Well I figured it was time for another update from home. Home has been go to me. Cooked meals, hot water, and drinkable tap water is a fine luxury to live with again. Travel is of course still the only thing on my mind every day. A sure sign to get back out there. Having used my credit card during the last month has unfortunately put a dent but I suspect not for that long. I do have a nice income tax check coming in for the short period of time I did work last year which will mostly go straight for the credit card debt. I’ve put no delay in finding work and put my resume out there as quickly as possible. I’m waiting for a few responses by my previous temp agency as well as a few Hostel jobs in NYC I’ve applied to *crosses fingers*.
I know Will has been dying for me to make a blog post about it so I’m making sure I make a special mention here. On Friday, I spent the entire day dorking myself out by playing Startrek Online for an entire day. It’s been awhile and thought I deserved a video gaming marathon day. Saturday, Will and I hung out from my Uncle Eddy’s house in New Jersey. We had planned going to a few bars here and there around NYC so he asks me “Hey, you have your license right?”. I nervously look in my wallet and I don’t have it with me, it’s in PA which is about 1 1/2 hours away where we were. Will goes “Fuck it, let’s drive it”. The journey begins. We drive there and back finally arriving back at Will’s place. The night starts and we drive down to NYC to a bar to meet one of his friends. Some unknown Russian type bar with an Ice Box that charges $20 for 2-minute unlimited drink area. We gave it a total of 15 minutes before we left and declared it done. We couldn’t find his friend anyway. Ended up driving back to NJ to a place called UltraBar. I already knew one of the bartenders whom was nice to see again after being away for awhile and Rob showed up as well. Stayed for I think about an hour or two before Will got another call from the same friend we were suppose to meet last time and went back to NYC to another bar type club. Place was pretty packed and jumping with the music. We actually found his friend this time but again only stayed for about 30 minutes before heading home. Now that was an adventure. I may have been in the car longer then the bars itself. Randomness to the max, thanks Will!
Other then that, head exploding amount of work as been put into Nightlife Vibe and Art of Backpacking since I’ve been back. Nightlife Vibe in just a single day I was back, recovered almost instantly. For the past 3 months it’s been completely dead due to the lack of updates and yuck design. I was going to have none of that and did a complete overhaul. It’s much more user friendly now and it’s jumped in user activity. With Art of Backpacking, I’ve created tons more articles. New idea’s for more frequent quality posts. The growth of the site made me make a To Do List (Which I should have done a long time ago) because there is simply too much that I need to make sure to stay on top of or I’ll fall behind. With that I’ve also hawked Twitter and began email catching up and business proposals with other websites. In the past, I’ve always waited until advertisers came to me but I decided to change my model and this time come up to them. I’m hoping for a positive outcome and worst case scenario they say no but on a good note I’d be getting them to come to the site and they may change their mind in the future. For now, I’m contacting the smaller guys and as I get a better feel for advertising – I’ll contact the big guys.
My posts from now on may relate a bit more to the growth of Art of Backpacking and Nightlife Vibe for a bit.
I’ve come to the end of a 11-month trip ‘around the world’ and now back to the United States. I have a lot to catch up on so this blog entry will be a little over all the place. I decided it was better not to go online that often during my final weeks because I knew once I got home that it would be 24/7 online time. Here’s the update…
I didn’t realize how much Mancora affected me until I left. Staying there for over 3 weeks has done a lot to me and for me. I’m nowhere near any good at surfing yet but I do have the basics down. Like I’ve mentioned in my previous posts, I made tons of new friends. The last group I was with were awesome people. Lee, Bree, Kevin, Joel, Grace, Michael, Woody, and a few others. We had a nice group going and they always made me laugh. We were likely the loudest and stupidest people in the hostel just making a mess out of everything but it was a damn good time. Being drunk by noon means being thrown into the pool with my iPhone in my pocket. I had no idea and neither did he, it was funny though. Unfortunately I had to leave at some point and with only a week to go before my plane ride home, I had to head to Lima.
