Guatemala- 14 days

::Where we went::
Antigua
Lake Atitlan
Flores
Tikal

::Coolest things we did::
Watched Semana Santa Celebrations (Antigua)
Hiked on the Volcano Pacaya (Antigua)
Toured the Finca Filadelfia Coffee farm (Antigua)
Hired a boat to take us to all the cities around the lake (Lake Atitlan)
Hired a tuk tuk to take us to Maximon a Maya saint (Lake Atitlan)
Took a bus to Tikal from Flores & explored the park (Flores)

Belize- 7 days (April 13-April 20)

::Where we went::
Ambergris Caye

::Coolest things we did::
Fishing outside the reef
Got certified to SCUBA dive
SCUBA on the 2nd most incredible reef in the world (second only to The Great Barrier Reef)
Cut Mark’s hair

“Mexico”- 11 days (April 21-May 2)

::Where we went::
Cancun
Isla Mujeres

::Coolest things we did::
Beach
Ate amazing tacos
Took an excursion to an island (7 days)

USA- 17 days (May 3-May 20)

::Where we went::
New York City

::Coolest things we did::
Upright Citizens Brigade
Fuerza Bruta
Hung out in Williamsburg, BK
Visited with Jessica’s mom, sister, brother, and father
Regrouped & discussed our budget issues
Tattooed (Mark)

Spain- 14 days (May 21-June 4)

::Where we went::
Madrid
Granada
Seville

::Coolest things we did::
Museo Nacional del Prado (Madrid)
Bull fight (Madrid)
El Rastro Flea Market (Madrid)
Out to Bars until the wee hours of the morning (Madrid)
The Alhambra (Granada)
Flamenco show (Madrid)
Ate escargot (Seville)
Alcázar (Seville)
Walked the historic area (Everywhere)
Ate Tapas & Gazpacho (Everywhere)

Italy- 13 days (June 4-June 17)

::Where we went::
Bologna
Cinque Terre
Palermo
Naples

::Coolest things we did::
Visited the Ducati Factory (Bologna)
Hiked the trail between the 5 cities (Cinque Terre)
Visited Monreale Cathedral (Palermo)
Capuchin Catacombs (Palermo)
Pompei (Naples)
National Archeological Museum (Naples)
Walked the old town (Everywhere)
Had pizza, pasta, cappuccinos, and gelato (Everywhere)

Greece- 4 days (July 17-July 21)

::Where we went::
Athens

::Coolest things we did::
The Acropolis
Monastiraki Flea Market
The Acropolis Museum
The Ancient Agora

Egypt- 3 days (June 21-June 23)

::Where we went::
Cairo
Giza

::Coolest things we did::
Had dinner in a boat on the Nile (Cairo)
Hired a driver to tour the city (Cairo)
Watched Papyrus be made (Cairo)
Egyptian Museum (Cairo)
Watched part of a Muslim wedding (Cairo)
Ate Kushari (Cairo)
Rode camels to the Pyramids & Sphinx (Giza)

France- 7 days (June 24-June 30)

::Where we went::
Paris
Versaille

::Coolest things we did::
The Louvre
The Eiffel Tower
The Musee d’Orsay
Catedral de Notre Dame
Père Lachaise Cemetery
Wandered around Montmartre
Picasso’s studio
Picnics in the Parks

Spain 2nd- (July 1-July 15)

::Where we went::
Barcelona
Figueres
Palma de Mallorca
Valencia
Pamplona

::Coolest things we did::
Went to a MotoGP race (Barcelona)
Nit de Montjuïc music festival (Barcelona)
Magic Fountain of Montjuic (Barcelona)
Parque Güell (Barcelona)
Gaudí buildings (Barcelona)
Parc de la ciutadella anarchist jazz show (Barcelona)
Dali Museum (Figueres)
Watched the Germany vs. Spain game (Palma de Mallorca)
Beach (Palma de Mallorca)
Watched Spain win the world cup 2010 (Valencia)
Ciutat de les Arts (Valencia)
Fireworks on the beach (Valencia)
Drank Horchata (Valencia)
Ate Paella (Valencia & Barcelona)
Walked the historic city (Valencia)
Watched the Running of the Bulls (Pamplona)
Watched the best firework show of our lives (Pamplona)
Drank Sangria (Everywhere)

Portugal- 6 days (July 15-July 21)

::Where we went::
Lisbon
Marvão
Figueira da Foz
Porto
Sintra

::Coolest things we did::
Walked the old city (Lisbon)
Visited an Agro-tourismo farm building a straw house (Marvão)
Drove the Alentejo Wine Region (Marvão)
13th Century Castle (Marvão)
Drove the Coast (Figueira da Foz)
Walked the old city (Porto)
Boat ride under the bridges (Porto)
Toured a Port Wine Cellar (Porto)
Regaleira Estate (Sintra)
Hung out with a bunch of birds (Sintra)

Morocco- 6 days (July 22- July 28)

::Where we went::
Rabat
Temara
Fez
Marrakech

::Coolest things we did::
Toured the Medina (Marrakech & Fez)
Had home made Moroccan dinners (Temara & Fez)
Visited the Tannery (Fes)
Artist workshops/co-op (Fes)
Ceramic factory (Fes)
Moroccan cooking class (Marrakech)
Watched snake charmers (Marrakech)

Spain 3rd- (July 29-Now)

::Where we went::
Barcelona

::Coolest things we did::
Horta Labyinth Park
Mas i Mas Festival Flameco Show
Busker’s Festival
Beach
La Boqueria Market
Santa Caterina Market

We are in Barcelona now and will be in this awesome city for the next few weeks. Mark is working at LTW tattoo shop while we rest, regroup and try to save up a little money before getting back on the road. Our next stop (we think) will be New Delhi, but our plans change pretty quickly and frequently. We will try to be better about updating our blog. Sorry we are lazy asses.

First, because of the Icelandic Volcano eruption we could not find a flight to Europe with most, if not all, flight being canceled for almost a week. We were in Mexico, most cheap flights took us through NYC. Jessica’s mother Claudia lives in NYC, so we decided, lets just go to NYC hang out, eat raw fresh vegetables that won’t make us sick, and stay limbo for free. Naturally, as with many other times we were in the right place at a very interesting time, we found a cheap flight and (voila!!!) we were on our way. Our extended landing lasted about 2 hours and consisted of circling JFK over and over again.

My reaction was to do what I always do on flights, look down and all around me, annoy Jess and all other passengers because I’m freaking out about what is going on down there. I looked out my window not a cloud in the sky, no rain, no lightning. . .just a bunch of lights, spinning lights, red lights, blue lights, fire trucks, police lights. . .on the runway!!!!!!! “What is going on down there?” Of course, doing what good airlines do, they tell us anything other than “Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen. This is your Captain speaking (NO CRAP!) We are currently on a hold pattern for landing (we can tell since we are on the plane too). Looks like they have us in line for landing in approximately (love that phrase) in about… oh I don’t know…20 minutes. So we will have you on the ground in just a little bit (meaning another hour).”

What were the lights about? The guy that tried to blow his car up in Times Square was in a plane on the tarmac, they stopped the plane and they were arresting him as we were trying to land. What I found funny no idea what was going on and no one told us until we got to Claudia’s (Jessica’s Mom) house and watch the news.

What I am trying to say is:

It feels like we are always in the right place, for good or bad, at the right time. It has really been amazing. I think that is why we have been so delayed on blogging, it is hard for us to decided which time to write about. Here are some of those “right time, right place” situations I am talking about:

1. While in Argentina we were planning to go to Mendoza after visiting El Calafate. We met a girl that told us we should really visit Puerto Madryn to see the Penguin Colony. We decided that walking with penguins sounded pretty awesome.

Right time, Right Place: The day we had planned to be in Mendoza there was a huge earthquake in Santiago, Chile that spread across all of upper Argentina crossing into Mendoza. Lots of people lost their lives and homes. Many people were stuck trying to leave Chile, trying to get home or to other destinations. In Puerto Madryn we felt nothing. We would have been in Mendoza, but luckily listened to a suggestion and changed our plans.

2. We climbed Pacaya Volcano, a volcano in Antigua, Guatemala. The tour cost $8 dollars per person, seemed like a great idea and it was. We hiked on the volcano along with a couple hundred other tourist. We felt the heat coming seeping though the crumbled lava rock below our melting shoes and thought “wow, this feels really dangerous, the lava could come pouring out of this volcano at anytime, anywhere, it could erupt at any moment with us standing on it”.

Right time, Right Place: About a month later at 5:00 am …That same volcano erupted, taking only a few lives (still horrible, but could have been many more). It happened very early in the morning before the tour groups showed up, but still devastated the people in the surrounding cities and villages.

3. We were getting certified to SCUBA dive in Belize.

Right time, Right Place: On the same day as our final dive, at the same time I was 80ft below the surface, looking at a wonderful underwater world, appreciating it’s greatness, thinking to myself how lucky Jess and I were to see such beauty, such an abundance of life, and how rapidly we are destroying such a unique thing, the largest man made environmental disaster in history happened in the Gulf of Mexico- The BP OIL SPILL.

