As you can imagine, I´ve had a lot of time to ponder sitting alone, musicless on my bike. A lot of things have come into perspective like life goals, friends, family, and careers. It´s becoming more and more clear that the things I once valued have evolved into new and drastically different goals and ideas. Though all my lofty life goals are generally the same: get super rich, find a smoking hot awesome wife, learn to play ´Piano Man´ by Billy Joel, travel the world, catch a foul ball at an Angels game and give it to a kid, start a family, and I guess make the world a better place. Anyhow, I now believe I have more options to achieve those goals. Take my career, I´m an Civil Engineer by trade and education. Whereas before I would have thought it´s a vast field with ton of different areas to work in. I now look at it as a means to an end. There is an entire planet ready to spend money and pay me for numerous different ideas, trades, and products. Therefore, I´ve decided to go into business upon my return to the United States. Life is just too fucking short to waste away in a cubicle doing something you don´t absolutely love. So, I´m off to become a self made man / millionaire. (I mean, come on, a million dollars isn´t that much nowadays. 1911 sure, but now?)
But before all that, I should maybe focus on this trip. Right-O. Anyhow, I´ve been traveling alone over the last month, and it´s definitely a new experience. There are ups and downs like anything. For example I get to meet tons more interesting and new people (it´s much easier to meet people on your own), I get to be totally selfish, and I don´t have to listen to anybody whine about stupid shit. Because I can just move on anytime I want. The downside is it´s lonely. Sometimes when I´m riding hard and camping, I only get to chat with gas station attendants and restaurant workers. No deep political convos there. But all in all, I´d have to say the pros outweigh the cons, and some solitude isn´t the worst thing for me.
Bored of all this serious mumbo jumbo? I am. So I´ll talk about something fun, like my stay in Mendoza. Which by the way is a super fun awesome city. It´s got fun locals, beautiful tree lined streets, and plenty of outdoor restaurants / patios everywhere. I get in and find what I think is a nice hostel. Then I met some people and saw the bathrooms. There was one guy in my room I wanted to shank so bad. First off, super rude to me as I´m reading in bed. There's a problem because my guitar is touching his trash bags full of stuff. Ugh. Then he slept under my bunk and snored and farted all fucking night. I´m a pretty heavy sleeper, but that was way too much. The last straw was in the morning when his fat ass woke up and turned on all the lights and was ridiculously noisy. For fucks sake it´s a hostel not your apartment. It was probably the worst hostel since the high strung, weird ass, Purple House in David, Panama.
Anyway . . . I switched hostels the next day because my friend Arielle is in town. You may remember her from such blogs as: ´The Terminator´, ´Quality Time With The Griswalds´, or ´Where Am I?´. (Man those are some pretty stupid blog titles when you look at them. Oh well.) I pull up to her hostel and find the big yellow bus parked outside. I´m stoked to see their stupid ´truck´ parked outside. I met them somewhere in southern Bolivia. I saw a group of gringos and the bus by the side of the road. They were all outside chatting and taking a break. It was about time for me to do the same, so I made the quick decision and stopped. It was super. They offered me coffee, and within minutes I had a whole bus full of new friends. Later that night we all met up again in Tupiza, Bolivia for dinner and drinks. It was a fun and albeit sane night.
Jump ahead a week and a half. I randomly catch up with them in Mendoza. I´m hanging at the hostel pool (yeah, the new hostel had a pool and no douche bags, instant upgrade) when all the yellow bussers come in. It´s a very welcome change to camping because I can converse with other humans in my native language. Later we all go out for some Mexican food. (Disappointing. I swear when I get back I´m going to be such a fattie and eat so many damn burritos and cheese burgers.) It´s a huge group, but we all make it work. And as the huge group windles down, I´m left with Arielle and two girls from the tour group. It´s pleasant chatting and drinking outside in the warm night air. Before we know it, it´s one in the morning. So we head back to see what the others are up to back at the hostel. There we play some pool and crack open another bottle of wine. I´d say about three, we all decide that dancing is best course of action. Not unusual since things in Argentina don´t pick up until three or four in the morning. Our cab driver eventually finds us an open club on a Wednesday, and we´re welcomed with five dollar drinks and a constant strobe light. We all definitely make the best of it, and have fun until the place closes. We all get back into the hostel and after a quick, cold dip in the hostel pool in our underwear. We all drift to sleep until the next afternoon.
The next day, I enjoyed doing nothing all day long. Then we all replayed the exact previous evening. Except this time we had pizza and free tequila for a half hour. Which BTDub is so dangerous. The bathrooms were wrecked, but at least the party livened up a bit. I guess cheap tequila has that effect. Later after leaving the same seizure inducing club, I´m brought home by a super nice local girl. I find all the yellow bussers packed up and ready to head out to Chile. It´s six in the morning, so people are either just waking up and grumpy, or have stayed up all night and are super cheery and perky. It´s funny to see the dynamics of a big group like that. I eventually decide that sleep is a good idea and pass out for a few hours. Much too soon, I´m woken up by a hostel worker saying it´s one in the afternoon, and I´ll have to pay for another night. No way. I jump out of bed and pack up only to find it´s eleven in the morning. Damn, well I´m up and have a border crossing, so I take off way too early and hung over. I fight the wind of the crossing over the Andes for a few hours, but eventually I find a nice sunny spot to eat some cookies and take a break. Still hungover, I end up taking a nice long nap by the side of the road. It was super awesome and refreshing. Thank goodness I´m traveling alone on a motorcycle, so I have the freedom to stop and chill where ever I want.
Later, I cross the border into the capital, Santiago (aka a whales vagina). I was greeted by the dirtiest motel / whore house in the city. Whatever, it was late and I couldn´t find a youth hostel. I was sad to leave Argentina, but I know I´ll be back soon. Next up is Chilean empenadas, wine country, fruit stands, forest and plenty of rain. Bienvenidos a Chile.
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