Couchsurfing vs. Airbnb vs. the hospital in Spain

Posted on by May 28, 2013

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     Street name of the year: “Disappear Here” in Cordoba, Spain


     Who doesn’t love Spain? Are there still people who need convincing? What’s the worst thing you can say about Spain? The people are a little aloof? I don’t hold that against them. I’d been to Spain three or four times, but forgot how soothing the Andalucian countryside was. A bus ride through olive, fruit and nut trees made me homesick for driving on Highway 99 in California.
     There is one thing, though, that drives me up the wall. At the risk of offending my Spanish friends, it’s the way they speak Spanish, the lisping. Maybe I’ve just grown up and become used to Latino Spanish, but it makes me berserk to hear Castilian Spanish. It’s jarring, like the first time you hear David Beckham’s voice.
     I heard a theory that Spaniards lisp because long ago King Ferdinand lisped (if he had a Monty Python-esque funny walk would the whole country walk like that, too?) and we shouldn’t make fun of people who lisp nor for any other speech impediments, but how can you say Velazquez (“Velathqueth”), Zaragoza (“Tharagotha”), gracias (“grathias”) or cecina (“thethina”) and not say “Thpain”, too? And isn’t this why Spain has so many great writers and painters, to avoid speaking?
ef meetup

     I was standing in a market in Cordoba when a guy came over and poked me in the stomach. He stared at me for a heavy few seconds before he said slowly, “I think I know you.” It was Manuel from when we worked together at EF in the summer of 2006 in California. (EF was a Lord of the Flies gulag that has irrevocably shortened my life span). He said he always thought he would meet me on the road again. Small world.
     Look at what a mess I am. As you can see, Manuel’s boy was trying to take a swing at me. He was shrieking, “How can you let yourself go like that?!” I didn’t have a comeback.


nerja

     For a day-trip I visited Nerja, a coastal enclave just east of Malaga popular with northern Europeans and The Great Traveler forgot his backpack under the bus. The result was that I had to wait five hours for the bus to return. I couldn’t change my clothes so I went to the beach in shoes and socks, which made me feel very British. No one batted an eye.


paella

     Paella! All-you-can-eat on the beach in Nerja for 7 or 8 euros (less than $10). I asked an American living in Spain how much I should tip at a restaurant or cafe and he said, “Nothing! Even if the bill is 9.50 euros, I wait for my fifty cents.” I must have looked skeptical because he added, “It’s a regular job. The waiter has health insurance!” I asked how much to tip if it was a big group. He raised his voice, exasperated, “Zero! The cook—everyone has health insurance!”


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el paraiso de jamon
     Missing from the above photos is another chain of shops with dried ham legs hanging from the ceiling called El Palacio de Jamon. There must be a marketing lesson here. Open up a taco stand and call yourself The Museum of Tacos or The Palace of Tacos. The interesting thing isn’t so much about what they eat, but when they eat. Restaurants don’t open for dinner before 7:30pm, and 9pm is when most people start to think about dinner. How can eating so late be healthy? Spaniards seem to hardly eat at all, too. Is it the heavy smoking that suppresses their appetites? I really need to start smoking—Kent cigarettes, of course.
     Spain is a true pork paradise. I totally overdo it, gorging specifically on all the different kinds of cured hams. Last time I was in Spain I got sucked into the same bad habit and barfed my brains out one night, winding up in a hospital near Marbella from food poisoning. (I gave it three stars on Trip Advisor; mattress could have been firmer.) I need the slimming properties of a little food poisoning right now, I’ve become morbidly obese, but in keeping with my American roots, I’ve decided to sue the government of Spain for failing to provide warning labels that jamon serrano can be addictive.
vomitorio

     Speaking of barfing, this is what they call the top section of the Real Madrid soccer stadium. Barcelona fans feel the same way.


real madrid toilet

     The toilet in Real Madrid’s locker room. I can’t decide if it is worthy enough for my toilets page.


rotel bus

     I spotted this bus in Nerja. It is from a hotel in Passau, Germany that I once stayed at. I’ve seen the same bus a few times in California. The sleeping arrangement looks a little too cozy.

Battle Royale: Couchsurfing vs. Airbnb
     I stayed in just about every type of accommodation in Spain: with friends, hotels, hostels (including one in Granada called Polaroid Siesta; even the owner couldn’t explain it), Couchsurfing, and I tried Airbnb for the first time. I had two positive Airbnb experiences, but I’m at an impasse with them.
     Almost imperceptibly, there seems to be a shift from Couchsurfing to Airbnb. Couchsurfing is in danger of losing its way. There was a lot of internet buzz from this article about Couchsurfing being the “end of a dream”. Many of the writer’s points are valid, but he’s painting Couchsurfing’s problems with a wide brush and a big, noisy title. He could have called his essay, “I’m Kinda Disappointed in Couchsurfing”, but would anyone read it? That’s why I almost titled this blog post, “Photos of My Vasectomy in a New Delhi Slum with a Rusty Butter Knife”.

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     By the way, I went to Vasectomy Shop to get my work done. Groupon.


madrid street performer
     There’s not a whole lot to say about my Airbnb experience as it was very similar to Couchsurfing. It can be considered a kind of paid Couchsurfing. My only reason for trying Airbnb was that I didn’t want to socialize with my hosts. I was tired and not in the mood. To visit a Couchsurfing host you need to be “on” which is part of my self-important page of Advanced Couchsurfing Tips. (Just to toss it out there, I recently came across a new competitor to Couchsurfing, Sustainable Couch and some people have an opinion of BeWelcome.) Maybe that should be Airbnb’s slogan: “Couchsurfing for the anti-social”.
     The question becomes: why would travelers want to use Airbnb over Couchsurfing if the only difference is having to pay and why would hosts want to use Couchsurfing over Airbnb if you can get paid for it? I ended up hanging out with my Cordoba Airbnb host quite a bit, but with my Madrid Airbnb host I was cooped up in my room, which is poor form if you are a Couchsurfing guest.
     As a Couchsurfing guest, I am very deferential, trying to fit into my host’s schedule, offering to do things, rarely planning anything at night without my host, but what is my role as an Airbnb guest? Is there a line for being an Airbnb guest? I kept screaming, “Daddy needs a foot massage!” but nothing happened.
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     I was in Cordoba during its annual patio festival where crowds barge into everyone’s private courtyards to gawk at their plants. My Airbnb host is the guy in the gray shirt on the right. He got me invited to a private patio where they somehow corralled this band to play songs for an hour, including a soulful version of the song below.


     This is called “En la variedad esta la diversion”. (“In variety is fun”) by Un Pinguino en mi Ascensor (A Penguin in my Elevator).

     But wait! If you have the tolerance for only one Spanish-language song, my favorite is “De Musica Ligera” by Soda Estereo from Argentina:

Airbnb’s assault on my nerves
     I booked two places quickly and easily on Airbnb in Madrid and Cordoba, but when I tried to book a third place on the coast, suddenly Airbnb wanted more in the way of identification. I still don’t know if it is Airbnb or the hosts that wanted more, but I tried several listings and they all sent me to the page to get “verified online”. First, my choices were to link to my Facebook account or LinkedIn. I linked to LinkedIn, but somehow that wasn’t enough. Then my options were Facebook and something called Xing. Really? If I sign up for a Chinese social media website, then a host in Spain will drop their guard? I did so, but Xing still wasn’t enough, inexplicably.
     I began to wonder what was going on. Part of my “offline verification” was to let Airbnb charge a small amount to my credit card. Somehow this proves something? I did this when I signed up with Paypal and they charged me 3 cents and then 4 cents. Airbnb? 62 cents! That’s your complete business plan right there!
     Step One: Get millions of members
     Step Two: Tell them they need to be verified for “safety and security” and charge them 62 cents each.
     Step Three: Retire in the Philippines.
     What chutzpah. They claim, “We hope you understand that these additional security measures are in place for the safety and security of the community”. Riiiiight. Now it was Facebook or nothing; I could not use Airbnb without Airbnb linking to my Facebook account. I could sense it all along. I could even almost see the drool bubbling on their lips and frothing down their chins as they hold out for access to the Holy Grail, my Facebook friends.
yuck store
     What’s the big deal?
     First, I don’t like the scam. Airbnb’s Facebook obsession has nothing to do with verification or safety, a ruse they have given up at this point: “Airbnb would like to access your (Facebook) public profile, friend list, email address, birthday, education history, hometown, interests, current city, personal description and likes.” (The real reason Airbnb had a come-to-Jesus moment with safety was the result of a woman having her apartment trashed, Airbnb’s weak response, and the complete blowback when word got out.)
     They also want to be able to mention when and where I am using Airbnb. Yeah, that’s what I want to do, give Airbnb complete rein of my Facebook and then see this update on my wall: “The Dromomaniac just wet the bed in Malaga, Spain with Airbnb!”
     They say I can opt out by sifting through the thicket of Facebook’s 5000 privacy settings, but it should be opt-in. That’s the rub. I am opting in to get verified, not letting Airbnb use me for free advertising and data mining.
     I know I’m alone on this. Privacy by now is a quaint 20th century ideal. All apps suck Facebook info from you, but that’s why I don’t have any apps on Facebook.
     I stood my ground with Airbnb by doing nothing. For the coast—I chose beach towns with the worst reputations just to see what holiday hell looked like, but I didn’t see anything horrific—I found one place to stay by googling “Fuengirola cheap hotel for bedwetters”. In Torremolinos I went with the most logical hotel name for maximum quiet: Hostal Virgen del Rocio II (I wonder what happened to the first virgin?) It delivered.
     Later I got an email from Airbnb offering another way to overcome my resistance: make a video about myself. Make a video about myself?! You’ve got to be kidding me. When did I reach the point where I became Airbnb’s circus bear? “Hey Foster, roll over! That’s it, now dance! I said, DANCE!!”
luis shaira     Above was my Couchsurfing host in Cordoba, a positive, upbeat Paraguayan doctor here holding his Mexican girlfriend outside a jazz club. A very impressive guy, he hitchhikes to his medical conferences all around Spain. When he gets picked up hitchhiking and is asked what he does, he says, “I’m a surgeon!” and no one believes him.
     In Malaga I stayed with a 19-year-old Colombian student who invited me to visit him after he saw my Open Request on Couchsurfing. That’s some serious open mindedness. I almost felt obligated to visit him, I was so touched by his sincerity to meet me. When I was 19 I don’t remember voluntarily interacting with anyone older than 25 unless they were related to me.
     The funny thing about Couchsurfing is that hosts invite me mainly because they like that I have traveled so much, but then I spend the whole time trying to convince them that they would have better lives by not traveling as much as I do.
     Would I have met these people without Couchsurfing? No. That’s the only argument I need to not turn my back on Couchsurfing. The lament that it is the end of the dream seems more like a whine that Couchsurfing now takes more work to find real members in the right spirit, but until another website can gain critical mass, I’m not going anywhere. The haystack got bigger and it’s harder to find the needle. Deal with it. The best things in life don’t come easy.
     “The best things in life don’t come easy.” Man, that is deep. And I blog for free!

