?” They all liked big empanadas, but the mention of hot sauce had them fanning themselves. I was proud to be able to cause some smiles even with my crappy, psuedo-Italian Spanish.

I walked through and out of town where I had a face off with a curious cow but eventually returned for a homemade dinner of salad and steak with french fries and an egg, for the reasonable price of $4. The next morning it was still raining – not really hard, but hard enough that I found the pictures of the Marble Cathedral more than sufficient and luckily entered town just as a bus was pulling up. Any guess who else was also walking up to it?

“Hola Pierre, I must have lost you yesterday. How was the Marble Cathedral?” He told me how great it was, and how fun and awesome his hostel had been and that I should have joined him; I feigned deep remorse as we boarded the bus.

“Where are you going?” He asked.

“You know, I’m not sure yet,” Actually I was going north to Coyhaique, but I didn’t want to encourage him to join. “but I hear that Villa Castillo is GREAT!” Luckily there were only single seats left so I sat next to a skinny man who slept the whole time. At Villa Castillo we stopped and I asked Pierre:

“So what do you think? Are you going to stay?”

“I think I’ll go on to Coyhaique.” And my internal audience laughs and claps as the ‘applause’ sign is illuminated.

When we got off at Coyhaique things got awkward. I should have just walked away, but I just couldn’t bring myself to for some reason. Typically I dislike hurting people’s feelings, even though dragging it out often compounded the inevitable. So here’s how it went: It was raining, I walked out of the small bus station to find the cross streets and consult a Lonely Planet map. By this point Pierre had hung his bags around himself and caught up. We ended up walking in the direction of where a couple of hospedaje’s could supposedly be found. After finding one or two that said they were full, we found a nice old lady that showed us to a snug room for two.

“Separado.” I said. The senora said that was impossible because she only had one room left.

“I’d rather find my own room somewhere then – you can have this one.” I said. As I left the senora said she thought were were together and if it was just oner person, the room would be more expensive. Sheisse! Now I’ve got guilt going! If there’s two things I hate it’s unwarranted expectation and guilt trips.

“I’m going to head down the street.” Trying to figure out the best method out of this situation.

“OK, I’ll leave my bags here and join you, that way if you don’t find anything we can share a room.” Sweet baby Jesus, what the hell!?

He followed me around the block and finally I found a place that had singles for USD$18, USD$4 more than the other place.

“Well that’s more than I can afford.” He said, with his body language already trying to lead me back. I saw my chance. Again.

“You know, I’ve got some writing to do and I think that works just fine for me.” I had to stop walking, otherwise he’d keep moving. “So hey! I’m sure I’ll see you as we head north!”

The best USD$4 splurge ever.

Coyhaique is best described by Lonely Planet as ‘a cow town that kept growing’ and is now actually poised to become a big city of they agrarian industry, as well as a transportation hub. I know that sounds charming, but actually the town’s surroundings were beautiful, however it never stopped raining which made exploring the hills nearby a little muddy. I realized that I had left my super absorbent travel towel in Puerto Rio Tranquil but in searching for it found a poncho that I’d forgot I’d packed, which seemed like a pretty fair trade. I bought some dishtowels as a substitute, caught up on some emails and writing and got a grip of cash at an ATM. I travel with a few ATM and credit cards, distributed in different areas just in case I lose one or get robbed. And then whenever I need to I can dip this piece of special plastic into a wall and get out paper that lets me continue to live. Absolutely amazing! Talk about a technology not to be taken for granted? Some years back, still an amateur traveler I had entered Laos with about $20 in cash, not realizing that the nearest ATM was in the capital 1000km away. That took some creative problem solving to get out of.

I was tempted to explore the cities ‘Emo’ scene, in which a lot of darkly eye-lined and androgynous tweens meet in clubs and then go somewhere for ‘kissing parties’. Maybe a reaction to overly conservative Catholic upbringings? I decided to give the club scene a miss. Instead the highlight of Coyhaique was running into Gunther again, at the town’s center market, who was ravenously eating a juicy peach.

“Hey Gunther, you made it!”

“And so! A truck found me. It had two Chileans in the back. Very wet!” He’d managed to get some peach flesh onto his chin and I had a hard time looking anywhere else on his face. I told him about the club where the Emo’s would be in case he was interested and we parted ways.

The next day – yep still raining – I dreaded hitchhiking so decided I’d stop by the bus station and ask if there were any buses. The girl at one of the offices said there were no buses to Puyuhuapi that day. I asked her where the one out the front was going and she replied La Junta.

“Isn’t La Junta more north on the same road?” I managed to mangle together.

“Yes.” Still no connection.

“So maybe I could ask the bus driver to drop me in Puyuhuapi?”

“Maybe.” OK, thanks for the help there.

I got the last seat on the bus and couldn’t believe my luck – yet again! I sat behind a friendly señora who was making the entire bus laugh throughout the ride. As we headed north the surroundings became even more wet and tropical. This was when I read that this part of Chile gets an average of ~120ft of rain per year, so rather than a string of unlucky weather days as I had thought, this was just the norm. Craggy mountains rose suddenly around us, green outcrops clinging to their edges. Snowcapped peaks melted into slim waterfalls that poured off the rocks, sometimes right onto the road. Ferns and plants with huge leaves reached into the road like giant green fingers, relentlessly trying to claw it back into their possession. Condors were seen flying overhead while the driver avoided herds of cows on the road. I felt like a T-Rex was going to jump out at any moment and crush the tiny bus in it’s jaws. Reggaeton, the country’s favorite music, was blasting out of the radio. Occasionally we’d come across men in orange waterproof outfits, trying in vain to keep the road together as water poured from every crevice. Even when we hit a pothole and the back doors exploded open causing all our bags fell out into the mud, there was humorous camaraderie as we worked together to get them back inside, securing he doors handles inside to a handrail with a rope.

I used my iPhone to take turns trying to decipher the thick Chilean accents and listening to a pretty intense audiobook about the social structure and behavior of courtiers of the 1500s (trying to read on the Kindle surely would have led to me vomiting over the nice senora). I tried to imagine how utterly ridiculous our connected world of information and devices would have seemed to Cristopher Columbus or Sir Walter Raleigh; a white tablet that contains the text of a small library; a piece of plastic that can cause a wall to eject money; a pocket sized device that can translate languages, talk to me, record pictures and even communicate with others at great distances . And all that before blowing their Victorian minds with my netbook, a device capable of uniting them all and connecting to anyone else in the world invisibly. I certainly would have been proclaimed a sorcerer and been killed in a classically grisly way. Luckily however, things are a little bit more progressive these days, and the future we face, if indeed we can get there without destroying ourselves first, offers us an social existence based on ubiquitous communication and mutual growth, and most likely augmented by a layer of technology that helps achieve and maintain this.

The bus continued it’s bumpy sprint down the caracoles. I couldn’t help but feel lucky that I’d missed my boat and ended up in this cultural moshpit, happily moving with a crowd of strangers on a wave of the moment. I didn’t really know where I was getting off, I didn’t know where the next jarring bump was going to come from or indeed, what was going to happen next at all – but one thing suddenly became clear – I enjoyed the unexpected so decided not to head back to Argentina like I had planned, but instead to the the old, Chilean fishing island of Chiloe, home of tiny deer and mythical forest beings. Now that sounds like a good story

Oh boy was I smart! I had crossed the border from Argentina into Chile where I’d stayed in the charming town of Chile Chico for two nights, preparing for an impromptu journey, 500km north on the rural, and desolate, Carretera Austral ‘highway’. I was nursing a cold (probably due to my thoroughly failed wet-weather gear in the mountains near El Chalten) and was happy to catch up on some writing while consuming large amount of homemade bread washed down with instant soup. Everything was going to plan and I had bought a boat ticket for the next morning. In bed on my final night, I had tossed and turned until late; I’m not usually an insomniac but if I’ve digested or produced a lot of neuron-firing content before bedtime it takes me a while to settle down. The only boat headed to the other side of the vast Lago Buenos Aires was at 7am, but I was smiling because I’d realized that Chile was an hour behind Argentina, and I’d changed my clock hence buying me an extra hour of sleep. How smart I was, I thought to myself as I finally drifted off to my usual realm of surprisingly boring dreams. Yes, it’s odd, but I tend to dream about things like being at a supermarket or waiting in a line at the airport.

I awoke two minutes before my alarm, something that always makes me feel like it’s going to be a great day, had a leisurely shower, packed and went down to breakfast. As I walked into the kitchen I experienced one of those shortness of breath moments when I looked at the clock and it read Argentine time – it said 7:15!

