fotos

route 43 en route to route 40, perito moreno, argentina. failed hitchhiking attempt. slept about 40 yards ahead of that sign in the ditch.

cerro torre mountains, el chaltén, argentina

perito moreno glacier, el calafate, argentina

the smith vineyard, la consulta, argentina


beavis? zipaquirá, colombia




¨la familia¨ ibagué, colombia



hummingbird park, salento, colombia




mona´s place santa elena, colombia, near medellín




ali´s house, sierra nevadas de santa marta, colombia



my slip and fall at the fountain of youth at la ciudad perdida. ali is once again lunging for a too late rescue. alyssa thinks it´s hilarious that i may have broken my back in three places.

sunset, taganga beach, santa marta, colombia

be good,
michael

patagonia poon

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¿car 54, where are you?

¨In Patagonia, where distances are great and vehicles are few, hitchers should expect long waits and carry warm, windproof clothing.¨ -Hitchhiking, The Lonely Planet Argentina

in an effort to aid my budget, and plainly to test my luck, i ventured to the outskirts of el bolsón to try and thumb a ride south. nevermind the cautionary climate warnings. the air is still, the skies are clear and the sun is imposing its will upon the city. as for the wait, the lonely planet proves 2/3 true.

the first hour is fun. i grin at cars whizzing by, drivers mocking me with a thumbs up and a hearty laugh. who knows which one will be daring enough to take a chance on a gringo? the day is filled with optimism.

the second hour i lose myself in the landscape. blindly reaching my thumb toward RN 40, staring into the dry jagged peaks of cerro piltriquiltrón towering 2260m above me, i can´t help but sustain my perma-grin.

the third hour, still staring through the mountains, i am drifting into the past two weeks.

remembering that the vineyard in la consulta truly is paradise. 50 acres of of mostly malbec grape nearly ripe for the picking surrounds a house built to spanish architectural perfection. and remembering the casino in the center of town we ignorantly stumbled into, thinking there would be a blackjack table only to fibnd electronic roullette. the max bet was somewhere around $20/spin. to mark, this is bullshit. if losing a single hand cannot shower a world of pain and depression on you, its not really gambling. we lose 100 pesos. whatever.

remembering the ex-marine from jackson, mi we met in mendoza, who really isn´t one o´ them cabernet sav-ay-yawn guys. he loves them blonks, though! and the malee-backs ain´t too shabby, neither. if you´re looking for a good time in jackson, mi, stop into potter´s pub. ask for sid. there may or may not be strippers involved. that part was a little hazy.

remembering how much dulce de leche i´ve stuffed myself with. you can get the stuff on ANYTHING. cookies and pastries, of course. solo, naturally. hot dogs, why not? still waiting for dulce de leche steak sauce and dulce de leche shampoo. cross your fingers. its like i´m pregnant with a sweet tooth baby. mark was half impressed, half disgusted by my pension for sweets.

remembering pancho and olga, who take care of the house in la consulta and the 3 pound piece of meat pancho cooked on the asado, which we promptly devoured. and the pound of ice cream i swallowed aftwerward.

remembering the nyc couple i hung out with here in el bolsón. jared and julie, who are travelling the world for a year and the indecisevness inbred with companionship travelling. the night i met them, i decided to accompany them to dinner. there is an abundance of restaurants and eateries here. we ate an hour and a half after leaving the hostel.
¨expletive...babe...expletive...i´m about to fucking eat one of mike´s cigarettes...expletive...babe...¨

young love. it´s endearing. the couple was good company and had plenty of advice for my future travels into the patagonia. however, i tuck this memory away for when the road gets lonely.

remembering the mountain bike day trip i took with jared. i had been mountain biking once before in minneapolis with my roommate, shaker. on that occasion, i busted my tire and face planted into a tree 10 minutes in, to have shaker laughing hystarically at me for the duration of the day. dickhead. love ya, pal.

here, i fair no better. i am trailing jared downhill a rocky and dusty trail en route to a mirador overlooking lago puelo. apparently, a gorgeous site. the dust kicking up from jared´s back tire hinders my vision severely. so it was only after flying over my handle bars and completing a double sommersault that i noticed a giant rock jutting out in the middle of the road. bloodied and battered, i ended up getting some decent photos. nonetheless, fuck mountain biking.
more accurately, fuck my clumsiness.

and after 5 hours, 6 cigarettes, 20 crackers, a half liter of water, 247 cars and a refreshments album, i´m growing restless. beginning to take the rejection personally. it´s like being dumped. becoming dillusional, i am now conjuring up redemption letters in my head-

¨dear car 134,

i am writing to let you know that i am the happiest i have been in years. YEARS. i made it to el chaltén just fine without you. in fact, there were plenty of cars after you that fancied me as a passenger. car 182, car 197, car 209. oh, car 209. the ´79 dusty red ford pick-up with 2x4 side panels atop the bed... PLENTY. this will be the last time i write, car 134.

i miss you, car 134. remember the time you kicked up a stone from your back tire, pelting me in the stomach, rendering me breathless and writhing in pain on the side of the road and you sped away laughing so hard? remember that? it wasn´t so funny then, but i am laughing now.

i love you, car 134. please come back.¨

awakening to my insanity, i decide to cut my losses and stumble back to town to buy a bus ticket, tail between my legs. and during that long walk, it dawns on me; i look like a complete asshole.

less than a week ago in la consulta, i went to the barber, eduardo, to get buzzed up. after balding my head, i requested a trim of my two week old half-beard. i left the barber shop with an adolescent mustache and a dirty patch of hair below my bottom lip. eduardo insisted this was the ¨the look.¨

so it´s somewhat understandable that not even the middle aged guy in the pick up sporting a ¨beard¨ as a french tickler with a case of snickers bars and a three meter stack of porn mags would not even pick me up.

i´m now waiting for my 24 hour bus to rio gallegos, where i plan to catch another ride west to el calafate and the perito moreno glacier. i´m going to keep the trash ´stache and soul patch. i don´t know why.

the blog entries may be few and far between from here. i´ve been having a bear of a time uploading pictures. and if i open hand slap another computer monitor to the face, i may be arrested.

one more thing. do yourself a favor...if you can find ¨aruacana negra¨ beer where you are, BUY IT. it´s a great brew, made in el bolsón.

oh, wait. wait! i think that guy with the snickers is turning around! i´ll catch up with you guys later...

be good,

michael

amazing hike....just ask mark

Oky doky. It´s time. I am only going to do this once so I will try to get this right. If you´re Mike´s parents you might want to look away. If you´re Mike´s grandparents you absolutely want to look away. If you´re a girl who has a crush on Mike I am about to change that.