ugly busts

     A montage of the “art” in my Airbnb host’s home.


     Why don’t you stay with me? You can follow along with RSS, subscribe to an email feed, see what’s cooking on Facebook, pray that I’ll say something worth remembering on Twitter and if you are really slumming it, there’s always Google+.

Zermatt and the highest lows of Switzerland

Posted on by April 6, 2013

zermatt burrito

     Which is more distressing: the fact that Thai burritos exist or that they cost 26.50 francs ($28.50)?


gummi bear pizza

     This is my favorite insanely expensive thing in Switzerland out of many, many contenders: gummi bears arranged on a platter. They call this a gummi bear pizza and charge 19.95 francs, or US$21. Four of these cost more than a full-day pass on Zermatt’s mountain trains and ski lifts. Unbelievable.                               

     What can be better than living in beautiful Switzerland? To have a job in Switzerland simply means you are on top of the world. My Mexican friends here pay a woman 33 Swiss francs an hour ($35) to clean their apartment and it wasn’t easy to find somebody. That’s all you need to know about how high wages are. Anyone from a poor, relatively poor or even slightly poorer country (which means everyone else in the world) that has become legal to work here has won the lottery. I would feel that way if I was lucky enough to live here. I’m seriously looking into it, and, in fact, I was introduced to one woman who, after only 30 minutes of having met me, proposed that she would get me permission to work in exchange for making her pregnant with my clean-living genes. Should I do it?
     Other than that woman, everyone I know in Switzerland I met outside Switzerland. This is related to the old axiom that if you want to meet Scandinavians, go to Thailand. (I would add: go to a McDonald’s in Thailand.) These are the people I know here:
—a Mexican I met in Russia
—a Georgian I met in the Republic of Georgia
—a Finn I met in Belize (by bizarre coincidence, all three work for the same company now.)
—a German I met in Malaysia
—a Canadian I met in Japan
—a Swiss (I know Swiss people in Switzerland!) I met in India and
—a Swiss I met in Thailand
     They are all residents, adding to the multi-kulti mix here. I would guess that people who haven’t been to Switzerland in a while think of its multiculturalism narrowly in terms of its official languages: German, French and Italian. (Yes, I’m ignoring the fourth official language, Romansch, an unserious hybrid spoken by a handful of hillbillies out east). To wit, check out the names of the starting eleven on the Swiss national soccer team:
1  – Diego Benaglio
2  – Stephan Lichtsteiner
5  – Steve Von Bergen
20 – Johan Djourou
13 – Ricardo Rodriguez
7  – Tranquillo Barnetta(!)
11 – Valon Behrami
8  – Gokhan Inler
17 – Mario Gavranovic
23 – Xherdan Shaqiri
10 – Granit Xhaka
     That’s a nice representation of who is here. I just had an idea. I’ll make a baby with that woman if we can name the kid Tranquillo. Tranquillo Foster…Tranquillo Foster…nah, it’s probably a bad idea.

graydon hazenberg

     This is me with my friend, Graydon, Master Traveler, in Leysin, and the roesti I ate that night.


Hitchhiking to Zermatt
     I hitchhiked from Lausanne to Zermatt shockingly easily and even more surprising, the first five rides were from women. The last woman warned me as she pulled over to let me out that I was entering the inbred part of canton Wallis. It just so happened that we were leaving the French-speaking part of the canton and entering the German-speaking part. I chalked this prejudice up to her being French-speaking, but the next guy who took me, well, I don’t like to say anything unkind to someone gracious enough to pick me up hitchhiking, but his teeth were going a few directions.
     The last stretch of road to Zermatt is closed to non-residents (with a 3500 franc ($3700) fine for trespassers—welcome to Zermatt!) Normally you must take a ten-minute train for $8.50 (In India how many hours could you travel for $8.50? 15? 20?) but I successfully hitched it with a Croatian guy, feeling most triumphant.

Zermatt and the Matterhorn!
     I’ve been in Switzerland countless times, but never to arguably its most famous place, Zermatt, to see the Matterhorn. I’ve never been in a place like Zermatt. I thought world-famous ski resort towns weren’t for me, but I had an unexpectedly fantastic time. My good fortune started by being lucky enough to stay with a great Couchsurfing host and my age expertise helped us come in second place in the pub quiz at Sparky’s. There was excellent weather to go on some scenic walks, and for a long while I sat against a weather-ravaged old barn in the sun by a ski run and watched little kids barely a meter tall expertly ski and snowboard down the mountain.
     I got so caught up in the thrill of being in Zermatt I went into the local government office to ask about the possibility of a North American getting a work visa. I went in with both guns blazing, speaking German, showing my newly-shaved face, the irresistible smile, but I was no match for the young girl there who shot me down with evident satisfaction. “Kein Chance!” she said with force, suppressing more overt hatred. I was going to offer to make babies with her to get a work visa, but I had a hunch the proposal wouldn’t be welcomed. Her loss.

The Swiss refuse!

     This sign strikes me as very Swiss. I should have taken it from farther away as it is in a tunnel in Zermatt and appeared to be unrelated to any danger. It seems to be just a reminder to not come crying to the Swiss for any reason. They don’t have spell-check in Zermatt? Maybe they’d give me a work visa to correct the spelling on English signs before they go to all the trouble of making them.


zermatt view

     View from my Couchsurfing host’s chalet of Zermatt and the Matterhorn. The only thing better than this is if it were the view from my chalet


zermatt kent
zermatt car

A late entry for most crazy-expensive thing in Switzerland, these electric cars in Zermatt go for $150,000.


zermatt snowman
     I hitchhiked from Zermatt to Zurich starting out in -10C (14F) frigidity, very happily taking anything that stopped for any distance downhill. It took seven rides, but only one with a woman this time. One ride was from my doppelganger, if I am using the word correctly. (Doppelganger is one of those German words that need 15 English words to explain. I tell German-speaking people that all Americans know the words schadenfreude, gesundheit (from Bugs Bunny), fahrvergnuegen (from a Volkswagen ad campaign) and doppelganger.) The ride was with a guy who left Switzerland when he was 20 and lived abroad for 27 years. He just came back—and he doesn’t like it. The transition’s been too hard. The last two rides were both with Kosovo Albanians, one who lived one block away from my friend in Zurich and drove me straight there. Cha-ching!
     I always have a soft spot for hitchhiking in Switzerland because it was here that the most famous person to ever pick me up hitchhiking was: Fernando von Arb, guitarist for 1980’s heavy metal band, Krokus and owner of many engrossing stories. If he had been driving to Sweden I would have gone just to hear more stories. Krokus’ big hit was “Eat the Rich“, an old MTV staple, but he was kind of embarrassed when I mentioned it. Judge for yourself. It’s very pixelated, unfortunately. You only need to watch thirty seconds to get the drift, but the microphone is worth it:

     Chance encounters with rock stars aside, traveling in oppressively expensive Switzerland can feel miserable. The most depressing times in my traveling life have been in the horrifically high-cost countries of Switzerland, Norway and Japan. It’s not necessarily the country itself because, ironically, they are in the Top 5 countries I’d retire from traveling, but it’s the heightened feeling that you have less options, particularly when it’s cold.
     It’s not as if I am near homelessness. I have money. Rockefeller here is in the five figures these days, but when I go to the bus stop in Zurich to buy a local ticket and it is 4.20 francs ($4.50), I wither. If you live here, you make plenty enough money to enjoy life, and it seems those lucky foreigners shouldn’t be complaining about Swiss strictness or lack of street life or anything else, but for travelers, $4.50 for a bus ticket is downright Oslo-esque.
     Norway’s worse because taxes are stratospheric. Here, taxes are low, the Swiss franc is extremely strong—wait, let me dust off my diploma from the University of California at Santa Barbara in Business-Economics before I continue. (My European friends are always surprised to learn that I have a university degree for two reasons: that I sat still for four years to get one and that I don’t use it.) Where was I? Oh—interest rates and inflation are low, and unemployment is 3.1%, which is virtually full employment as anything under 5% means simply that those without jobs don’t want them. The Swiss economy is, if you’ll excuse the heavy jargon used exclusively by us economists, super duper strong, like, top of the food chain, yo!
yosemite zermatt

     Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. What’s this all about? You have to drag the holy name of Yosemite to Zermatt? You can’t be proud of your own nature? As a native Californian, I’m outraged, even more than by Thai burritos.


ried, zermatt

     Doesn’t this look fun? Skiing looks fun! Who knew?

Practical Information
     If you aren’t up for hitchhiking in Switzerland and are petrified of train costs, don’t forget rideshare. My old fave, Mitfahrgelegenheit has a Swiss version. For the French-speaking part of Switzerland, a French website is popular, Covoiturage.fr. I used both this time when it was too cold to hitch and they cost less than half the train fare.
     Hot news! Zurich airport now has free wifi! I would have paid to see the look on the haughty woman’s face at the airport information desk when they broke the news to her. Last time I came through, I asked if there was free wifi and she gave me a frosty look, leaned back in her chair, crossed her arms, and triumphantly smiled, “Nothing is free in Switzerland!”

     Why don’t you stay with me? You can follow along with RSS, subscribe to an email feed, see what’s cooking on Facebook, pray that I’ll say something worth remembering on Twitter and if you are really slumming it, there’s always Google+.

The mad, mad, mad, mad world edition of the mailbag

Posted on by March 2, 2013

     Greetings from frigid Switzerland! How can anyone live in cold weather? It narrows your options. I don’t get it. Before we get to the mail, let’s get you in a sunny mood with these two clips of the greatest dance scenes ever from the classic movie, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (In case they don’t show up in your browser below, here are the links: 1 and 2):


     OK, are we ready now?

From Carlos in Chile:
Subject: hi
     Message: I like you
     Short and sweet! Thank you, I’ll take it. This is a nice start to the mailbag.

From a guy in Mexico via Couchsurfing:
     Such kent hello if you are not interested to stay at my house just send me message or contact me by this means to know if you’re interested, also I mention hope is not a barrier to let you know that I like the guys I’m gay, I hope that does not bother. good bye we are in contact.
     I receive interesting Couchsurfing offers from guys now and then, most recently in Istanbul. Imagine how life was pre-Google Translate, which is quietly helping people all over the world communicate when they couldn’t before.

From Ahmed in Hungary:
     i need visa i have my passport with out visa can you do that please if like contact me phone 003,6703xxxx thanks.
     Uh oh. Can you say you like me first before you confuse my website with a visa service?

From Jake in USA:
     Hey Man, so I found your blog today and read all your tips sections–not only is your site filled with useful tips and tricks, but you’re pretty funny and a good writer. So thanks for putting all this out there!
     Anyway, I have a bit of a dilemma which i know you have encountered before. The onward ticket. I am going to be traveling in Central and possibly South America. I had planned on getting a one way into Costa Rica and then just playing it by ear from then on, as I have no outward time limit on my own schedule. However, Costa Rica has a 90 day visit limit and they require an onward ticket. I contacted the consulate and they require this ticket to be within the 90 days. I obviously don’t plan on staying in CR longer than that, or even nearly that long (in fact, I will be WWOOFing in Nicaragua for most of that time) but I dont want that damn outbound flight to tie me to Costa Rica on a certain date. I thought I would just buy a round trip ticket and pay the change fee later, but at $150-250 (United won’t even tell me how much within that range), that’s nearly the cost of the ticket itself, at best! At worst, the change will cost more than the ticket itself.
     I am not willing to mock up a dummy e-ticket to show ticket and border agents, I’m just not comfortable risking immigration issues or incarceration to save $250 bucks. That’s out of my depth for now. I could make the outbound ticket a return to the states, but who wants that after only 3 months? I could make the outbound ticket to another country, but then I’ll likely have the same problem of being required an outbound ticket once I get to that next country. Plus, who knows if i’ll be ready to leave Central Am by then, or where I’ll want to go!
     I’m not really sure what to do here, other than buy the return ticket and potentially just not use it. Do you have any other ideas or suggestions for a friendly stranger (not that strange!)?
     Everyone freaks out when I talk about fake onward tickets, even if you have perfectly explained why they are needed: your plans are open, you have no intention to overstay or work, and the airlines are screwing you over because they can. I am going to update my site and make explain the fake onward tickets part in greater detail by making it a page of its own.
     As far as your problem is concerned, if you have zero idea where you might need to use an onward plane ticket and don’t want to make a fake, I would spend time asking the airlines what their refund policy is for a regular ticket leaving Costa Rica (and don’t make it from any other country than Costa Rica). Ask them if the ticket is 100% refundable, what the fees are to do so and when you have to make the refund if you don’t use it.
     I don’t like that answer either, which is why I take the very small risk and make the fake.

camembert!

     It doesn’t say so, but this is from a McDonald’s in Mulhouse, France. The real question is why can’t we get goat cheese burgers in America? The French are the best.


From Jesse in Canada:
     Hey Kent, I found your blog a few days ago and have been reading it extensively. Having just gotten in to travelling hardcore in the last year, I’ve only just begun starting to figure out how to do it frequently on pennies, I find it super awesome to have found a very detailed blog that has a personal touch on experience and knowledge.
     I’m sorry if this is somewhere obvious on your site or wherever, but how do you fund your constant running around if you don’t mind my asking? I’ve been leaving for a few weeks at a time, coming home to scrounge more at work and then leaving again. I’m just curious as to what you might reveal…whether it be a lot of saved money or working abroad, money online, etc.
     I’m at a crossroads in my life where I’m trying to finish uni, travel as much as possible, work, and not be overwhlemed and sucked in to a world of debt and full-time boringness.
     Thanks, and take care!
     Hey Jesse, I’ve worked dozens and dozens of different jobs through temp agencies, craigslist ads, word of mouth or any way I could to save a little money, meaning rarely going out with friends and living like a hermit often, and then I traveled very cheaply, often too cheaply. As I always say, it isn’t how much you earn, it’s how much you save.
     I feel deeply unqualified to give life advice, but it is this: finish school. The jobs you would get will pay more because you have a diploma, as worthless as it might otherwise feel. Debt is a problem that you would need to tackle, but it sounds like you already know how to travel cheaply.
     Wait! There are others in your boat:

From Karina in Scotland:
     Hey Kent, tall chick from twitter here. I found your blog whilst googling “dromomania”, Michael Palin mentioned it in his book and I had to find out more. Well I ended up spending the whole afternoon at work reading your blogs (oops).
     I love the idea of one-way travel, currently I work a full time government job and have managed to take well planned holidays, however since I started this job pretty young (19, im 23 now) I missed out on the whole gap year travelling thing. Since last year I have been planning to take a career break and take a few years off for adventuring and discovering. I took the leap this week and applied for voluntary redundancy, which means I will leave my job next May. I’d roughly like to work in Europe for 3 months au pairing, then perhaps Dubai for nine doing the same thing, which brings me around to summer 2014 where id like to do Camp America, then after that bum around asia for a few months and eventually end up in Australia for a working holiday. My family aren’t exactly thrilled, they’d rather I spend my savings on a mortgage but the thought of being tied down here is not desirable. So anyway since you are a seasoned traveler i’d like to ask the following questions:
     —What were you like when you first started travelling? Has your personality been strengthened by putting yourself in new situations?
     —How do you fund your trips? Do you have the same job to go back to or do you start new when you have to go home?
     —Do you have anything to fall back on, e.g. a degree?
     I’m worried that i’m throwing away a good job for a few years of fun, but I’ve been told that I’ll probably encounter so many opportunities abroad that I’ll never think twice about leaving here. I dropped out of college so I don’t have that magical instant approval of a degree that employers desire. My thoughts are that if things go wrong in Oz I can come back to Scotland to study.
     Sorry for the long email, I look forward to hearing back from you and getting some guidance hopefully. Im so glad I found your website!
     Hi Tall Chick, how can I sort my twitter feed by height? Never mind. Let’s see, yes, I have lived super-cheaply at home. My plan was that if I was in USA for a short time (i.e. less than two months), I’d stay with my parents and if longer, I would move to a bigger city and rent a temporary room (in someone else’s place to avoid having my name on anything official for liability reasons).
     The working holiday visa is the greatest thing ever! I wish I could have done that when I was in my 20s or maybe it existed and I was too dumb to know. I would do that as much as possible in Oz, Japan, Canada—anywhere I could. Camp America, however, might drive you insane as a 25-year-old with the low money and many restrictions.
     I do have a university degree in Business-Economics, and it is a good thing to fall back on, though I am still waiting to fall back on it. It’s funny that your family is more intent on you getting a mortgage than an education. Do you think if you came back to Scotland in your late 20s that you could get a good-enough job or be admitted into a school you would want to attend? That might be the answer to your big question.
     “What were you like when you first started travelling? Has your personality been strengthened by putting yourself in new situations?”
     I was a blank slate when I started out and I simply found traveling more interesting than not traveling, and since it was easy to make money on temporary jobs, I kept doing it. The longest I’ve ever had a job in USA was six months. I should add that there is a lot of sacrifice to hardcore saving as opposed to buying or doing things while at home—sorry, whilst home, I should say.
     Sure, traveling inevitably makes you stronger. You are constantly being put into unknown situations and you overcome obstacles big and small.
     If you aren’t giving much up by leaving, it doesn’t sound like a big risk to go traveling. Either you get it out of your system and go home, or you don’t like it and you go home, or you like it and you start a catering business in Abidjan like Phil Paoletta did.

From Egeh in Somaliland:
     Hello, when are you going back to Somaliland? Perhaps I got a job for you there! Honestly, you are a man with wonders and humour, I should think. Traveling can be addictive and deadly but I think it is the time you settled down! Nobody will give you such good advice but who knows God had sent me for your sake. Tell me where and when you really want to settle down? My simple idea, let’s start a travel club online if other things fail.
     Yes, when AM I going back to Somaliland? I had an unforgettable time there. I miss that part of the world.
     Traveling can be deadly. Amen to that, brother. I am dead tired of it. Can we start an offline business? I don’t want to stare at a computer all day long. Let’s do something with camels. Think about it. I am ready to disappear.

     Feel free to write me. You can use the contact page. Easy.

quechua backpack

     My friends giving some love to my new 70 liter Quechua backpack I got in a Decathlon store. 65 euros ($85).


     Why don’t you stay with me? You can follow along with RSS, subscribe to an email feed, see what’s cooking on Facebook, pray that I’ll say something worth remembering on Twitter and if you are really slumming it, there’s always Google+.

A lifetime’s worth of horrible/fantastic memories in Istanbul

Posted on by February 24, 2013

     I tried unsuccessfully to find a Couchsurfing host in Istanbul. I guessed I was too last-minute, but just after I decided to go the hostel route, three people saw my open request and offered me a place to stay. One was from a guy in his 20s who said we would have to share a double bed. I think it was a legitimate offer, just some dude who wanted to help me with a place to stay. I doubt he is pining for a guy in his 40s, though I guess I should change my Couchsurfing profile’s Current Mission to something other than “Bear looking for cub”. (Too early for a gay joke?)

blue mosque

     The Blue Mosque. Notice how nice and bright the interior dome is? If you follow the middle chain upwards, you might make out a metal triangle with three spheres—wait, let’s go to a fuzzy closeup photo…


ostrich eggs

     Those are empty ostrich eggs which are said to repel spiders from making webs. Now you know.


     In Istanbul I did something twice I normally never do but which other backpackers do all the time. Have a shower? No, I booked hostels online. The difference in price forced my hand, but there is one niggling issue with booking online: you can’t see and don’t know exactly what you are getting.
     I used hostelbookers.com to reserve a single room for 19 euros, which is the cheapest I have found in Istanbul. This was at Second Home Hostel, whose own website says a single room is 25 euros. I’ve stayed at that hostel twice before and it’s on a busy street. I am an awful sleeper so it would be worth knowing if I was getting a quieter room in the back. (I like that hostel. The guys working there are great, but the basement dorm room is pure dungeon.) Another problem with not knowing what you are getting when you book online is you don’t want to have the eighth bed in an eight-bed dorm which is probably by the leaky toilet with the noisy door. Most people in their right mind don’t want any bed in an eight-bed dorm, myself included.
     The next time I needed a hostel I did it another way. I went into Antique Hostel and checked out a 12 euro, four-bed dorm room, and then on a whim I went on their own website and saw I could book the same room for 10 euros, so an hour later I marched back in with a reservation and a shrug by the front desk guy, saying that this is the way it is. The two euro difference amounts to $2.65, which doesn’t sound like much, but is enough for lunch if you know where to go. For a dorm bed, it’s the best value I know in Istanbul. I shared a four-bed room with a nocturnal Argentine woman who I suspect resented me being the only other person in the room and politely wished me to die in my sleep.

     Boring story time!
     The Antique hostel is a couple of streets below and east of the Blue Mosque in an area that used to be a backpacker ghetto and has now gone upscale with boutique hotels and fifi restaurants. The gentrification has spread until just before the very last scruffy little street, Terbiyik Sokak. A zillion years ago on my first visit to Istanbul I stayed at a family-run place on Terbiyik Sokak that had a big backlit sign which read GEUST HOUSE. I then went to a Galatasaray soccer match and promptly got pickpocketed, losing everything. (It’s still the worst thing ever to happen to me while traveling. The second worst was having all my film destroyed by a country that shall remain nameless and the third worst might be a bland meal in Malaysia.) The man of the house let me stay for free until I got my passport and money back five days later to repay him. (During that time I had $20 to my name and ate lahmacun, a sort of Turkish pizza, almost exclusively for five straight days; even now it is hard for me to look it in the eye.)
     Every time I return to Istanbul I always try and stop by to say thank you to the man, but I’ve never seen him as the “geust house” closed long ago and no one has ever answered the door. Until this time. Now there is a Chora Guesthouse sign out front and I saw him on his step. He doesn’t speak English but he motioned for me to knock on the closed market shop below to communicate with someone. I was excited to finally be able to contact him, but when the rolling metal door rose up, I could see an enraged man yelling at an Asian woman who was trying to get out. She lunged toward the door and he blocked her way, shoving her back against a rack of snacks. He tried to speak with me but couldn’t finish a sentence without having to try and keep the girl from leaving. When I finally started to speak, he interrupted to say, “Do you have a reservation?”
     I said no, and, very irritated, he said they were full. He turned away, the metal rolling door came down, the old man disappeared and I stood there trying to make sense of it all.

chora guest house

     Chora Guesthouse with the store below


     It’s not the only odd place on the street. Across the way is another hostel I’ve stayed that had almost all Japanese travelers. I shared a dorm room with three anti-Japanese Japanese. They spent their time in Istanbul standing in lines for free food from a soup kitchen for the city’s homeless to complement their free Hare Krishna dinners. One evening I came home to them cooking on a bunsen burner in the dorm room on the shaky top bunk’s mattress, the flame wobbling with the shifting weight of the guy on the bed. If there was a fire it would be all over for us, the hostel, and probably the entire neighborhood due to the tight little streets with the firetrap buildings.
     I went in to have a look and when I came back outside, at the Chora Guesthouse I saw that the rolling metal door was up again and the same Asian woman was now next to the step, alone. I don’t know what was going on. It’s just a weird street. Next door is the Metropolis Hostel. This is their message on the hostel booking websites: “Please Note: We welcome travelers of all ages. We ask, however, that travelers over 40 years old book into private rooms, and not shared dorm rooms.”
     Oh, is that right? Now why would that be? I am scheming to get a fake ID on Khao San Road showing I am 39 (“Born in ’74, punk.”) and infiltrate the dorm room. Then I will pour the contents of my colostomy bag over the head of the guy who wrote that. Only then will justice be served. On this day, though, I wasn’t in the mood for a confrontation and I think I have collected enough memories from that street to never go back.
istanbul baklava

     Fresh baklava from Gulluoglu in Karakoy.


sneijder drogba

     Galatasaray soccer fans are eagerly awaiting the duo of Wesley Sneijder and Didier Drogba. When Drogba arrived it was like the Pope had arrived with live TV coverage of his car making his way to town from the airport.


taksimhearts

     A shopping mall in Taksim


evil eye cat
     I’ve been around the block and I suffer under the delusion that my opinion carries weight, so bear with me when I insist that Istanbul is one of the world’s great cities and must be near the top of anyone’s list of places to visit. Throughout history it has been a convenient, strategically-placed hub, and today it is cheap and easy to fly here, reasonable value both food and accommodation-wise, it has history in spades, it’s safe, and the food is excellent.
     Do I need to continue? Turks are solid people, friendly, but they don’t care about you enough to be obsequious, which is what you want as a traveler. Geopolitically, few countries are as interesting as Turkey, and domestically there is the quiet battle brewing between secularism and those wanting an Islamic state. All of this can be contemplated over tea on a scenic public ferry ride between continents on the Bosphorus. There is a lot to learn and soak in, but the Istanbul Tourism Board isn’t sponsoring this blog post, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.
     Why do so few Americans visit Turkey? Believe it or not, a 35-year-old movie called “Midnight Express” about an American backpacker who traveled to Turkey, tried to smuggle out drugs, and his subsequent hell in a Turkish prison has prejudiced the views of quite a few Americans for a long time. I have read, but can’t confirm it on the internet, that in the 1980s when the American government wanted to twist Turkey’s arm for diplomatic reasons, it would threaten to have “Midnight Express” broadcast on American TV which always scared off tourists and sullied Turkey’s reputation. Maybe it’s urban legend. Do you buy it?

