Down...

but not sure if its for the count.

Repeating over and over in my head...get up, get up, get up.

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Domestication

A five and half year reign at homelessness all came to an end two days ago. For the first time since Dec 2004 I paid rent this time in a fancy little apartment on the 21st floor of a high rise in Santiago, Chile. It feels good to be a little normal again and do things like make dinner at home or buy toilet paper or just have some place to actually call home. I understand that its all temporary and starting again mid may ill be back to being a homeless wanderer but for now I'm going to enjoy the status quo...my arch enemy.
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And sometimes life kicks you in the face...

Just when I thought I was untouchable. Just when I thought the gods smiled upon me like no other. Just when I thought I was gonna get out of Peru unscathed.
I thought wrong.
Sitting at the airport in Lima waiting to board my delayed flight to Santiago is the least of my problems right now. Let's recap the last two hours. I came to the airport with plenty of time to check in and pay my departure fee and say good bye to my friend before taking off to Stgo. Regretfully two minutes after I paid my departure fee I realized my wallet that I just used was either stolen or lost but either way long gone. None of the security or cops were willing to review the videos that were being filmed in the controlled area and no one turned my wallet in. I truly fucked up by first off having every single dollar or euro or soles I owned in my wallet along with both my credit and debit cards. Everything. The cardinal rule I normally always follow is to only keep some cash on me and just one card.
Why the fuck did I have it all?
My fucking bad.
And now it gets more confusing potentially really bad.
When I enter into Chile I have to pay a $131 fee that all Americans have to pay upon arrival. Since I no longer have a single dollar or credit card on me its going to make shit real difficult when I get there.
Luckily I have an Mexican in my life and hopefully she'll be at the airport waiting to save my day.

And now I just got called up to the agents desk and they moved me to business class to keep a family together where I was sitting.

Sometimes the gods smile just a little...let's hope it gets better and better.

And if anyone is curious the wallet contained about $400 and one NY identification card I really loved and my debit and credit card. Ugh.


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Last hours in Peru

Rolling on the Cruz del sur bus toward Lima my last day in Peru and its ending pretty poorly thus far. The bus has been painfully loud and my dream of a 180 degree recline seat never came became a reality. Oh well.

Ill have about 7 hours to kill in Lima before heading to the airport and my flight down to Santiago gets me in at the convenient time of 230 am. Am I really complaining about everything so far? Fuck me. Life is good. Maybe my 7 am wake up is messing up my pma.

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Waking up....

340 am wake up call from the mosquitoes that have decided my hands are tasty enough to eat is not my fantasy way to start the day. So I pulled the mosquito net over me that I should have been under to start with and ill type this little update and try to sleep another couple hours before my next wake up time of 715. Tomorrow ill do some little potentially lame tour of a few spots here in northern Peru and spend my last day in mancora before the long ass bus ride back to Lima. I made a quick change of plans and I am now flying back to Santiago, Chile on Saturday night. Not sure what's gonna happen from there but hopefully its worth the trip south to the colder and less fun city of Stgo.
The coast of Peru has treated me well to some beautiful sunsets especially in huancuco and a nice warm waves here in marcora. The food has been good throughout Peru and I'm gonna miss mangoes and devouring them before jumping into the ocean. But most important ill have my epic tan to keep as a reminder of my little Peruvian vacation.
Alright attempt at sleep number two.....
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Peruuuuuuuuu

Ah what to say about Peru. Its definitely not Argentina and I say that in a good and a bad way. It feels more like South America was suppose to feel in my head at least. Definitely a little more unknown than what I've experienced down here so far. One of the things I love about Peru so far is the food. Its actually delicious and there has been vegetarian restaurants in almost every city but more importantly I have been able to eat in a few regular restaurants and with help from my spanish speaking friend there has been no problems at all. I think if I was on my own and with my complete lack of spanish I'd be pretty fucked though.
Right now I'm on my last hour or so of a 4 hour bus ride to the north of Peru to a beach town called Mancora. It supposedly is the best beach in Peru which I hope means white sand and warm water. I'd like to stay here a few nights before beginning the 20 plus hour bus ride back down to Lima and than eventually to nazca and cusco to go be ultratourist and hopefully actually get into machu picchu.
My quick dislike list of Peru.....
No soap in the bathroom.
People don't really smile here.
Fucking annoying taxi and bus drivers.
Too expensive for shitty hotel rooms in shitty towns.
Holy crap people are fat and pretty unhealthy here.