I stayed a night in Pariwana Hostel when I arrived in Lima but after 2 nights there, I got somewhat bored and decided to move hostels. Thought it was a good idea to get new glasses as well since that will take a week to get and it’s cheap in Lima. At Kokopelli I met a nice group of people who I ended up going to Ica with as a trip before I go home. Figured it’s close anyway and could use some adventure. Ica is known for the nearby town of Huacachina. There’s a small lake surrounded by small restaurants, hostels, and it’s relaxing environment. That entire area is surrounded by huge sand dunes. The whole atmosphere is beautiful. For our first night we ended up just partying at the hostel. Playing card games and just drinking. Good fun really. The next day was pretty chill during the morning and afternoon. Laid by the pool and watched Messi kill the soccer game. Another thing Huacachina is known for is the Sandboarding. We booked our Buggie and sandboarding rental and set off. Sandboarding is much like snowboarding in a way but with sand instead of snow. The buggie experience was worth it in itself. We had a nutcase of a driver driving over dunes at full speed and taking 90 degree vertical drops down the dune. Those things go quite fast and gives you a crazy rush. At the top of one of the dunes we were ready to sandboard down a slope. There were two options, we could either go laying down or standing which our guide recommended us not to do unless we know what were doing and he takes no responsibility if we hurt ourselves. Screw it, I’m standing. I have some experience with snowboarding and surfing so I understood the basic idea of balancing. Though I did fall a few times, I was able to stand and go for awhile before I fell. We kept moving from one dune to the next and I got a tiny bit better at each dune. The very last dune we hit was the largest and steepest one. Nearly everyone decided it wasn’t a good idea to practice standing on this one so we laid on our stomach and went down. It seemed far but it wasn’t until the first person went down that we realize how big of a slope it was. The guy literately was a dot at the end of the slope and speeding fast down. It’s my turn and I went down. It felt like I was going down forever and the wind was rushing fast around my face. The velocity was so fast that I felt like the board was going to take off and leave me so I had to hold on even tighter. Amazing rush. There were a few people that had some nasty crashes. Back at the hostel it was already about 7pm and I was telling myself that I’d be leaving that same night back to Lima but that never happened. I ended up drinking with the guys and stayed another night. I left the next morning to Lima. Though I had planned on partying on my last night in Lima, I’m pretty exhausted and just a few drinks down and I was already tired. Nothing crazy, just hung around the hostel really. Talking to a few people at the hostel, they were all wondering how I felt about going home after 11 months and really it still hadn’t hit me so I didn’t know how to feel.
The next day I went on a shopping spree before catching my flight. Buying whatever I can from Peru to bring home. I’m out of money but I still had a few soles left to get things for family. Hauling over the taxi and putting everything inside is when it hit me, I’m leaving South America. All out of money and a used up credit card, I had no choice but to go home. If I had money, I’m not really sure if I would have kept going. I do miss my family and friends and felt it was time to see them. All of the airport things went smoothly and easily. Getting into the plane and looking back, I felt a little sad yet happy. It’s been a good trip and suddenly had a fast reply of the things I’ve done and experienced. I smiled and continued to walked forward knowing that I’ll be making more memories like the ones I’ve had in the last year. My trip will never end. The flight itself was sleepless. It was impossible to sleep. My first flight was only about 2 hours long making a stop in Bogota, Colombia then for my second half it was 5 hours long. Not enough time to sleep. I ended up watching Avatar and a few other random TV shows and music. I arrived at JFK at 5am. Mom and Bill were there and I couldn’t feel any happier to see them.
I’m on my 3rd day being back and it does still feel a bit weird. It’s much harder coming home then it is leaving. Going into a resturant and knowing that everyone speaks English is something I still need to get use to, going to a bar and knowing that everyone in the bar is likely locals and not people from around the world, everyone having the same accent, and not asking “So where you from? How long you been traveling for?”, is all weird to me. Feels like I have to adapt to a new world but its really a world that I lived in my whole life prior to traveling. Feels good to be home though. Been playing with my brother, catch up with family, and updating all my websites.
Whats next for me?
I may be home but trust me, I’m traveling again. The idea is to work for a few months to catch up on the debt I have as well as work on my websites harder. Need to get some income. I’d like to move to NYC because right now I’m in Pennsylvania. NYC is really my calling and is a type of environment that I’m use to. As for my next destination, I have a few in mind but more on that later. Back to the regular blog posts from now on as well though my posts may not be as exciting because I’m back home. Heh.
I have seen some of the greatest wonders in the world but from what I learned, it’s not only about the sights but it’s the people that make the entire trip worth while. To all the friends I’ve met abroad, I’ll never forget you. Safe travels and hope to see most of you again someday. Never know when I’ll be making on your side of the world and could use a local tour guide!
Gracias Sudamerica por todo. Estaré de vuelta pronto!
I forget when I got to Mancora but it´s been about 2 weeks since I got to Mancora and quite a bit has happened during that time.
If you don´t feel like reading, in summery it´s breakfast, pool, volleyball in the pool, surf, lunch, work at the bar, party, party, party, eat, party, party, party, poop, party, sleep on the hammocks, then somehow wake up in the middle of the night or the morning and move myself over to my bed. Beach plus Loki hostels equals that.
Work has been alright at the hostel. Some days are rough at the bar and others are a drunken mess with good fun. Everyones pretty cool. Its fast pased work but it moves the day quickly. I do feel like the managers take the job a bit too seriously for something were not getting paid for anyway. The owners of Loki are very nice though. I get a huge advantage of meeting tons of people because of the work which is nice.
On people again… Seems it never ends the amount of good friends I make from this hostel.
Well I don´t go online often anymore because I´m heading home soon and rather not spend much computer time while I´m still here. So Art of Backpacking and Nightlife Vibe websites are very behind. I apologize guys! It´ll be back on full force more then ever once I get home.
Not sure what else to write. Feeling lazy at the moment. Hard to write when so much time passes. Plus my camera is broke but I´m thinking it´s fixable so when I get to Lima I´ll take care of that. I´ll be heading to Lima I think this coming weekend and spending a week there working at Loki. We´ll see how I feel. That´s all for now I suppose.
