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Up and Over

Posted August 11, 2013

PART 15 (DAYS 33-35): “How’s everything here?” I asked Chris, the manager at Southern Laughter Lodge, when I arrived back in Queenstown for a day in order to catch a homeward bound flight early the following morning.

“Oh, it’s quiet. It’s finally slowing down,” he answered.

“Oh, is the ski season over?”

“No, the season can go all the way until October,” he told me. “But all the Aussie kids have gone back to university.”

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Logos

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip: The Central American Eviction Tour"
Posted December 06, 2007

DAY 14:  The minivan driver had just dropped Camilla off at the Guatemala City airport and rushed back into the city to drop off the rest of the passengers going to buses of varied destinations.  My bus was to be a “luxury” bus run by Tica, a private bus company with their own stations, servicing the major cities of Central America, from Mexico to Panama.  I would take it to the next major city on their route, from Guatemala City to San Salvador (translation: “Saint Salvador”), capital of the almost eponymous El Salvador (“The Salvador.”)

I had paid for my ticket at the gRuta Maya tour agency in Antigua who gave me a not-so-official-looking bus ticket on their standard form with their logo on top.  “[Is this the ticket?]” I asked.

“Si.”

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Disbanded Until The Bay

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip: The Central American Eviction Tour"
Posted December 05, 2007

DAY 13:  When I started this trip the day before Thanksgiving, I anticipated traveling solo, not knowing exactly if that seemingly random person I’d been chatting with on-line would actually meet up with me.  SBR Camilla did actually appear, and we got along fine, and so I had been traveling with her for twelve days since that afternoon we met at the basketball court on Caye Caulker in Belize.  Together, we traveled for a few days until we encountered “the Berkeleys” Jim and Tilu, who were also worthy companions to travel with, all the way from Tikal and down through the jungle to Antigua, Guatemala. 

But like all good things, it would all come to an end.

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A Three-Hour Tour

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip: The Central American Eviction Tour"
Posted December 04, 2007

DAY 12:  I met a girl from Arizona at the Bagel Barn that morning who I struck up a conversation with.  As we waited for the next brew to finish, I told her about my coming day trip to Lake Atitlan.  “Have you been?” I asked her.

“Yeah,” she told me. 

“How is it?”

“It’s nice.  It’s different from here,” she told me.  “It’s not like tourism here; it’s a lot more poor.  People will keep coming to you.  You’ll see.”

“Okay.”

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Nocturnal Eruptions

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip: The Central American Eviction Tour"
Posted December 04, 2007

DAY 11:  “‘Camilla Versus The Volcano?’” Camilla suggested.

“I already have an ‘Erik Versus The Volcano,’” I informed her.  Knowing we were to be booked on a volcano hiking tour that evening, we were discussing possible blog entry titles at breakfast.  I was telling her that I already used a nod to the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan movie, Joe Vs. The Volcano, as well as a nod to Dr. Evil in Austin Powers with an entry titled, “Liquid Hot Magma.”

“Nocturnal eruptions?” Camilla suggested.

“How about ‘Lookin’ For Some Hot Stuff?’” I said.  She laughed.

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A Coffee Story

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip: The Central American Eviction Tour"
Posted December 04, 2007

DAY 10:  “Oooh!  Real coffee!” raved Camilla.  “It’s so good to have a good cup of coffee.”  As a former barista of a Seattle’s Best in Portland, OR, my traveling companion was a bit of a coffee snob — as many Americans have become in our contemporary coffee culture.  So far in Central America (and in other developing nations I’d been), we consumed coffee as the locals did — with hot water and instant coffee granules that locals were accustomed to through their upbringings in regions dominated by instant coffee pushing cartels like NestlĂ©.

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Karma

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip: The Central American Eviction Tour"
Posted December 02, 2007

DAY 9: In the reality show The Amazing Race, competing teams of two sometimes form alliances to help each other out in times of need.  For the past couple of days, I had already been helping out Jim of the Berkeley team by lending him my cell phone a couple of times to call his bank, Washington Mutual, back in California; the Berkeleys hadn’t declared that they were going to use their card overseas and were blocked from using it.  So far, Jim had run up some long, expensive phone calls in attempts to get it active again, with no luck just yet.