Just kidding Mike. This is all about me, otherwise I wouldn´t be doing this.

MP was amazing. 5 day trek, waterfalls, mountains, ancient ruins, who the hell cares. The pictures show it all. For those of you who have done it, kudos, you probably didn´t do the 75km trek we did at 15000 ft so I deem you to be a complete pussy. For those who have not done it, make it happen in this lifetime, truly special. Below is a brief recap of the 5 day trek through my eyes, I will allow Sack to interject for ¨fact checking¨purposes.

Day 1
We arrive in some town after waking up at 4am and driving via Bus three hours to some town (Mike will know the name). I will call it ¨shithole.¨ There we meet Christina and Swede who were dumb enough to join us on this adventure.
-Nobody does this hike at this time of year, due to the frigid temp in the mountains and the fact that it is rainy season when you are out of the mountains. We neglected this fact, deciding that the cost was a steal at $200 less than we budgeted (hmmm, maybe because this trek fucking sucks was why it was so cheap).

I pick up a walking stick, nobody else does. This is an ominous sign.

Mike: The name of the town is Mollepata and even with the aide of his brand new, woven mitten hand gripped, four peso walking stick, Mark is out of breath after 20 paces (before we have officially started the hike). I am already thinking of the least awkward moment to ask for his cigarettes. Be patient.


The temperature is perfect and we depart, I am sweating my ass off within 15 minutes. Our trusty tour guide Enrique starts to suggest short cuts, everybody else in our group thinks these are a good idea, I vehemently disagree. The shortcuts consist of going straight up the sides of mountains (within 2 hours I am through all three clean shirts, can´t breathe and have sworn off cigs for good). Mike, Swede and Christina are stopping ¨to take pictures,¨ five days later I will figure out they were just waiting for me to catch up.

Seven hours later we arrive at camp for the night. It´s 13000 ft and freezing, my sweaty clothes now smell like garbage and are frozen to me. I was the only one unable to make it over the ravine without my shoes getting soaked. I am asking peasant farmers for socks, $100 a sock. Enrique sets up our tent, Mike informs me that it smells like dog shit, I am miserable.

Mike: Mark decided it necessary to bring along a bottle of Hugo Boss cologne. His contribution to the supplies for the hike. Marvelous. Of course, this will disperse the smell of fish guts and dog shit in our tent, we think. Our tent now smells like an orange rind, a young male model, fish guts and dog shit.

Day 2
We were suppossed to get up at 4am to climb to 15000 ft, straight up. Enrique had informed us the night before that there were 7 ¨zig zags¨ up the mountain, completely vertical, that they break a lot of men (group consensus over dinner the night before is that I am already fucked). What Enrique didn´t inform us was that he planned on getting completely tanked that night and that his severe hangover would require a spliff at 7am and us not leaving until 730. I wish we had left in the cover of night, at least Mike would not have been able to see me completely broken at 5am in the morning.

Mike: This was not laughable. I almost wanted to cry. Seeing the inner ends of Mark´s eyebrows rise to meet each other, wrinkling his forehead, to match a frown engulfing his chin, I can only give pats on the back. We can do it man. Maybe...

We meet up with a local named Juan. He decides to accompany us up the mountain due to boredom. Juan was bored before we left? Well him and I were about to become best friends, and Juan was about to become bored out of his god damn mind.

An hour into the hike I am dying, easily 300 paces behind the group. Juan suggests that he take my pack, hoodie and jacket. I tell him ït´s cold up here, i think i should keep the layers on.¨ Juan looks at me for a second and informs me that if I keep the coat on any longer he is going to have to squeeze the sweat out of it. I tell him ït´s cool Juan, we are already passed the zig zags, good times are ahead.¨Juan informs me that the zig zags are still 30 minutes out. I lean over my walking stick and try to scream, I can´t due to lack of oxegen, promptly hand coat and pack over to Juan.

Mike: Juan is wearing a full body wind breaker suit a la Florida grandma retirees. Fancy. He does not break sweat once.

Zig Zag 1-Enrique is already at the top of zig zag 7 and getting high. Swede is on zig zag 5 and trying to get his camera to capture the mountains, Christina is on 4 and just put another coat on, Mike is on 3 smoking a cig. Our cook and the donkeys are on zig zag 2 (yeah the donkeys with 400lbs of shit on their backs)
-The cook leaves at least 90 minutes after us, he cleans up the mess after breakfast, folds the tents up, talks to friends in the village, goes to a pay phone to call his family, plans the lunch menu, rolls his own cig, then leaves. He and the donkeys are already ahead of me, we only left 90 minutes ago. I am depressed.

Zig zag 4-I am broken and tell Juan to carry me. He tells me to think of ¨happy thoughts.¨ I tell him i have ¨none left.¨He tells me to think of a woman I love, perhaps a wife or a gf? I tell him that every woman I have ever loved now hates me, I am alone in this dark scary world and does he have any better suggestions? Juan leaves me (I think I depressed him) and teleportes to the top.