“Que hora es?” I asked the owner of the hospedaje, who was up and getting ready for work.

“Siete y cuarto.” He knew that I had to catch the boat, but in his leisurely rural way, smiled, pointed at the clock, then at me and then rested his head on his two hands – the international symbol for sleeping. I grabbed my bags, said goodbye and ran out the door while projecting a slew of colorful language – my profanities fell on deaf ears of course, no one in this town spoke English. I ran down the street for five minutes to the pier, just in time to see the rear of my boat disappearing behind a peninsula. The only other guy on the pier was a construction worker who seemed equally amused by my unintelligible cursing.

“Manana. A la siete.” He smiled, then playfully frowned as he offered his advice which included a wave of his finger to indicate ‘no’ and then the international symbol for sleeping. So apparently Chile Chico uses Argentina time? What the hell, people!

I was upset at myself, then at my clock, and then at a rock which I kicked down the street. But I quickly turned my mood around, by laughing at myself: for someone who prides himself on ‘going with the flow’, I was certainly all ruffled up over a missed boat. Additionally, I will mention that if you enjoy writing, any possible upset has the potential to be the beginning of a story – if you just let it reveal itself. I had a determination to not go back to the hospedaje defeated so reframed this setback as the beginning of my dirt-road adventure around the gigantic lake. Truthfully, I hadn’t been worried about it at all, that is, until yesterday when I had told a restaurant owner of my plan and he pointed at the first 200km portion of the route on my map, and said:

“Muy Dificil! No mucho automobil” He had suggested that I get the boat, at least until the other side, which was more traveled. Come on now, how hard could it be to find a ride? Well, I soon found, in the local supermercado where apparently you buy the tickets, that the only bus leaving town was full. OK, well time for some hitchhiking, I said to myself, and crafted a simple sign out of an old shoe box with a marker I bought instead of a ticket. I posted up at the town’s main intersection – a bustling crossroads of the occasional car and a few street dogs that came by to smell the new guy in town (NOTE: I am still carrying my rusted metal pipe from Calafate…)

At this vantage point I became aware of one or two other foreigners coming through town and after friendly nods was exchanged, they would usually come by to say ‘hello’. In highly populated tourist areas, tourists tend to diverge, trying to avoid anyone that will spoil the illusion that they’re rare foreigners in otherwise untouched cultures! However, in towns with so few, we tend to converge because it’s just kind of nice to see someone as out of place as you. Next I met Kaste, an older German man who was taking a break from motorcycling Argentina’s rugged Route 40 to explore some Chilean farmlands. Kaste spoke zero Spanish – in fact it didn’t even seem like he was trying to learn any either, much to the amusement of locals who had gathered around his bike. The were asking how many cylinders, how much it cost, where he was from but all he could answer was:

“No Espanol!” They laughed to each other, until old Kaste probably felt so uncomfortable that he mounted his giant, grit-covered KLR and drove off, shaking his head at me. I had been passing the time by reading a pretty appropriate Sci-Fi novel called Snow Crash, which centers around the idea that language itself is hackable. Maybe he should read Snow Crash – or at least get a phrase book and make an effort.

After 3 hours, me and my wind blown sign had barely gotten a glance so, with the advice of a fat n’ jolly senora, I decided to move to the gravel road that led out of town – a way smarter idea, ensuring that all cars passing were actually going out of town. Under a sign that indicated the daunting distances to faraway towns, I met Victor. He worked for the local municipality and was heading over to a neighboring town – I think to visit his girlfriend, because his wife was away, or his wife’s siter, or both. I didn’t really understand fully but was amble to make idle chit chat because I had a secret weapon, one that Kaste could have benefited from greatly. Before leaving Buenos Aires, I had loaded my iPhone with a Spanish-English dictionary and a conjugator for the most popular verbs. Inputting quick taps between these two programs I was quickly being able to learn a basic and functional Spanish. I entered words that I heard but I didn’t know and speedily find nouns and verbs to mesh together into a butchered, but often intelligible sentence. After learning that Victor was a child of six, and father of three, what days our birthdays were on and the rest of the basics, we’d passed an hour under the sign, while thumbing a couple of cars with no success. Victor went over to a tree with a stick and hit it until some apricots fell to the ground. He offered me one – it was fantastic. At that point he picked up his bag, looked at me and said:

“Voy a mi casa.” As he tapped his watch. “Voy a regresar manana.” It slightly worried me that a local was giving up until tomorrow, but now in my 6^th hour, I decided to make a final stand..

It started to lightly rain as a very blonde and very wind-blown, red faced man in a colorful jacket and blue tights approached me on a bike.

“Waiting for a ride, I see?” But before I could answer, “I am Gunther from Austria!” He exclaimed victoriously. He then straddled the bike, and reached into his bike’s front pouch. His odd nature made me wonder what he was going in there for, but he harmlessly pulled out a can of already open pineapple rings which he poked into his mouth while continuing to look at me.

“Well, nice to meet you Gunther. I’m Douglas from Los Angeles.” Which seemed to aways have a more excited reaction than just saying “Estados Unidos.”

“Aah, like Michael Douglas.” He grinned. It’s funny, in non English speaking countries, this has to be the number one response when I introduce myself.

“Yes, exactly, except I’m not an old sex addict… yet!” Gunther either didn’t understand the joke or didn’t find me funny.

“And so! You are going north?” Wiping the pineapple juice off of his splotchy, reddish-white chin with the back of his sleeve.

“Yep, looking for a ride. What about you – biking north?”

“Yes, but no!” And laughed. “This next part of the road is difficult for biking. I prefer to get a lift to towns, and then ride around!” He now laughed some more, finding this idea funny. “And so, maybe see you!” He placed the pineapple can back in his front pouch and rode off in the direction that he’d come from.

Sometime later I was joined by two Chilean backpackers headed the same way – they were nice but it made me more concerned that I was now even less likely to get picked up; groups are less likely to be given lifts, but on the other hand, one of the Chileans was a cute girl – who tend to be infinitely more likely to get picked up, so perhaps it balanced out. We chatted for a while and to my amusement they thought I was Italian! Well, I am half-Italian but they said that I spoke Spanish with a slight Italian twang, a relic of having lived in Rome when I was young. I was beginning to think I might have to begin the glum march back to the hospedaje when I saw a little bus bobbing down the road from the supermercado – no doubt the full bus that didn’t have room for me. I stuck the thumb of my right hand and waved my left arm and smiled my face off. The bus pulled over and a French-sounding guy stuck his head out a window.

“We have space!” I scanned the faces inside and it seemed like he was the only other tourist.

The driver got out, an we arranged a $12 ride to Puerto Guadal – almost all the way to the main intersection of the Carretera Austral – which supposedly had more thru-traffic. Just as I had got into the bus, a large truck pulled up to the Chileans and had opened it’s rear doors where they were apparently welcome to sit with a bunch of logs. I felt jealous of their authentic hitching experience until I realized it had started raining harder and once closed in, there would be no way to look out. Suddenly $12 in a warm, dry bus with windows seemed like a great deal.

The driver bungeed my bag to the top, I crammed in next to a guy with a beret and a thick mustache and we were on our way! It’s truly a wonderful feeling, when you’ve been waiting for a ride all day and then you get one and you’re moving, moving on to the next adventure! I think I smiled for the first half hour as I pressed my face against the glass. While cloudy, the view of the mountains and lake was still spectacular. The dinky bus, packed with 10 passengers and one very serious driver, sped along gravel roads, past valleys and farms and along the edge of lake-side precipices. ‘He’s done this before’, I assured myself. We weaved around giant boulders that had fallen into the road, and passed the remains of a horribly mangled guardrail sandwiched by some bouquets of flowers. ‘Our odds are good – if we were in Vegas, I’d bet on us.’ Sometimes even logic didn’t really cut it, but I always remember the words of my Mom when she’d move us to another country or when she was plotting her next life move:

“There’s nothing to fear, except fear itself, Douglas. You could drown in a bathtub.”

We passed some graffiti on a bridge: ‘Patagonia sin represas!’ Apparently to meet the country’s growing energy needs, the Chilean government is considering the damming of some major waterways, which would cause some environmental problems, as well as displace families and take the livelihood away from many others. As I continued to travel, I saw this phrase increasingly often – showing that it’s obvious a big point of contention.