4. Delayed in Mexico for flights to Europe (I have already explained this one-volcano)

5. NYC in JFK airport (I have already explained this one-times square a-hole)

6. We arrived back in NYC to find out that our dog Lola had a massive liver infection that ended up costing us $3000. We were in the USA. Thankfully, I can work easily in some parts of the states. We were running an estimation of how much we had spent on our trip so far…. which ended up being more than we had counted on. I decided I would stay to try to make up the difference in budget versus what we had while Jess went to Spain without me (not part of our dream, but in some cases you just have to adjust the plans)

Right time, Right Place: I got to see my beautiful, sweet, lovely LOLA and take care of her. I was able to visit the awesome Billy and Alicia Martiernan dogs (Cody and Mae) as well as go to their wedding, which was awesome!!!! I ended up working 67 hours in 4 days to make up for what we spent on Lola and pay for my plane ticket back to Europe to see my other great love. Lola got a clean bill of health. I was able to see what it was like to be a slave to the needle again and see a few family members, while realizing I was not ready for this trip to be done. Not that I was thinking that I was ready!!!!

7. We decided to stay in Spain for a couple extra weeks than we had originally planned.

Right time, Right Place: Because we decided to stay in Spain we were able to see-
Spain win the World Cup in Valencia.
The running of the Bulls in Pamplona.
Found a shop to tattoo in for about a month and an apartment in Barcelona. So hopefully we can re-up our savings.

Well, that is all I have for now. There is much more to tell, but like I said it is hard to decide what to focus on. Hope you like this post. Jess and I are on our way to meet her mother Claudia in Portugal today….

COMPLETELY LUCKY AND HAVING THE TIME OF MY LIFE…

Soon to come-
Belize
Cuba
New York
Spain

Sorry,
Jess

Once in the airport we flipped to the Guatemala chapter of the not so helpful, lost its use, I could go on a rant about how much it sucks, Central America Lonely Planet and read that, to our surprise, Antigua’s Semana Santa celebration is among the most extraordinary in all of Latin America. Yeah us!!! We were lucky enough to just happen into this and quickly realized we should not have booked our flight to Flores so hastily. We originally planned to spend a couple of days in Antigua to see some of the events then head out. It turned out the biggest and most impressive events were the days after we had scheduled to travel to Flores. We canceled our onward flights and began a weeklong lesson in devotion, religion, and incredible faith.

For two people who are not in any way religious, the idea of spending a week watching processions of Jesus and Mary seemed far from desirable, additionally everything in the city triples in prices during this week (our first hotel was $100 USD a night). Beyond the cost, beyond the saturation of religion everywhere you turn; the essence of this week is not just that of religion, it is that of a complex culture of people. People that are more devoted to something totally intangible than anything I have ever experienced. A people that are poor, but spend what they have to give to Christ. People massacred by their own army & government as recently as 10 years ago and remain proud to be Guatemalan. A people riffed with natural disasters, mudslides, volcanoes, earthquakes, but still approach you will a smile. A people full of tradition. A people that have created an intricate and confusing relationship between Maya beliefs and Catholicism to create an extraordinary culture.

We ended up finding a much cheaper hotel and settled in, excited to see the festivities. Arriving the day before the biggest events we decided to venture to the active Volcano to see some lava flow. As we returned from the death defying tour we were met by the first of many, many processions. It is hard for me to even describe what it is like to see one of the processions. One thing I know for sure is the first time I encountered one I got chill bumps and my eyes filled with tears.

The first part of this extraordinary event is local people decorating the streets in elaborate pieces of art (they call carpets) comprised of tinted sawdust, pine needles, and flowers. They create incredible pattern over the cobblestone streets in preparation for the procession. I am not sure what the exact meaning is I have heard two explanations. One is that the carpets are meant to make the streets softer for the people carrying the large replicas. Another is that the people who built the carpets are blessed by the procession walking over them. Either was the carpets are a sight to be seen.

Once the carpets are made and the procession begins its approach you hear somber and melodic music echoing through the city. Soon you see men and boys slowly walking down the street dressed in robes of purple (before Christ is dead) or black (after Christ had been killed) making sure to avoid stepping on the carpet. Followed by men and boys of all ages swinging fire filled incense burners. Then the star of the procession- gigantic replicas of Christ, the disciples, & Mary with anywhere from 4 to 100 (the largest) people swaying back in fourth, their faces contorted from the pain of carrying this load on their shoulders. They sway back, fourth, forward, and side-to-side over the carpets. As they walk, people scramble to take photos. The replicas are so huge that people have to lift the power lines up with large poles. Once the float has passed the band passes. Then the most incredible sight, for me, the replica of Mary with only women burdened by the load. This was breathtaking for me, the woman are dawned in lace, dresses, wearing heals and cringing with pain as the sway with the weight. At times it looked as if they were going to crumple in half like a cardboard box with too much weight on the edges. But they never did, they kept walking, parading, believing their pain was nothing compared to that of what Christ endured.

This continues many times through the week. One of the most incredible processions was at 4am! I have never in my life, and probably never will again see so many people out at 4am. There were people in wheelchairs, infant children, all ages awake a 4am to pay respect. People were up all night creating carpets for this procession. Once that one was destroyed they began creating a new one for the procession at 9am.

I am convinced that the people of Antigua do not sleep during this week either because they are creating carpets, in the procession, or scurrying to watch the processions. Whatever the case may be, the amount of devotion these people have for their religion is breathtaking. We were under the impression there would be a few processions, then one big one. This is not the case. At any given moment you can find either people creating carpets or a processions somewhere in Antigua. The entire week is dedicated to their faith.

Video of the processions to follow shortly on our YouTube Channel.

Client’s most of the time were very excited to be getting tattooed by an American tattoo artist. Most of the time things would be translated from my mouth through one of the others in the shop, making it way easier on both my client and I. The shop was very small which made for great conversation (mainly everyone Argentinian) but also felt more like a tight shop. I had been working for years in my own room apart from the studio. Even though we all had rooms with windows without glass so we could talk, most of the time we didn’t. Back home I was always craving this, but at the same time not to fond of the idea, because a lot of client’s want seclusion, total privacy, to not be bothered by others and to not have their own emotions be so closely watched by others. But this is the thing that I find interesting.
The people there worked with what they needed, not want they wanted. Therefore I found a lot of customer’s having conversation’s along with the artist and the other customer’s… Everybody seemed to be having an awesome experience, everyone seemed to love being in that shop. You would constantly hear one making jokes with other and no one seemed to be bothered by this, no one seemed to feel defensive, no one seemed to care.

I had been working in a space no bigger than what my client and I could fit in. Usually about 10 SQ FT is what I was given, and I would never complain about that, knowing back home my room was 300 SQ FT and I hadn’t felt that included in a shop for a very longtime. The shop stations would constantly change day by day depending on how many artist where there and what tattoo’s were being made. If someone needed a table laid out for their clients rib or leg’s to get tattooed that would decide where they and I would be. No one was held to “This is my station, there are many like it, but this one is MINE!” none of that. Just “Okay Mark today you will be at this station, so that Turko can be here. Is that okay with you?” What ? Your are my boss and you are asking me if this is okay in your shop. Of course. I would tattoo in the bathroom if they told me to, but to be asked and thought of so considerately, this was awesome. And once again, no one complained.

The other thing to get used to was the money aspect. Mariano offered me a more than generous percentage. The average tattoo I did, cost about $500 Pesos. The conversion at that time was about 4 pesos for every dollar. A $500 Peso tattoo was about 4 hours of work. Back home I get $150 for an hour. Which is about $600US. So in turn once I pay the shop their cut, I would end up making off of this one tattoo of 4 hours about $75US…half of one hour…CRAZY, one would think, but it wasn’t. You see I had to stop doing the whole conversion thing because it would make me feel like “Why are you doing this? Why are you working now after slaving for the past couple of years to do this trip?” and so I stopped….thinking of the conversion rate…not working. That’s the whole reason why I wanted to do this trip…to have an experience, besides the actually face value of the currency was killer by what I was making in a day. So many Argie’s would kill to make that kind of money, so many would be grateful. And that was the conclusion I came to…STOP THINKING TO MUCH!!! And so Iwas and still am GRATEFUL. The guy’s there must have thought I was joking when at the end of the night I got paid and was like “HOLY SHIT, I made this today!” Which was about $700P in turn, being about $180US…for a 9 hour day. It was awesome…like I said once i realized face value, it was awesome. The money I made there paid for almost 50 percent of our entire time in Argentina…blessed I say, blessed.

When the time came for us to be leaving, I asked the guys if we could trade a tattoo. Surprisingly everyone wanted to get tattooed, so we all traded tattoo’s. My tattoo was done by both Piranhna and Mariano. Here is a picture of it. It’s Turko’s face on a penguin body because Turko was not able to get back from Chile due to an TERREMOTO (earthquake in spanish). Since it was Turko who talked to Mariano about the guestspot and it was Turko who constantly was our tour guide on his day’s off and not to meantion a really rad guy. I thought I could live withthis face forever…

Thanks B.A. and thanks to WELLDONE TATTOO…more adventure’s to come… in the life of a traveling, dirty, stinky, non-cut hair, can’t dress for crap, vagabond, tattoo artist.

Research
Before we left for our adventure I researched the requirements for US citizens in each country we planned to visit. You can find the spreadsheet in the post visa madness. All of the info and the most up to date requirements are on the Secretary of State website.

Armed with this info we fulfilled any necessary requirements in advance- like our Indian & Australian Visas. Most other places allow you to purchase a tourist visa/card once you arrive in the airport. I thought we had covered all of our bases.

We set off with our misguided notion that we would be able to breeze through all immigrations because we had done our homework. Boy were we wrong.