Mike: If Mark and I drink the water here, we are cramped over at the waist for the next month with disentary and Typhoid. Juan drinks the water here and is infused with powers akin to Superman. Mother fucker. I love him.

Zig zag 7-I finally make it, Mike is chain smoking and asks if he can have my pack ¨since clearly I am not having any of them.¨ I am too tired to tell him to go to to hell, since Juan had carried my pack to the top, Mike was already smoking my cigs so the question was more of a courtesy. I take comfort in the fact that we are at the top, Enrique informs me that´s not the case. The ¨passage¨ looms 60 minutes out, higher elevation.

Mike: Cigarettes. Check.

60 minutes later the group has made it through the passage. Cameras are out, pictures are taken, Enrique slaps everybody on the back! It´s absolutely amazing to be that high! ...

I can vaquely see this all happening from my vantage point, it looks fun and gratifying, I am still 30 minutes out.

I finally make it, Enrique is taking a nap, Juan has taught Mike about 450 years of Inca history. The group takes out their cameras again in pity, pretend to be excited, we snap photos. I can barely stand and it´s noon and we have another 4.5 hours to hike. Juan says goodbye to us, pretty sure he mutters to enrique that ¨i am an embarrassment.¨

Mike: General Pizarro walked these very same mountains in the 16th century en route to slaying the entire Inca civilization. Bastard. I build my own rock monument paying homage to the mountain, as many an Inca has done over the centuries. The dot that is Mark is slowly approaching...

Day 3
I soaked my shoes again the night before, but the good news is we are going downhill! The bad news is that going down hill sucks as much as going up! It´s rainy, i take every slope as if it´s going to mangle my body and quickly fall behind. Mike has proceeded to take at least three shits on the path and still is probably .5 miles ahead of me.

Mike: Before this trip I had not pooped in 10 days. The 180 has taken its course. There is no stopping my bowels. By Day 2, I have deemed it inevitable that I will shit myself several times over. In the civilized world this would be humiliating enough to send me into hiding for days. Here, I am happy for the added warmth and Mark´s uncanty ability to take poo pictures. It is much appreciated. Lucky for you, we spare you the photographs. They are traumatizing.

Travel agent, cab drivers, tour operator, Enrique...you would think one of them would tell you that ¨death¨ is a possiblity on this hike right? NOPE. About four hours into day three we start going over ¨bridges¨ that take you across VERY SCARY WATERFALLS.
-A bridge usually consists of a couple tree trunks tied together, with the occasional wooden plank.

Well, the bridges increase in difficulty and with it my anxiety. By about 4pm I am screaming at Enrique ¨you motherfucker, if there is another bridge I am going to kill you.¨ Enrique would respond with ¨Amigo! No mas bridges!¨And then there would be another damn bridge of increasing difficulty. We finally reach the final bridge and it´s ridiculously terryfying. I mean, if you get this one wrong you´re going to die. Not die like ¨ouch i sprained my ankle¨ like fall into a ravaging river and smash your head into some rocks.
-Swede goes first, slips and then crawls over the bridge. He finally gets there, looks back at me and legitimately looks like he just shit his pants. (Swede just finished up a year of military service, has been kicking the shit out of this hike, does chin ups on loose branches, etc...not looking good for MUA)
-Christana goes across with Enrique, Mike is next. Mike looks legititmately scared. Mike finally gets over after about ten minutes of holding Enrique´s hand and telling him that ¨if this is it, find my cheap nicotine infested cigs, and if they are not too wet, smoke one for me and then bury it with my body¨

Mike: Yep

-YAY MY TURN!!!! Enrique looks scared. I explain to him that I am a Bear: I am good for lifting heavy things, snuggling girls to the point of death, and wearing sweat pants because those 34´s are just a ¨little too snug.¨ Enrique takes my pack, and insists that I watch him do it once. All I can think of is that Enrique has lost his fucking tip. 15 minutes later, I am on the other side, ALIVE. But jesus it was close folks. I mean I almost died, almost took Enrique with me. On day 5 Enrique would inform me that was the closest near death experience of his life, nobody in 5 years of doing this hike had come that close to death.

I made it across, in the process slipping on a rock and soaking my shoes for the third straight day, but I lived and made it into camp that night ECSTATIC to still be with you all.


Day 4
It rains for the fourth straight day, every bone in my body aches. Mike falls way behind with me as we stop about every 15 minutes for artistic photos, cigs, stretching and basically no reason at all. Blisters have set in, I smell like five straight nights in a Tijuana brothel. This is when I play my ipod for 4 straight hours desperately searching for motivational tools.

Mike: The power of music is incredible. Somehow, Mark´s manhood had made its way into his ipod and he has found it! I am assuming he is listening to ¨Amazing¨performed by Seal at the Victoria Secret runway show. He is kicking my ass all over this trail. Salud, mate.

Day 5-Machu Picchu
We wake at 4am to walk to the base of MP, it´s dark out and amazing, nobody else is walking up the ancient steps but us!(I tried to take the bus with everybody else, Mike declared that was unacceptable, I still tried to buy a bus ticket to no avail). It´s raining again, we are about to pass the bridge and start the climb.
Swede-GO!
Christina-GO!
Mike-GO!
Mark-NO GO!
...somehow Enrique has everybody´s ¨entrance ticket¨ but mine. Swede and Christina go, Mike insists on staying with me, finally we get the clearance to cross the bridge, it´s still pitch dark.

Mike: For the umpteenth time on this hike, Mark is telling me to, ¨Go. Just FUCKING GO, dude!¨ I am not sure whether this is out of frustration with himself or because I took his cigarettes. I decide to stick out his verbal lacerations (Phil, you know what I´m talking about) and stay with him. Smoking his cigarettes.