After two hours, and seeing only two or three other cars, we arrived at our last stop, Puerto Guadal. As luck would have it, one of the other passengers ran the tiny town’s hospedaje and promised to make us a delicious dinner if me and Pierre stayed with her. Oh, no thanks, I think we’re going to try the Holiday Inn down by the boardwalk and afterwards get some chicken wings at the Hooters next to the Casino. But seriously, there was not too much happening in the town of Puerto Guadal. The main action, which had turned the heads of a few locals, was the typical street dog chasing a pickup – but in this episode it was barking at another dog, in the back. Soon other local dogs had joined in and dragged the poor mutt out of the truck and were all having a showdown in the central square. It looked ugly but soon got split up by some men with sticks. Entertainment over, we went inside. As Esmerelda showed us in our rooms I got the feeling that Pierre wanted to stay in my room. There was no one else in the place so I made sure to say:

“Separado.”

The simple room was a floral print jubilee; I counted five different styles between the two bedspreads, curtains and patchwork of wallpaper. For what it lacked in style it made up for in coziness, with thick bedspreads and pillows so after a little walk to the quiet lake I decided to take a nap before dinner. When I went downstairs to join the group for dinner the entire family, a father and mother, two sisters, two brothers and a baby, had gathered around the table and was tucking in to a giant platter of grilled lamb.

“Aaah, bienvenido gringo!” The little brother playfully said as I joined them. I had a feeling that Pierre, who was sitting there grinning, had put him up to this. He had the stereotypical snobbery that people often assign to the French. Sometimes it’s just the accent, but sometimes, like with Pierre, it’s well placed:

“Everyone knows there really is no comparison to French wine.” He said, “However, perhaps Chile comes second place.” Even if true, the way he delivered it just sounded pretentious.

The lamb was tender, and even the baby got a piece to gnaw on, which everyone thought was hilarious. I offered everyone wine from a USD$4 bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon that I had bought – even the cheap wine down here was pretty damn good. We talked about dams, which everyone was against – but everyone still wanted more stable, cheaper electricity. Just for fun, I asked if they had Internet, and much to my surprise they had it at the library – additionally Esmerelda was excited to tell me that in April the tiny town was going to get high-speed mobile Internet. And so the disparate villages of earth get connected; whether by fiber, by copper or by airwave the net of information is seeking out all nooks and crannies of the planet.

After dinner Pierre showed us a slideshow from his trip to Antarctica using a DVD that the tour boat had given him. It turned out that they weren’t even his pictures, but still very cool and for a moment, although perhaps it was just the wine, I didn’t find him as annoying. After spending some time reading by the wood stove, I retired to my room alone which seemed to disappoint Pierre, and fell asleep in my floral cave.

The next morning I was woken up by the delightfully rural sound of chickens outside my window. The clouds had broken and the sun had brightly lit the back yard and surrounding lush hills. I went downstairs and entered the kitchen at the exact same time as a duck entered the door opposite from the yard.

“Aaah, Tomas el pato!” The father clapped, much to the joy of the little boy. The duck flip-flopped past the wood stove, to a bowl of grains that they’d laid out for the family’s favorite farm friend. Before leaving us the previous day, the moody bus driver, had told us he was continuing to head up the coast today and we could join him. Not knowing when the next ride would be coming through, I’d agreed to join him and so had Pierre. He promptly rang the bell at 8:30am and looked at his watch impatiently as we boarded.

The local buses also function as an easy way for locals to send items to other towns so on the way out of the village we picked up some boxes of various fruits and some dried goods. As the bus picked up a few more people here and there, I was happy to see how friendly everyone was. A young boy came onto the bus and sat down next to the same old man with a beret that had been on our bus yesterday – they didn’t seem related, but obviously knew each other. I always appreciate the friendliness of small towns, everyone knows their neighbors and says ‘hello’. Rural society is more transparent which means the incidence of sociopathic behavior decreases. Obscurity seems to breed sociopaths; any system, animal or otherwise, intrinsically acts for self if it can get away with it. True altruism is a rare occurrence as it’s not typically rooted in survival or genetic propagation, and certainly takes more effort than just saying ‘who cares?’. OK, I’m sure small towns can drive you crazy too, always being publicly accountable for all your actions, but somewhere between the intimacy of village life and the anonymity of a metropolis is a land of friendly existence. I began to wonder what it would be like if people had endorsement systems, sort of like the was you do on eBay, but in real life:

‘++AAA++ friend. Will hang out again!!’ or ‘Zero Stars! Poor boyfriend. Consistently inaccurate information given. Engage at your own risk!’

I’m not advocating a completely transparent system, of course it’s important to respect privacy, but there’s got to be a sweet spot where people can have the privacy they deserve while not being able to get away with being sociopathic assholes. Forms of this have already begun to happen – slowly – in many areas, from corporate greed to political agenda. Individuals and groups that would like to take advantage of the system are having a harder time doing it, thanks mainly to the transparency and communication that technology heralds. Chile, like any other country, has a political history rife with power plays and tactics for misleading the populous through deceit and manipulation. And then there’s the US’s involvement in Chilean politics, that aimed to bring down Allende’s pseudo-Socialist government in lieu of Pinochet’s rough dictatorship, that went undisclosed for 30 years. Some people might argue that the way to profitable peace has got to cost a little bloodshed, but ever the Utopian, I believe there’s got to be a cleaner path.

Apparently in this part of Northern Patagonia has an average of 1:1, people:km/sq and the roads are so curvy they’re called caracoles (snails). The next few hours of bumpiness, was broken up into iterations of scenic views and pee breaks until we reached the even more quaint and well named Puerto Rio Tranquilo. It has all the beginnings of a tourist town in the making; a great name, a fantastic view and even some local attractions like caves and rock formations, the prize being the ‘Catedral Marmol.’ or Marble Cathedral. When the road gets paved, this place will no doubt boom – and I felt privileged to see it before it does. It had started raining again but as we got off a few guides still approached:

“Catedral Marmol?”

“Do you want to go?” Pierre asked. Traveling alone is often the best way to travel. You move swiftly and don’t have to submit to decision my committee. Sometimes you even find people that you want to travel with for a while but then, you might decide to go separate ways. Occasionally for no reason other than comfort you pick up barnacles. You gotta know how to shake them. This was my chance:

“You know, I’m sort of still sick, I’m going to find a place to stay. Or going for a walk. Or I might go to one of those restaurants or cafes.” I made sure to offer a spread of my possible whereabouts. As I walked away, down the road, I waved: “See you later!”

I weaved through town and after the usual tactic of knocking on doors and asking for habatacion found a little, warm hospedaje. I still had this lingering cold so after throwing my bags in my room, stretched out in front of the little wood furnace for some cozy reading. I figured what better place than to start futurist Ray Kurzweil’s ‘The Singularity is Near’ than in front of a fire in a rural, disconnected town in the middle of nowhere. The book is close to 500 pages. I also have a few similarly sized Lonely Planet country guides and a slew of other books with me, all in the tiny little device known as a Kindle, weighing in at somewhere under a pound. The battery is good for a week or two or reading and if at any point I need to add a new title to my library, it’s equipped with a global GSM chip able to download a book in under a minute.

Later in the afternoon, it was still raining so decided to continue reading and writing from a little cafe along the main street. Nescafe has Chile by it’s smooth, tanned balls – so far every single cafe offers the rather nasty instant powder accompanied by hot water by default; I’ve only found a few places that offer a real drip or espresso coffee. This cafe doubled as a bakery and as is quickly becoming a problem for me, I couldn’t help but sample an empanada. Empanada’s in Chile are far larger and juicier than their Argentine siblings. I must have joked about the size of Chilean empanada’s for 5 minutes with the bakery owner and her three teenage daughters:

“Tu prefieres las empanadas mas grand, o mas chico?” And I had the cafe filled with girly giggles. “Con salsa picante?” They all liked big empanadas, but the mention of hot sauce had them fanning themselves. I was proud to be able to cause some smiles even with my crappy, psuedo-Italian Spanish.

I walked through and out of town where I had a face off with a curious cow but eventually returned for a homemade dinner of salad and steak with french fries and an egg, for the reasonable price of $4. The next morning it was still raining – not really hard, but hard enough that I found the pictures of the Marble Cathedral more than sufficient and luckily entered town just as a bus was pulling up. Any guess who else was also walking up to it?

“Hola Pierre, I must have lost you yesterday. How was the Marble Cathedral?” He told me how great it was, and how fun and awesome his hostel had been and that I should have joined him; I feigned deep remorse as we boarded the bus.

“Where are you going?” He asked.

“You know, I’m not sure yet,” Actually I was going north to Coyhaique, but I didn’t want to encourage him to join. “but I hear that Villa Castillo is GREAT!” Luckily there were only single seats left so I sat next to a skinny man who slept the whole time. At Villa Castillo we stopped and I asked Pierre:

“So what do you think? Are you going to stay?”