Leaving the City

Early in the morning the city was quite, not a drunken tourist in sight, no smells of parilla wafting through the streets, not a taxi swerving to avoid the ditch. We heaved our packs on our shoulders, faces still puffy from quickly waking and running out the door. The front desk guy was asleep on the couch. In Buenos Aires if things are this quite there is no doubt that you are up really early. This is that magic hour between when people partying from the night before finally rest their heads and the early birds are still snoring. The time when nothing, no one is awake- except for us. We ask where the taxi is and realize we had reserved the wrong pick up time and were now running late for our flight. We woke up the sleepy door guy and he called for a taxi immediately.

We made our way to the street, everything eerily still. All the sudden we hear pop music and our taxi screech to a stop. “Si, Si, vamos” he takes our packs and tosses them into the trunk. His bleached blond hair and gold chains sparkling in the only few streetlights blind us. Our heads began to throb as the music pumped so loud it made any loose metal in the taxi quiver loudly. He yells over the music “Vamos a J. Newbery, si” we respond vehemently “no, no, no vamos a Ezeiza Ministro Pistarini International”. Screaming over the music, frightened he is taking us to the wrong airport and we are already running late. He pulls over to the side of the street for some reason (since there we no other cars within site) and calls his operator, spouts something inaudible (because it was so fast and the music was so loud) to us in Spanish and turns around heading back to our hostel. What the hell is going on, we are going to miss our flight! We arrive back at the front door of the hostel (losing 30 minutes) and the door guys speaks to him in Spanish, looks at us and says “I thought you guys we flying within the country, I didn’t realize you needed the international airport and because I reserved the taxi they have to approve with me if the destination changes”. Um, okay whatever lets just get to the airport already.

He speeds off meanwhile glancing around, bending over and looking under the passengers side dash for something. Finally, (thank god no one else was out driving or walking) he emerges with a bag of chips and a coca-cola that he begins eating in rhythm with his bobbing his head to the blaring music, maybe driving 10 mph through the city. Patience is an virtue, patience is a value, patience is good- our mantra. Meanwhile his phone faintly ringing in the background of the music. With chips in the hand he is steering with he roots around in the bags in the passenger seat looking for his cell phone, picks it up reads something (probably about 5 minutes of not looking at the road) then puts it down continues eating his chips and driving at snail speed. This continues as we merge onto the freeway, then he manages to check is blood sugar (needle, blood checker and all) while driving. Finally we arrive at the international airport and bolt out of the taxi.

Checking-in

We walk inside and Copa Airlines (the airline we are flying on) and stood in line. We arrived at the check in counter and were asked, “Do you have your tickets?” “No we are here to check in” they respond, “You have to check in at the other terminal, walk over there to check in”. Okay, we heave our backpacks on and speed walk through the terminal, outside through a breezeway, and through the other terminal to the other Copa Airlines check in which turned out to be closed! We went to smoke a few cigarettes then went back in to be greeted with a line of 30 people. About 45 minutes later we are waved up to the check in. “Passports please, ticket confirmation number, and your onward ticket please”. “What, what onward ticket?” they respond rudely “you are required to have a ticket back to the US for us to allow you to board the plane”. “What the hell are you talking about, the only thing we are required for Panama is a US passport valid for 6 months and a $5 tourist card we buy when we get there”. “No, you must have a ticket back to the US to board”. This is bullsh*t. There is no way that everyone backpacking around the world has a return flight back to their home country from every county they visit. “Well, you may think you are special because you are from the US, but this is a requirement in every county in the world and you must buy a ticket from Panama to Orlando for $2000 a piece in order to board this flight”!!!! WHAT! They quickly say, “If you don’t buy this now you are missing your flight, it is leaving very soon and you must buy this now to not miss your flight”. Flustered, tired, and already in a wobbly state of mind from the taxi ride and having to race in between terminals we hand them a credit card I say to Mark holding back tears “if this gets declined we are not supposed to do this and we will figure something else out”. The woman comes back and smugly says, “It is declined”. I smugly respond “fine, we are missing our flight because you are requiring something from us not stated anywhere- not on your website, not when I purchased the tickets, not on our embassy site, not on the Panamanian embassy site, not on the Secretary of State website, where does it say this is required?” She responds, “I don’t care if you haven’t read this anywhere you still have to have a ticket back to the US”. I boiling, angrily say “then how did we get into Argentina with no outbound ticket or ticket back to the US” she bounces back “you were lucky”. WHAT!!! Whatever, we will figure it out and come back. “Well there is a flight tomorrow morning that is full, we can put you on the flight tomorrow evening if you show us your tickets”. Ridiculous, “fine we will come back and show you some tickets and we want to be on standby for the flight tomorrow”.

The Art of Arguing

I go online pull up the Secretary of State website requirements for US citizens in Panama & the US Embassy in Panama site go back to the desk and it is closed. I ask the police how to find them and I am directed behind a check in counter on the other side of the terminal to a hallway with a huge metal door. I ring the bell on the keypad, listen to it ring, ring, ring. A woman answers “Hola”, “Si, tengo una pregunta”. She immerges, realizes I am ‘that’ girl and slams the door in my face. Then a man comes out. I show him the sites, the fact that it says we are not required to have this and he says things along the same lines as the woman “you were lucky to get into Argentina, you have to fly back to the US, you cannot get on a flight, I don’t know how people backpack but they probably have flight out of every country they go to back to the US”. “Are you serious? Backpackers buy flights to Mexico, back to the US, to Guatemala back to the US, to Belize back to the US, to Nicaragua back to the US . . . this is a scam! I have never heard of anything like this in my life”. He responds “I am sorry you have never heard of this, but it is true, you have to buy a ticket back to the us”. I say “If I buy a ticket to Costa Rica from Panama, and I leave Panama how is it any of your business where I go from Costa Rica and whether I am flying back to the US?” He says “You can’t do that, you have to show us you are flying back to the US even if you have a ticket to Costa Rica, Mexico, whatever”.
I go buy a transfer from the last city in Panama before the border Bocas Del Torro to the first in Costa Rica Puerto Viejo online. I print it out, take it back to the metal door, ring again, no one answers, ring again, no one answers. About 20 minutes go by and woman opens the door, puts her finger in my face and slams the door again. 15 minutes later she opens the door, I show her the transfer. She says, “this is not confirmed so we won’t take this”. I point to the 30-point bolded, capitalized “CONFIRMED” across the reservation and frustrated through my teeth say “it says confirmed right there!” “Oh, well hold on”, slams the door in my face and sends someone else out. “You have to have a ticket back to the US, this is only to Costa Rica”. I am so irate now “You know what, I am going to call my Embassy because this is out of control”. She says “I am on the phone with the embassy now and they say the same thing”. “Oh really, let me talk to them then”. “You can’t go back there and the phone doesn’t reach”. Flabbergasted I go tell Mark the scenario, at this point around 11p and we have been sitting in the airport bar all day trying to sort this out. Everything else is closed down. Mark makes his way down (as we can’t both go, someone has to watch the bag) and returns shortly afterward “she said a transfer is fine”. How did you do that? So, I go back down with the paper transfer ring again. She comes to the door, I show her the transfer again and she says “No, this will not work you need a ticket back the US”. I yell, “What you just told my husband it was fine, I am fed up I really am calling the Embassy now, this is a scam”. She responds “oh, no don’t do that, the transfer is fine!” Seriously!!!

I return and we wait overnight to be on standby the next morning. Everything is closed at this point, we need water and go to the Coca-cola machines that have water buttons. I put my money in, push for water, and guess what- nothing. I push for the sodas- nothing. I push for my change- nothing. Awesome. Thanks for taking my money. I try another machine- no water only soda. Not so nice because we both have head colds and I have cramps. . .really need water!

Free Accommodations- Hotel Airport Inn

As the 28th hours of being in the airport rolls around we make our way back to the counter. Wait about 45 minutes get to counter with all of our paperwork. Hand the guy our transfer and he says, “I don’t think you can use this, you need to have a flight back to the US”! Oh hell no! “We have been here for 28 hours, we already have this approved by other employees” that by this point have gone home. “Okay”, he turns to the guy next to him says “is this transfer okay” the other guys responds “are they leaving panama” our guy says “yes, going to Costa Rica”, “yeah, if they leave Panama who cares where they go, as long as they are leaving”. Thank you, our sentiments exactly! We get our boarding passes, board the plane, and get to Panamanian immigration and what happens? She looks at our passports and stamps them, not one single question. No- where is your outbound ticket, where are you going, when are you leaving, nothing, just stamps us and we are in!

Costa Rica Border-

After the hellish Copa Airlines experience we were frightened to cross any border. We knew in advance Costa Rica requires and outbound ticket because it was listed on the US Department of State website. We were told by people in Panama that you can buy bus at the border of Panama and Costa Rica. So, we boarded our transfer and headed out, assured that we could buy a ticket from Costa Rica to Nicaragua for $7 USD a piece. We get to the border, get our Panama exit stamp, make our way across the rickety old bridge and file into line for our Costa Rica entry stamp. The line monitor tells me I need to buy the outbound bus ticket back to Panama for $12 USD. “No, we were told we could get a ticket to Nicaragua for $7USD”. He says “not here, only back to Panama for $12”. Well, we only had enough to pay for 2 $7 USD tickets $14 USD. We beg all the other people in our transfer for the money, we tell them we will buy them beers, dinner, they can walk with us to the bank in Costa Rica. Please, Please, Please. At this point we can’t go back into Panama because we already have an exit stamp and would be required another outbound ticket! Finally a really nice man Steve gives us the money and says, “this is the last of my money, but you guys need it more than I do”. “Thank you, thank you, thank you”. I go get the tickets and return. We are in! We end up taking him to eat, buying him beer, and paying him back over great conversation.