Mike and I bought a shity flashlight on my insistance that ¨dude we will never need it.¨ WRONG. Shitty flashlight really fucking sucks, I can´t see a thing. Trust Mike right? Well Mike somehow gets us lost, and we do a nice loop de loop, taking us back to where we begin. Dawn is upon us, MUST GET TO THE TOP BEFORE SUNRISE. Mike agrees, finds a hot blonde and basically leaves me behind.
Hot blonde: Mark, we will wait for you.
Mike: Leave him.

Great friend for 4 days, really let me down on day five fella.

Mike: This is bullshit. Kind of.

I arrive at the top, 10,000 steps later. SURREAL. The horror of the 5 days was worth it. My agony and suffering are over (bus ride down bitches).

Now we are at the vineyard.

Mike: Paradise.

-MRS

Alive and Weird

My name is Drew Jenson. Mike Sack has asked me to write this blog on behalf of our combined experience over the past 2 weeks or so. Perhaps this will provide another window for you to peer into the goings-on of his present reality in Sudamerica. I was first introduced to Mike Sack a little over one year ago. On or around my 25th birthday, our paths crossed in a small train station in Ibague, Colombia. I had arrived in Colombia only a few days prior. Ive come from New York City for a 15 day expatriation in search of knowledge and a piece of understanding about myself and the world south of our version of America. I was in search of all things alive and weird. Mike Sack, with his own chosen verbiage, path, and time line, was in search of very similar things.



Mutually realizing the inherent benefits of the situation and the possibilities that lay before us, Mike Sack and I quickly became primos ¨cousins¨ and started laying down daily methods to support our symbiotic idealism. The first of which was to realize that being self-less is a positive and active way to be a good citizen. We also decided that while traveling, we were not normal citizens. There is an underlying understanding that a main objective of our experience was to personally embrace and take away for ourselves knowledge, experience, and understanding. THEN...Hopefully we will be good citizens and bring that back...



We were staying with a friend Id met in Chicago whose name is Andrea Giron Molina. We stayed with her at another Colombian Andrea´s apartment, who will be known to us as Dos. Dos was a great host and also an intense addition to the mix. A nice girl, but when the time comes to attack, even playfully, she is well known to go straight for the jugular. For example, I was greeted promptly with a fresh breakfast in the morning. Don't say you can't eat tomatoes... or the subtle thunder becomes, ¨you dont like my cooking? do you know where you are going to sleep tonight?¨ and some pretty constant, although possibly well-intended and in-your-face correction of our Spanish. All in all, all things were great once we got beyond their idiosyncratic nature and Dos has a huge heart.



We were watching some television with both Andreas and something about FARC taking American hostages came on... both Andreas smiled at me and maybe even did some dance to get my attention off the screen. Then, when Mike Sack and I set off to take a run, we were told not 'to talk to strangers or go where we didnt know.





Within five minutes we'd met an Elderly guy named Jose, who we did not know, and who led us on a run on some dodgey path in the pseudo-jungle towards an amazing and slightly hidden botanical garden. As he left us there, potentially for dead, we decided to take advantage of life and get weird. We must have ran for about an hour there before deciding to go back to the Apartment and get whisked away to part 2 of the longest day ever. La Familia.



La Familia was this huge Colombian family that we only knew because Dos taught English to one of their children. Before long Mike Sack and I turned into the central focus of a large group of children who wanted to know everything they could about these mysterious ¨gringos¨. We were this weird electric ball of light that La Familia, maybe 7 children, wanted to put their respective fingers on. As we left that evening, they were throwing us email addresses, phone numbers, and names scratched onto any little piece of paper they could scrounge. Further, they were hanging onto our pant legs all the way out of the gates of the neighborhood. Something like in Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indiana Jones is in India (?) and gets the onslaught of loyal child-fans.



It was apparent, for the sake of keeping things weird, that we take our thoughts on the road. We set off soon for a questionable trip to Cali. Id met this really nice girl on an airplane to Munich who just so happened to have moved back from Europe just days before we were to arrive. She seemed real excited to have us and show us her city. I'm not quite sure how happy her boyfriend and family were who, unbeknown to me, she had to lie to and explain how we didn't just meet on a plane, but rather years ago in the states and RANDOMLY again on a plan in Spain last summer. YEP. Did I mention we accidentally arrived on Valentines Day? Things were yet again about to get weird.



Natalia was her name, and she is a really nice person. We were staying in her huge luxury apartment in Cali. She told me not to worry about her little lie concerning how we knew each other. So I didn't.





At least not until her boyfriend asked me point-blank about 30 minutes later with her parents in the immediate next room ¨How do you know Naty?¨. He first asked in Spanish and I tried to fumble around and sort of smudge the issue. Then both Javier and Mike were getting confused and saying ¨you can answer in English¨, to which of course I replied ¨Que?¨. The interrogation probably lasted a solid four and a half minutes; one continuous cycle of Q & A.





Javier: ¨How do you know Naty?¨





Drew: ¨Que?¨





He finally relented.





I quickly went to the room after the conversation and tried to document the situation. Later at dinner, Javier asked ¨what were you writing in your journal¨. The issue sort of fizzled out, but Mike Sack, up for all things weird, was sporting the smile of champion that things were starting right off the bat. Needless to say, the journal was buried deep in the hiking pack only to be excavated outside of the city limits of Cali.



Like I said, Natalia was cool with everything. Principally because it was her idea to support this plan in the first place. And her weird and contrived lie to begin with. Things got funny when she had to go to class and took Sack and I to the ¨country club¨... Lets try and get some sun, sleep, and start fresh.





Thinking about a funny conversation with the locals about what to avoid in Cali, I remember Mike Sack randomly throwing out ¨Ok. So I see a Tonka Truck, 3 guys on Motorcycles and I do what?¨


Mike Sack and I kick a mean conversation in Spanglish.




Anyway... back to the country club. I woke up from a nap to notice a few bites on my persons. I looked over at mike and saw that there was something of an INFESTATION on his body. Without noticing anything out of the ordinary at the pool... our situation quickly changed form as we realized that we had BED BUGS.



