At this point, I wish I had thought of some nickname for my readers other than, well, "readers". Because then I could have started this, my capping entry for this one-year excursion, with something like, "Hey there, Loonies, it's been a fun ride, hasn't it?" But I can't, so let's move on from here. This is my blog's epilogue (epiblog?), and I can guarantee you right now, it is not going to follow any logical narrative path. It is somewhat stream-of-consciousness, and will just jump from topic-to-topic of what I want to note. It'll be fun. And it'll put a bit of a capper on the whole trip, I hope. So let's dive in!
Entry #076: Saturday, April 19, 2014 (Torrance, CA)
Alright, here we are: the final normal narrative entry! Don't
worry; I'm not going to stop here! Truth be told, I'd hate to close this out on
such a dull note. I might be posting
another entry about my re-acclimating to life in the US (if that turns out to
be a thing), and I'll definitely be
posting a retrospective entry, giving my overall impressions of the trip, plus
some interesting factoids (seriously, try to guess the total word count of this
blog). But let's not focus on the future, let's focus on the past! What
happened in the last few days of my trip? Uhhh....not much. But let's check out
what that "not much" entails!
Entry #075: Monday, April 14, 2014 (Guayaquil, Ecuador)
Back in Guayaquil, well past my one-year anniversary, a few days from returning back to the United States, and lemme tell ya, folks, it's been a bit of an emotional roller coaster for me, inasmuch as I can feel emotion. I'll explain more within the entry, but needless to say, there's been a veritable hodgepodge of feels. So let's look into what brought about said feels in the last few days, as this may be my last entry before my days will be filled with photo uploading and other computer-planning thingamajigs, which make for terribly dull narratives. So let's hop to it!
Entry #074: Wednesday, April 9, 2014 (San Cristobal, Galapagos Islands)
So, I'm guessing that this is going to be my last entry from
within the Galapagos Islands. The next time you hear from this blog, I'll be
back in Guayaquil, in what will either be my second-to-last or possibly last entry before being home. What a
concept, eh? Truth be told, I'm genuinely not sure if I want there to be 75
entries or 76. 75 is a mathematically
pleasant number in many respects, but 76
has the added bonus of also being the number of photo albums I have from the
trip. A coincidence, to be sure, but a fun one. Stay tuned to find out, I
guess? But first, let's look at what just happened in the past few days. There
are wasps, guaranteed!
Entry #073: Sunday, April 6, 2014 (San Cristobal, Galapagos Islands)
I would love to say this entry is my one-year anniversary
entry from the beginning of the trip. I really would, and I guess I could, but it would be a lie. The actual
anniversary is on the 8th. However, I can't guarantee I'll have Internet access
to post on that day, and I don't want to be late,
so I guess we're celebrating preemptively? Yay? In any case, with one year
rolling around, we're getting ever much closer to the end of the trip, but
before we look at that, we continue our work in the Galapagos sun. (And trust
me, there's plenty of sun.)
Entry #072: Wednesday, April 2, 2014 (San Cristobal, Galapagos Islands)
Before I begin, I don't necessarily what you might have
heard about in the news, or connected it with the fact that I'm in the
Galapagos, but at the moment of me posting this, all is well with me. I haven't
been swept away or any such thing. I can't make any guarantees for any point
after this, so I guess you'll just have to stay tuned? Anyway, I've been doing
some work here at the Hacienda Esperanza for a few days now, and it's been
good. Different than my Askari work (significantly fewer crazy animal encounters,
for one), but neat in its own way. And the afternoon relaxing is quite nice.
But let's not waste time with generals; let's dive into specifics.
Entry #071: Sunday, March 30, 2014 (San Cristobal, Galapagos Islands)
Hola from the Galapagos! Before you answer, yes, I have
already seen a tortoise. (I've also seen a bunch of finches.) Now, my entries
here are going to be a little odd, timing-wise. There is absolutely no internet
connection at the place I'm staying/working at, so I can only get online in
town, 10km away. Hence, there will be even less rhyme or reason to the posting
schedule than normal. And also hence, the dates on these will be a little out
of sync with when I post them. But I suppose if you read them even one day
after I post them, it won't make a damn bit of difference, so why am I even
going on about it? Let's talk about the Galapagos.
Entry #070: Friday, March 28, 2014 (Guayaquil, Ecuador)
And here I am in Ecuador. My 22nd country, if you count every country where I gave my passport to a migrations officer. And my last country. It's a little bittersweet being here, but I really am starting to hear the siren song of home in my ears. So I'm just going to keep on keeping on. But before I talk about this hot and humid country, we need to finish up my time in Peru. And also talk about my bus ride between the two countries. It was a 28-hour bus ride. That's a long bus ride. Anyhoo, let's get on it.