Guatemala Border-

We are scared because we are flying this time and it seems airports are much more particular about the whole ticket thing, well at least Copa, which we are never flying again. We go to the check in with a plan in our heads, that if something comes up we will buy a flight from Mexico to Miami because we wanted bus tickets but you cannot buy them online. In order to get bus tickets you must be at a bus station. The bus station in Costa Rica doesn’t sell tickets from Guatemala to Mexico or Belize, because no one ever needs them. The plan- buy a flight to the US from Mexico.

We check in, they look at our passports, we pay our exit tax, and we are given our boarding pass. We arrive in Guatemala immigration; the girl looks at our passports, smiles at us and stamps us. On the way to the x-ray a man says “De donde son?” We say “Estadios Unidos”, and he waves us through without even going through customs.

Moral of the story-
Screw Copa Airlines.
Always have a back-up plan.

Making our way through Central America; with that comes a whole lot of laziness. A huge reason we haven’t posted much since arriving in Panama is the vibe of Panama and Coast Rica; it is a feeling of endless time, no stress, laid back, simple life. It is a vibe of beaches and jungles, surfing, sunsets, and well just laying around. It would seem that when you are in a place like this one would be motivated to write blog post, read, paint. . .be productive. In reality it is quite the opposite. The feeling of “I’ll get to it eventually, no rush, we have plenty of time, all we are doing is laying around” got the best of us. Rather than spend that empty time proactively catching up on writing in our journals or painting, we just continued to lay around.

We continued to relax with little thought of actually doing anything but watching the sunset and meeting new people. It was actually really hard to get motivated to do anything. Add to this the fact that in Puerto Viejo I gave myself a 2nd degree burn on my leg by singeing a few layers of skin off on a moped pipe, it seems ridiculous that I wouldn’t write more (considering I couldn’t go in the ocean, in fresh waterfalls, go horseback riding, walk along the beach). So, what was left to do in Costa Rica? Nothing! Spend lots of money on overpriced hotels and $2 can imperals (yes, $2usd for a can of imperial). So I bet you are wondering “if you literally couldn’t do anything, why didn’t you write?”. Well, that is my point exactly, when I am left with absolutely nothing to do, I can’t write about anything. I can’t get motivated to do anything. When we are running around from place to place every 2-3 days I can’t stop writing. I can’t stop doing. For the past month we have seen some of the most beautiful beaches and sunsets of my life.

We have considered moving to Domincal and opening a Tattoo Shop. We considered renting a house for a month. Then we realized that we had lost the true reason for this trip- not to relax on a beach- but to explore, to see, to think, to write. . .Yes Panama and Costa Rica are gorgeous, mountains covered in jungle plunging into clear blue water along beautiful beaches.

But once you lay on that beach, once you watch those sunsets, then you go to eat and the owner of the restaurant is from Florida or the surf shop owner from California or the real estate guy from Hollywood. Once you attempt to speak Spanish everyone speaks to you in English, once you realize that this is not a cultural experience, but a family vacation. Once you realize those deserted beaches you so fondly remember, the Tico culture you remember, the pura vida has gone to granite counter top resorts and $4000 usd a week vacation rentals. You realize that although it is beautiful, it is not what you remember, it is not an international experience. It is another place ruined by capitalism, investments, real estate. You realize it is time for you to move on.

Tours
-DO NOT GO ON AN EXPENSIVE TOUR!!! UNLESS, it is to walk on the glacier. The only reason this particular tour is an exclusion to this rule is because you are not allowed to walk on a glacier by yourself. The only way to walk on it is to take a tour, so take it. Take the $150 per person cost as a sucker punch to the ribs and realize that there are few times in life that you are given the opportunity to do something life changing. This was one of those times. Do it. Pay the money. Think of it this way- in the States $150 is a nice dinner out on a Friday night. In Patagonia $150 is walking on the only glacier in such a low altitude, the only glacier with such a warm climate, and the only glacier that is still growing as we speak! Then, having a shot of whiskey over ice chipped off of a glacier. I mean gimme a break.

Tourist Traps
- Other than this- do not pay for a tour in Patagonia. We can’t comment on Ushuaia because we couldn’t afford to go there. Lots of resorts, Discovery Tours, Cruise Ships, not our thang and especially not in our budget. From what we heard, unless you are willing to cough up a big chunk of change to take a boat tour you don’t see much more than snow in Ushuia.

UNESCO
-In Puerto Madryn (Peninsula Valdez) you can rent a car and drive through the park for much less money than the $100 tours that they offer. They give you a map when you pay the park fee explaining why it is a UNESCO site and what wildlife you can see there. No reason to pay a guide to shuffle you around. Same with Punta Tombo.

Iguazu Falls
-In Iguazu Falls (2nd breathtaking thing in Argentina) please, please do not take a tour. You can take a cheap bus to the park, pay the park fee, and get the map (that we didn’t even get, even though a friend paid for a tour for us). The only cool part about the tour was that the guy holds up a green umbrella like an a**hole and you can laugh at him. He didn’t tell us anything about the wildlife, flora, fauna, the building of the walkways in Iguazu. . .nothing. We could have learned more about the falls by reading a map and taking our time, rather than being pushed about by a massive tour group. You can’t take pictures because the other 30 a**holes in your tour want the same shot, so you are forced to push you way through.

-DO NOT under any circumstance open your mouth under a waterfall fed by the Amazon!!! You will get a parasite. Keep them lips sealed not matter how much you want to hoot and holler because you are having such an amazing time. Humm those emotions! Keep that water out of your mouth or be prepared to take horse sized antibiotics, stay out of the sun, drink no alcohol, and be dizzy an nauseous for a week.

The Country
-Take time to see the county. Argentina is HUGE and full of amazing things to see- the salt flats, glaciers, wildlife, waterfalls, wine country, metropolitan cities, beaches. . .It is an amazing country. We traveled through Argentina for a month and still didn’t feel like we saw everything we wanted.

Airlines
-Airlines in Argentina. Okay, so this is pretty important to know in advance- Argentinians do not believe in lines. Even if you show up 2 hours in advance (like you are supposed to in the States) they do not open the security checkpoint to the gates until 5 minutes before the flight is set to leave, sometimes a couple minutes after the flight is set to leave. Sometimes they do not announce the gate where you are boarding until after you flight time. Once the security point is open there is a bum rush to the gate and any resemblance of a line is turned into a mob of Argentinians leaning into you, pushing you with their bags, or just straight up pushing you out of the way- all to get on the same plane going to the same place at the same time. This was the biggest culturally shocking thing for us. The orderly, organized line that is understood by all US citizens, the concept of rushing to wait is very, very far from the Argentinian Airlines travel culture. You show up about 30 minutes before the flight, wait for the gate, then bum rush the security, bum rush the plane, then bum rush the door out of the plane, the luggage pick-up, the bags. . .They do not politely let you out of your seats on the plane if they are in a row behind you- no, no, no they literally push you out of the way, then look at you like your rude. Funny because they do not act like this in any other circumstance, not the bus, the subway, nothing.

Food
-Not a whole lot of vegetables in Argentina. They eat mostly meat, cheese, bread, and ducle de leche. It is pretty hard to find food that is not a combination of these things.

City Life
-Buenos Aires is one of the coolest cities you will ever see- European vibe, art, food, and Latin flavor. The perfect example of this delicate relationship, this beautiful love story is the Tango. Sensual, classy, beautiful and yet it oozes passion, love, and intensity.

Travel
-Much of the middle country is desert. Surprising since there is so much ecological diversity in the country, but like I said, it is huge.

Buses & Planes
-Buses are cheap, but so are flights. Weigh the options- take a 27 hour bus ride in semi-cama (the seats lay back a little, they serve food, they play 2 movies, they give you soda) for $75 per person or take a $100 flight for 1 hour! Yes, $25 can make a difference. Yes, you save a night of accommodations because you are on the bus. But, you can’t sleep on the bus that well, the heaters next to your seat are metal and burn the crap out of you if you lean against them, they never stop for breaks, it basically sucks. Unless you pay for exectivo (cama is worse) which is leather seats, free wine, and better services. Once you bump up to exectivo you are paying for a flight, but riding a bus for 26 hours longer. Mark is convinced that Argentinians began taking buses exclusively after the flight full of Argentinian football (soccer) players crashed in the Andes and they had to eat each other (they made a movie about it-Alive), Argentinians decided flying just wasn’t that appealing, even with the massive difference in travel time. Adding to this, when you arrive at your destination you are so exhausted you sleep for a day (adding that saved lodging back to the equation, therefor defeating the purpose of the overnight bus).

Overall Argentina is an amazing place to visit. We miss it already!

If I could sum up the major tourist attractions we have seen in the past month with one phrase it would be “We are glad that you are here, but please stop ruining it”. There is something that tourism does to a place, to a people that is really sad. Something that should be so beneficial to a place turns out to be really damaging. At some point the respectful, aware, thoughtful visitors lose out to fat, pushy, obnoxious, conceded, vacationers in massive globs of slow moving ignoramuses otherwise known as tour groups.