I think we had about 1.5 hours until Natalia was to pick us up. Every single minute of which was spent stressing out about where they might have come from and how we could continue our trip without destroying South America with them. We nearly managed to convince ourselves we were in the midst of spreading a dangerous and possibly deadly epidemic of some sort.





After deliberating over every possible way to break the news, we decided to be honest and tell Naty when she came that we had to wash, burn, or otherwise cleanse all of our belongings of potential nocturnal pests. We were fully prepared to leave that day and not cause any more problems. Natalia came, with her boyfriend, and the awkwardness continued. When we finally started to tell her our situation, she looked at the bites and assured us that they were just some bug that chills by the pool and attacks in mass. From our near-tragic social calamity we were spared and thus born again on our continued weirdness. However weird this sounded, we were down with it. Javier later helped to confirm this reality of the "insectos de la piscina". WE DID NOT HAVE BED BUGS.






The rest of the trip went pretty smooth. We danced Salsa, Mike and I cooked some of my Thai Curry as a gift for the hospitality, and we spoke about renewable energy, bio-fuels, and Brazil with Natalia's father. We walked away appreciating the hospitality, but always realizing that we were not at home there. Its not that they were not nice people. It just seemed that our impact, or the impact we received, was quiet at best. We knew that our lifestyle was not very understood in this ambient... in this environment. And that its hard to penetrate such an established and private reality.

Moving back to Ibague in a rain storm, we were happy yet again to be on the road. We had a fun last night there and a good trip to a farm in the mountains on our way back to Bogotá. Bogotá was the center of life, as far as I am concerned, in Colombia. Che Guevara had documented the tension and air of revolution, but I think it was far from bleak. The people there truly touched my heart. I left before Mike Sack and when we saw each other again we met at my favorite dingy bar in Bogotá. This bacano little spot, operated by Ritchie, where you could pretty much control the music and everyone knew everyone (+ soccer on the TV non-stop, so in those long Spanish tirades i could space out into something great) The whole week, we couldn't pass this spot without walking in, even if not to drink, and giving Ritchie a hug. And nobody ever passed by without walking in.

Bogotá. Huge amounts of love in this city. Maybe it bit more personal for me, and not to waste your time on. We knew, through Andrea, a very special group of people here. We continued to eat amazing, home cooked meals. Fresh juice. Panela and Hot Water. We climbed Mt Serrate. We looked back. We looked forward. We found beauty and understanding. We prepared, yet again, the Thai Curry special... which took me about 10 hours in total to find ingredients around downtown Bogotá (including learning how to make coconut milk)... and somehow, during its consumption, with the family of Bethsabe (the beautiful), there was NWA playing in the dining room (?). AWESOME. WEIRD. And up to the last day... we still got hit in the jugular by the raw and potent talk of "Dos". We left in a blurred whirlwind on February 24th. I'll never forget this amazing journey, Mike Sack, Bethsabe, Andreas (3), Ritchie, Mario, Joanna, Natalias (3?), Jose, La Familia, and the people of Colombia. Pues... Marica. We're Alive. And Weird.

PEACE


(que mas mike sack?)

gracias, drew. pretty accurate recap, friend. addition; bogota gets very, very cold at night when you have no place to sleep.

I am alive, and drew...well, drew is most definitely wierd. also, capilene underwear is the best thing ever invented. stay tuned...

be good,
michael

smack and slug juice

its 4:30 in the morning and eddie glasgow is telling us about the time he was holed up in a hotel room in india for 2 weeks chasing the dragon.

you take the tin foil. you sprinkle the sstuff on the tin foil. you cook the stuff. you suck in the fleeing smoke. you chase the dragon.

smoke heroin. smack, he calls it.

rounding out the circle are jenny adelaide, eddie and beck melbourne, daren south london and myself. the conversation takes a hard turn from hard drugs to world politics. i fear my worldly ignorance will be exposed. glasgow is in ireland, right?

as the roosters begin to call, the stories are making their way around the circle like pieces of challah at passover. eddie mistakes heroin for cocaine in cambodia. eddie and beck are in a disasterous car crash in bolivia. daren sees a pub patron´s cheek "glassed" off over a football argument in london. i am courted by a gay man in medellin. jenny likes to salsa.

if i had known anything about salento before my arrival and had made a list of things to do and see, it would look something like this,

hike through wax palm tree forest - check
visit hummingbird park - check
tour coffee plantations - check
get blitzkrieged off colombian beer and aguardiente - checkcheckcheckcheck

and so, with an extra day to kill in this sleepy town of 3,500, there is one thing left to do.

nothing.

and it is glorious.

the hostel i´m staying at is buried in the corner of town on the edge of nowhere. in the center of the crab grass ridden backyard there lies a treadless dunlop with my name on it. buena vista. between the bushes and beyond the stripped wood, tin roofed shack, the forest green tree lined mountains are peeking their heads. i reach out to touch them, but they are hundreds of miles away. and soon enough, the cool light breeze pushes everything to black and i am inside my mind.

i dream about speaking a dozen languages. about ¨making a difference in the world.¨ about making change. about changing nothing.

about running a dirty little bar. about owning a record store. about pickled herring and smoked salmon. about running away. about staying put. about why a british accent sounds so much cooler than mine.

i dream about what my father and my grandfathers dreamed about long ago. my thoughts float back home, wondering what everyone else is doing right now. what they are dreaming about.

what´s next? what do i want to happen next? where is the next escape? everybody has a hungry hear...shit.

i´ve been listening to too much bruce springsteen.

as i´m becoming comfortable with the notion that some dreams are to be snatched from above our heads and some are for safekeeping in a fantasy netherworld, the little shack comes back into focus. there is a slug on my shoe.

