In Defense of Bragging

No one likes a braggart.

No one really wants to hear how amazing your life is, how happy you are, how incredible is whatever it is that you are doing. Good news is rarely interesting.

The problem, of course, is that sometimes there is no bad news. Sometimes life is just f-cking extraordinary and gives you one good thing after another. Sometimes things are perfect.

But no one wants to hear about those times.

No one wants to hear about the tiny, undeveloped tropical island off the coast of Cambodia, where we spent ten perfect, peaceful, relaxing days living in a bungalow on the beach. No one wants to know that it was the paradise everyone looks for- but rarely finds- when they book a holiday at a beach resort. They don’t want to hear that ours was the only establishment on an island with no cars, no crowds, no internet or TV- no distractions or disturbances of any kind. That the resort, at capacity, only housed around 50 people at a time and that we never shared the place with more than about 30 other guests, often half that. That the only sound day and night was the crashing of waves and the wind rustling through the palm and pine trees that lined the beach. No one wants to know that the soft, golden sand of the same beach was nearly always empty, that the turquoise water was as clear and warm as a kiddie pool, that when the sea wasn’t as smooth and calm as glass, it had rolling waves that were perfect for body surfing.

Rider on the storm...

People don’t want to hear that our rustic, private bungalow had a heart-stopping view of the sea, which we would gaze at from the two hammocks on our porch. That we shared the whole peaceful scene under our thatched roof with nothing more disruptive than a few innocuous geckos. That we slept with our door open every night to let in the sea breeze and woke up to that view, that postcard perfect view, at our feet every morning. They are not interested to hear that day in and day out, the most stressful thing we had to do was decide what to choose from the menu of the impressive restaurant. That I didn’t put on a pair of shoes, or pants, or a watch, for a week and a half. That it was easily the most perfect, relaxing getaway I’ve ever experienced- positively luxurious in its simple, uncomplicated rusticity.

Gary the Gecko, our bungalow's mascot

Gary keeping me company in our bathroom

I pretty much didn't leave that spot for 10 days

A classic, mostly ineffective, way to kid oneself into thinking one isn’t bragging is to shift focus on the negative aspects of an experience to downplay the positive: “Yeah, I won the lottery, but it was only 20 million, and you know, after taxes it’s really not that much.”

So I’ll give that tactic a try: our bungalow was very basic. Generator-powered electricity only after 6:00pm, no hot water or fan, toilets you had to flush manually with a bucket of water. The tap water came from a nearby stream, so drinking water had to come from bottles (although we ended up drinking the filtered stream water that the local staff was drinking). The wooden beams of the bungalow wall were spaced enough to let any number of bugs in- we slept under a mosquito net and counted on our resident geckos to keep our home spider-free. It rained a little bit, forcing us in off the beach to drink wine, play Scrabble and wait for the clouds to pass. And at $40 a night, it was the most expensive place we have stayed in since arriving in Asia.

So, you know, it really wasn’t all that great.

Only it was.

In a previous post, I apologized for abruptly neglecting my blogging duties for a week and a half without warning. Now you know why. We arrived on the island with the plan to stay for four days. Four turned to five, which turned to seven. On the sixth day, the manager offered us two free nights, so our four day mini-vacation turned into ten days of languishing denial that we would eventually have to leave.

The same manager has tentatively offered us a job there in October.

Nepal or Lazy Beach? We have a decision to make…

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Into the Bush

And no, that isn’t a TMI reference to our woefully inept grooming habits these days…

We are currently on yet another road trip in yet another camper van, only this time in what the Australians somewhat dismissively called “the bush,” that is, any even remotely rural area that isn’t the Outback. This particular “bush” refers to the forests, fields and small towns that line Australia’s East Coast.

We started in Brisbane and are slowly but surely making our way up the coast in a camper that pales in comparison to our trusty Chunk from New Zealand. 

Sad little Vincent in our sad little camper

It looks spacious, but that is an illusion, my friend.

We are getting by regardless, largely because in the place of the below-freezing temperatures in New Zealand, we have the positively summery weather of northern Australia. Instead of retreating to Chunk as soon as the sun goes down to burrow under our covers and eat hot soup, we can spend the evenings sitting outside in our wobbly camping chairs, drinking local rum from plastic cups and enjoying the stunning views of all of the mobile-homing retirees (they call them the “gray nomads”) in our camp sites. Very romantic, as you can imagine.

We have only been at it for a few days, but already we have learned a valuable lesson:

Australia is big.