“I can loan you money if you want,” I offered.  I’d been in the situation many times before and knew what they were going through. 

“I think we’ll be okay,” Jim said, optimistic in his next opportunity to try out another ATM machine.

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Slick Shoes

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip: The Central American Eviction Tour"
Posted December 02, 2007

DAY 8:  I’ve titled this entry “Slick Shoes,” figuring that many of you readers out there of my generation will understand that it is a reference to the movie The Goonies, the immortal Spielburg/Columbus movie of the 80s where a bunch of Oregonian kids hike through watery underground passageways in search of the lost treasure of pirate One-Eyed Willy.  Slick shoes are of course, shoes that squirt out an oil slick via a mechanism in the heel, so that chasing bad guys can slip and fall, providing an easier getaway.  In the movie, they are invented by the Asian character named Data — and it’s already been established by a Frenchman on this trip (in Caye Caulker) that I “look like [him.]”

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Pondering of Pig’s Milk

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip: The Central American Eviction Tour"
Posted November 30, 2007

DAY 7:  After a nice day of leisure in Flores, our traveler’s quartet was fully rested for the seven-hour southbound ride to Semuc Champey, a national park known for its waterfalls, caves, and pools in the middle of the jungle.  We were all making headway to the Guatemalan sites in the south, and Semuc Champey served as the perfect stopping point in the middle to break up the trip.  The Berkeleys, Camilla and I collectively opted to take a tourist minivan with a trustworthy travel agency who did our laundry for us.

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Little Caesar’s Apocalypto

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip: The Central American Eviction Tour"
Posted November 30, 2007

DAY 6:  In Mel Gibson’s Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto (that’s not a typo; he egotistically augmented his director credit to the title), a lone Mayan runs for his life to avoid being sacrificed by his Mayan rulers, during the fall of the Mayan empire.  The Oscar-nominated film of 2006 was Mel Gibson’s last directorial effort before he went on a drunken public anti-Semitic tirade, putting him in the ranks of other embarrassing tirades alongside Michael “Kramer” Richards against African-Americans, and Kanye West against U.S. presidents who “don’t like black people.”

I never actually saw Mel Gibson’s Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto, nor does it matter, for this blog entry is Little Caesar’s version of the Mayan civilization:  Erik Trinidad’s Little Caesar’s Apocalypto.

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Accentuate The Positive, Eliminate The Negative

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip: The Central American Eviction Tour"
Posted November 29, 2007

DAY 5:  “What is there to do here?” Camilla had asked Leon, the bartender at Lazy Lizards near the Split in Caye Caulker.

“Nothing,” the big bear of a bartender answered after giving it some thought.  “Snorkel…  This is the relaxation island.”

Camilla and I had heard similar answers from other travelers: 

“There’s not much to do here but look for a snorkel tour or do nothing.”

“It’s nice, but I think you only need a couple of days here.”

With that said, Camilla and I packed up and hopped aboard the first water taxi back to the mainland.

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Are You As Wishful As A Sixth Grader?

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip: The Central American Eviction Tour"
Posted November 26, 2007

DAY 4:  The monsoon-like rains continued through the night and straight on ‘til morning, leaving everyone on the island with a feeling of uncertainty.  By eight in the morning, the rain had cleared up for a bit — revealing a magnificent rainbow — only to start dumping again for an unforeseeable amount of time.  The flooding rains put uncertainty in Camilla’s and my respective plans for tours that day:  Camilla was planning to see the Mayan ruins of Altun Ha on the mainland, while I’d go tour the manatee reserve.  So far, nothing was set in stone and confirmations of going out to see things were unclear, mostly due to the number of tourists being skeptical of the weather clearing up and staying that way.