“I think I’ll go on to Coyhaique.” And my internal audience laughs and claps as the ‘applause’ sign is illuminated.

When we got off at Coyhaique things got awkward. I should have just walked away, but I just couldn’t bring myself to for some reason. Typically I dislike hurting people’s feelings, even though dragging it out often compounded the inevitable. So here’s how it went: It was raining, I walked out of the small bus station to find the cross streets and consult a Lonely Planet map. By this point Pierre had hung his bags around himself and caught up. We ended up walking in the direction of where a couple of hospedaje’s could supposedly be found. After finding one or two that said they were full, we found a nice old lady that showed us to a snug room for two.

“Separado.” I said. The senora said that was impossible because she only had one room left.

“I’d rather find my own room somewhere then – you can have this one.” I said. As I left the senora said she thought were were together and if it was just oner person, the room would be more expensive. Sheisse! Now I’ve got guilt going! If there’s two things I hate it’s unwarranted expectation and guilt trips.

“I’m going to head down the street.” Trying to figure out the best method out of this situation.

“OK, I’ll leave my bags here and join you, that way if you don’t find anything we can share a room.” Sweet baby Jesus, what the hell!?

He followed me around the block and finally I found a place that had singles for USD$18, USD$4 more than the other place.

“Well that’s more than I can afford.” He said, with his body language already trying to lead me back. I saw my chance. Again.

“You know, I’ve got some writing to do and I think that works just fine for me.” I had to stop walking, otherwise he’d keep moving. “So hey! I’m sure I’ll see you as we head north!”

The best USD$4 splurge ever.

Coyhaique is best described by Lonely Planet as ‘a cow town that kept growing’ and is now actually poised to become a big city of they agrarian industry, as well as a transportation hub. I know that sounds charming, but actually the town’s surroundings were beautiful, however it never stopped raining which made exploring the hills nearby a little muddy. I realized that I had left my super absorbent travel towel in Puerto Rio Tranquil but in searching for it found a poncho that I’d forgot I’d packed, which seemed like a pretty fair trade. I bought some dishtowels as a substitute, caught up on some emails and writing and got a grip of cash at an ATM. I travel with a few ATM and credit cards, distributed in different areas just in case I lose one or get robbed. And then whenever I need to I can dip this piece of special plastic into a wall and get out paper that lets me continue to live. Absolutely amazing! Talk about a technology not to be taken for granted? Some years back, still an amateur traveler I had entered Laos with about $20 in cash, not realizing that the nearest ATM was in the capital 1000km away. That took some creative problem solving to get out of.

I was tempted to explore the cities ‘Emo’ scene, in which a lot of darkly eye-lined and androgynous tweens meet in clubs and then go somewhere for ‘kissing parties’. Maybe a reaction to overly conservative Catholic upbringings? I decided to give the club scene a miss. Instead the highlight of Coyhaique was running into Gunther again, at the town’s center market, who was ravenously eating a juicy peach.

“Hey Gunther, you made it!”

“And so! A truck found me. It had two Chileans in the back. Very wet!” He’d managed to get some peach flesh onto his chin and I had a hard time looking anywhere else on his face. I told him about the club where the Emo’s would be in case he was interested and we parted ways.

The next day – yep still raining – I dreaded hitchhiking so decided I’d stop by the bus station and ask if there were any buses. The girl at one of the offices said there were no buses to Puyuhuapi that day. I asked her where the one out the front was going and she replied La Junta.

“Isn’t La Junta more north on the same road?” I managed to mangle together.

“Yes.” Still no connection.

“So maybe I could ask the bus driver to drop me in Puyuhuapi?”

“Maybe.” OK, thanks for the help there.

I got the last seat on the bus and couldn’t believe my luck – yet again! I sat behind a friendly señora who was making the entire bus laugh throughout the ride. As we headed north the surroundings became even more wet and tropical. This was when I read that this part of Chile gets an average of ~120ft of rain per year, so rather than a string of unlucky weather days as I had thought, this was just the norm. Craggy mountains rose suddenly around us, green outcrops clinging to their edges. Snowcapped peaks melted into slim waterfalls that poured off the rocks, sometimes right onto the road. Ferns and plants with huge leaves reached into the road like giant green fingers, relentlessly trying to claw it back into their possession. Condors were seen flying overhead while the driver avoided herds of cows on the road. I felt like a T-Rex was going to jump out at any moment and crush the tiny bus in it’s jaws. Reggaeton, the country’s favorite music, was blasting out of the radio. Occasionally we’d come across men in orange waterproof outfits, trying in vain to keep the road together as water poured from every crevice. Even when we hit a pothole and the back doors exploded open causing all our bags fell out into the mud, there was humorous camaraderie as we worked together to get them back inside, securing he doors handles inside to a handrail with a rope.

I used my iPhone to take turns trying to decipher the thick Chilean accents and listening to a pretty intense audiobook about the social structure and behavior of courtiers of the 1500s (trying to read on the Kindle surely would have led to me vomiting over the nice senora). I tried to imagine how utterly ridiculous our connected world of information and devices would have seemed to Cristopher Columbus or Sir Walter Raleigh; a white tablet that contains the text of a small library; a piece of plastic that can cause a wall to eject money; a pocket sized device that can translate languages, talk to me, record pictures and even communicate with others at great distances . And all that before blowing their Victorian minds with my netbook, a device capable of uniting them all and connecting to anyone else in the world invisibly. I certainly would have been proclaimed a sorcerer and been killed in a classically grisly way. Luckily however, things are a little bit more progressive these days, and the future we face, if indeed we can get there without destroying ourselves first, offers us an social existence based on ubiquitous communication and mutual growth, and most likely augmented by a layer of technology that helps achieve and maintain this.

The bus continued it’s bumpy sprint down the caracoles. I couldn’t help but feel lucky that I’d missed my boat and ended up in this cultural moshpit, happily moving with a crowd of strangers on a wave of the moment. I didn’t really know where I was getting off, I didn’t know where the next jarring bump was going to come from or indeed, what was going to happen next at all – but one thing suddenly became clear – I enjoyed the unexpected so decided not to head back to Argentina like I had planned, but instead to the the old, Chilean fishing island of Chiloe, home of tiny deer and mythical forest beings. Now that sounds like a good story

The Fitz Roy Mountain Range, near El Chalten, Argentina (See all the pics…)

Somewhere after the second kilometer and third mangled desert hare I began to wonder if my minimally researched, impromptu hike into Chile was a good idea. I was in the No Man’s Land between the Argentine and Chilean border checkpoints, however this wasn’t the first No Man’s Land that I’ve had to trek across. In truth, it’s not even close to being the most intense either. Hands down, that prize goes to the five mile wasteland between the Kashgar and Kyrgyzstan checkpoints, traveled only by truckers and thoughtfully sandwiched on each side by border urchins waiting to con you in a myriad of deceptive ways. And I was in a tuxedo at the time.

All of your past experiences provide vistas of perspective in the present moment. This is nothing new, in fact, in retrospect, it’s a habitual intention of mine. I admit it, I find it hard to say ‘no’ to absurd, embarrassing or sometimes even apparently dangerous ideas – just as a means to stuff this experiential envelope. Besides traveling for six months in a tuxedo, which included hitchhiking through Islamabad during the 2007 siege of the Red Mosque, this compulsive behavior has been leveraged by my caring friends in diverse and creative ways; in 2009, a pack of 20 girls and guys dressed in drag for the Pasadena Doo Dah Parade, the goal being to create an awareness for the human trafficking and sex slave business on behalf of Amnesty International. We had a loosely arranged skit (with our ‘male’ captors selling the ‘females’ to the audience to raise funds) and our group was sandwiched in between a high school marching band and a dance troupe, both of whom had obviously put great effort into practicing. The entire experience was so distinctly uncomfortable; an unpracticed routine, the wide eyed expectation of onlookers (including innumerable children), being ‘sold’ to the audience (one of whom invited me to a back room of a cafe– luckily, I was able to escape, ripping my fishnets in the process) and all while my body was clad in a gold bikini, my head was adorned in a blonde wig and my mind was in a particularly non-lucid state. I was also rather overweight at the time and had a ragged beard. The shear and intense bizarreness of this surreality is now the high-mark for my tolerance of social discomfort. Now, when anything gets ‘weird’, it has to get pretty damn ‘weird’ to usurp the title from that day at the Doo Dah Parade.