Practical information:
     Like Lufthansa before it and Qatar Airlines most recently, Turkish Airlines is the airline of the era that is flying everywhere. South Sudan and Somalia, anyone? They have deals on their website through a program with the vomit-inducing name of Wingo.
     Turkey also has an excellent regional discount airline, Pegasus, based out of the Asian-side airport, Sabiha Gokcen, and many airlines fly to Turkey very cheaply from Europe. Plus, Istanbul is a cheap connection with Air Arabia and flydubai to head eastward.
     A multiple-entry, visa-on-arrival for Americans is $20, same for most countries which need a visa.
     If you want to see nicer Istanbul photos from a more able photographer, check out Stephen Lioy’s.

whirlingdervish

     A whirling dervish


     Why don’t you stay with me? You can follow along with RSS, subscribe to an email feed, see what’s cooking on Facebook, pray that I’ll say something worth remembering on Twitter and if you are really slumming it, there’s always Google+.

My favorite signs in Istanbul, Turkey

Posted on by February 15, 2013

     How about a quick photo collage for a change?

Dutch sign

     Sign of the month from an Istanbul restaurant: “Do you speak Dutch? I don’t.”


freebirdtravel

     Duuuuude! I sparked up my lighter in Istanbul airport, slowly swayed back and forth, and sang, “For I must be traveling on now, ’cause there’s too many places I’ve got to see…” before I was tackled by 15 police. (Maybe three people get that reference, but I’m OK with it.)


kokorec car

     Gala lamb intestines. Why hasn’t roasted lamb intestines sold out of the side of a van taken off in America yet? Why?


ciger restaurants

     Liver Palace alongside Liverland. It’s liver paradise in Istanbul!


berkhotel

     Probably not many guests from France here. “Berk” is slang for “yuck” in French.


kent hotel kadikoy

     I’ve seen three Kent Hotels in Istanbul so far. “Kent” means town in Turkish.


kent tekstil

     Kent textile with the world’s saddest tree out front.


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Swapping identities at the Budapest flea market

Posted on by February 13, 2013

     Budapest! I made a visit heavy on reunions with a funny coincidence: a Hungarian friend I hadn’t seen in nearly twenty years knew a Hungarian friend I haven’t seen in nearly ten years from when they both recently lived in different parts of Holland.
     On my way to Hungary I had a layover in Geneva, Switzerland for a couple of days and stayed with a fun Couchsurfing guy, Leonardo. It could just be me, but there are two unusual things about this photo below. The first is that five friends (one had to leave early) in their twenties would get together indoors for communal food, in this case, a sublime fondue. Does that happen elsewhere and I don’t know about it? The other striking thing is that all five are fit. It isn’t something that would have been remarkable a few years ago, but in this day and age of morbid obesity, it’s noticeable. There’s a reason I’m not in this photo, lamentably.
geneva fondue
     I found it funny that all the guys naturally deferred to the one from Fribourg about how to make a proper fondue just because he comes from a famous fondue town. If a bunch of American friends get together with me, they don’t let me make the burritos just because I’m from California, though if they know what’s good for them, they should. The Hungarian equivalent of this might be for bogracsgulyas (kettle goulash over an open fire), which might not be trusted in the hands of city folk. I once sat through a long bogracsgulyas evening where the guy from the village insisted that the kettle be turned 90 degrees every five minutes and the fire was watched more closely than a kid playing with matches.
     The wifi connection name in Leonardo’s home is “8 filles” (8 girls). “Huit filles” sounds close to “wifi” when pronounced in French. It’s a smidge more clever than the wifi connection name I saw in the Everett, Washington Amtrak station, “Hugh Jass”.
     Sorry I just wasted 10 seconds of your life with that. Let’s move on to meatier stuff.

alps view from plane

     Swiss Alps flying east from Geneva on Wizz Air. It’s a good idea to sit on the right side of the plane.


Taxi cowboys

     Taxi cowboys! This is what you see on the men’s bathroom by baggage claim when you arrive at Budapest airport. The Hungarian government is polarizing the country with its heavy-handed, divisive policies, but is somehow unable to control all the sleazeballs who roam the airport looking to rip travelers off.


     At the airport I hacked my way through a thicket of taxi cowboys to ask a girl behind a counter where I could buy a bus ticket. I then noticed I had interrupted her reading. Uh-oh. She slowly looked up at me with venom, ready to burn a hole in my head with her glare. She fixed her eyes on me only for a moment, though, and as her head began pivoting back downward to her magazine, she managed a gesture to a shop across the way.
     Where was this? Tourist information! It was at that exact heart-warming moment when I knew I had arrived back in good ol’ Hungary. I could have kissed her. It was an emotional moment, to be sure. Hungary’s the best.
     I used to live in Hungary. I taught English in Pecs for eight months, which is the longest I have ever been in one place in all my adult life. (That’s very hard to accomplish and I don’t wish it on anybody.) I’ve visited maybe 15-20 different times from the communist era until today, had three operations here, infuriated countless tourist information staff, the whole deal. Everything has happened to me in Hungary, so for a long time it has felt like a second home and only recently have I stopped challenging anyone to a fistfight who thinks Prague is better than Budapest.
     As a flea market hound I’ve been going to Budapest flea markets since time immemorial. The oldest, most well-known one is called Ecseri and is halfway to Bolivia, way, way southeast of town. It’s a complete waste of time unless you are looking for rusty bolts in bulk or over-priced, moldy paintings. The gypsy market or thieves market or I don’t know it’s official name that was on Verseny Utca behind Keleti train station was shut down and hasn’t resurfaced yet as far as I know. What’s left is Petofi Csarnok in Varosliget, City Park, which is pretty good, just short of great. It has an outdoor amphitheatre and a big indoor pavilion where I once saw Henry Rollins in concert, but it would make too much sense to have a winter flea market indoors, so now it is scattered on the frozen periphery where on most Saturdays and Sundays (the better day) there are people in various levels of desperation selling their life’s possessions.
budapest flea market

     It’s the middle of winter, but I’ve never seen so many people at the flea market. Why are we all out here freezing to death again?


budapest flea market

     I failed to get a photo of a guy standing on a framed painting to keep his feet off the cold ground. Classic.


budapest flea market

     Just off camera here I slipped on the ice and fell on my butt. I thought I heard a yell in my direction, but it wasn’t until I was picking myself off the ground when an old man next to me fell and then I heard it clearly: “Meg egyszer!” (Once more!) The sellers were announcing every fall.


IDs

     So what did I buy? IDs. Two expired passports, old Hungarian socialist party membership booklets, communist-era soldier IDs, stuff like this. Everything in the photo cost about $5.


     Why do I buy this junk? I like passports, for one. In the old gypsy market it was possible to buy valid passports, though I wondered if I would find myself on the no-fly list if immigration back home noticed I had them. On the other hand, maybe I should embrace the idea that I am a spy. Some of my family and friends think I work for the CIA, anyway, so it is convenient that I’m buying passports on the black market in Eastern Europe as an integral part of my double life. (For emigration purposes, it would be smarter to get a Somaliland passport). In fact, I am offended that more people don’t believe I’m a CIA agent. Who would be a more perfect candidate? I wouldn’t give myself away like in the Inglourious Basterds three glasses scene either.
Piroska utca

     A public thanks to my friend, Peter, for letting me in his warm home on this cold street for so long.


Practical information
     When I was looking at flights from USA to Europe, some had London as a transfer point, but I had to look closely to notice that a few had connecting flights that went into London Heathrow and went out from London Gatwick. The font was the same size where it tells you that you have to pay your own way to get between the two, and in one case, less than three hours between flights, which I declare to be impossible if you have to go through customs.
     On my American Airlines flight to London I had a defective headphone jack. On another flight I merely mentioned this to the stewardess and she hastily gave me a $50 voucher for a future flight. On this flight they just shrugged. When I gamely said I was a part-time coal miner and baker with the rare double affliction of both black lung disease and white lung disease and all I wanted to do is unwind with Ice Age 3, they were still unmoved.
     Why don’t you stay with me? You can follow along with RSS, subscribe to an email feed or see what’s cooking on Facebook.