At some point what brought people to a place is totally lost, replaced with Hiltons and high rises. The people are robbed of their culture (which is why travelers originally wanted to visit) and they are given a manufactured culture to present in a perfect little packaged box in the form of an all inclusive trip, tour, whatever.

Thankfully there are still a few places left in the world full of beauty, culture, and wonderful things to see without blob tourism, we are in one of those places and we are not telling were because we don’t want to be one of the culprits that ruins it.

I arrived at the tattoo shop where I was working in Buenos Aires, Argentina on our 3rd day in Argentina. I went to the shop, said in the best spanglish I could, “Hola ,Mi llamo es Marcos. “Turko” (who I will explain in this posting later) said “hello, how can I help you?” and WHAAAMO!!! I’m lost because of the BA Argentinian dialect of Spanish. It’s a mixture of accents like spanish, italian, and even some french. I think it’s called LUNFARDO.

Anyway the shop is called Welldone Tattoo. A great guy named Mariano Castiglioni is the owner. See what I mean about the dialect; all the names are either Spanish or Italian in origin. He is a good boss and I can tell that his employees respect and love him almost like a father. Just like every shop I have ever been, most turn out to be almost always the same. They have an awesome shop girl named Valeria pronounced Ba-LA-re-a, she does a great job. She sets up your station, breaks down your station, sets your appts, gets you what ever you need and pretty much was my Spanish tutor for about 8 hours a day (poor Valeria).

Next in line, the tattoist: “Turko” was Mariano’s apprentice and is now an awesome tattooist and rad guy. Sebas pronounced Seva,s amazing versatile tattoo artist ( works 2 days in a shop and 4 in an apt studio with 3 other guys and his boss doesn’t care, would never happen at Blue Flame). Last but not least, Piranha the artsyist of the guys in the shop. Real great painter and tattooer, he used to design clothing 5 years ago and now is just a bad ass. I was covering his shift’s cause he was on vacation for 3 weeks at his house. Yep that’s right, VACATION AT HIS HOUSE FOR 3 WEEKS.

So now that you know about the guys I worked with, I will tell you some things about being a traveling tattooist. Everything is the same except for everything. It didn’t take me long to pack for this trip because I just brought the essentials, you know ink, needles, machines, tubes, a small repair kit, and a new small power supply (that exploded and caught on fire) no biggie. I plugged it in to the socket with my plug adapter, not converter. I didn’t realize that most of the world, other than the USA, uses 220w power and not 110w. So it hummed, then popped, then caught fire. I didn’t even use it once in this country before it blew. It doesn’t matter, you know why? Because they are all awesome, they said “Hey man, don’t worry use this one or that one or mine, no worries we don’t care. Make a tattoo and we will get you another one.” How cool is that? You don’t even know me and you let me make money here by using your stuff. COOL! That’s still not all of the first day. I broke my box, broke their arm rest and spilled rinse cup after rinse cup. Stupido Gringo!!!
I ran Valeria around the shop like a madman. I messed up so much that I was behind an hour, which if you are a client reading this you know, is pretty normal for me. But, this is not normal in a new shop on the 1st day. I was nervous for the 1st time in like 10 years. I started sweating so much it was dripping on my clients leg and rinsing the drawing off. Oh and don’t let me forget that they don’t do stencils with a machine, it’s by hand (the way I learned 13 years ago). I haven’t made a machine made stencil in forever, normally I would just freehand it on, but because FREEHAND scares the shit out of Argentinian’s when you don’t speak spanish, i had to make stencils for everyone. How can I forget I didn’t eat for the whole day because I was playing catch up. Does this sound familiar?

Yeah everything is the same. Not really, but all in all, it is and was and still will be when I get back. Incredibly Awesome. The guys make me feel comfortable, like I am a part of the shop, not just a guest. Turko has been Jess and my personal tour guide for Buenos Aires. So much so that his legs are killing him walking with us everywhere. Turko took us to an Artist Market, Traditional Argentine BBQ, Tango Show, Carnival and a bunch of other things.

Jess bought a STEP-O-METER, we walked an average of 6 miles a day. Can you believe my fat ass is walking 5-6 miles a day? Much less sometimes more than 6 miles “WHAT?” My legs feel like rocks. So I might be skinny again one day or just less fat even with eating ducle de leche for every meal (sweet Carmel they put in everything). We went to The Recoleta Cemetery together FREE (you know me-I’m a romantic and very cheap individual). We ate, we laughed, then we packed to head down south.

I’m going to be write more soon, probably in the next 2 days or tonight. I have to tell you about where Superman lives.

By the way…Did I tell you that I make about $100 bucks a day working my ass off and I love my life right now. If not, I want to tell you that I LOVE THIS LIFE AND THIS COUNTRY….more to come.

Please trust me- I have walked an average of 8 miles a day here. Look at my damn feet. I love walking here, it is a beautiful city. But, like I said beware of the threat of being pooed and bring plenty of band-aids and such. This pile was what I had to apply to my feet one morning.

I did the later this week and kept the big things to do with him like going to a Tango show, soccer game, traditional bbq restaurant, La Boca, San Telmo, the Recoleta cemetery.

Instead of visiting these things I walked and walked and walked to a lot of other really cool stuff. I took the subway once by myself (even thought I was warned by multiple locals that it is dangerous)- living on the edge. It was tame compared to NYC subways. I mean, I didn’t see anyone pee themselves while sitting on one of the seats in the subway (I guess my public transportation expectations are pretty low). I also did some other interesting new travel things like getting really dirty laundry touched by a complete stranger who doesn’t speak a language you understand, tried to buy a bottle of water from an annoyed 12 year old that was really angry I didn’t have a smaller bill to pay with and that I couldn’t understand what he was saying, argued with a bum in a train station in Spanglish, tried to figure out what the word for face wash is in Spanish by asking an Asian teller at a supermarket. It has been a big week. The whole walking thing is a pretty complex situation- if you want more detail about that check out my Poo Poo on your Shoe Shoe post.

1. Tried to see Madres de Plaza de Mayo, Asociacion Madres de Plaza de Mayo. I went to see them, but got lost on the subway. Still there was a really cool statue and some really beautiful old buildings.

I am not sure what they were because I sort of just stumbled upon them in search of Madres. The mothers are interesting because they meet once a week to protest their “lost” children that the government took years ago.

2. Visited the Argentinean Congress building with ornate statues and fountains in front. It was really beautiful and also an interesting part of most cultures. Homeless people in front of the people that are supposed to be helping them. As I was walking up to see the statues I glanced over and happened to see a mother in a little cove with a mattress and a child (about 4 months old) laying on its back covered in dirt with only a diaper on. It is interesting that most places I have seen are like this- most government buildings have homeless people surrounding them. Almost like a cry for help “look at me, I am right here in front of you”.

3. Went to The Malba- MALBA – Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires that has an Andy Warhol exhibit. I wasn’t that excited to see an artist exhibit from the US, especially Andy Warhol ( I have seen his exhibits before), but I was lured there by the idea that there would be Latin Americans Artist work there too. The experience ended up being more interesting than I had anticipated, watching people’s reactions to Warhol’s work, as a US citizen, was surprising. It seemed much of his work didn’t translate well. Two things in particular stick out in my mind (both made me laugh out loud- not so good in a museum).

a. There ware a room painted with his pop art style dark purple cows with paintings of Stalin, Nixon, Kin Jung Il and a black canvas with a red cross. This was interesting to me because much of Latin American is very religious and it seemed as if the people looking at the pieces in this room didn’t realize what he was saying. People looked at the canvases and walked by, without even a glimpse of contemplation. Why go to an exhibit and not think of what the artist is trying to convey?

b. The second was a large room, completely covered in black curtains except for one large movie screen proudly showing Warhol’s infamous “bj” video. As I turned the corner I noticed 4-5 Argentinean women, puzzled, reading the plaque explaining the piece, and quickly speaking to one another in Spanish in a confused tone. When I turned the corner they all glanced at my tattoos looked at me with contempt then continued their confused banter, I am sure debating exactly what this movie was. Normally, I would think they were just discussing the work, but I was told that this is a pretty conservation country, even with the Latin feel, the people here are still very classy. Things like the word “bj” are not used, definitely not spoken about, and for sure not discussed in the middle of a museum (even if it is art). So, again irony stuck me- the contempt for my tattoos while they were standing in front of a gigantic screen playing a movie of a man having oral sex with what has been said to be Andy himself (an old gay artist from NYC).

One really incredible thing that happened at that Museum- I saw the first real Frida Kahlo painting in my entire life. The plexi glass is no match for my smooshed up nose. I wanna see the strokes, the colors mixing on the canvas. Give me a break standing back. I left my mark at that museum, even with the security guard following me everywhere, a big old nose print right in front of the parrot on Frida’s shoulder. Take that plexiglass.

4. The Flower- none of the locals knows the name of it, they just call it the flower. It was a gift to the people of Buenos Aires by Canada. A beautiful lotus flower made of metal with solar power stamen inside that generate power, moving the flower to follow the sun, then closing as the sun sets to rest over night. Sound incredible doesn’t it? It was, it still is even though I found out from a local that it broke the first time they turned it on and they have never fixed it. Whom, Whom. I have decided I am still going to believe it does move and open in close because that would be amazing.