OK, so why was I not continuing on my planned path north through Argentina to Bariloche? In two words: Marie Fredriksson. Marie Fredriksson was the lead singer from the Swedish pop duo Roxette, and sang such 80′s hits as “Listen to Your Heart” and “It Must Have Been Love”. As soon as we left El Calafate, the driver of the plushly appointed bus exclaimed “We need some music!” and for the next 3 hours Roxette’s music videos played back to back on the multiple TVs. It was a combination of the cushioned seats, abundantly provided alfajores and the nostalgic ballads that made me think ‘so far, my trip has been a little too easy’. However, before resorting to any radical and sudden change of plan I decided that I would go to El Chalten and hike some of the famous trails that weaved around the surrounding Fitz Roy mountain range. After all, I was already on the bus headed there.

As we approached El Chalten, it was hard not to feel the cliched-since-2005 sense of “Holy crap, that’s so ‘Lord of the Rings’!” Dark and jagged, the unrelenting peaks humbled the little village below, and with Fitz Roy’s summit hidden in clouds, it was understandable why the indigenous people had feared it. Besides a few side streets that had the typical and comical mishmash of architecturally diverse houses, the town was basically centered along one street. It turns out that much of the tourist infrastructure, still being built, was slapped together in 1985 in a bid to beat Chile to the claim of the land. I was happy that while still obviously expanding from the tourist influx, El Chalten still had a strong underlying vibe of its frontier village roots. Many of the fences looks like they’d been around for quite a few winters and when I found my hostel, the Albergue Patagonia, I was happy to see that it looked like it was a converted farm house. The wind was so strong that at times all the lodgers, who congregated in the common area, would look towards the roof with just a hint of concern that it would fly off at any minute. More than a couple of times throughout my stay I feared that the windows were about to shatter inwards, hailing me with thousands of shards; such are the winds of El Chalten.

I was assigned a comfortable bunk bed which reminded me of the five years I’d spent sleeping in one at English boarding school, aged 8 onwards. I would always joke with my fellow travelers that since they were on top bunk, they better not wet the bed. They’d laugh, not knowing that I was serious; many a boy on the bottom bunk fell victim to the nocturnal incontinence of the boy on top, which always resulted in a cruel public shaming at breakfast. I was also given a little basket in the kitchen which I filled with all sorts of delights for breakfast that I’d bought from the local supermercado (which wasn’t really that super, but fine for basics; eggs, cheese, dried sausage and bread). I also finally visited an artesian confectioner where I purchased some little jars of jam and dulce de leche.

The next morning, fueled by the joy of sugary spreads, I began a hike up to Lago Torre, which offered stunning views of the surrounding mountains and a glacier. It was about 5 hours round trip and while the glacier was no Perito Moreno (I feel I might be saying that for some time, when faced with the world’s lesser glaciers) it was a scenic and simple hike. I’ve been listening to a fantastic audiobook, the unabridged version of Sam Harris’ ‘End of Faith’. It’s truly mind-blowing and contains ideas that I will no doubt explore in the coming weeks. Every now and then I’d pass a hiker coming the other way on the well worn trail and usually my chipper ‘hola’s were greeted in kind. On the way back, I stumbled upon John, an English backpacker who’d been at my last hostel in El Calafate and who was camping his way across the world. He looked quite wet.

“Hey John, how as last night?” I asked, not mentioning my cozy hostel out of sensitivity. “Were you warm enough?”

“Oh, yeah, not bad mate.” The Brits are so charmingly, stiff upper lipped sometimes. For a moment I imagined the flapping opening of his drenched tent, with socks and a hiking map floating on top of a puddle where his sleeping bag had last been seen. “A bit wet of course, but it could be worse.”

“Alright, well stay dry, old bean!” We continued our separate ways and I felt like an idiot for calling him ‘old bean’.

Every now and then, other hikers would pass by, sometimes even in groups, with not an utterance or even an acknowledgment of mutual presence! Honestly, what is wrong with some people? I know when we were young that we were all told by our parents “Don’t talk to strangers!” but like picking your nose in public and crying to get attention, that is a trait that should be left behind as you mature. Unfortunately many people seem to carry this instruction into their adult lives, existing their time away in invisible little bubbles and interacting as minimally as possible with the big, scary world outside. I always smile to myself, but secretly I want to grab them and force them to say ‘hello’ back. Can you imagine their faces, when their disengaged stares explode into primal focus upon meeting my crazed eyes: “Say hello dammit! Say hello to people!” I would shout, sealing this moment into their memory forever with a maniacal laugh. Would it be socially inappropriate? Absolutely. Would it get them to say ‘hello’ to people in the future? Maybe. Or more likely it would turn them even deeper inward and make future walks in the woods a source of great fear. I propose that the rules of responsible trekking should be carried into the world; don’t put yourself or others in danger, don’t leave a mess behind and be friendly goddamit. I kind of expect this behavior in the city – but in the middle of the mountains. Come on people.

The next day I awoke and made myself a delicious breakfast of eggs, bread with rich spreads and a double cappuccino. As is customary about an hour later I went for a relaxing poo and after a short while emerged simultaneously with the fellow from the stall next to me.

“Aah. Nothing like a morning poo.” I joyfully remarked. I used to be rather embarrassed to move my bowels in public toilets. But I distinctly remember one of my friends asserting that I should behave quite the opposite: “I take special pride in producing a loud and vicious attack on the senses, and then, after emerging, I smile proudly at anyone who looks my way.” And so, since then, even the restroom hasn’t been off limits to my social exploits.

“You are completely right. Fantastic!” He agreed, smiling broadly. And so I met Egil Aslak Aursand Hagerup – a young Norwegian man brimming with infectious positivity. He had just arrived in El Chalten and happened to be on the bed above me: “I don’t usually wet the bed.” He grinned.

The day was rainy but Egil suited up and hit the trails, while I decided to stay in the snug confines of the hostel to write. After a few hours indoors, having penned the first outline of my emerging manifesto, I decided to explore the outside, even in the poor weather. I got about 20 minutes from the hostel facing an onslaught of horizontal, piercingly cold rain when I realized that I wasn’t just cold, but I was extremely wet under my jacket.. Apparently the cheap shell I brought had lost it’s waterproofing so I lamely headed back to the hostel and made myself some hot chocolate.

Some time later I emerged from a nap, ready for some dinner and a smiling, freshly showered Egil greeted me with a small espresso cup full of whiskey.

“Try it. It is surprisingly good. It has a warm after taste of rich pete.” He waited until I began to sip, “Imagine you are a ship’s Captain, looking towards the land!” As it turns out, Egil was a fellow writer, in fact he’d been a journalist, turned political and social satirist and had the joy of words.

We decided that after the harsh day’s trekking (perhaps I had slightly over-exaggerated my attempt), we deserved a good dinner – and what better idea than parrilla, a platter of grilled meats. The rain had subsided so we ambled down the street to the restaurant and then ordered a Guilmes beer while we waited for a table; Guilmes is the Argentine version of Pabst Blue Ribbon, i.e. it’s really not very good.

As the dinner was served, featuring a thick grilled cheese slice and a giant mound of meat cuts, including the best morcilla (blood sausage) that I’d ever sampled, we left the typical traveler banter behind and energetically projected our discussion down the path of ideas, metaphors and life experiences. It was truly shocking how many things we had in common. He told my about his strategic and iterative life experiences, I told him my thoughts on vector shifts and serendipity. We talked about our favorite TED talks and how memes spread through society (in fact, an article he’d written had created a national review of Norwegian mechanic’s estimate procedures!) so I told him to pick up a copy of Seth Godin’s ‘Ideavirus’. I explained the simple teachings of Buddha and how that helped them spread. We talked about large life goals and the crucial next step of crafting a real path to achieving them over time.

“Michelangelo didn’t get stressed over a block of marble.” I said. “He’d just chip away over time. In his own words: ‘I don’t create the sculpture, I just remove the excess material.’” OK, I wasn’t sure if those were his exact words, but it got the point across.

Finally I outlined the parallel that all of my projects seemingly had with my current state, and as it evolved, so did they. Most centric to my personal progress is the continued development of Mindshare.LA. When Adam Mefford and I founded the event in 2006, it was a vessel for meeting people and having fun. It’s next iteration in 2008 was to become more reputable, both as an experience and as a brand, while continuing to attract fantastically intelligent and diverse attendees. Now looking forward, I explored my next iteration with Egil:

“I feel so surrounded by amazing people and inspiring ideas – occasionally to the point where I feel like I could drown in possibilities.” I continued, “Of course this is not something I want to escape from, rather, I simply want to learn how to negotiate it. Besides the logistical growth that my absence sparks, it’s time for Mindshare’s next iteration – and I can see how that looks, by observing my own.” The morcilla darkly glistened at the end of my fork, which I now held like an orchestra conductor’s wand. “I don’t need many more new people in my circle, of course there’s always room for more, but that is no longer my main objective. Now I need to be strategic, to leverage and be creative with the wonderful people that I’ve met in order to achieve mutualistic gain.”