How to pack; a dissection of my backpack

Posted on by January 9, 2013

     A brief note: my website was out of action for much of the holidays, which caused me an inordinate amount of grief, not because I know there were thousands of you who wanted to check out my toilets page on New Year’s Eve, but because 1and1.com, the company that hosts my website, was yanking my chain at every turn. I don’t want to relive the agony here, so just let me profusely thank Bruce Wampler, the designer of the theme that TheDromomaniac.com runs on, for all his help and time. There might be one more outage later this year when I move away from 1and1.com to a company that won’t shorten my life span, so brace yourselves.

     Below is what my backpack looked like just after getting home from three months of traveling. Be happy that you can’t smell this pile. Packing was tricky as the only thing I had planned was a one-way ticket to Seattle in September weather, and that’s it. Everything here fits inside the backpack, which is always the goal for mobility. I am semi-fanatic about minimizing weight, but not one of those extremists who count every milligram and cut their excess backpack straps down to the nub.
     I have a packing page on my website dedicated to what to bring that I will probably contradict myself often here. Just because I’ve done this all my life doesn’t mean I’m necessarily smart about it.
     This is the whole shebang. Not pictured are my camera and a water bottle. Let’s break this down into seven parts:


     I got this blue and green canvas backpack long ago on craigslist.org for $15, never mind that it is a woman’s backpack and too small. Backpacks are like exercise equipment: people get tired of them and sell cheaply. Just make sure they are a dark color. (As you will see, the general theme here is: do as I say, not as I do.)
     The red backpack needs to be lightweight and malleable to fit inside the big backpack. It’s a little ragged. I need to upgrade my stuff, but if you are one of these young punks asking me how I get the money to travel (a mailbag might be due for my next post; if you have any questions about anything, feel free to ask), I always say it isn’t how much you earn, it’s how much you save, and then the only challenge is to spend that precious, saved money wisely. Would you rather spend $500 on a new backpack, high-tech pants made of space-age fibers, and an iPhone7 or would you rather spend $100 for functional but not flashy stuff and then spend the $400 you saved on a month bed-ridden with dysentery in India?
     A friend rags on me for using a towel that takes up space instead of a chamois, and I guess it is old-school of me. The green sarong could act as a towel, too, though I often use it as a sheet on sketchy beds.

     I always go with the trifecta of shoes, sandals and flipflops, though usually they’re tennis shoes. Teva sandals can quickly smell like death, but if you put them in a freezer for at least 24 hours, it kills the bacteria and the smell. The flipflops are a godsend in scummy showers and for shuffling around hostels. I am always surprised by how many people travel with heavy boots, which can’t be a good idea unless hiking is the focus of your trip.
     The mound of underwear is an homage to my college roommate, Pat, who went to Brazil with hardly more than, as he put it, “10 shirts, 10 underwear, shorts.”

     Dark colored, lightweight pants and shorts are the way to go, but almost all of mine are neither. My excuse is that it’s hard to find pants in a 35 waist, so when I find something, I get it. I always take a bunch of t-shirts and one collared shirt in case I need to impersonate a respectable person. If you visit only warm countries—and why wouldn’t you?—a lightweight jacket is fine, and you only really need it for the intense air conditioning in buses and trains. If your swim shorts can double as regular shorts (ie. with pockets) you’re stoked.

     Those are moist towelette packets next to the Q-tips and yes, in America they can come with the stars and stripes on them. It’s no coincidence that I feel most patriotic when cleaning curry stains off my fingers. See that thin yellow tube on the far right next to the razor? That is a Japanese device where you suck on the end and it gives you fresh breath. Japan is the best.
     Refillable bottles for liquid soap, lotion, and shampoo. Bacterial ointment is something I always have for cuts that can become infected quickly in dirty surroundings or tropical climates. Is kid’s sunblock any different than adult sunblock?
     Quick, boring story: that orange bottle next to the sunblock I keep for sentimental reasons. My first time hitchhiking in Japan a Turkish guy picked me up out of pity and said I would never have luck in Japan, but then a traveling salesman took me for a long ride and then plied me with a pile of beauty swag. I have been in Japan ten times since, hitchhiking literally thousands of miles, and I have always kept that bottle as a reminder that hitchhiking is always possible, to stay positive, don’t let negative people get me down, follow my dreams—you know, crap like that.

     I have a paper fetish. I keep all my receipts, business cards of every place I stay, scraps of paper with email addresses from people I met, used tickets, maps, I collect small denomination banknotes, plus I have USB pen drives, a photocopy of my main passport page, too many coins—it’s a little ridiculous.
     I have a small lock and at least 2 keys. Some people go overboard with big, heavy locks. The lock is to make it harder for the casual, opportunistic thief to mess with your stuff. The hardcore thieves won’t be deterred by any lock. I always have toilet paper on me, and a melange of dicey foreign medicine that I pick up on the road: Filipino antibiotics, Indian diarrhea medicine, Serbian paracetamol, etc.
     Top left are airline headphones—they’re complimentary, aren’t they?

     American flag with velcro to put on my backpack for hitchhiking, balloons for making animals, extra velcro for sealing my pockets, sewing kit, camera battery charger, marking pen for hitchhiking signs, and beads that I should probably stop bringing. Normally I like Canon products, but I’m not a fan of my Canon PowerShot SD1200 camera. The startup time and lag between photos is glacial.

     More airline headphones—they’re complimentary, aren’t they?—an Indian cell phone that doesn’t work in North America, and an Acer Aspire netbook computer. I baby that computer as much as possible, but when I think of all the times I’ve had to throw my backpack in the backs of trucks when hitchhiking and being outside in the heat, I’m relieved it’s still going strong.
     That’s me. Then there is my friend, Philip, who travels with the world’s smallest bag and thus makes me hang my head in abject self-loathing.
     What about you? Do you pack anything special that would be good to share or have a different strategy? Do you bring any nonsensical things “just because”? I’ve seen travelers carry jars of peanut butter and vegemite, duct tape, scissors, peacock feathers, enough gadgets to start an electronics store—you name it, so speak your mind.
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Know your neighbors! Three months in Canada, Mexico and Guatemala

Posted on by December 19, 2012

     Look at the scowl on this guy’s face. It’s blurry because I was shooting quickly over my friend’s shoulder on a street in Mexico City, but he saw me and whirled around a moment later. The guy is playing a—what do you call these things, a music box? Anyway, he is merely turning a crank and music comes out, and for that he’s passing the hat. Never EVER give money to them! He’s turning a crank! Meanwhile, there are people busking, entertaining, doing something with skill and talent, but this guy wants you to give money because music comes out of his machine. If I am supposed to give him money because it’s a cool gizmo, then I should bring my disgraced former Japanese Prime Minister Nakasone piggy bank to the street and expect everyone to give me money for that—and I will smile for photos.


     I’ve never traveled so much so close to home; this was a unique trip. It started as a one-way flight to Seattle, I dipped my toes into Canada for a spell, came down to Los Angeles long enough to fly to Mexico City, then overland to Guatemala and back. Three months. (This is my first Google Map, so don’t laugh.) Some might say the only uniqueness was that I never became sick on the trip, especially since I can hardly think of a day when I didn’t eat street food in Mexico and Guatemala, but that can just be luck. I’ll see if I can come up with some life lessons learned before the end of this.

     How does Coke talk the Mexico City government into this beast on the right?
     “Listen, we want to put up a gaudy, 50-meter-tall fake Christmas tree in the middle of the road with a hundred Coke signs on it.”
     “Um…will it at least say “Feliz Navidad” or something about Mexico City?”
     “No, we’re thinking a couple of gigantic signs that say ‘Coca-Cola’.”
     (Sighing) “All right…you know my Cayman Islands’ bank account number.”

     I had such a feeling of victory and accomplishment upon arriving in Mexico City, hitchhiking all the way from Guatemala City, but it began to sour quickly when I checked out a hostel called Bed & Breakfast Mexico. I asked the girl if she had a room, and her reply was to ask me where I was from. I said, “America”, and regretted it immediately, knowing I should have said Japan. I asked why it mattered where I’m from and she said it didn’t, but when she got on the phone to ask if there were rooms (huh?) her first answer to the other person was, “America”.
     We stayed at Hostel Home, a well-worn but only partly-scuzzy place, the kind where you wish someone would invent platform slippers for using in the shower, though that was hardly necessary as the promised “hot water” was more like a steady spit. Something about the place attracted a fair share of my idiot colleagues who don’t know how to act around others and think they’re the center of the world. What kind of person won’t whisper when other people in the room are sleeping? How self-absorbed do you have to be to put your backpack in the middle of the floor for everyone to step around? Have all these punks been raised by wolves? Are they off their meds?
     The receptionist was no help when I asked why he didn’t tell the guys in the kitchen causing a ruckus at midnight to shut up. He smiled and said, “They’re Colombians!”
     I wanted to throttle him on behalf of all good Colombians who deserve better than being stereotyped like that. Besides, it’s the Argentines who are the anarchist party animals.
     The next day we moved one block over to Hostel 333 which was better, but still you get the snorers, the too-cool-for-school dopes who don’t acknowledge your hellos, and the pond scum who wake up at 6am to catch their flight and rustle plastic bags—oh wait, that last one was me. Sorry.