This isn’t snug New Zealand, where every bend in the road hides another unique, usually breathtaking, landscape. Where we could average two hours of driving a day and still manage to see most of the country in three weeks. No, this is a massive country- all of Western and Central Europe fits easily within its borders- and that simple fact has serious implications for the road trip-inclined.

Isn't little Europe adorable?

Basically, we have to accept that given the limited time we have (two-ish weeks), we are able to see only a tiny fraction of the country: no Outback, no Uluru, no West Coast, no Melbourne. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t covering some serious ground. In two weeks, we will have driven well over 1,200 miles, which doesn’t seem enormous until you consider that the entire drive is on a curvy, congested, two-lane highway, which is the only kind available north of Brisbane. For all of the noise made about the veritable menagerie of lethal beasties in Australia- the country famously has more creatures that can kill you than anywhere else on earth- it is the roads here that have us quaking in our Crocs.

Vincent ain't scared.

Luckily, Australia’s beauty and singularity make up for the long driving times. Despite the fact that we have managed to take exactly one picture in the last five days, the views out our camper windows are very often lovely, in a bushy kind of way. What's more, the tropical, northern weather is a delight and we are able to spend our non-driving hours hanging out on one of the East Coast’s long, sandy beaches. Granted, our beach time is usually spent doing weird little exercises to ward off the chub (think awkward leg lifts and arm rotations), but hey, it’s still beach time.

The Bush, aka a bunch of Eucalyptus trees

In addition to the wonderful coastal scenery, our drive has also allowed us the opportunity to view some of Australia’s iconic flora and fauna, namely, more Eucalyptus trees than you can shake a koala at and a few kangaroos. Admittedly, the only kangaroos we saw were dead on the side of the highway, but that small detail didn’t damper our excitement in the least. On the contrary, actually. You can see live kangaroos in zoos all over the world, but only in Australia can you see them dead on the side of the road.

You see, kangaroos to Australians are a little like deer to Missourians: an over-populated, if lovable, road hazard. They are everywhere, especially at night when they are most active, and their habit of jumping out into the road the moment they see oncoming headlights borders on suicidal (or homicidal, if you consider the traffic statistics.) The danger they present is so prevalent that most insurance companies won’t ensure collisions with the bouncy marsupials after nightfall. Since I don’t have a picture of a live kangaroo- or a dead one, for that matter- here’s a picture of me being creeped out by some aggressive possums.

So until we actually see a live kangaroo, we will entertain ourselves with some of the other, lesser-known wonders of Australian life. The following, in no particular order, is a list of some of the more fascinating things we’ve learned about the Land Down Under in the past few weeks.

•          Australians make a damn good coffee. Seriously, here and in New Zealand we have found the best coffee we’ve both ever had. Sorry France and Italy, but the Aussies have you beat with the combination of excellent quality and an almost American regard for variety and personal preference.  It took us a few tries to figure out how to order: long or short black, flat white, skinny, baby-cino, etc. - but once we got the hang of it, we have managed to find consistently great coffee everywhere we go (barring the instant shit we are drinking in our camper van, which doesn’t even come equipped with what the Australians call a “plunger,” or what the rest of the world calls a French press.)

•          Australians really do say “mate.” Like, in every sentence. And “g’day”! Also, let the record show that I have seen several men wearing wide-brimmed, leather bush hats and even one guy wearing one with work boots and shorts, like some bad-ass love child of Crocodile Dundee and Steve Erwin. Nice one, mate.

•          Aside from the mind-bogglingly ancient Aboriginal culture, Australia’s history is really recent. This, coming from an American whose own country is essentially an over-achieving teenager compared to Europe or Asia, should give you an idea of how obvious Oz’s newness is. Consider that the country’s very first settlement (Sydney) was started in 1788 (by a bunch of convicts sent from England, no less), that its constitution dates back only to 1901, and that its largest wave of immigration has been just in the past fifty or so years, and you realize that Australia’s modern history really isn’t that extensive. That’s not to say it isn’t important or interesting, it’s just a shock when we talk to people who mention their “ancestors” from England or Ireland only to find out that they are actually referring to their grandparents.

•          Australia is surprisingly cosmopolitan- well, surprising to me anyway. It’s a country of immigrants, much like the US, but the newness of that immigration, coupled with the fact that Australia is closer geographically to Asia than anywhere else, makes the country a really interesting mix of backgrounds and cultures. There’s definitely a distinct Australian culture (see: “bush hats” above), but the Aussies are also admirably open to other cultures. Asian take-aways are as prevalent as the ubiquitous, and undeniably English, fish and chips shops, while American films compete with le cinema Français in the movie theaters. It’s an inspiring mix and gives the country more layers of culture than we expected.