Entry #069: Sunday, March 23, 2014 (Lima, Peru)
Hola from Lima, my last stop in Peru. It's been...well, fairly uneventful the last few days. That's partially because I was just in transit, and partially because I haven't had much motivation these part few days. This lack of motivation might be due either to a kind of travel version of senioritis, or it can be due to the fact that I've come down with a cold (thanks to the fact that my tent-mate on the Inca trail had a cold), and I don't have Emergen-C to fight it. I've also been sleeping a lot more and have had a general sense of lethargy, so I'll just chalk it up to the latter possibility. And truth be told, all the coughing I've been doing hasn't contributed to my writing spirit, so let's get to this.
Entry #068: Tuesday, March 18, 2014 (Cusco, Peru)
Hey now, I'm back from four days without Internet, and what's the first thing I do when I get it back? I write a blog entry for you, of course! Can't you see how much I love you all? "But Andrew," you may be asking, "Why didn't you have Internet for four days?" Well, you may remember that I mentioned I was going to be going on the Inca Trail. I, um...yeah. That's pretty much it. I was on the Inca Trail, hence no Internet. But hey, let's read about it right now!
Entry #067: Thursday, March 13, 2014 (Cusco, Peru)
Alright, here we are, the night before my Inca Trail trek. This is my last big multi-day trek of this trip. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't seem quite as grand as either the Kilimanjaro trek or the Everest Base Camp trek. That's probably because it's only four days, from being picked up in my hotel to being dropped back off. Since it is so short, it probably won't have either a two-hour video or seven-hour podcast covering it, so, um, don't get excited for that. However, it mean that I'll likely not have a new entry up for at least five days, if not more. In short, nothing much is gonna change. But enough of the future, let's look to the past.
Entry #066: Tuesday, March 11, 2014 (Cusco, Peru)
Hey folks, this is a tri-city blog entry today! Mainly 'cause it, uh, covers me being in three different cities (to various extents), but more than that, I'm in a new country. This time, it's Peru, my second-to-last stop on this trip. More specifically, I'm in Cusco at the moment, prepping to go on the Inca Trail to see Machu Picchu. What's my thoughts on Cusco? Well, you're going to have to read on to find out. But suffice to say, people in Peru know the tourist business better than the folks in Bolivia, for better or for worse (and believe me, it's very much for worse).
Entry #065: Thursday, March 6, 2014 (La Paz, Bolivia)
As of me writing this ("this" being the intro, which I ironically write after everything else in the entry), I have only about seven hours before I hop on a bus and make a nine-ish hour trip to Puno, Peru. While it's definitely only been a week in Bolivia - a short time compared to many of the places I've been - it definitely feels like much more than a week, because man, stuff happened, and I went places and did things. What exactly were these things? Well, let's take a look.
Entry #064: Sunday, March 2, 2014 (La Paz, Bolivia)
Hola from Bolivia! Yes, as should be no surprise to anyone at this point, I'm in another country! But hey, maybe I'll have two full entries in this one before I move onto the next! Dare to dream. In any case, I've only been in Bolivia a short while, but it's been a pretty enjoyable little while. And there's been some unexpected elements to it, namely how planned it's been. Though, um, not by me. You'll understand before too long.
Entry #063: Thursday, February 27, 2014 (Santiago, Chile)
Before I begin, I gotta level with ya, folks. I'm again in one of those moods where I get no pleasure in the prospect of writing, where it's just another burden that I have to deal with. It's been a while since the last one of those, no? But, of course, this blog is for my own personal record benefit, as well as for the benefit of the Chinese phishing websites that Google Analytics says makes up two-thirds of my audience. So still I write. I'm not going to say "I'm gonna go qucikly through everything", because every time I do that, it's a 10,000-word entry, but still, I apologize if the quality here isn't up to whatever usual standards I might have. Anyhoo, moving along.
Entry #062: Friday, February 21, 2014 (Santiago, Chile)
Hola from Chile! Yep, I'm in a new country now, just for the next week. That said, I've only been here for a couple of hours, and so the fact that the title has it listed as the location of this blog entry is a bit disingenuous. But regardless, I'm here, and I'm here with a big bruise on my side. No, no, I didn't get into any fights. But I won't tell you what the bruise is from; you'll have to read on and guess where it came from in these last three days. Ready, go!
Entry #061: Tuesday, February 18, 2014 (Mendoza, Argentina)
You have no idea how much I want to make a Simpsons/McBain reference now that I'm here in the city of Mendoza. Really, I do. Still, I'm gonna keep a stiff upper lip and resist the temptation. Still, it's hard to believe two things. First, I'm almost done with my time in Argentina. Admittedly, that's gonna happen a lot while I'm in each South American country, so I'll get used to it. Second, as of today, I have exactly two months before my flight home. But now's not the time to contemplate my triumphant, rose-raining return to American shores, but rather the last couple of days, and the things happening therein. It includes cream sauces, I promise!
