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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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