And my love list....
Its fucking Peru and that's awesome.
Fruits are delicious and readily available here.
Veg food here is a million times better than everywhere else so far.
The sunsets on the pacific are epic.
People may stare and be unfriendly but I don't feel threatened.
I know its only gonna get better.


Alright enough blogging. I don't know why I bother since I hate the idea of anyone actually reading this.

From Peru with love....
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muy muy bien

just finished up a 8 day stretch hanging with my new friend and amazing travel partner Betty the stupid Mexican. She is not actually stupid but a great girl and she definitely made iguazu and Argentina even more excellent than it is. I'm back in buenos aires alone now though and she is on her way back to Santiago, Chile to study and be bored because that place is not bumping.
I have 3 nights of sleep left in BA before I begin my Peruvian go at round 2. I'm excited for the fruit and to hopefully see machu pichu and maybe even the amazon there. I'd also love to study Spanish for at least a couple of weeks but we'll see how lazy I'm gonna be and how long I can stay in one place. I've officially decided to skip Ecuador unless I get the last minute call from Chad telling me there is a chance for any sea shepherds action.

Alright its time to get off the bus and back to the streets.

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An update from a double decker bus heading from buenos aires to iguazu waterfall. We are three hours into a 16 hour bus ride and the joy I felt with the one movie I said they would be playing on the ride die hard 4 is now gone because they switched to Spanish dub with English subtitles. Oh well you can't win them all. Everything else is going excellent. Tour finished two nights ago and I stayed in argentina while bane flew to brasil for one last show. Tour was a blast but not nearly as crazy as I thought it would be. I suppose they had filled my head with crazy expectations but I definitely was not disappointed. I'm completely ready to do some real traveling around South America now though and get out of the cities and into gringoville. I've dream of iguaza for a long time though so this is a good start.

I don't even know if I can do a proper wrap up on each of the countries we went through now but ill give it a shot since I can't handle the fake John Mcclane.

After Colombia which wasn't really Colombia but bogota and a long crazy bus ride to medellin and back to bogota we went down to Peru. Again sweet kids picked us up at the airport and again we packed too many people into a cab and a car. Lima definitely was the craziest of all the cities we went to. Crazy airport, crazy driving, and crazy sickness which followed us once we left. Everyone was real sweet though and I think low batt is a proper enough description of the laid back style of everyone there. The show was alright maybe the weakest of the tour but the fact that bane played at 2 am probably didn't help. Peru also has the least attractive girls of sa with a few really cute exceptions.
Obviously since we are in south America we ate lots of pizza and Chinese food. We went to a kids house one day though and they hired a chef to prepare us a traditional meal veganized. It was pretty awesome and this kids fancy house had an insane view of a shanty town just up the mountain from his house. Apparently if I went up there I wouldn't come back.
We also stayed at a total gringo hostel and even had to share a dorm with a few different British bros which I'm dreading once I'm on my own.
The next country was chile. I walked around a ton there met a nice Mexican girl at the show and ate more pizza. This was suppose to be the craziest merch night and it was a huge let down. Nobody was smashing at the table taking any and all sizes. Sure I yelled at the kids for about the first 15 minutes to quit being dicks and wait their turn but I didn't sell 4 grand or have to fight anyone off. Oh well.
The first show was apparently disappointing for the kids there but the second show was absolutely nuts in a way smaller room so I think it balanced out.
Last country and my present location is aregentina and its definitely the most euro feeling place and I do believe I love it. I could easily live here well as much as I live anywhere.
Alright my fingers are over typing hopefully this uploads and hopefully these waterfalls are everything I've been dreaming of.

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lazy lunes

back in the bougie apartment after a crazy 30 hours which consisted of one 10 hour drive from bogota to medellin 10 hours of sitting around confused, eating delicious food (finally), hanging outside the show, being at the show, bane killing it again, and than eating at the same pizza chain that disappointed us last time. We returned to the bus to find out that the driver now decided he was too hungry and tired to drive back to bogota which makes sense since apparently he didnt sleep or eat during the 10 hours that he could have. So the non spanish speaking of us sat around confused trying to figure out if we were leaving and more importantly if it was safe for our driver to drive us through windy mountains if he didnt feel up to it. He was talked into it and so we continued our little round trip journey back to bogota. I was scared shitless most of the ride because I was sitting in the front row and whenever I would wake up tossing and turning I felt like we were about to go off the road. We made it back alright though and eventually got let into our apartment by the security guards who said our place hadn't been paid for the extra days yet.
Another trip to the mall to go to the grocery store and the realization that eating vegan in colombia is way harder than i expected. I returned home with peanut butter and jelly and a cantaloupe. Vitamin D3 is in everything soy down here so fucking lame. So now we're just chilling at the apartment some dudes are playing cards and I'm about to take a nap. Hopefully tonight will be fun because its Nicks birthday and sweet Cata's two year celebration.