“So how would Mindshare parallel this new objective?” Egil asked, obviously hoping I had an answer, or at least a satisfactory first step towards an answer.

“The community that we’ve created needs to evolve beyond a monthly get together of back-pats and ‘see you next month for another night of enlightened debauchery”s and begin to more deeply engage itself. If we can figure out a way to do this, then it could break it’s banks as just a monthly event and start to become more deeply effective.”

“I want to start a Norwegian Mindshare!” Egil exclaimed.

“I’d love to help you to.” I smiled.

The breadth of people you meet while traveling is obviously a striking cross section of the world’s privileged and progressive citizens. It’s also often, but certainly not always, a good filter for connecting a similar psychographic. Ultimately every traveler is searching for something. I suspect for many it’s an escape from the dull routine of their lives home. These young souls will likely return to a job that they don’t really like until they save enough money for their next dose of escape. Many others however are searching for answers, by exploring the world outside they hope to discover the world within. Such a goal is certainly made less nebulous when you begin to try to define where you’ve come from, and then project where you want to be, chipping away excess material until the unique sculpture of your existence reveals itself.

My last day in El Chalten was clear and bright. My bus out of town didn’t leave until 11pm so it was the perfect day to hike to the high lakes that lapped against the steep inclines of the sobering Fitz Roy mountain. Egil and I had met a cute girl from Buenos Aires that morning so convinced her to join us on the 8 hour round trip journey.

“I’m not really an adventurous type.” Miranda warned.

“It’s not so steep.” Egil said, knowing full well that it was the most arduous circuit around town.

“Yeah, we’re both pretty slow.” I added, knowing that we both occasionally liked to sprint until our lungs burned.

We milled around town for breakfast, Miranda ordered the most decadently delicious slice of pie that I’ve ever witnessed; a thick layer of chocolate formed a shell over the top of an even thicker filling of dulce de leche, all of which the crumbling crust struggled to contain. Eventually we put some snacks in out backpacks, filled out water bottles and headed up the trail. The hike was exhilarating, and took us across vast valleys, past crystal clear lakes and through verdant forests.

“You see that?” Egil asked, pointing to the tufts of lichen that hung from on the bark of many of the trees. “We call it Forest Beard! It only grows when the air is exceptionally clean.” The air was indeed crisp and refreshing and cooled us as we climbed higher. We took breaks to share snacks and take pictures, and eventually, after crossing rushing streams on creaky bridges and walking through countless old river beds, we reached the base of the final ascent – known to be the most challenging part. Miranda was a little nervous that she wouldn’t make it, but we told her it wasn’t too bad (having no idea) we’d just need some more cookie-power.

“My brother was in the Army.” Egil grinned, getting ready to bestow some Norwegian wisdom: “They told him that when he thought he’d given all he could, he still had 80% of his potential power left!” If true, that was a truly exhausting fact.

Soon after the first quarter, Miranda said she’d catch up, as Egil and I pushed on. We weren’t worried about her, it wasn’t too cold or windy and there were other hikers around. I was too breathless to talk much but muttered something about being amazed that someone had arranged large rocks into an impressive staircase at a particularly steep switchback. At that point, Egil, who was significantly more fit than me began telling me about his trip through Peru. He told me about the exactitude of the Inca structures:

“They didn’t have wheels, they didn’t have iron tools – but they brought giant boulders from many kilometers away and ground them into perfect geometric shapes by hand. Can you imagine the patience?” The facts were amazing anyway, but the energy of his delivery further emphasized it. He continued to describe the sun temples which cast perfect shadows and then finally, the sad plight of the Inca at the hands of the Spanish conquistadors. After that the conversation went south to Bolivia where he’d negotiated the salt flats and avoided piranha in the rivers of the Amazon basin. After a while, we realized that we’d lost sight of Miranda some time ago. We were about 10 minutes from the top and had been moving quite fast.

“I think the mountain has claimed her” I joked, not overly concerned.

“Lets wait for a while..” He said, more compassionately. After a few minutes we saw a little brunette head appear from behind a rocky outcrop below.

“Miranda!” We shouted in unison, while waving our hands.

“Hey guys! How much further?” She shouted back. From this distance it looked like she was smiling, but in reality it was almost certainly a grimace of pain and exhaustion.

“We’re like 10 meters from the top!” I exaggerated. “So close, it looks awesome!”

When we finally reached the top it truly was stunning. Two dark blue lakes had formed in deep crevices that the jagged, snowcapped peaks had created. The grandeur of the Fitz Roy mountain, the tip of who’s peak always remained clouded as if hiding a mythical castle or beast’s dwelling, loomed high above. The valley that we’d trekked through for the last five hours spread out below like an earthy tapestry. Had that really taken five hours? Wait five hours?

“Holy crap, what time is it?” I asked. It was 7pm.

“Yeah, I’m worried that we’re going to have to head back in darkness!” Miranda said.

“Oh damn. Guys,. I have to jet, or I’m going to miss my bus! I haven’t even packed yet!”

“OK, lets start heading back…” Miranda said – even though I know Egil, being an experienced and prepared mountain hiker, was in no rush.

“I’d rather say goodbye now than lose you on the trail, I think I’m going to have to run!” We said our goodbyes amid large boulders, in front of a grand mountain. A memorable goodbye indeed!

I shoved some remaining cookies in my mouth, put on my iPod’s pumping ‘GymFest’ playlist, tightened my shoes and braced myself for the challenge. I weaved past the lake towards the top of the steep trail. It was impossible to run, but I skipped, hopped, slid and slalomed down. I took extra care on the slippery, and now impressively dangerous, steep stairs but finally reached the bottom intact. I jogged across bridges, through old river beds, around lakes and through forests.

I avoided muddy puddles (most of the time) and scared the hell out of a few meandering hikers. I could imagine it from their perspective: a 220lb, red faced and thoroughly sweaty man, hurtling down the peaceful trail towards them. No time to explain people, I have a bus to catch! (Although please note, I still managed to puff ‘hola’s to all of them!). At times I’d even imagined I was being chased by forest beasts to spur myself on. I only allowed myself a few breaks to catch my breath and to take pictures of the afternoon sun-lit Fitz Roy range was at its clearest yet.

I was impressed! I made it down the village in 2 hours and 15 minutes. I got to my hostel around 9:15pm, and then learned that my bus wasn’t until 11:30 anyway! Hardly a close call but it had still been fun. I had a beer, peeled the socks off my feet and had the best shower of my life. I ate a leisurely dinner and headed to the bus, perfectly on time.

As the packed bus pulled away in the darkness I pulled out a 1/2 full bottle of Malbec and struck up a conversation with Johanes, a humorous German who as traveling for 6 months across Asia and South America. We were the last two people to have purchased tickets and so were stuck next to the toilets. The smell was terrible and people knocked his shoulders as they pushed by. We laughed, except he laughed slightly less; while I was getting off in the morning in Los Antiguos, a small town on the Argentina-Chile border, he was continuing to Bariloche, a further 20 hours away. The bus rattled so hard that we played a guessing game of which sleeping tourist would be the next one hit with a backpack that had dislodged from the overhead compartment. We wondered how long it’d be until the inactive TV finally shook free from its screws and created a serious litigious circumstance. Eventually the wine took hold, I said goodnight to Johanes and slept for almost the entire rest of the journey.

The next morning, I said goodbye to Johanes, who was looking far less fresh, and continued on to Los Antiguos. A few other travelers who were taking a similar path decided to head straight into Chile and invited me to join them. Instead, I decided to stay for a night and get myself a bit organized before hopping over the border. I had a good sleep at a charming hostel near the border checkpoint, changed money and had to write some serious email responses to the teams back home. I might be absent but I am still number one at putting out petty fires of miscommunication and keeping people focused.