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Last Night I Dreamt Of Some Bagel

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip: The Central American Eviction Tour"
Posted November 25, 2007

DAY 3:  For the longest time, perhaps thirteen years or so, I thought that the opening lyric to Madonna’s Spanish lullaby, “La Isla Bonita” was “Last night I dreamt of some bagel…” (as well as “I fell in love with some bagel…”)  If you Google search that misheard opening phrase, you’ll see that I’m not the only one that grew up with the mondegreen.  Of course, Madonna Ciccione was not dreaming of bagels (at least not in the song) for the actual lyric is, “Last night I dreamt of San Pedro.”  San Pedro is actually a town on the Belizean island of Ambergis Caye, dubbed by the tourism authority as “La Isla Bonita” — I’m not sure which came first, that or the song. 

Before the day was over, I’d go to San Pedro with visions of sugar plum bagels dancing in my head.

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Thanksdiving

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip: The Central American Eviction Tour"
Posted November 24, 2007

DAY 2:  Thanksgiving is the time of year in late November, at least in America (and in October in Canada), where we get together with loved ones over a big meal and pretend that our forefathers didn’t wipe out an entire race of indigenous people.  It is also a time when we are to give thanks for the things we have in life.  This year, 2007, I am thankful for two things:

1) Not being eaten by sharks
2) Canadians

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Sisters

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip: The Central American Eviction Tour"
Posted November 22, 2007

DAY 1:  Perhaps it is fitting that this latest trip — which by popular demand is titled, “The Central American Eviction Tour” — starts not in New York City (where I got evicted from my apartment), but in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for Ann Arbor is actually the sister city to the destination I would land in after eight hours of airline transit: Belize City, Belize.  How or why these two cities are related I do not know, but according to the Sister Cities International website that informed me of their sibling status, Ann and Belize were paired together to learn from each other, in terms of development, economics, and politics — although really, I think the reason is because who else will tease Ann over her crush on that cute new boy city in school?

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Lemons Into Lemonade

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip: The Central American Eviction Tour"
Posted November 05, 2007

So, I got evicted from my apartment in New York City.  It was nothing of my own fault; my lease was up, and the new owners of the building — a fancy developer group who’s built most of the celebrities’ houses in the affluent Hamptons — have decided not to renew my lease so that they could kick me out and convert my humble studio bachelor pad into a “luxury apartment” — a standard increasingly becoming the imposed norm to so many residences in New York City.  (Whether or not that is a good thing for the future of New York is a completely different debate, but let’s not lose focus here.)

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Encores

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip: Two in the Boot and Beyond"
Posted August 07, 2007

PART 12:  “You haven’t changed one bit,” said a familiar voice from a familiar face.  Both belonged to Zoe, the British lass I’d met at random at a cafe in Uyuni, Bolivia during my big trip around the world.  Little did I know during our initial encounter that she’d end up as a recurring character on “The Trinidad Show”: with her traveling buddy Sam, we were in the same jeep on our tour of the famed salt flats and surreal desert sands of Bolivia; we met up in Sucre for a kitschy dinosaur tour and makeshift puppet show; and now, 479 blog entries later, we were in Zoe’s hometown of London.

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Ending On A High Note

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip: Two in the Boot and Beyond"
Posted August 01, 2007

PART 11:  It’s not surprising that Interlaken, in the heart of German Switzerland, is a popular destination for all types of travelers on the tourism spectrum.  From campers to luxury hotel jetsetters, backpackers to flashpackers, and even big busloads of Asian tour groups, this mountain town situated in the Bernese Oberland area of the Swiss Alps is a complete draw with its postcard picture perfect scenery.  Interlaken means “between lakes,” for the town is at the junction of two beautiful lakes — Lake Brienz and Lake Thun — and if that’s not enough, the area is flanked by three majestic mountain peaks:  Eiger, Moench, and in the center, the famous snowcapped Jungfrau, commercially dubbed as the “Top of Europe.”

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The Backpacker/Flashpacker Part Of The Trip

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip: Two in the Boot and Beyond"
Posted July 23, 2007

PART 10:  “I like this random backpacker thing,” Steph had said back when we had checked into the Hotel Garni, a surprising great accommodation deal that we spontaneously acquired in a willage [sic] just outside Zagreb airport in Croatia.

Flashpacker thing,” I corrected her. 