Entry #060: Friday, February 14, 2014 (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
Hola, mis amigos, and welcome to Argentina! Or, at least, a blog entry about Argentina (unless you happen to be reading this in Argentina, in which case we should totes meet up!). It's been an interesting few days, not least of which because my sleep pattern has been royally screwed up. As such, every time I've wanted to write and post this entry, I've become all tuckered out and dozed off. But let's not talk about that (yet). Let's talk about what's been the goings-on in the last couple days.
Entry #059: Monday, February 10, 2014 (Auckland, New Zealand)
Well, another chapter closing off in the book of my travels (and I almost mean that literally, because if you printed out all these blog entries into a book, it would come out to at least 250,000 words, and most likely much more; I'll check before it's all done). Heading out from New Zealand, where I spent a little under two months, to South America, where I'll spend a little more than two months. Reflections on that later. But let's talk about the last couple days in New Zealand before I get on my 41-hour flight. Whoop whoop!
Entry #058: Wednesday, February 5, 2014 (Auckland, New Zealand)
Entry #057: Friday, January 31, 2014 (Tauranga, New Zealand)
With this being the end of January, and the fact that I only have three more bus trips scheduled, it is really starting to sink in that my time in New Zealand is coming to a close. That's the weird thing about staying in one country longer, I guess. Some may say it was too long - others may say it was too short - but after giving it some real thought, I've decided that like everything else, it's exactly what it needed to be. On a less philosophical note, I did some cool stuff the past few days! Let's have a look at them!
Entry #056: Tuesday, January 28, 2014 (Rotorua, New Zealand)
All said, I could probably wait a few days longer before publishing a new entry, because one of the main crux of the last few days is that I wasn't really doing too much. But truth be told, I'd rather have more, shorter entries (at least, in equal proportion to the leviathans I occasionally write). And also, that's not to say nothing happened in the past few days. I talked with a lot of folks, for one! Also, there are some things interesting because they didn't happen, but I won't spoil the surprise...
Entry #055: Saturday, January 25, 2014 (Taupo, New Zealand)
So what a difference a few days (and a couple hundred kilometers) make. I've gone from a fairly dull place, staying in a really uncomfortable hostel, to being in a pretty laid-back-yet-happenin' place, in a hostel that's quite comfortable. I've gone from rednecks getting stoned off their asses to tastings of honey-based alcohols. I've gone from walking for hours to...walking for hours. Huh. Actually, yeah, walking for hours has apparently become that thing that I do, so much so that I've now added a new tag for these entries for it. (Not that I'm going to retroactively tag all the old posts; that would require actual work.)
Entry #054: Monday, January 20, 2014 (Hastings, New Zealand)
Well, if you're reading this, that means I survived my time
in that overcrowded hostel. Well, I survived even if you're not reading it. So
that's good, although it wasn't guaranteed, especially with how weak the walls
were to prevailing winds (more on that later). But now I can't dwell in that
past, because I'm now in a new hostel, in a new town. I've been in both for
less than two hours, so I don't have too much to say about them, but there are
some interesting aspects so far. So let's get started!
Entry #053: Thursday, January 16, 2014 (Wellington, New Zealand)
One island down, one to go! Well, technically there's the Cook Islands, but those are legally their own country. But yeah, I am now on the North Island, so maybe we'll be getting slightly more summer-like weather here than I've been having for the past month. Maybe? Hopefully? In any case, the last few days haven't been necessarily the most action packed (in fact, two of them were almost exclusively dedicated to travel), but that doesn't mean they haven't been interesting? Or does it? Maybe you'll have to read through to see. I've forgotten, that's for sure.
Entry #052: Saturday, January 11, 2014 (Fox Glacier Village, New Zealand)
So, I'm just a little under halfway through my time in New Zealand, and what do I have to show for it? Well, a lot of panorama photos, for one thing. It's really good for that. But also a lot of internal musings about the nature of adventure and how it applies to my own journeys. But we'll get into that later, because first we gotta talk about my traveling into Glacier Country, and before that, my inability to eat burger. What a scoop!
Entry #051: Tuesday, January 7, 2014 (Te Anau, New Zealand)
Hey there, how's your new year been? I hope 2014 has been everything you've been hoping for! Me?
I've had no particular hopes or dreams for 2014; I'm just taking it as it
comes. And so far it's been pretty good, I can't deny. I've had some good opportunities
to meet and hang out with some people I legit enjoyed spending time with, and
have been able to go to some of the more dramatic natural areas of New Zealand.
Plus, I was given pounds of free meat! But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Let's
go back and see how this first week of 2014 has gone.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)