So it took a 3 mile trek with my bags across No Man’s Land, a surprisingly friendly but somewhat confusing border experience linguistically, and a lucky hitchhike for a further 4 miles into town to get to the Chilean border town of Chile Chico, or ‘Little Chile’, cute name, right? There’s not a single other tourist, just a quiet town with colorful houses on the bright blue Lago Buenos Aires. Absolutely no one speaks English – it’s hilarious to try to negotiate things with mangled verbs and generic nouns – but what better way to learn other than full immersion? Right now I’m sitting in the living room of tiny hospedaje (budget inns, usually run by a family or a kind old lady) on a side street that I found after walking around for an hour and knocking on doors. I got my own room with fresh sheets for USD$17 a night. It’s 10:44pm and the family, consisting of 50 year old parents and a young girl of 14 are eating a hearty soup dinner in the kitchen with homemade bread. There’s a loud Spanish soap opera blaring on the TV. Our interaction is polite but minimal and as I write this I can’t help but feel like a quiet voyeur of their lives. There’s an unbelievable view of the lake, but the only place that can see it is a corridor upstairs. My design sense wonders why this seems to be the prevailing technique for most of the houses here. I guess people would rather be adjacent to the activity that the street? I spent the day writing in an empty restaurant and walking around the tiny town. I found some fantastically fresh sopa de mariscos, a mix of delicious seafood suspended in a rich broth. Tomorrow I am catching a boat at 7am to the other side of the vast lake to start the next part of the unprescribed adventure.

So far, Argentina travel had been a little TOO easy so in an effort to create some more unpredictable circumstances (i.e. something other than bus –> attraction –> bus –> attraction) I’m about to head off the grid for the next week as I head up the Carretera Austral – a lovely but desolate mountain road that winds between lakes and farmlands. Since I haven’t been able to secure a motorcycle yet, I plan to hitchhike my way north for the next few hundred miles – from there, well, I’ll see when I get there.

So in the coming days, as I stick my thumb out on dusty farm roads, it’s only fitting that I should hum a certain inspiring song I heard recently:

Listen to Your Heart!

Yes, that’s a boat… This place is ridiculously spectacular. (See all the pics here…)

The bus hurtled down the Patagonian road, barely slowing for an errant flock of llamas that had escaped their confines. Surprised by the rare vehicle, they took running jumps back over the fence, appearing guilty for having been caught outside their pens. Further along a few ostriches looked up as we passed, and then went back to pecking, unimpressed by our presence. The only other wild life observed was occasional foreign bicyclists, who’s ongoing battle against the wind was etched in every grimace of their grit-blasted faces. The landscape shared an aesthetic similarity with the southwestern United States; much of Patagonia can get very cold but it’s also arid land, sporadicly pockmarked with rocky outcrops, and dotted with small dusty shrubs. Increasingly, we’d pass a lake or river, usually flowing the opposite way and thus indicating that we were approaching the Southern mountains of the Andes range. As we neared the lake-side town of El Calafate (named after the berry, that once eaten, ensures your return to Patagonia), I looked at the two small mountains behind it and tried to scope out routes to climb them. Why do humans incessantly desire to ‘conquer’ things that are way bigger than ourselves?

After the quiet nothingness of Rio Gallegos it was refreshing to arrive in the bustling town of El Calafate. OK, perhaps it’s not bustling but it’s certainly more alive with people. Fleece-clad adventurers with sunglass-shaped tan lines packed the sidewalk cafes, enjoying afternoon cappuccinos and beers, sharing stories of the day’s excursions. Besides cafes and the staple bakeries, the main street’s offerings were adventure gear stores, sunglass shops, artesian confectioners, souvenir kiosks and travel agencies that offered to book you tours to the local sights. I had imagined something a little more rugged, but with neatly cut lawns and newly lacquered wooden detailing, the town center was the perfect picture of contrived charm, not unlike the typical ski resort town. January is the pinnacle of the high season, so I’d booked two days ahead just to find a bed – not something that I usually do while traveling, but advisable when a town is literally at capacity.

Soon after arriving at my hostel, Che Lagarto, I quickly began to feel like I had actually space/time warped into a mixture of Aspen and Haifa. Literally half of the backpackers at Che Lagarto, and perhaps in El Calafate overall, were Israeli. The only bed had been in a 12 person dorm, and all three beds in my corner were Israeli guys. When I entered the room I met my bunk mate, Yoni, who had noticed the same thing:

“I’m sick of being around so many Israeli’s, man. I’m changing hostels tomorrow, so I actually feel like I’m traveling!” It turns out that after their mandatory service in the military, many Israelis take off traveling, often in large groups. It didn’t really bother me. What DID bother me was the following morning after people had left the dorm, a man wearing a respirator mask entered and lightly sprayed down the beds with some sort of disinfecting agent from a canister attached to his back. He probably saw me giving him a confused look of disgust so he pulled down his mask and said:

“No worry – no poison!” Then why are you wearing a mask, buddy?

On my first day in town I went to find a little breakfast and catch up on some emails. In particular I wanted to find out how last night’s Mindshare event had gone in Los Angeles. While I had some coffee and medialunas (deliciously sweet, mini croissants) I found out that not only had it been a successfully sold out event, but many people said it was one of the best ever in terms of content. ‘Perhaps I should stay away more often?’ I smiled to myself. Ever since I was young, I found it impossibly fun to consider the shear amount of simultaneous human experiences happening at any one moment. Furthermore, I always got great pleasure out of looking at strangers and imagining how their life experiences had molded their mental states and social behaviors. Like fingerprints, surely no two human consciousnesses could be the same – how interesting! After breakfast these thoughts lingered in my head so I couldn’t help but have primed myself for dissatisfaction when I walked into the 3^rd travel agency and realized that all the tours were the exact same “choose from 4 flavors”. So rather than pay USD$40 to be brought to a mountain with a good view, I decided to walk out of town and scale one of the mountains I’d scoped out on the way in.

On the way up the hill it soon became apparent that after you left its neatly manicured town center, El Calafate began to show a little more of an ‘under construction’ vibe. I actually enjoyed seeing this; I would choose rough authentism over a glossy facade any day and that goes for towns, as well as people. The buildings are colorful (often nauseatingly so), architecturally diverse and rather scattered around at odd angles. It was almost like someone threw a bunch of Lego bricks on a scaled architectural model and then said “That’s good enough, lets build it!”. As I began to climb higher I realized that what added to that effect was the lack of many decently high trees, apart from those clustered near the town center. There was certainly enough water here and it isn’t that high altitude, so I don’t know why there’s not many trees. Maybe the seasons are too harsh? It gets cold, but not THAT cold. The wind is certainly unparalleled, apart from maybe the Tibetan plateau, and blows so hard that plants are permanently shaped in the prevailing direction. Perhaps the rocky soil? It’s a mystery to me and alas, I’m not online while typing this so further research will have to wait.

I past a very chill cafe/bar called Melmac on top of a hill leading out of town where I met the beautiful owner, Maria and promised I’d be back. Further up the gravely road I found ‘I Keu Ken’, a tiny, yellow hostel with a green roof, a charming porch and a friendly staff – so I promptly reserved a room for the following night. Federico, the smiling, dread-locked Argentine at the front desk informed me of the best way to head up the mountain behind town. I thanked him and told him I was looking forward to escaping the town center and staying there.

“See you tomorrow – we’ll have Argentine BBQ!” He smiled and waved as I left.

Just towards the end of town I came across a mob of dogs that weren’t too happy with me walking by the shoddy, half-built houses that they were born to protect. Patagonia is full of mangy and often crippled street dogs. Heavy inbreeding, plus nothing to do means that these are some of the stupidest dogs I’ve seen; their war-injuries are do doubt from chasing cars, which seems to be the favorite past time of the Patagonian canines, that is, in addition to hassling passers by like myself. I grabbed a rock in one hand and picked up a white, slightly rusted metal pipe with the other and strode boldly past them and up the dirt road into the hills.