5. Miscellaneous Statues scattered throughout the parks- one really cool one of Evita.

6. A huge 4 block x 4 block park that was off the tourist map and no one spoke English (I loved it). I was given the tip by the guys at the shop Mark is guest spotting at. There was a market wrapping around the park, mostly flea market type stuff, old clothes, albums, toys, etc. Then inside the park was the. . .

7. MACN | Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales-Bernardino Rivadavia -really cool. Mostly made for little kids, but so is Disney World- both are fun for adults (I actually know at least 5 people over 25 who went to Disney world for their Birthday this year). There was the standard dinosaur replicas- what wasn’t standard- a map of all the dinosaur fossils that have been found in Argentina! And there were a lot. I can’t remember anyone telling me of finding anything old in the USA except for arrowheads. They also had real insects and fish forever sealed in enamel or that fluid that doesn’t allow things to deteriorate. Then stuffed animals, real fossils, butterflies . . .augh it was great. Nothing was in English- not the cards, the descriptions; the people didn’t speak any English. It was all Spanish the entire time, which was really cool. Also, the museum was in an old mansion with marble and spiral staircase. I went to a vending machine to get water because there was no ac and I felt really dizzy-ended up getting orange flavored carbonated sugar, drank a couple of sips and realized it was making me more dizzy. Overall it was a lot of fun.

Mark and I went to the Plaza Italia together one of the first days we arrived, which was cool. The botanical gardens are next to the plaza and have a huge population of stray cats. It was really interesting to see wild, domesticated, wild, house, wild, cats. A guy showed up and fed them and gave them water. It made use smile. There are animal lovers everywhere. All the cats came running when they saw him as if he does it every day.

Yesterday was awesome- we went to San Telmo for a huge artist market/antique market, saw a live tango band. Then onto Chinatown for the Chinese new-year- we missed the dragons, but not the insane crowd. Then to recoleta, another artist market, a tango dance performance, beers, then back to Palermo- more beer and the carnival celebrations.

Overall, we have seen a lot so far. The crazy part- that is just the things to see if you are not seeing the main attractions-like soccer game, art galleries, tango shows, steak houses, la Boca neighborhood, recoleta cemetery . . .

This city is amazing, we love it, we wish we could stay longer, but like any great city it is expensive. Things are costing about the same they would in the states, which we didn’t plan for, so although we love it here- we are planning to leave probably this weekend.

We landed in Argentina at 4am, took a cab to, what we thought was, the artsy neighborhood Palermo. Once the cabbie sped away from the side street where he dumped (in Centro) us we quickly realized that this was not an artsy neighborhood or where we asked him to take us. Imagine asking to be taken to the Village in NYC and being dropped off in the Financial District- mostly suits, overpriced restaurants, and huge business buildings. It was an interesting feeling- a little culture shock, some exhaustion, confusion, add a dash of disappointment (expecting to see cute boutiques, galleries, small cobblestone streets) throw in a bit of chaos from realizing that everything is shut down with bars over the doors and huge overwhelming avenues. A feeling that is great-freedom to do whatever you want and scary-where the hell are we?

Not knowing where we were going to stay or where Palermo was, we went to the only open place in- sight– a small little restaurant with 3 Australian guys drinking beer (at this point about 5am). As we drank a coffee, we asked where we could find the Internet, they replied “don’t know, we haven’t used it since we arrived’. Their response bewildered me, many thoughts of why they hadn’t used the Internet rushed through my head- it’s lame to sit on the Internet when you are trying to party? It is silly to use the Internet, because you lose a little bit of that ‘free from everything’ feeling? We have been so drunk since we got here we can’t read the computer screen? We have only been here for an hour? Finally, I stopped myself and realized okay, we still need to get to the Internet and, at the very least, figure out where we are. Are we even in Buenos Aires? I think so. What neighborhood are we in? I don’t know, let’s ask. DJFJLSLI:JID:VDnknvdlksjlisg- what our first totally Spanish, very quick, Italian accented, form of Argentinean directions sounded like. . . .(in Latin America double l’s are pronounced “ya” where as here it is “sh”- very confusing for people who don’t speak Spanish well and what they did know now is meaningless because of an accent). Okay let’s just google our location. We end up finding an Internet café, finding where we were, and looking for a place to stay.

We find a hostel in Palermo (had to take another taxi to get there) meant for (what seemed like) gaggles of under 21 Americans with a handful of Brazilians. The guy checking us in offers us some mate, an Argentinean tea. Mark graciously tries to drink it from the side of the gourd like container, even though there is a beautiful straw sticking out, almost screaming- “you are supposed to use me”. The guy laughs and stops Marks, “no, drink from the straw”. As Mark takes a sip the guy starts telling us how tired he is because he was up screwing all night, WAH, Mark quickly gives him back the tea- “no, I am good, I don’t want anymore” as we chuckle at how ridiculous it was. We can’t go to our room for another couple of hours, so we venture around, have breakfast and return.

We are given our key, after some serious up-selling on the part of the front desk to buy a “world card” for their hostel chain. We cave and buy one without even seeing our room, lesson learned. Go to our room, the hostel is laid out really cool with a bar in the lobby, then a bunch of separate houses connected by various stairways, really cool, really confusing. We open the door and YES 6 foot ceilings, not a problem for Mark, but my head barely misses the ceiling, one plug in the room for the fan (nice because there was no ac and our room happened to be in the middle of all the houses, so no motion of air via a window) the bathroom was okay (no light in the shower, so kinda hard to shave). Okay, lets check for bedbugs “UGGHHH” are you serious- the bed looked like many a drunk kids had many, many, many fun nights on it as well as some not so fun nights. Either way it was so dirty we wouldn’t even be able to see bed bugs if it was infested with them. Yippie for silk sleep sheet pod thingies. Thanks Dad & Carolyn, we used them the first 3 nights of our trip, probably will use them a lot more.

We checked our emails got the hell outta there, no use in hanging out in this nasty room when we can sit on the roof. We get some (didn’t know at the time) highly overpriced beer and head alto. We sat on the roof, met some Americans, got drunk and went to sleep. Repeat the next day excluding the whole finding a place to stay thing and add in some breakfast and another American (a super awesome guy from NYC studying abroad here for 6 months). We end up at this great show, La Bomba, packed full of people in an outdoor bar, with the longest lines for beers and bathrooms I have ever seen. It made since though-the beers were huge and people’s bladders just aren’t built that way. The show was cool, rhythmic drummers, happy excited people, and an all around good time. One striking thing-people were knocking into one another spilling beer all over each other and no one cared! In the US that would be means for some serious brawls and if not at least the person would be expected to buy the victim another gigantic beer. But the people at the show would just smile, apologize and bounce away happily. We returned to the hostel, drank some more, hung with some Americans, and went to bed.

The next day we decided it was time to get out of this place, our room was a little too dirty, too much English, too expensive, and too far from where Mark was going to start work the next day, Well Done Tattoo. We walked to the shop from the hostel and realized it took us about 1.5 hr- not so nice to walk 2 times a day for 2 weeks. So, we searched out another hostel and ended up finding a place much more clean, quieter, less English, and closer to Well Done.

During our last night at the original hostel we met a super nice Australian couple- (ended up playing drunken Uno with them), an American couple, the guy from NYC, and a random German guy. The girl had traveled to 23 countries before age 21! Crazy, amazing, incredible, and inspiring. Her stories made me remember what makes traveling so amazing, the experiences you get to have and the stories you have to share. She has worked Octoberfest, with Monkeys and ocelots in Bolivia, toured the US in a van with friends. . . Mark ended up tattooing her and her boyfriend (who just finished a 20 something day stint riding boats down the Amazon together). Oh by the way she is 22 now!

We moved over to our new hostel the next morning with an awesome room- normally for 4 people- a loft, clean, on the top floor, ac, full wifi bars sitting in the room, large bath, a balcony across the hall to smoke on, on the other side of the building from the garden area where everyone drinks and hangs late, clean beds, extra sheets and pillows from the other beds. We loved it and have been in this hostel for a few days. We extended our stay for the next week a few of nights ago and were super stoked to have a great affordable place to stay. The next day as we were enjoying our morning coffee, pleased with ourselves for finding such a great place, and a guy approached us and told us we have to move rooms. Uh, okaaaay . . .where is the room? Is it the same price? Air-conditioned? Bathroom? He says everything is the same, but we have to leave our bags until the new room is clean.

I leave for the next few hours, walk with Mark to work, down to the Malba (Modern Art Museum) and a couple other parks/monuments, then return to the hostel. I am given a key to a room on the 2nd floor (we were on the third) open the door and WOW this room is a lot small, uh and so is the bathroom, and uh the toilet seat hard yellow tinted cardboard coming out of it- uh the pillows are non-existent except for a few lumps of old matted cotton. Well, at least now I am closer to the wifi and should get a better signal- Nope. No signal at all. Okay, well at maybe it will be quiet because it is not on the street side- no, your head is next to the wall shared by the elevator shaft and the window is directly above the employees nightly hang-out (until 3-4 am)- the back patio. Remember those nice clean white sheets, no mas, you get sheets so old you can see through them, saggy new beds and a single pillow case. Really- the same? You mean we will have to pay you the same and you are going to seriously downgrade our room. We decide to talk with them about moving rooms, paying less, or us leaving the next morning. We mentioned it to the guy working and he said he would figure something out for us 2 days ago! F-it, I guess we will just take the losses because it is too late to move to another hostel (all are booked).