     A wee lil’ village named Mexico City. Part of me thinks I left Mexico City too soon, before I could take advantage of cheap Mexican dentistry, before I checked out the weekend flea markets, and before I got a complete mariachi outfit. I would look awesome hitchhiking around Europe in my mariachi clothes, a huge sombrero, and a giant guitar.


     What percent tan and what percent dirt?


     I waited until the end for my deep insights because it is nothing new and you might nod off from my blathering, so let me quickly say that travel can open eyes, destroy prejudices, and develop better understanding (yawn) but this is especially important when it is your neighbors. I am embarrassed how little I know about Canada other than it wants to be the 51st state (A joke! A joke! Calm down, Canadians!) and Mexicans I see all the time which makes me think I know something about their culture, but now I realize I hardly know a damn thing.
     The people I came across, which always has to be one of the main reasons to travel, have been incredible. It sounds cliche to say (“such friendly natives!”) but I was amazed and a little surprised. I was expecting some miffed Canadians or a hint of animosity from Mexicans and Guatemalans, but there was nothing of the sort. It was fantastic. The only disagreeable person I came across was a music box cranker in Mexico City and Sir, I’m not apologizing! You need to raise your game!

Practical information
     It’s widely unpublicized by the airlines, but this year there’s a new law in America that allows you to cancel a ticket without a fee if you do it within 24 hours of your payment with some exceptions and also to hold a flight for 24 hours before you pay for it.
     I flew from Mexico City to Los Angeles one-way on United for $150. An alternative is to fly to Tijuana for about $115, take a local bus to the border and try to hook up with one of the many rideshare offers going north on Craigslist San Diego. Since it is the one of the main points of my website, I should point out that for travelers who aren’t positive when they want to return from a trip, it is often better to buy one-way tickets. I bought four flights, all within a few days of my departure—and I still got great deals. If I had guessed on a return date and bought a round-trip ticket for LAX-MEX, I would have had to pay to change the date every time I needed to, which becomes expensive. I paid $105 for LAX-MEX which included a $50 discount that you couldn’t normally rely on, but even if it was $155, that would mean $305 for two one-way tickets, and just today I saw this promo where they are crowing about $331 for round-trip flights for the same route—with restrictions, of course. The lesson is: one way, all the way!
     You might want to wear headphones on the Mexico City and Los Angeles metros. In Mex there are guys blasting music through big speakers in their backpacks that make your ears bleed, but in LA they are useful to avoid hearing all the conversations. Last time I came through, a woman spoke to the person next to her loud enough for everyone to hear, “I do the drugs; I don’t let the drugs do me!” Oh, OK, thanks for that clarification. She went on, “I’ll tell anyone my story!” No, no, please, I have 13 more stops. I was going to wear headphones that weren’t attached to anything, but didn’t want to draw attention to myself.
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Hitchhiking from Guatemala City to Mexico City with a pinch of border corruption

Posted on by December 17, 2012

     Friendliest scoundrel ever


     This is a continuation of the previous post where we hitchhiked from Guatemala City to the border.
     We walked to the border, handed our passports to the Guatemalan immigration officer and without looking up, he says we have to pay 10 quetzales each, about $1.50.
     I was waiting for this. An Aussie traveler told me she had to pay 250 pesos (almost US$20) as a so-called exit fee to leave Mexico by land. I didn’t pay anything when I left Mexico by land, and I knew one didn’t need to pay Guatemala to leave by land either. My guard was up.
     “For what?” I asked.
     “An exit fee”, or I forget how it was put in Spanish.
     I said I had never had to pay an exit fee in all the times I’ve been to Guatemala, which was just bluster, and started jabbering in fast Spanish. (My Spanish is very annoying. If you don’t speak Spanish, it sounds fluent and impressive. If you speak Spanish, you wonder how someone can have such bad grammar and yet speak so confidently.) He thumbed through my passport, maybe wondering how I can claim to have so much experience with borders when I don’t have other Central American stamps in it. He still wasn’t looking at me when he raised his hands a little, exhaled, and the moment passed. It was a capitulation so quick I didn’t realize it had happened and only knew it was a ruse after he stamped our passports.
     I left my friend in the waiting room and walked back to the main road to change the last of my money. When I came back, my friend and the same immigration officer were having a chummy conversation in English. I wasn’t expecting that. He had lived in Boston and missed the States. He joked about asking me for the 10 quetzales, saying that he was surprised I protested so much over less than two dollars. He said, “What am I going to do, twist your arm if you don’t pay?”
     I said that I had asked other travelers and no one had paid, adding the story of the Aussie girl and the $20 fee on the Mexican side. He was surprised, but he didn’t say, “That’s wrong!” He said, “That’s too much!”
     He was all smiles and I knew it was a good time to ask to take his photo. He eagerly gave me his email address and phone number as if we’re new BFFs.
     Some people who know me think I would argue for hours over two dollars, but I wouldn’t. I was prepared to pay something; it’s why I didn’t change all my money before I got to the border. I would have, however, asked for a receipt, and if they don’t give it or it looks half-assed, you know they are just lining their pockets. I did take a long look at the cool signs in the immigration office’s bathroom that would probably go for a pretty penny on eBay, but I wouldn’t do that either.
     Also, I hate this corruption no matter how small. So many border guards around the world abuse their power, taking a little bit here and there all day long from everybody passing through just because they can. I’ve experienced it plenty of times and while hitchhiking, truck drivers are always telling me what it’s like, where if you don’t flash a twenty dollar bill to the customs guy you will stew for hours or days.
     (Update: Just as I was about to click “Publish” on this post, I did some research and it seems a Mexican exit fee is legit after all depending on how you entered the country and how long you stayed. You don’t need to pay on the Guatemalan side. My rant is partially misplaced.)

     On the bridge between the Tecun Uman/Ciudad Hidalgo border. Nice to be back in good ol’ Mexico! How far to the nearest mole enchiladas?


     We got a couple of quick, short rides to the outskirts of Tapachula, and then our hitchhiking luck ended. It was a long, hot, and difficult wait to get anywhere in Chiapas state. Is it because Tapachula is a famous smuggling point? The Death Train illegal immigrants? My frustration was compounded by the knowledge that I was on one of the fastest, least-traveled highways in Mexico, and when we did get a ride it was with a super slowpoke who not only slowed down every time he talked, he would hit the brakes every time we said anything. Of course I’m thankful someone would give us a free ride, but this was maddening.
     After another long wait a doctor drove us a nice stretch into Tonala. His idea of entertaining us was to show photos on his phone of his previous car that he completely totaled when he fell asleep at the wheel. He didn’t get a scratch on himself, which I was supposed to be impressed with but was instead alarmed it might happen again. I kept slapping him on the shoulder, “You’re not tired now, are you? Feel good? Huh?”
     Tonala is a tourist-less little town that boasted policemen on Segways. Guatemala City police also have Segways. You know your local government is wasting their money when it’s spent on Segways and top-of-the-line new trucks.
     The next day it was even hotter and more difficult to get rides. It took four hours just to get 20-30km out of Tonala. Brutal. If these had been our first attempts at hitching, my friend would never agree to keep trying.
     Our strategy up to this point was to discriminate heavily, only holding out thumbs for late model cars and roomy SUVs, but when the rides are slow to come you loosen your standards, maybe go for anything clean, and then you know you’re in trouble when two-door VW bugs look good. As delirium set in, half drooling from the heat and lack of food, I tried to get rides from armored cars, garbage trucks, motorcyclists and tricycles pedaling by.

     A mango farmer on the left saved us with a ride of over 400km all the way to Oaxaca. It took eight hours, most of it conversing in Spanish, which was exhausting as he had unlimited energy. He ended every sentence with “Guero!” which means something like “gringo” or “dude”, but to me it meant “wake up!” I was trying to nod off in the back seat, but he kept wanting to talk about everything under the sun. He was an impressive man of nature, telling us about all kinds of trees, and very generous, stopping to buy some watermelon for us and then dinner, refusing my money.


     The last day, Oaxaca to Mexico City, we spent 10 pesos (US 75 cents) to take a share taxi out of Oaxaca town to the highway entrance. It was the only money spent on transport the entire trip, which was fortuitous as for some reason I let the money get low and we were traveling to the capital with less than US$10 to our name—plus we had no place to stay. You’d think it was my first time out of the house.

     This was a bizarre place to have lunch. I was hanging out by a highway rest area bathroom (don’t judge) and a guy told me to eat at a comedor behind another bathroom across the street through a hole in the fence that had no other access. The chef said we were the first foreigners who had ever eaten there, and it was delicious.