Some hours later I reached the ridge of the right hand mountain that I had seen when driving into town. It offered a fantastic view of El Calafate, Lago Argentina and the adjacent flamingo populated lagoons. I found a pile of desert hare bones, perhaps where a predatory fox had taken it’s mangled prey for a 5-star feast-with-a-view. Eventually, as the late afternoon winds threatened to hurl me off the precipice, I began the descent through a fertile wash which rainwater had patiently formed over the centuries. As I crossed barren fields that led back into town, I felt a great appreciation for the quiet solitude that I had manifested and some humor my mind discussed things with itself. Recently my main interest has been in trying to get to the root of the human condition. What makes us unhappy? What makes us happy, and how can a balanced contentedness be achieved? And indeed, if an avenue is found, how can that be shared with others? Can it be streamlined? Can it be quantified? Is it even possible to actually impact global contentedness, and inspire a more peaceful existence? I feel a burgeoning answer to this question bubbling in my mind but as of yet it’s hard to fully grasp. When my mind got tired, I cleared it by monitoring my breath and being acutely aware of bodily sensations. While my mind calmed, I felt the harsh wind on my cheeks, and noticed how it made my eyes water. I dug my hands deeper in my pockets and followed my feet as they crunched through the rocky field back to the town center.
That night I walked the entire town, looking for a peaceful place to write, and eventually found the perfect restaurant on a side street. It was quiet and possessed a certain rustic charm which, even if designed as such, was still pleasant. I sat on a sheepskin-lined chair, ordered a bottle of Malbec wine from the smiling waitress and took in the atmosphere. Old pictures and farm tools lined the walls and hung from wooden beams. The tablecloths were checked patterns and the flatware was imperfect and weighty. A young couple held hands a few tables away from me and as he whispered something to her, she giggled and took a sip of wine. I ordered some food and feeling inspired I took out my laptop to begin to write just as I noticed a dark haired, older women start setting up a PA system near the front of the room. I had only had half a glass of wine and had just ordered food when she began to sing loudly. The volume on the PA was cranked so high that my ears begged to have the breadsticks shoved in them. At this point my concentration was gone and as she took requests I lamely attempted to mask my annoyance – after all, everyone else was enjoying it. I promptly put away my laptop, in my haste spilling my wine and breaking the glass. The couple looked over at me. Was that a look of pity? Suddenly, I felt like the sour-puss in the otherwise happy restaurant so I shoved the corked bottle in my bag, paid my bill and quietly slipped out the same side door that I’d entered from, rather than infect the restaurant with my mood for any longer. As I passed the front entrance I saw a big sign: “Tonight: LIVE music, 10pm until late!” I couldn’t help but laugh at myself a little.

As soon as I moved into I Ken Ken, I decided that I would stay for a couple of more days. First I would get some writing done from the hostel’s fantastic couch that looked over the lake, and then on my last full day I would drop USD$110 to go do the ice climbing on the epic Perito Moreno glacier. Being budget conscious, I had initially planned to just check it out from viewpoints across the lake but how often can you run around on top a giant glacier? Sometimes you just gotta throw down. That night, satisfied from a good day of writing, I celebrated with Federico’s Argentine BBQ and the rest of the Malbec from the previous night’s debacle. I went to sleep early and was looking forward to a day of touristy, but no doubt entertaining adventure at the glacier.

Sometimes you can see a million pictures of a place but still not fully be fully prepared for it. It’s not unlike love actually; you can be told all about it, but until you feel it directly, you cannot understand it’s intensity. Buddha’s famous spiritual marketing pitch was based in the same reality: “You can talk all you want about being enlightened, but here’s my 3 step simple program for achieving happiness.. Try it now and I’ll throw in a free sample of ‘heaven on earth’! Satisfaction guaranteed or your dogma back!” Of course those weren’t his exact words but they’re not far off. Of course, any theoretical definition of an experience can’t match the raw experience itself for authenticity. Arriving at the Perito Moreno glacier was no exception.

As we weaved through winding mountain roads the glacier began to appear, and with each pass a primal excitement was injected into the bus load of tourists. Finally when it came into full view, people were kneeling on their seats, pressing their faces against the glass or ecstatically snapping pictures. And I can’t argue, there really was something striking about it. The first thing is the shear scale, it’s massive. The glacier stretches between two snowcapped mountains and goes so far back it’s hard to see the end. It’s a jagged field of blue and white that comes to a horizontal point in the middle, rising sharply above the lake; it’s watery offspring. At it’s highest points it’s over 150ft above the waters surface, and at it’s deepest extends 300ft into the depths where it scrapes along, eroding the rock under giant amounts of pressure. Additionally, it’s one of the few glaciers in the world that is not receding, quite the opposite actually, advancing at a rate of almost 10ft daily – most of that usually fragmenting into the water below. Every few years it actually makes contact with the opposing mountain and dams up the water on one side. As the water on that side rises, often becoming over 50ft higher than the other side, the pressure builds and eventually bursts through, often forming an arch that is only visible for a short period before it melts away. And the supply shows no signs of abating; the mountains high above get up to 130ft of snow per year and much of it takes over 400 years to get to the front of the glacier.

Our first stop was at the zigzagging walkways on the opposing mountain which offer a pleasant walk through woods and clearings and provided superb views of both sides of the pointed tip. Occasionally you could hear the forceful cracking of the glacier as it inched forward, which also preceded the moment that all the cameras yearned for, a thunderous snap as a giant hunk the size of an apartment building cleaved off and exploded into the water, leaving icebergs and the odd sight-seeing boat bobbing like toys in a bathtub.

After the hard work of watching ice move, I enjoyed a cafe con leche and a 3 layer alfajore. These decadent treats are chocolate-covered, cookie sandwiches and are often glued together with dulce de leche – a sugary goo derived from milk. If you’ve got a sweet tooth, it can become a dangerous addiction and I’ve seen more than a few backpackers guiltily pulling out their stash in back rooms of grimy hostels.

The bus then brought us to the lake where a boat would bring us to the left edge of the glacier. Oooh, they had never mentioned a boat! Nice surprise, since the standalone boat tour was an extra USD$50. As we approached the glacier, it’s actual size continued to astound. The problem was that from afar there is no real way to judge the height, because there’s nothing relative to compare it to. But when you’re 50ft away it towers above you and the boat won’t get any closer in case the glacier makes the tiny boatload of tourists a target for its cleaving.

When we got to the very left corner of the glacier we disembarked and were led to a little lodge, sheltered among surprisingly lush trees, where we met our guides. ‘Eduardo’ was seriously funny and by that I mean funny, but seriously so. His matter of fact instructions almost sounded like a parody of an actual guide:

“It’s a muy important-ay that you not a go to far away – or the glacier, he might take you.” After regaling us with some of the previously recounted facts he informed us:

“There is only a one organism on the ice, besides tourists and Eduardo, it’s little black insect. But don’t worry, he no bite. Unless you a girl!”

From the beach-side briefing area were were led through the forest to the edge of the glacier where there was a crampon station. We were each fitted with these awesome devices that would let us negotiate the ice without falling on our asses, even if they had been amply padded with dulce de leche stuffed alfajores in the previous week.

As our group of 10 climbed in a long line through valleys of ice and over cragged peaks we passed bright blue pools of water. I asked Eduardo if I could drink from one:

“You can a drink from the blue. I do not recommend from the yellow.” The best part of his comedioc delivery was that he never cracked a smile. As I dropped to push-up position and stuck my face in the water, I couldn’t help but admire the patient existence of the water molecule. Evaporated from some faraway pool hundreds of years ago into a cloud, it traveled across the sky only to condense and freeze, falling thousands of feet onto a snowy mountain top. Then over the centuries it slowly came down the mountain, eventually collapsing into the lake, or in this case being ingested by a dehydrated tourist. You patient, lucky water molecule – and so continues your journey!

As we reached the final peak on the way home, I turned to Eduardo and joked:

“So isn’t it about time we tried something a bit more challenging?” As I eyed the glacier solemnly. “I think it’s time we hit the front edge, my man.”

“It is very possible that you die.” I assume he was talking about the danger of edge climbing, not of my inevitable, eventual demise.

“I think we’ll be fine, we just need some whiskey!”

With that he stepped out of the way and with one arm gestured down to the level about 50ft below. “My friend, you are in luck.” As if some some waking dream, a thick, wooden table stood on the ice with 10 glasses and a bottle of whiskey.

“Imagine and make it true.” I don’t think Eduardo even understood the far-reaching impact of his words at that moment but as we toasted our whiskeys, cooled with ice shaved from the 400 year old glacier, I realized how right on that statement was. The limit of our imagination, both near-sighted and far flung, is the very structure upon which our individual realities are built. How expansive you want your structure to be is directly proportional to how expansive you can imagine it to be.

On my final night in El Calafate, I made a meal, which thankfully included a salad, with a delightful bunch of backpackers at the I Keu Ken hostel; an Irish girl, a Canadian girl, a German girl and another American guy. It is so much fun to be constantly surrounded by different people, all united by the joy of travel and cultural exploration. After dinner, I invited everyone in the hostel over to Melmac. As I walked in Maria came out from behind the bar to give me a hug.

“I thought you’d left already – what a nice surprise!”

“I told you I’d be back – and I brought friends!” Girls hung from silks and flipped in the air, guys spun fire and I taught a bunch of people to play backgammon while drinking the local beer, Sholken. As the morning light began to appear, I wondered what it’d be like if I settled down in El Calafate, amid the crazy dogs and powerful glacier, married to a beautiful girl like Maria. In a moment of clarity, I realized I was somewhere south of lucid and that I better get some sleep before my morning bus.

Adios El Calafate. You’ve got some delicious, cursed berries! I’ll be back…

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