when i pack my things i see the little critter has left a trail of salento slime across my bag and half of my clothes. i pass on the laundry and gladly accept the parting gift.

no, mom, i did not chase the dragon.

and we DID sterolize the needles.

be good,
michael

the barranquilla follies, mona's birthday and other short stories

can you think of the last time a stranger asked you for help? do you remember what you said?

sitting next to luis on the overnight bus to medellin, not yet knowing his name, i am silent. it has been three or four days since i have spoken to anyone - a real conversation, anyway. and i am waiting for the hum of the engine, the crank of the gears, to shift into background noise to sing me to sleep.

early in the day, i took a bus from cartagena to barranquilla for the much hyped and highly touted carnaval. a five day celebration of music and dancing throughout the streets of the city. i am supposed to meet the guys from santa marta here tomorrow. or the next day. i'm not sure. i have no idea how we will meet up. while contemplating how it is i am going to find them, i am interrupted by the bus stopping short of its terminal destination. so, there i am, in nowhere, barranquilla, unsure of what the hell i am doing. with stone rubble filled streets and dozens of buses flying by en route to who knows where, i am forced to seek help.

i test out my spanish on the first person i see; a teenage kid hanging on the street. we hardly understand each other. rather, i hardly understand him. they speak very, very fast on the coast in colombia. he tells me his name at least 9 times. still, now, i have no idea what it was. we'll call him the dude.

the dude gathers i am a tourist in town for carnaval and an ignorant one at that. i gather nothing, but he begins walking, elbow bent and hand winding for me to follow.

why not?

we arrive at his house, doubling as his father's convenience store. when i encountered the dude, he was dressed in fraying shorts and t-shirt, dirt brown cap and thong sandals. now, after offering me coca-cola, yuca and fish that looked as though it was pulled out of the magdalena river 2 minutes ago, the dude is transforming into the dudette; blow drying his hair, applying facial cream after changing into tight jeans, a pink london exchange t-shirt, pumas and two giant diamonds in his ears. before beginning every sentence, he tightens the ends of his mouth and smacks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. he tells me he will accompany me into town, help me get situated.

five hours of miscommunication later, we are in a taxi, the dude returning to his burroughs, and me to the bus terminal. all of the hotels were either run down shit holes, overpriced or full. i have comprehended one of every one hundred words coming from the dude, given up hope of finding my amigos and just want to get the hell out. F the festivities. when the dude gets out at his stop, i thank him for everything and tell him i'm sorry for the trouble. he is pissed and mumbles, "claaaro." "of course" and returns home.

as our bus pulls away, the people are gathering in the streets and the party is beginning. i cannot sleep. aside from the fact that i am not tired, the guy next to me on the bus is a big, big boy, and stretch space is limited. i ask him what his story is to help pass the time. his name is luis, he is 23 and is on leave from work for his once a month visit to wife and baby. his spanish is clear and he also speaks a little english. the knot in my chest loosens a bit. finally, a breakthrough. we talk about medellin, its beauty, how much we both love food, how his english sucks, how my spanish sucks and where he would go if he could go anywhere in the world. he chose alberta, canada. really??

i am wearing shorts, t-shirt and sandals, and the buses here BLAST the air conditioning. luis sees my teeth slamming together like they are connected to a motor.

"are you cold? here, take this."

and i am an honorary member of the colombian division of caterpillar machine technicians. in the middle of the night, luis nudges my shoulder to move aside. it's his stop. he tells me to keep the shirt and leaves his telephone number in case i need anything in medellin.

the next time my eyes open, i am at the medellin northern bus terminal. i needn't mess with another bus or the taxis, as medellin has a well designed and efficient metro system. i get off at only what i assume to be the stop nearest the hostel i am looking for. with address in hand, i ask a random middle aged woman on the street where "this" address is.

rocio asks nearly every damn person we pass how to get to the hostel and walks me all the way there. she tells me to drop my things because she is going to show me around. we pick up another hosteller for the trip. she takes us to her apartment, feeds us a snack. takes us to her niece's house to meet her niece. takes us around the neighborhood to see where the restaurants are. no doubt she would have held my hand the entire day if she did not have a meeting with a friend a couple of hours later. she leaves me with another telephone number to call, just in case.

that evening, sitting on the steps of the catedral de metropolitana, i am watching the monthly flea market fold up as dusk sets in. a guy next to me asks me something, but i don't quite understand his spanish. i ask him if he speaks english and to my surprise, he does. him and his buddy both teach english, one at the university and one at a high school. javier and antonio.

they offer to take me out to dinner for a plato tipico of medellin. uh, hell yes, please. beans, rice, fried egg, steak, tomato, and a giant avocado. i forget the name of it now, but it was AMAZING. i am invited to javier's apartment to hang and listen to music. i know none of the artists they like and relishing the opportunity to collect some new music.

javier: "have you heard of this one?"

me: "no."

javier: "how about this one?"

me: "no."

javier: "HEELLLLOO. ohmygod. what do they listen to on jupiter?"

awkwardness rears its head again when antonio accidentally pops up the download program with "men at play," a 45 minute gay porn downloading and quickly closes it. oooooooh dear.

javier asks if i want to stay the night. not so much. i awkwardly make it over abundantly clear that i like the dames.

me: "yeah, i have a girlfriend back home. like 3...7, actually. yep. love girls. love 'em..."

while i fumble my words and act like an idiot, javier handles it like a champion and calls me a taxi back to my hostel. before leaving, he invites me on a minitour of the city the next day and to celebrate their friend, mona's, birthday up in the mountains of santa elena.

why not?

hell of a time. the minitour included visits inside the cathedral (boasting the most bricks of any basilica in the world; 1.2 million or something like that) and the cemetary of san pedro, a 165 year old burial ground, displaying beautiful statues and mausoleums. however, my favorite part of the day, was the trip to santa elena.

