El Gringo de la Bachata

After a wonderful week with Becca in Mendoza it was off to Buenos Aires. I decided to treat myself (not that I hadn't already been treating myself every day) to Andesmar's Primera Clase bus service to the capital. For 125 pesos (about 40 bucks) I would ride in style into the big city. Thats right, fully reclining leather seats, champagne, all the mendozan red wine you can drink, mediocre meals (certainly a step up from the airplane food they normally serve aboard Andesmar) and the company of fellow rich people. I was tired of riding with the riffraff you normally encounter on "normal" buslines, so it was nice to have civilized company for a change (i say this with a heavy dose of sarcasm). but it was nice. similar to first class on a plane, only ... read more

After 4 weeks in Santa Cruz, it was time for me to leave. It was a wild, crazy time there, and i met a lot of people, but i wanted to get on the move again. So it was off to salta, argentina - back into the semi-developed world. Or so i thought. After an uneventful 12 hour busride from santa cruz to the southern border town of yacuiba, i arrived groggy and disheveled to the "aduanas integradas" (integrated customs office). I walked up to the line that snaked out from the office and put my bags down. There were about 100 people ahead of me in line, so i figured id be there for a while and decided to do a little reading. 60 pages and 3 hours later (yes, i am a slow reader) ... read more

So I have been hanging out here in santa cruz for about 3 weeks now. this is jason´s regional city where he and his nearby volunteers come in to do office work and hang out. we have been concentrating on the latter. there really isn´t much to say here. i got here after chrissy had already been here for several days and we immediately started a pattern. every night we would go out for an incredible meal that cost around 4 dollars per person and wash it down with several paceñas (bolivia´s main beer) and wine. it was very similar to my lifestyle while in the capital in the DR, hanging out, eating too much and drinking. i met nearly every one of jason´s friends over beers and lots of coca. it has been a blast, ... read more

phew. this is a lot of travelblogging. i´m tired. i´ll make this one quick. after 15 hours on my bus cama (a kickass bus with about 5 feet between you and the seat in front of you where you can lay completely flat like in first class on a plane) i arrived at 530am in samaipata, a touristy town in eastern bolivia just outside santa cruz. chrissy and jason were supposed to meet me out there, but i didn´t see them, so i lugged my shit into town from the side of the highway into a hostel. i was tired. later, i ran into chrissy and she told me that she had indeed been waiting there at 5am right next to where i was. we were just too retardedly tired to realize. we proceeded to do ... read more

After a grueling, yet effortless 4 days inside a landcruiser, we landed in the town of uyuni for a few hours to wait for our bus to potosí. Daniel, the swiss i met on the salar trip, and i were headed for potosí together, and had a few goodbye beers with marta and luca (our other salar partners) before we got on our bus. but it was the wrong bus. we had tickets for ¨trans. 11 de julio,¨ and were on the bus for ¨turismo 11 de julio.¨ a little angry and confused, we got off and sure enough, there was another bus, labeled ¨trans. 11 de julio¨ waiting in the same street. we got on after having our bags strapped to the top of the bus only to see a bag in our seats. after ... read more