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Alone Again

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip: Two in the Boot and Beyond"
Posted July 18, 2007

PART 9: The city of Zagreb originated in medieval times — the period in history, not the hokey dinner theater with jousting knights — back in the 11th century when the villages of Kaptol and Gradec grew and grew and eventually merged to band together to oppose Turkish invaders.  (The two villages are now neighborhoods in the present day city.)  As Lonely Planet puts it, this capital city of Croatia is “too often overlooked by tourists making a beeline for the coast… a fascinating destination on its own, combining the best of Eastern and Western Europe.”

With that in mind, Stephanie and I were excited to explore the other “half” of the Croatian cultural dichotomy — until Steph’s fateful words that morning:

“I’m not feeling very well.” 

Feeling a little feverish, she figured it was just a little sunstroke, and needed the day to rest and rehydrate.  “You go to Zagreb.  I think I just need a day.  Have fun for me.”

“I’ll have twice as much fun and give you half.”  I kissed her on the forehead as she laid in our bed with her eyes closed.

And so, like many, many days before in my travels, I set out alone again, the lone vagabond traveler, to explore a new place with pen and pad in hand, and ripped out pages of my guidebook in my pocket.

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Dalmatians 101

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip: Two in the Boot and Beyond"
Posted July 15, 2007

PART 8:  “I have decided that for the rest of the day, I will only say things I know in Croatian,” I said, having had no practice or knowledge of any vocabulary of the eastern European language.

“I guess we’re not going to say a lot then,” Steph told me.

“No.”

Not surprisingly, my dumb little proposed verbal stunt didn’t last long when we started exploring our first and only day in Split, Croatia, where our ferry had docked before seven in the morning.

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In Limbo

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip: Two in the Boot and Beyond"
Posted July 10, 2007

PART 7:  “I’m really sorry we missed it,” Steph apologized as the only ferry to Croatia’s Hvar Island had already departed from Pescara, Italy.  We had arrived only ten minutes late for the once-a-day 10:30 a.m. ferry across the Adriatic — the next was twenty-three hours and fifty minutes away.  Up until we knew this, I wasn’t worried because I figured there was probably another ferry at some point leaving from Pescara, but I was wrong.

“It’s okay,” I told Stephanie, clueless as to how our day would turn out that morning.  “This’ll be one of those unexpected detours I wrote about on my blog.  It’ll be fun.”

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The Mountain Town

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip: Two in the Boot and Beyond"
Posted July 09, 2007

PART 6:  When I was on the island of Naxos in Greece, I was sent on a quest by my friend and former boss Tracy to find a nostalgic, almost mythical place from his past:  a tiny hamlet where he’d spent many fun-filled and memorable summers in the company of friends and an old jovial man named Vasillis.  Steph also knew of an old man, her jovial friend Franco from Vermont, who had grown up in a little Italian mountain town near the geographic center of the country, high up in the Apennine mountain range.  And so, like I had done before her, Steph began a quest to find her curious, mythical town, a mere speck on our road map.

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No Particular Place To Go

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip: Two in the Boot and Beyond"
Posted July 09, 2007

PART 5: “Wouldn’t it be great if I just turned on the radio and that song came on, Riding along in my automobile….  duh nanana nah na nuh naah… No particular place to go…?” I said to Steph, humming that middle part of the Chuck Berry song.  It would have been the most appropriate song as we departed Pompeii and head south towards Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast.  However, without the song, we just settled on what we could get on Italian radio and the Harry Belafonte CD.

“Here’s the map,” Steph told me, navigating from the passenger side.  “We can go down this road that goes down the coast.  See, it goes, ‘pretty pretty pretty pretty…’” she continued, tracing the road with her finger.  “You have to say that when you drive along it.  It’s the Amalfi Coast song.”

“Okay.”

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The Most Swingingest Brothel In Pompeii

From the trip blog: "The Global Trip: Two in the Boot and Beyond"
Posted July 07, 2007

PART 4: The Isle of Capri was the last place that we’d set in stone in our pre-departure planning, and the unknown, spontaneous part of our trip was upon us.  “Can we go to Pompeii?” Steph asked me.

“I was actually going to ask you that.”  Pompeii, another place neither of us had visited before, was only a couple hours away by car — fortunately, we had one.

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