•          Australia isn’t all dry, barren Outback! I don’t know, I guess with the whole “Red Continent” thing, I expected Australia to be an only slightly more habitable version of Mars. But in fact, the north part of the country, including where we are now, is positively tropical! I’m talking exotic fruits, rainforests and sugar cane plantations- which just so happens to also mean locally made rum. High five.

•          Lastly- and this comes as a surprise to absolutely no one- the Australians are so nice. Really, they are. Outside of New Zealand and the American Midwest, you won’t find a more friendly, open, willing-to-start-a-conversation-with-strangers people than the Aussies. It’s not only wonderfully comforting and helpful, but it’s also from them that we learned all of the above.

So, thanks mates. 

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Heaven is in Chile (but so are Earthquakes)

It’s times like these that we feel guilty.

Backpacking is supposed to be uncomfortable. It’s supposed to be difficult. We should be in a run-down hostel in a nasty part of some third world city, right?

Instead, we found ourselves in a tiny Chilean fishing village renting a studio apartment with a massive balcony high on a cliff over the Pacific Ocean. 

I'll just throw it out there now: this post might contain a lot of bragging.

And this after three relaxing, fun days in Santiago, basking in the hospitality of our friend Devin, a buddy from Columbia who has been living in Chile for two years. I’ll cover our time in Santiago in a later post, as we are going back there again this weekend.

For now, I want to wax poetic about Valparaiso and brag about our stay in Heaven, I mean, Horcon.

From Santiago, we jumped on a bus heading to Chile’s 2,700 mile (4,300 km) long coast. More specifically, we went to the city of Valparaiso.

A few months ago, we met an American guy, a travel writer (lucky bastard…), who had fallen in love with Valparaiso and told us to spend as much time there as we could. Apparently he had found a welcoming home in a nice hostel there and stayed for two weeks. He told us about eating local fish every day, drinking too much wine on the hostel's patio at night; there had been a girl- you know how that can be- and the city for him was as its name implies: paradise.

Our time there was less paradisaical, but still interesting enough. 

First off, it’s a genuinely cool city. Think of Valparaiso as that hippy girl who is actually average-looking, but whose cool, quirky personality makes her seem really pretty. She is nice to look at, but more for her unique style and colorful airs than for her aesthetic beauty. She’s natural, and as a result, can be a little dirty, even stinky at times, but somehow that rawness only makes her more attractive.

Beyond the cheesy metaphors, Valparaiso is a coastal city that flows up into the hills just beyond the port in a colorful, crazy, jumbled wave of brightly-painted houses and buildings. Ugh- why can’t I stop writing in metaphors?!

Just a random salsa band playing professional renditions of Buena Vista Social Club songs on a sunny Wednesday morning in Valparaiso.

For us, the few days we spent in Valpo (as the much-cooler-than-us locals call it) was defined by two things: graffiti and an earthquake.

First, the graffiti. Valparaiso is covered in it. I’m not talking about small-minded, anti-establishment tags. You know, someone’s name scrawled sloppily in spray paint on the side of an historic monument as if writing in cursive makes it any less trashy. 


No, I’m talking about art. Intricate, creative, unique public art. Everywhere. I’ll let the pictures do the talking, but it was vibrant and intriguing and made the whole city come to life. 

Tell me you don't want to dance down those stairs. 

Now that's my kind of civil disobedience.

Did Dr. Seuss live in Valpo?

And as I said before, we had an something of an earthquake situation in Valparaiso.

We were in bed in our thankfully sturdy hostel and had just fallen asleep when there was a deep rumble all around us as our bed started shaking, waking us up immediately. The entire world was moving: the walls, the groaning doorframe, the rattling stain glass skylight right above our bed (Helloooo, safety hazard…). 


You all know by now that I’m a giant drama queen, so I’ll just say it: it felt like the world was ending.

It lasted about 30 seconds, which doesn’t sound that bad, but believe me, when you think you are going to die, 30 seconds is a LONG time. We were both just paralyzed, pinned to the bed with fear and confusion. I had vague ideas of getting under the bed or moving to the supposedly-more-stable doorframe, but instead I just lay there, frozen, repeatedly yelling, “Oh my god. Oh. My. GOD!” until the shaking finally stopped.  Heroic, I know.