This blog really sucks so far...sorry if you're reading it.

day two in bogota...first day of shows

Yesterday was spent hanging with some new homies who all treated me like I was an old friend. We went to a tasty vegetarian restaurant where I was served avocado after making sure if wouldn't be in my salad. I didn't die though so maybe I need to sit down and test this supposed allergy so I can stop bumming people out when they find out i don't eat it. Also the restaurant definitely had a krishna thing going on so I hopefully I escaped without consuming milk...fuck krishna and his love of cow rape. I have no idea why this is a hater post so far because the food was delicious and the cute waitress gave me some chocolate to apologize. I got a nice nap in later on and then the dudes took me around for a walk around bogota. Its a nice enough city but the pollution is a bit overwhelming and I haven't had a chance to see the part that is suppose to be charming as the guide books say.
Eventually we went to the airport to pick up Dalbec and than back to our sweet three bedroom apartment in a quite fancy part of town. The rest of bane came in a couple hours later and we all crashed pretty early.
So today started after a good 8 hour night of sleep on some couch cushions on the floor. Another dude named tutu (I have no idea of that's how he spells it) came over with willy and he speaks great English so he's been our little tour guide. He's also vegan straight edge so I'm pretty psyched for that. For some reason nobody really wants to take us to any traditional places so we somehow winded up at a mall today. My worst nightmare of hanging with hardcore kids came true. We got out quick though because nine of us wanted to be there and we were hungry. Again we somehow winded up at a hamburger joint in another mall but this one had a pretty delicious falafel sandwich so we ate up.
shit this is going way too slow.

next up was the weird idea to have a autograph signing session at a tattoo shop. It didn't wind up being that awkward so we hung there for a couple hours and kids got their baniacism on. After the autograph sesh we went to some overpriced pizza spot for some mediocre pizza. Definitely not worthy of www.whatveganseat.wordpress.com

around 10 there was a secret show at a small practice space where about 75 kids packed into a little room and bane killed it. it was definitely fun but oddly kids bought merch at the autograph session but not at this show. we also had the craziest taxi ride of my life to that show where i told zach we should definitely get out of the cab because i thought we were gonna get killed.

we headed back to the apartment for a good nights sleep at our swank place. woke up around 11 and got ready for the matinee show today. they picked us up and brought us to the venue which was awesome. perfect sized stage, double level balconies on both sides, and full of little hardcore kids. the show started around 2 and a bunch of local bands played that i didnt watch and than reconcile from argentina (maybe) who were on tour with and than bane. it was definitely one of the craziest shows i have ever seen with bane and i had a blast. apparently its gonna only get crazier so this tour is gonna be a blast. the girls at the show were super cute so i guess that is going to have to make up for me not making any tips on this tour.

alright were back at the apartment now and chilling for a couple of hours before we head to medellin which is an 8 hour drive through the mountains. minus the lack of any real colombian food and early nights this tour is bumping so far.

South America day uno!

I just landed in Bogota, Colombia and now I'm standing outside the airport enjoying rhe warmth and waiting for "willy" the promoter to pick me up. This little SA adventure starts off with a three week bane tour which should be pretty epic than ill be roaming around for another 6 weeks or so. I'm definitely more excited about this trip than I've been in a long time. Ten days of work this year put me into a bit of a funk so I'm happy to be back out there doing what I do best. And if I don't leave this continent habloing I'm a fool.

Alright enough looking at a little screen let's look for the tattooed guy and see what the bogota airport has to offer for babes.

stuck/stranded/happy

i never would have thought a snow storm would be the beginning of my getting stranded in north carolina. the addition of a full on hiatus on my free flight benefits is the real culprit to my being stuck on the east coast though. with plans to be crisscrossing the us for the next three weeks to see everyone i want to see before leaving for south america going down the drain i may potentially be spending the next three weeks in nyc. the thought is actually a bit daunting and i will very impatiently be waiting to board my flight to bogota, colombia on march 11th.

the surprise welcome home party for nathan went off perfectly though and spending time with jonathan, jimmy, gannon, christina, newman, and natalia has been more than enough to keep me happy. i really wish i was capable of living in the moment more and not always thinking about whats next i suppose its better than worrying about the past.