mona is celebrating her 53rd birthday. mona lives by herself, choosing life away from the hectic chaos of the city, making stained glass pieces as her trade. we are about 2400m above medellin, surrounded by peace. celebrating with her are javier, antonio, antonio's mother, sister, brother and sister-in-law. oh, and me. we were there for three hours or so and i may have said fifty words, tops. but they embraced me like family, walking me through the woods to the mountain top for a bird's eye view of medellin, feeding me pastries and coffee and hot chocolate, playing dice and card games for pocket change.

antonio pulls me aside every now and again, pointing to a tiny dot in medellin, saying in his high nasally tone, "myyykoooool, come here. do you see that?..." and goes on to explain a part of medellin history that i will only vaguely remember.

when they play, they scream and yell and laugh with eruption. with their whole bodies. even when i don't know what's going on, i do the same. its contagious. i leave with a hung and kiss from the whole family as well as the birthday girl, herself.

aside from javier's attempts to gay me up a little, mostly in jest, i couldn't have planned those couple of days better. not only did i get to see sides of the city and country i would have never found on my own, i made a couple of new friends and got to work on my spanish with the two tutors that would have been worth an endless amount of money per hour.

i venture off on my own the next day, to see what this paragliding is all about. apparently, medellin is the place to do it in colombia, being breeding grounds for extremely high winds as the city is buried in a valley below the mountains.

if you get a chance to go paragliding, DO IT! high in the mountains again, about 2300m up, i don't even have time to think how high i am before the wind snatches my tandem flyer, felipe, and I into it's grasp. i am overly fearful of heights, but for some reason i am completely at ease floating thousands of feet above the ground. almost too much at ease.

me: "felipe, are we going to go down more?" i just want something to get a little more movement going.

he responds with something that sounds like maneuvers.

me: "SIIII!"

oh god.

my stomach flies somewhere toward santa elena while felipe rips us left, right, down, upside down....

felipe: "otra vez?" again?

me: "yeeeeeeeep."

before i was able to have a 2300m spew, the ride is over and we are landing softly on the mountain side.

i am headed to salento, coffee country, this morning to go hammocking and do nothing but drink cafe con leche for the next couple of days until my body tremors out of existence.

i have been overwhelmed by the friendliness and hospitality of the people here. i tried to explain to javier and antonio how these things would rarely happen in the states, but it became this tangled and insensible diatribe about national paranoia and terrorism. what the hell was i talking about?

am i wrong though? is this common place in the states? and if not, why not?

in other news, i had my first solid bowel movement in 8 days this morning. happy super tuesday, yeah?

also, something has been bugging me the past few days and i have not been able to get the answer. there is an old and rare looney tunes episode in which the road runner and speedy gonzalez face off in a foot race. do you remember that one? WHO THE HELL WON THAT RACE?! don't ask me why or how this came up. i have no idea.

be good,
michael

la ciudad perdida

for those of you tuning in for pictures, i regret to inform you that i am a dumbass and left the cable to connect my camera to the computer at home. ¡doh! however, not to fret, i should be able to back up the pictures to disc soon...

upon arrival into santa marta, colombia, i immediately acquired three travelling companions via the hostel i was staying at. los cuatros amigos; we span hemispheres east and west with eyal from israel, charles from australia, and alyssa and myself representing the states. i met all of them within 12 hours of checking in, part nature of independent travel and part incredible luck. we set out the next day for a week long ¨trek¨into the sierra nevada mountains of santa marta en route to la ciudad perdida (the lost city).

these sort of tours are inbred with all types of awkwardness. this is bound to happen when you unite ten strangers for a week of spending every waking moment together. and unawaking moment.

awkwardness of too much silence. awkwardness of saying too much. awkwardness of being naked in front of strangers. awkwardness of bathing naked under a cold, cold shower in front of strangers. awkwardness of almost peeing on a tour guide. awkwardness of being farted on by a tour guide. awkwardness of walking through somebody elses home while they are trying to go about their daily lives.

the lost city was originally constructed over a period of about 80 years in the 8th century by a tribe, the tayronas, emigrating from central america. it´s an incredible feat when you see it and imagine the strenuous work it must have taken. to clear massive amounts of jungle, construct intricate paths and stairways and terraces using stones i would need a crane to lift. the tayronas were an extremely intelligent and advanced tribe, nowhere to be found today, after their disappearance in the 16th century during the spanish invasion. many of their secrets, including how to extract an acid from the indigenous plants to cut clean through rock and the extraction of natural dyes, were taken with their flight. modern day archeologists still study the land in an attempt to unveil some of the majestic knowledge.

while the tayronas have checked out, there is still an indiginous population living among the sierra nevadas, the main tribe being the quoguis (sp?). often times during the hike, we would stumble through the middle of their villages or interrupt the walking path of a few tribe members. i couldn´t help but feel like an asshole when giving the touristy toned ¨hola¨while they stepped aside for our group to stomp onward. (permission was granted by the tribe to the government for tourists to enter, but its still an awkward feeling). i asked once for a photo and was denied, so i will not be able to give you a concentrated image.

while the first couple of days were an inevitable uncomfortable ¨feeling out¨period, the group meshed pretty well after that. an average age of about 25, with australian, u.s.a., canadian, swedish and israeli members.

when i worked a couple of summers as a lifeguard in high school, there was an inordinate amount of ¨chill¨time. this led way to playing a number of childish, and hilarious, games. one of which was called ¨date, dump, fuck.¨ someone will throw out a list of three names, usually of the opposite sex of the players, and the contestants will align the names with the title of the game accordingly. at the pool, it was a kind of way to gossip, to find out who liked who - oooooo.