We felt two aftershocks in the minutes following the quake (which ended up being a 6.8 on the Richter Scale) and those slight rumblings, coupled with my waning adrenaline, broke my nerves completely.

I cried.

Kind of a lot.

But enough about natural disasters, let me tell you about our little slice of heaven that we found after that!

To counterbalance Valparaiso’s craziness, we took a bus up the coast through a series of small towns until we came to Horcon, a tiny, tranquil, colorful fishing village with absolutely nothing to do that would attract any other tourists. We rented a studio on a cliff overlooking the ocean and were the only gringos in town.

It was what we had wanted Valparaiso to be: paradise. 

Horcon

The view down the coast from our balcony

Horcon was heaven. Every morning, we woke up to the sound of the waves below and to the view of those waves through the floor to ceiling window at the foot of our bed.

After coffee and breakfast on our balcony, we would meander down to the port to watch the fishing boats come in (and then be pulled up onto the beach by horses!), knowing that our dinner was aboard.

We bought the freshest shellfish from a beachfront fisherman’s shack and if we were feeling especially decadent (which we usually were), we would grab some seafood-stuffed empanadas and a cold beer from one of the nearby food stands before heading back home. Evenings were spent on our balcony and in the kitchen, cooking up and devouring our daily purchases.

We basically didn't move from here for four days.

A little too excited about his seafood feast

One of our few restaurant meals: Paila, a Chilean seafood stew

Basically, we did absolutely nothing besides eat seafood, sleep, and bliss out on our balcony. Actually, that's not true, we did go to a deserted beach one day, which was nice except that within 30 seconds of being there, I almost literally stumbled across the decaying corpse of a long-dead seal, half covered in sand and rotting in the sun. Charming. We ran back to the seal-free safety of our balcony soon after that.

Our four days in Horcon was perfection (minus the seal). It was like vacation, only instead of having to go back to work afterwards, we had to go to Easter Island.

I’m trying to think of something humble or negative to say to soften my bragging, but I got nothin'. 


Dead seal, anyone?

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-Uruguay. -No, you're a guay!*

*Actual conversation between Vincent and myself. This is what happens when you speak two different languages...

We didn't plan to go to Uruguay. It was never on our list, was never a place that interested us in the least. I couldn't even locate it on a map a month ago. But there it was, just an hour by boat from Buenos Aires.

And they had a beach there.

As yet another of our split-second decisions, we bought a boat ticket to Uruguay and booked a hostel in Colonia del Sacramento, a small town on the coast of the Rio Plata. While it pained me to leave Buenos Aires, a city I had fallen in love with and never wanted to say good-bye to, we never once regretted the two days we spent in Uruguay.

I can't even pretend to have gotten a feel for the country- we spent less than 48 hours there, spent nearly every waking hour on the beach and ate at a wine and cheese restaurant for dinner. But Colonia was a cute, well-maintained little colonial town with a historic center that looked like it hadn't changed in 200 years (except maybe for the wine and cheese restaurant...). It was all cobblestone streets, candy colored houses, whitewashed fences, sycamore-lined avenues and palm-shaded plazas. Sailboats bobbed in the harbor, a lighthouse towered over the center. A perfectly rusted one-speed bike leaned against a faded stucco cottage. It was f-cking adorable.

During the day, we went to a beach a mile out of town. It was a long, wide strip of fine sand, lined on one side by eucalyptus and pine trees and on the other by the wide opening of the Rio Plata where it meets the Atlantic. There were no waves, just an endless expanse of flat, clean brown water, reflecting tones of blue from the cloudless sky. Although it was fresh (not salty), the water rose and lowered with the tide. The beach was nearly empty- only a scattering of small groups of people here and there- and made for the perfect place to do nothing but relax in the sun and congratulate ourselves on finding this little paradise.

The second day, we rented bikes from our hostel to go to the beach. We were overjoyed at the cheap price of the rental until we saw the bikes: the only two models with any air in the tires were a gear-less road bike from the seventies with one pedal missing and a child's dirt bike.

Guess which one of us got the dirt bike.

I'm a pretty small person, but I'm not child-sized, and I spent the rest of the day peddling around with my knees in my armpits, legs splayed out like bat wings. On the up side, it was handy to be able to easily reach the ground with my feet, since my bike had no brakes to speak of.

On the boat ride back to Buenos Aires, we were a little regretful that we couldn't have extended our mini beach vacation a little longer. But we had a bus to catch the next day to Bariloche, in northern Patagonia, and we weren't able to change our tickets on such short notice. Such is the life of a backpacker. It's rough, but we persevere.

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