ARTICLES
Candy From A Baby
BootsnAll.com, May 2003
In the economically-depressed city of Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2002, dealing with social unrest becomes a part of the journey.
BLOG ENTRIES
Bye, Bye Brazil
From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted: March 01, 2004
DAY 132: Lara was up all set for her last opportunity for our daily morning cheese, Gilmore Girls and Touched By An Angel. It being Saturday, The Warner Channel on our satellite TV was running cartoons instead, and so the only thing to do was pack our bags and clean out the apartment. Lara was still pretty angry that Luis yelled at us the morning before with false accusations instead of approaching it professionally—especially after all the problems we had with them that we let slide—and didn’t want Angramar Turismo to get any more satisfaction out of us. She made sure she packed the fairly heavy bottle of tomato sauce in her bag instead of just leaving it behind for the owner to have.
“I know it’s childish, but fuck them, I’m going to be childish.”
Flashbacks in Buenos Aires
From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted: March 02, 2004
DAY 133: In February 2002, I spent a day in Buenos Aires during a stopover en route to Antarctica. During that day, I wandered around the central part of the city, looking for a new camera to replace the one that had broken on me, seeing the main sights on the way. Just over two years later I was back in BA visiting the familiar sights, and everything came back to me—including the familiar words of spoken Spanish I had been accustomed to hearing four weeks before. After being in Portuguese-speaking Brazil for a month, I had to revert back to my broken Spanish speaking ways, although I still kept on saying “obrigado” instead of “gracias” ("thank you") and had to correct myself all the time.
It Takes Two to Tango, But Hundreds to Start A Revolution
From the trip blog: "The Global Trip 2004: Sixteen Months Around The World"
Posted: March 03, 2004
DAY 134: Two days prior, I was in Rio de Janeiro—a city of samba—but had flown to Buenos Aires, a city of a different dance: the tango. If there’s one thing to be associated with Buenos Aires, it’s the tango—however, if there’s another thing, it’s political demonstrations.
Colors of Buenos Aires
Posted: March 03, 2004
DAY 135: Outside the window, the sky was grey with a light rain coming down from rain clouds above. A look up the skylight in the atrium of the hostel, I saw raindrops on the glass. The weather sort of put a damper on the plan I had for the day: to go on a bike tour of Palermo, the middle-class neighborhood northwest of the city, full of scenic parks.
I was telling Pepo, the industrious French accountant that I met the night before about my need for a change of plans. He replied with a saying he had heard from others about the temperamental weather: “If you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.”
Last Meals Before Africa
Posted: March 04, 2004
DAY 136: I woke up in time to meet up for the meeting of a bike tour at 9:30. However, realizing that I had many chores to take care of before leaving Buenos Aires (and South America for that matter)—buying medicine for my irritated eyes and cough, doing laundry, checking out of my hostel and, of course, Blog duties—I was glad that I blew it off. I did however make time to experience the characteristic cuisine of Buenos Aires one last time. Aside from the steaks, my other weakness was for empanadas—a tasty treat found all over the city.
ABOUT THE TRAVELER
When he’s not making a living as an interactive designer, former Lycos travel columnist Erik R. Trinidad is a freelance travel writer whose work has been featured in the New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Arthur Frommer’s Budget Travel magazine, Pilot Guides’ GlobeTrekkerTV.com, and BootsnAll.com. He is a member of the National Geographic Society and has contributed news to National Geographic Traveler. His short story “Disbelief of Wonder” 
appears in the best-of-travel-humor anthology, Hyenas Laughed at Me and Now I Know Why, which also includes the work of Tim Cahill, Doug Lansky, Jennifer Leo and Rolf Potts.
From Timbuktu to Kalamazoo, Erik has traveled to the seven continents of the world with a curiosity for exotic foods and a thirst for adventure (and writing material). In his travels, the ethnically ambiguous-looking thirty-something has been mugged at knifepoint in Cape Town, extorted by corrupt Russian police on the Trans-Siberian Railway, stranded in tornadic storms in the American midwest, and air-lifted off the Everest Trail by a helicopter that was thankfully paid for by his travel insurance. But it hasn’t been all fun; he has also donned a tuxedo amidst the penguins of Antarctica, paraded with Carnival-winning samba school Beija Flor in Rio, run for his life at Pamplona’s “Running of the Bulls,” cage-dived with great white sharks, gotten shot point-blank in the stomach in Colombia (while wearing a bulletproof jacket), and above all, encountered many people around the world, including some Peruvian musicians in Cuzco who learned and played “Y.M.C.A.” at his request. While some believe he has an iron stomach, he is not invulnerable to traveler’s diarrhea.
From October 2003 to March 2005, Erik traveled on a continuous sixteen-month trip around the world, blogging each day with his detailed and sometimes humorous style of storytelling. The blog, which has received over 75,000 unique hits from a global audience, originally began as a small on-line journal for a few family and friends, but evolved into an internet phenomenon within the travel communities of BootsnAll.com and Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree, and has been recommended by RickSteves.com, USA Today, and Travelocity’s IgoUgo travel network. 
In Spring 2005, it was selected by the editors of PC Magazine as one of the year’s “Top 100 Sites You Didn’t Know You Couldn’t Live Without,” in the travel category.
Erik writes stories and articles when he is at his base camp in New York City, and continues his blog when he is on the road. His travel writing is also a journey, one that has evolved from his early days writing personal travel journals to his published articles tailored to publication style. His travel and literary journeys will continually develop the more he travels and writes—provided he’s not occupied tracking down lost luggage.
To read about Erik from a real third person (as opposed to Erik writing this sidebar about himself in the third person), check out this feature article from Filipinas magazine by Amy Alipio, Assistant Editor at National Geographic Traveler.