     We got a dose of good luck in the afternoon, a 450km (275 miles) ride straight to Mexico City in the back of a truck. For almost the entire distance we saw hundreds of people running along the highway in a relay with a torch and as we got closer to Mexico City, there were literally thousands of cyclists. They were religious pilgrims heading to town for Our Lady of Guadalupe Day. The next day a newspaper reported over six million people attended.
     We arrived in Mexico City totally exhilarated from this great feat, hitchhiking four straight days from Guatemala City to get here, a distance of about 1450km (900 miles), but we were exhausted, starving, cold, and without money. (Lisa, thanks for sharing the punishment!) We eventually stayed at a hostel that made me suddenly hate everything about traveling. But that’s next time…
Practical information
     Hitchhiking out of Mexico City or along the Veracruz-Puebla-Mexico City highway is a different game than the north-south Oaxaca highway or anywhere further south or east. There are few good places to stand where the cars can pull over safely, even near the casetas (toll booths) because the highway is too wide. No divine restaurants behind public toilets either.
     Why don’t you stay with me? You can follow along with RSS or subscribe to an email feed.

Adios, Guatemala! Incomparable Antigua, dreaded Guatemala City, and hitchhiking to the best Xmas parade ever

Posted on by December 19, 2012

     Name me a more beautiful town in Central America than Antigua. You can’t do it. Granada? Suchitoto? Boquete? Those places’ beauty fades the farther you get away it—the opposite of me; at 100 paces I look dazzling—but not Antigua.
     For years Antigua has been known by travelers as the place to learn Spanish before heading deeper into Latin America, which is still a great idea. (I give a hot tip at the bottom of this post about how to stay there super-cheaply.) I hear scuttlebutt that San Pedro on Atitlan and Quetzaltenango are emerging as alternatives, but I remain a big fan of Antigua. We stayed two weeks. It’s rightful popularity is bringing in all the usual fifi stuff: absinthe bars, bagel shops, boutique hotels, five Japanese restaurants by my last count, and all of it in a finite area, probably pushing rents up and squeezing out “normal” businesses. I have a feeling the first to go will be used bookstores:

     Not everyone in Antigua embraces the peace, love, and good vibes.


     A few people have written to me about crime in Guatemala and how it affects travelers since my last post about it. I also forgot to include this recent article from the New York Times about Antigua’s mayor and a group of others who were arrested for an impressive variety of crimes.
     I can’t get out of my head what Dr. Samayoa said in Antigua. It was a little impertinent of me to ask him why he had an armed guard in his waiting room, but he plainly told me that he had no choice. His office had suffered two robberies, property damage, and subsequent threatening phone calls, but he said it has faded away with the boost in security. I must have looked incredulous for he raised his hands, shook his head, and said, “This is Guatemala.”
     The woman who rented a room to us behind her restaurant said that recently she was in a car with two of her little girls when a man brandished a knife, but ran off before anything happened. She was naturally still traumatized by the effect it had on her family and half-insisted on driving us to Guatemala City on her way home instead of us taking the bus. I thought her concern was a bit much, but then I read that hundreds of bus drivers have been murdered in Guatemala City in recent years for not paying protection money to gangs. (The day we arrived, one was killed in a drive-by downtown.)
     I could relay these stories all day and still, nothing happened to me. It helps that I don’t go out too much at night or stray away from main areas when I do, I’m a pretty big guy (in discussions with other travelers they often roll their eyes when I claim this makes a difference, but would you rather try something with me or someone smaller?), I speak some Spanish, I don’t flaunt anything of value—who knows what it is? You can’t discount sheer dumb luck either. In all my travels the worst thing that has ever happened to me was being pickpocketed in Istanbul in a soccer stadium. That was in the 90s and nothing else has come close.

     Kent shampoo is so money.


     To go from Antigua to nearby Guatemala City can feel like exchanging a gentle paradise for urban combat, and I can see why most people go to great lengths to avoid it. No one has ever rhapsodized Guatemala City as The Pearl of the Americas, but I like cities. I like the hustle and bustle. I only wish it didn’t feel like I had been sucking on a chicken bus exhaust pipe at the end of the day.
     For everyone else, everything reviled about Guatemala City seems to be encapsulated, literally, by its congested, colorful central market. It’s a total fire hazard with a dozen busy food stalls stuffed in the basement, cramped, crowded, noisy, intense—in other words, my kind of place.

     We were fortunate to couchsurf with an American, an energetic go-getter from the Midwest whose been living here for seven years and teaches gymnastics, of all things. He said he said he already knew me from my website (I’m kind of a big deal) and we schemed about all the hard-to-get places we want to travel to. I wonder if teaching gymnastics is like being a chef: you can do it anywhere in the world. If he can teach in Guatemala City, surely he can do that anywhere. He might be on to something.
     I didn’t write the newest Guatemala City members of CouchSurfing, a couple whose profile says they they can host up to 20 people at one time. It might be related to their occupation: “We develop activities for the swinger lifestyle and for adult nudist groups”.
     Oh.
     Couchsurfing is so big now that you get all types just as you would in the non-Couchsurfing world.

     A temporary ice skating rink on the main square in Guatemala City. Considering how many people clung to the edges, not many can skate, but you have to admire their enthusiasm. It was a pure carnival on the square. Along with the requisite myriad food options there were judo exhibitions, gymnastics, rock climbing and my favorite, an old American pool shark at a billiard table dressed like a Depression-era hustler who loudly announced in English all his trick shots as if he were Minnesota Fats performing in Wichita. The crowd ate it up.


     This was a surprise. A Palestinian runs Nawal Panaderia, a bakery in downtown Guatemala City on the walking street, 6 avenida 16-27, with this delicious zaatar bread that I ate in excess in Syria last year. It’s an addictive blend of spices that will save you a trip to the Middle East.


     In Guatemala it was amazing how often I saw kids taking paseos on their own. I’m sure someone was watching them, but I couldn’t see anyone.


Hitchhiking across Guatemala
     I didn’t take trying to hitchhike from Guatemala City to Mexico City lightly. I don’t take hitchhiking 1500km (900 miles) for granted anywhere but in Japan, but judging from our success in Mexico and Guatemala already, a solid 1100km (700 miles), I knew it was doable. I didn’t expect it to be the slog it was in Chiapas, southern Mexico, and I have to praise my travel partner, Lisa, for being such a trooper to endure the scorching hot lowlands, freezing mountain passes, dire situations, and general uncertainty of four days living by the seat of your pants. Anyone else would have pushed me in front of the first chicken bus.
     The good thing about traveling with someone is you see how things can be done differently. I’ve hitchhiked a gazillion miles in my life, but it’s still instructive to see other techniques. For example, Lisa always likes to ask everyone right after we get into a car, “What’s your name?” which is something I never say when on my own—it feels a smidge intrusive—but which I see has a disarming effect.
     Guatemala City to the border was about eight rides, all but two of them had women in the car. The first had all women: a mother and her two little girls who picked us up outside our Couchsurfing host’s condominium, which was the third such time outside our host’s place that we got an immediate ride. It helps to look like an obvious foreigner in a gated community.
     The rides came pretty quickly all day, but roads are windy (how they found a flat plot of land for an airport anywhere in this country, I’ll never know) and by nightfall we were about 5km from the border when a family saved us from a potentially dangerous and dark spot on the road. They drove us to the border town of Tecun Uman. I asked the driver if crossing the border at night was safe and he hesitated, which was all I needed to see. We stayed in Tecun Uman. I was dreading a horrible, scummy settlement like the border village of La Mesilla to the north, but it was quite pleasant, and we had the bonus of arriving on an auspicious day.

     This was fantastic. We arrived in Tecun Uman on the evening of a Christmas parade, and it had to have been the coolest I have ever seen with a wide variety of people and things floating by (twice!) One of the marching bands that passed had a strikingly full sound, and upon closer examination I saw that there was an electric bass player in the mix whose cord (that you can see if you look closely) stretched to an amp on top of the truck rolling behind him, which was then attached to a battery in a tricycle following the truck. Classic.


     Next post: the weird confrontation the following morning with corrupt Guatemalan immigration and the hot hitchhiking hell through the smuggling routes of Chiapas, Mexico.

Practical information:
     Don’t send anything from the Antigua post office. They have no stamps(!) and then they’ll say the franking machine doesn’t work, but they’ll take your money and say they’ll do it when it does work. Instead, they pocket everyone’s cash and summer in Cap d’Antibes. The nerve.
     The best accommodation deal I saw in Antigua was this: one week’s accommodation plus three meals a day for 700 quetzales at Hostal El Pasar De Los Anos on 5ta Calle Oriente 10A near 2a Avenida Sur. That’s only US$90, and the place looked pretty nice, plus it’s only 1.5 blocks from the main square on a quiet street. The dorm rooms looked fine, and hardly anyone was staying there. They also offer salsa lessons in the middle of it, free wifi, hot showers, etc. It might have been a temporary deal, but it’s worth checking out.
     Who else on the internet gives you this kind of information? Who? WHO?
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