Friday, February 5th-
Dropped off my Mom’s rental car, picked up ours (and overhead other people in line who were angry about their flights being canceled (thank god we decided to rent a car). Then, we attempted to go to breakfast at a restaurant that had just closed for breakfast, and ended up driving to Raleigh to grab a bite. Mark went to his Mom’s to drop off paperwork. We had a nice breakfast, then packed up the convertible up, and started the first leg of our trip- on the road to Tampa in a band of storms covering the entire eastern seaboard (that weekend it snowed so much in DC it broke the record set in 1922-fyi my stepfather, Steve, lives outside of DC which is where our Mazda was headed). We make it to Tampa with our leaky convertible windows through some pretty sketchy storms to my sister who was really happy to see us! She went to IKEA and bought all new stuff for the room we were going to stay in. We put on flip-flops only to realize the cold followed us and it was 40 degrees in Florida. Put the hoodies back on and gave up the idea of laying out by the pool out due to the overcast sky. No top down cruising for us. We hung out in Tampa until Sunday morning when we headed out to Miami. On the way my Starbucks coffee dumped all over my sisters’ backseat carpet; my camera stopped working; and we got lost in downtown Miami trying to find a Best Buy or Target (only to find out that Target had sold out of pretty much their entire camera stock that weekend leaving only a few piece of craps cameras for me to chose from). I bought one apprehensively and we head to the airport. Finally, we are doing it!

Everything that happens is a story- it just so happens that most great stories are the hardest ones that challenge you the most.

During this whole thing, my special time was late and Mark & I were discussing how much it would suck to get preggers the month we left. Don’t worry! My friend came to visit with some serious vengeance the 1st day we arrived in Buenos Aires.

I truly believe that everything happens for a reason- who knows exactly why we went through so much, but my thought is that it was meant to make us appreciate our trip even more-the hell we had to go through to get here makes it so much more beautiful and meaningful. How bad we want it, is part of what makes it so awesome. The idea of wanting something so bad, giving it your all, and the whole cliché ‘you can do anything you want as long as you put your mind to it’- all of it has so much meaning to us now. We could have easily given up before now – with work, moving, all the crap- but it made us want it even more. Now here we are living our dream and we will always remember how much we had to go through to get it and we will never take it for granted because of that.

If this story could present one point- I hope that it is -most things do not happen because of luck. Most “lucky” people put a lot into what they are so “lucky” to have. I don’t consider myself lucky, I consider myself as being really dedicated to making something happen that I want- this story shows that dedication, although sometimes really tough to get through- pays off.

So now on with the stories of the adventure and the pay off. . .

We drop Lola off at our friend’s house; borrow their car; call our dealership and find they cannot check the car until the next afternoon; find another Mazda dealership and head there. In the rain/sleet, Mark is driving with no windshield wipers and gets lost trying to find the dealership. He calls them about 10 times for directions (none of which get us there) and finally, after everything that happened up to this point, flips his lid! He pulls over into a CVS parking lot, grabs a poor little sapling tree in the median, screams profanities at the top of his lungs and proceeds to strangle and kick the crap out of it as if the tree had just said something bad about in mom. Some poor man gets our of his car, notices Mark’s tirade and my laughing at Mark, and begins to slowly back into the CVS door with a look of sheer terror on his face. It was incredibly ridiculous.

I get Mark’s phone and call the dealership for the address and tell him to turn on the navigation . . . Hello! We finally find the dealership, drop off the car and they tell us the motor is burned out and they do not have the part. They will try to overnight it and have the windshield wiper motor repaired by the next day’s afternoon-suck! We needed the car the next day to go to a dentist appointment, then, to drive to Charlotte (3 hrs drive) to visit Mark’s grandmother and then, on to Greensboro to see my Dad and Aunt (because our family farewell dinner was cancelled due to our leaving on our trip early because of the freaking snow). Guess we will just have to borrow our friend’s car again (thank god they are awesome and don’t mind).

We go back to the house and try to get our flight changed to Thursday or Friday (nope, $600 to change/cancel our flight that cost us only $160 makes sense right? I guess it did to the backward crooked airline, so we just won’t show up). We look at the trains $300 for 22hrs to Miami (from which our flight to Buenos Aires leaves). Then, we look at rental cars – $80. The cheapest form of transportation we could find and in the form of a Chrysler convertible (serendipity? That’s what we thought. Maybe karma felt bad and was trying to throw us another bone? Not so much as you will read later). We decided to drive to Tampa, stay with my sister from Friday to Sunday and she would drive us to Miami airport on Sunday (yep, during the Super Bowl).

Wednesday February 3rd-
Wednesday February 3rd-
Mark has a phobia about dentists and can only go to the dentist with prophylactic pain killers. So, I put a drugged up Mark in our friends’ car and head to the dentist for Mark to have 7 cavities filled. Drop him off and HR block finally calls and tells me they will try to have our taxes done. I go pick up some vitamins the Vet told us Lola needed and head back to the dentist to pick up Mark. Oh, meanwhile we were test running the whole transferring money thing- didn’t work- the money was not allowed to be transferred from those particular accounts, although we were told it would be fine. I call and take care of that while at the dentist. About $2000 later, with a drugged up Mark,
I head back to Cary to drop him off and hopefully, pick up our Mazda, and onward to Charlotte. No, no, no! The Madza dealership calls (when they had told me the car would be finished) to tell me the part never came in and the repair wouldn’t be done until the next day. Awesome, now what? At this point it is about 3pm. We borrow our friends car yet again and head to Greensboro (1 hr drive) and forget about Charlotte because there is no way we can make it there and back in a decent amount of time. We planned to go see the family in Greensboro, then make it back to Raleigh in time for drinks at one of our favorite bars with a few friends. We start off by running about an hour late, held up by a hungry drugged up husband fixated with gas station snacks and coffee. We end up not having much time to visit. We leave Greensboro an hour after we are supposed to be at a bar in Raleigh! Head back, thankfully we have very, very patient friends who waited for us to arrive. We have drinks and head home.

We went to start up the old truck and realized the battery was dead! Okay, take a deep breath- let’s just take the battery out and go to AutoZone, get it charged and bring it back. . .Oh yeah all our tools have been given away or are packed in our storage unit. Um, okay let’s ask the maintenance guy if he has a wrench (who had miraculously appeared) if he had a wrench. Even with your lack of luck, fate will sometimes throw you a bone. We removed the battery, charged it, bought it back, started up the truck, packed it full of the stuff we were giving to our friends who own the truck and dropped it at their apartment.

Then we took the Mazda back over the apartment and began loading up the rest of our belongings as the sun set. A few heavy items were left so Mark drove the Mazda behind our apartment in a courtyard and proceed to spin himself into a ditch. I was packing the last few items and heard a ‘ruuuummmmm’ over and over. . .thought to myself “that’s my husband getting stuck in the snow, awesome”! I go out into the darkness to be greeted by any angry man so frustrated veins are about to explode off his bulging neck. A few profanities later, after placing trash (pizza boxes) from the recycle bin under the tires, and spewing mud all over ourselves, we gave up.

The feeling in my toes began to fade away after one and one half hours of trying to push, rock, or do anything to get the car out of the 48 hours of snow that had fallen (chuck Taylor and flip flops were the only forms of footwear I had left- no so great in snow). One of our neighbors and his friends came to assist and pushed us to freedom. We are out of the snow and Mark says “should I try to bring the car in from the other side? It may not get stuck there. Be serious- NO! I will carry everything in the slippery snow before I go through that again. We park the Mazda and decide to finish the move the next morning.

Monday February 1st-
The next morning we woke up and cleaned the apartment. Friends came by to pick up the rest of the stuff, our apartment manager came in to show the apartment as we were cleaning, we locked it up; paid the rent for February; and headed to Cary with Lola in tow.

The car, full of stuff that was supposed to be picked up by my mom on Friday, now had to emptied into our friend’s cars and house because we weren’t sure when my mom could get a flight out of New York City due to the upcoming blizzard. We moved everything over and tried to get in touch with our accountant to see if he had finished our taxes (turns out the office was closed the whole weekend and was still closed-not good since we had pushed our leaving date to Thursday to try and get out before the snow). Exhausted we crashed in preparation for the next day’s schedule.

Once we got everything inside we started up the truck, now covered in about an inch of snow, and began to drive. A few minutes later the windshield seemed to be a little harder to see through. We realized the wipers on the old truck had lived much beyond their years. The windshield quickly turned into a solid sheet of ice with about a millimeter opening in which to glare though intensely while managing to not wreck the truck as cars were sliding all over the highway. We arrived back at our apartment safely. Luckily I had the foresight to grab a pot and pan from the kitchen box before leaving the storage unit. With our bed and television in the living room (nothing else was left) we relaxed for a couple of moments before I made dinner. Mushroom gnocchi, Greek salad, and grilled chicken. I went to serve it and found that all I had was a Tupperware container and its lid to serve as plates and only large serving spoons for utensils. As we laughed we grabbed a bottle of Italian wine that I had saved for 5 years for a special occasion. If I could think of the perfect moment to drink the wine- a freak North Carolina snowstorm the weekend you are moving was definitely it. Went to grab a wine tool, but all we had was a steak knife and a plastic monkey cup- puurfect! Amused we sat down on the bed with our dinner and watched a movie in the living room.