while the views are spectacular with water falls raining, strange bugs crawling and lush green mountain sides at every turn, there is still a silence that we want to fill every now and again. we play the australian and more extreme version - marry, shoot, fuck. a little bold, but we´ll go with it. since nobody knows anybody´s personal life (thankfully), the hat of names to pick from includes all sorts of genres; celebrities, superheros, villains, cartoons... most difficult proposition - hillary clinton, condoleeza rice and margaret thatcher. still have chills. 20 questions was the other go to, in which i found out australian actor heath ledger died recently. this is everything i know about current events.

our guide, ali, was perfection. since he lives in the mountains with his family, he could walk the trails blind if he wanted. he slowed his spanish for the silly gringos, allowing us to understand most of his historical monologues (i think?), guided each of us with outstretched arm over difficult points of the trail, continually gathered fresh fruit for mid-hike snacks, set up camp and cooked. every meal. his wage; $20. for the whole week. we made sure to line his pockets heavily at the trip´s end.

the highlight of the hike, for me, came on our day to tour the ruins. it was an in between moment. the last stop on the tour was the proclaimed fountain (waterfall) of youth. some dove in the miniature pool, some stayed out. i opted for in as my one thousand mosquito bites needed a refreshment. ali suited up and joined the fun. while everyone was getting out, ali turns to me and asks, ¿quieres ver la cascada más más alta? es muy peligrosa. do you want to see the much higher waterfall? it´s very dangerous.

DONE.

jesus, if ali had not been there, it would have been my funeral, for sure. the guy was bounding from moss covered jungle rock to vine to fallen tree limb like a god damn jungle cat. he would climb 10 ft. in 2 seconds and then look back down at me and laugh at my dumbfounded mouth, gaping open. a few times, i would got stuck climbing and ali would have to help me out. ali is about 5´7¨, buck sixty, MAYBE. i am 6´ 200 lbs. he lifted me like i was made of bamboo. we rose some 50 or 60 feet to get a glimpse of what nobody else got to see on the trip - a bigger and more intensified version of the waterfall, with not a peson in sight. una aventura magnifica.

i am in cartagena, colombia now, falling on the other side of the travel coin. i have not met anyone and am staying in somewhat of the dodgy part of town. my room resembles that of tom hanks´ on his first night in the city in the film, ¨big¨. however, the city´s center is filled with stunning spanish architecture still standing from centuries ago, so it will make for a nice stroll.

my spanish has been atrocious and as for comprehending the natives - oh boy. a bit fast for little mikey. but it´s slowly coming back to me and i hope to actually finish a conversation, clearly, by the time i return to the states.

guys; roseanne barr, bea arthur and barbara walters. go.
gals; george bush, dick cheney and john mccain. go.

be good,
michael

dreaming and driving (just go)

new year's day, 2008.

the holiday and snow's redemption for a week late arrival has reserved all lanes for one and allows my mind to drift. somewhere across town, phil is no doubt driving with driver's side window down, unnecessarily sporting thick black wraparound sunglasses and violently shaking his head to lcd soundsystem. oh, and of course, right hand on the wheel while the left is pumping like a piston out the window.

the last time i saw phil, three months ago in chicago, he was covered neck to knee in denim, screeching "debra" in his best beck falsetto at six oc'lock in the morning with a mean sweat-fall running from his chin down to a frightened female party goer. if she hadn't passed out and/or gone deaf by mid song, she surely succumbed to both by song's end. i cannot remember which. poor girl.

phil has chutzpah.

today, phil is returning and recovering from a two month road trip across big sky country and the u.s. pacific west (see: philiplauri.blogspot.com). i mention recovering because, to be quite honest, you looked like dog shit, phil; week old grizzly stubble, matted down mullet and unbrushed teeth for god knows how long. okay, MAYBE i'm exaggerating. maybe. the jist of our conversation in a desolate mcdonald's booth, drinking shitty coffee and tasting the childhood in my mcnuggets:

phil: how are you? what are you up to? what 's next?

me: you look awful

phil: (mildly annoyed laughter) seriously, how's it going?

me: seriously. you look awful. things are alright, i guess. waiting tables, passing time. i want to travel. i want to go to south america. mark and i trying to go for a few weeks in march.

phil: why don't you just go now?

me: huh?

phil: just go! jesus, if you feel you need to go, then damn it man, just go. everything else is bologna and cheese. (phil did not actually say bologna and cheese, however, it being a staple phrase of the man, i felt obligated to include it here)

good call, phil. i'm not certain why it took him making this simple and obvious statement for me to fly south. either way, four days later, i booked a one way flight to santa marta, colombia. the idea is to eventually make it to ushuaia, argentina, but, things can, and inevitably will, change. i hope to update this blog as frequently as my travels allow to let you know i'm alive and where i have been.

i will be meeting up with some friends along the way and by all means, if you are reading this and happen to be paying a visit to south america, please let me know!

why the long travel? why south america? why????

these seem to be the most common questions. i could say its simply an escape from "normal" life. or an extension of a previously planned vacation (although, i don't really think of this as a vacation as much as an education). or an attempt to re-learn the spanish language. or to see if there is any nook i can fit into on that continent for more than a few months. or that i will be damned if i don't see as much of the world as i can while i can.

it's a combination of all those things and more. i don't think i can give a straight forward response because the biggest reason is probably that i don't know why. a lot of it comes from the gut. there are some magnificent destinations in my sights, but by and large, i am most anxious for the in betweens. the ups and downs. the unknowns. and there are a lot.

i can't say that i'll find what i'm looking for, what the hell that even means, or that i am even looking for anything at all.

i can say that travelling is an excellent thing. that it allows my mind to stretch to a place and perspective that it otherwise could not reach. that my curiosities are outweighing my fears.

what i can say, today, is that i don't much remember the drive home from mcdonald's, except for a stupid face-encompassing grin and day dreams floating heavily as the flakes. half quenching the curiosity those dreams are soaked with seemed like a good enough reason to take off. el cuento proximo sera de suramerica. if you made it this far, thanks for reading.
be good, michael