Saturday January 30th-
The next morning we drove through the snow with Lola loaded up in the back of the sliding Mazda (front wheel drive is no good in the snow/ice) and went to the Harris Teeter/Starbucks to visit our friend Knew (the manager at Starbucks- so she had to be there in any weather condition). We got some beer, cream, and coffee to hold us over for the rest of our snowed in stint. As we had coffee with her I mentioned that the situation wasn’t so bad- in North Carolina it never snows like this 2 weeks in a row. So at least we were getting it out of the way the weekend before our flight. Mark responded “really, did you really just say that out loud, knock on wood now.” We went back home and checked the weather channel and what do ya know- calling for snow/sleet wintery mix Thursday, Friday and Saturday for the next weekend (the weekend we planned to fly out). Frustrated we thought about packing the rest of our stuff, then realized we didn’t have any more boxes and decided not to test our luck driving through the mess for some cardboard. We ended up having cheddar cheese and tortillas with spinach dip for lunch and dinner, laying around in our pjs all day, not accomplishing anything (which is why snow days suck and rock all at the same time). We made sure to send out a message that the show we were supposed to be going to as a farewell party was still on, but we wouldn’t be there (why chance driving in the snow, or taking a taxi home and not being able to get back to our car, or there not being any taxis to take).

I am splitting this post into days because I do not want to overwhelm or neglect any amusing details.

Weeks prior to our departure and the plan-

We were finishing up at our jobs (big thanks to everyone that took us out or threw parties). We were both attempting to squeeze in as much work as possible to add to the trip fund, which left us packing/moving (what we had thought would be) the week before we left (mother nature didn’t like that schedule).

The weekend of January 28th,we were planning on going to a farewell party and show at Poor House and listening to a band we liked and while saying goodbye to our friends. That Sunday, we were going to have another sort of farewell dinner with a few other people and go rock out some karaoke. In the midst of this, we were planning to pack our apartment; move part of it to a storage unit; with part of our belongings going to friend’s houses and part our families’ houses. We were supposed to be out of our apartment by the 1st of February. We planned to then spend the week with our awesome friends Billy & Alicia (who are taking care of our dog Lola) and try to gradually get Lola used to living with them and their adorable dogs. My mom was flying down from NYC on Friday. She had planned a family farewell dinner on the Saturday night before we were to fly out. Oh yes, and we needed to get our taxes done; take Lola to the vet for a round of shots; give my mom our car full of stuff; and take Mark to the dentist to have 7 (yes 7!) cavities filled (oh- and he has to be put under to go to the dentist).

What actually happened is in the next few post. . .

Major factors to consider:

1. Are we leaving anything behind (to come back to). I would not have done this because I am pretty irrational about some things. I see most things as “all or nothing”. Normally, as soon as I had enough saved to travel, I would have been outta here. Fortunately, I have Mark, who is responsible, rational, and sometimes right about things. So we have savings that we are leaving behind- hoping we have some stability/ way to survive when we come back to the states.

-The question is what to do with this money:

a. Invest in high-risk , high-yield stocks so when we get back we have tons of extra money, or come back to nothing at all.
b. Leave the money in a slow earning money market savings account- earns about 2% per year, but you will not lose any money no matter what.

What we did: We thought about giving our savings to a Stock Broker, investing in low risk stocks, and put a small amount in high-risk stocks, hoping to make a little money. But, if you read our post Sell vs. Rent: Why we sold our house in the midst of one of the biggest housing crashes in US history you know how well our “quick money” ideas work out for us, so we decided against the high-risk option. Once you take away the high-risk yield from the equation, the low risk options wouldn’t make us much more than a money market savings account (NO RISK) around 2%, which we already have opened. I know it’s not much, but it’s a little something, we don’t have to open a new account, and its free. We just leave our money in the bank while we are gone and make money for letting the bank borrow from us!

2. What form you are going to take the money for the trip

-Are you going to use a Debit Card?

We are taking a debit card that earns points when it is run as credit. If we do use this card, it will only be in situations where we feel totally comfortable (for example buying a flight at an airport, at a high-end hotel/resort, etc). To cover our butts (from someone having access to all our money) in case any fraud does happen, we are spreading our money out into multiple bank accounts. This way if one account has weird activity going on, there is only a small amount of money that could be lost, not our entire savings.

- Are you going to use one bank account?

As eluded to in the question above, in order to protect ourselves from being totally wiped out if there is an occurrence of fraud, we are spreading our money out in separate accounts. One, that we will use regularly will have a limited amount of money, the others will have the rest of the money split up.


- Are you going to take a credit card?

Yes, after much research into the best credit card for travelers we came to an interesting decision. To not get travel rewards credit card. For us it didn’t make much sense. Once you tack on the annual fees, the daily compounded interest on the account (they add interest to the amount you owe, every day that you owe that money, not every week or month, every single day! Say you buy something that is $5, you are charged interest on that purchase the next day, then the next day you are charged interest on the $5 & the interest they charged you the day before; you end up paying interest on interest), and international transaction fees not getting a new card outweighs, monetarily, the reward points that you earn. If you feel like you still want a rewards card the best I found were the Capital One Rewards Card, American Express Rewards Card/British Airways Card (which the offer is now over for) For example- Capital One Rewards Card looked like the best deal, it advertised-

1. No annual fee
2. 0% APR for 1 year-

The catch, after 1 year the variable interest rate skyrockets (* just for anyone who hasn’t had a card like this before, you still have to pay a monthly fee and whatever balance isn’t paid after the 12 months 0% time period, they back track and charge interest on what you still owe for that entire year, as if you created an interest owed savings account and piled all the interest up for the end of the year!!! So any purchases on the card from the 0% period needs to be entirely paid off before the period is up.)

3. 0% international transaction fee
4. Online account management
5. No blackout dates on points
6. No restrictions on points
7. For every $1 spend you earn 1 point.

The catch- to redeem points, you multiply the cost of a flight by 100. So, for a $200 flight you have to use 20,000 points which translates to you spending $20,000!!! Even if we did end up spending that much on the card, where will $200 get us (maybe to NYC from NC and back for $20,000)! In addition, you have to have impeccable credit (and apparently be a homeowner) to get this card. Is it worth it to get this card considering the fact that every capital one review is horrible and some customers talk about the companies fraud, worrying about another card, the interest rate that will kick in? Oh and by the way, if you make one late monthly payment, they can take away all of the perks listed above with one felt swoop, then you are stuck with a crappy new card that they hassle (I know no-hassle, not so much) you about closing. We didn’t think so, we stuck with the credit card we have, a MasterCard that earns the same points, with 1% international fee, no annual fee, no blackout dates. We already had this card. For most people out there, if you have a current credit card, good credit, you have paid on time, and your cradit card company offers card with rewards, if you speak with your credit card company they will upgrade you to a rewards card for FREE! No need to get an additional card.

We will also have a visa debit card from one of our banks in case we run into issues with people not accepting MasterCard. Side note: I tried to get the Capital One Card and was denied because I am not a homeowner! Funny to me because back in 2003 capital one issued me a card without me even applying (I was 19 year old, a hostess at a restaurant, and lived in a $300 a month apartment). It took 3 months for them to close the account and only because I told them that this was fraud! I never opened a card with them. I am not sure what is going on with the Credit Card industry, but I guess being a homeowner is the only way to get a credit card these days. After my denial, I felt lucky, I realized that we are better off without Capital One or getting another card. When I called to ask them why I was denied I spent 30 minutes being redirected by a computer before I actually spoke to a human who then told me they couldn’t tell me, I would get a letter in 4 weeks!

The only other card that looked good for travel rewards was an American Express card. We didn’t go with this card because American Express is not as widely accepted as Visa or MasterCard for a variety of reasons, but the main one being that they charge higher transaction fees to vendors.

When I started accepting credit card payments for my artwork (My Truck Leroy), I opted out from accepting American Express, because it was an additional monthly fee and higher transaction fees.

When is comes to bank accounts- HSBC claims to be the bank of the world, offering the best options and most banks all for travelers. After a little research they charge higher international transaction fees than our regular banks. Even if you go to one of the own banks in another country you have a 3% transaction fee. Pretty crazy because our banks allow you to go to any bank in the world and charge only a 1% transaction fee. Moral of the story-Don’t believe the Hype. Ready the small print!

- One important note: Do take either credit or debit cards with 2 different credit card companies. For example take a Visa and a MasterCard or an American Express and a Visa. Do this just in case a vendor doesn’t accept one of the companies’ payments or if you lose or damage a card, you will still have a back-up card.

- How much cash?

a. This is a good question. We are only taking small bits of cash. Mark will be guest spotting and we will live off with that cash. If we know we are going somewhere he is not working, we will go into an actual bank and request the funds from a teller.

- Travelers Checks?

Travelers Checks are for Grandmas.

Summary:

-READ THE FINE PRINT.

- Make sure to put any saving you are leaving behind in (at minimum) a Money Market Savings account. It will earn free money while you are away.

- Don’t put all you eggs in one basket. Spread your savings out to different accounts so if a crook gets a hold of one account your savings is still safe.

- Take two forms of credit card- like a Visa and a MasterCard or an American express and a Visa. Do this in case one of the cards isn’t accepted somewhere or use the card as a back up in case something happens to your other card.

- It is pretty easy to find a bank in major/hub cities. Take the small (compared to the length of your trip) time to go inside the bank and have the teller take out cash.

- Get travelers checks if you’re Grandmother will be meeting you or backpacking with you.