Saturday, June 20, 2009

First week back, surprise surprise, I'm depressed

For the past month, I was looking forward to coming back home, seeing my family and friends, and to start working again and putting some money in the bank. However, I arrived into LA extremely bummed, dare I say, depressed, about being back. "But Daniel, you said on several occasions you were the happiest man alive, what happened?" What happened is I came back to the reality of a box full of mail that included IRS notices (yikes!) renewal notices for ten million magazines (Yoga Magazine, how did I get on THAT list?) and a jury summons or two, not to mention being unemployed and putting on a suit (A SUIT for crissakes!) and interviewing for a job. To go from over a year of making new and interesting friends everyday, seeing and experiencing new things and countries, and just having nothing to look forward to except for the next adventure to this, well, this is no fun:

From back home


So, what did a couple of my friends do? They invited me out for dinner one evening, and they knew I had been travelling through Central America and South America for the past six months. One of the last things I wanted to eat was rice and beans. Well, guess where they took me? A Central American restaurant, complete with rice and beans, and get this, a live mariachi band! I couldn't help but laugh at the situation. I mean, after eating rice and beans for about six months, I came back to LA for more rice and beans.

I was also used to speaking Spanish everyday since December when I first arrived into Argentina, so during my first dinner back with my family, I accidentally started a few conversations in Spanish! Grandpa would ask me in Chinese, "How was your trip?" I responded, "Bueno, para... I mean..." and then revert to my broken Chinese. My mom asked me something and I answered, "Si, pero... I mean...." Who knows how much longer this is going to last. But, my English is getting gooder these days.

I also interviewed with a few companies already. I knew I lost weight on this trip, so I decided to put on the first suit I ever bought for myself coming right out of college. Not only did it fit, the pants were a bit loose! 11 years after graduating from college, and my suitpants didn't fit because they were too BIG, not too small... who would have thought? It also took me a good fifteen minutes to get my tie on right. It was just really weird to have gone from my daily outfit of shorts and flip flops to a suit and tie with an ironed (gasp!) shirt and polished black dress shoes.

Here's an interesting Welcome Back to LA story. I went to a bar Friday night with my buddy and roommate Calvin, and I bought the first round since it was the least I could do after he pretty much handled all the odds and ends for me while I was away. I took out a $20 bill, prepared to pay (and expecting change actually,) when the nice pretty bartender told me it was... $26! She looked at me kinda surprised, like, "Where have you been, hello this is LA!" I looked at her kinda surprised, like, "Where the hell am I, freakin Norway??!!" After travelling through South and Central America, land of $1 beers and $1.5 cocktails (if that) it was a rude awakening. Needless to say, I didn't buy Calvin any more drinks that night.

We had a nice big family BBQ as well. It was nice to catch up and see everybody whom I hadn't seen for over a year. For those of you who don't know my family, well, we are a bit crazy. One of my older cousins drank so much she puked. Oh yeah, she's a mother of two. And yeah, they were there too. We just all kept eating and playing poker as if nothing happened, because that kind of stuff is just par for the course in the Lew family.

From back home

I have been suffering from some major travel bug withdrawals, so I booked a flight out to see my older sister and my awesome nephews in the Bay Area. It's not Colombia or Guatemala, or any new and exciting country, but at the very least, I am getting back on the plane again. I'm already feeling better just typing that last sentence!

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Concluding in Colombia: Coke in Ciudad Perdida, Chillin at the Cartagena Hilton

Well, it has been one helluva ride, eh?

I cannot tell you how many times I have been sitting on an bus, or lying in a hammock, or eating at some restaurant and thinking about all the great experiences I have gone through and simply just smiled from ear to ear. It is a feeling I wish everybody can experience and convinced that if you reflect on things like this at least once a day in your life, serenity is yours and nobody can ever take that from you.

I ended up meeting back up with Carol, who I met back in Bocas Del Toro, Panama and we decided to travel to Colombia together for a couple of weeks. Our first stop was Barranquilla, where there honestly was not a single thing to do or see really. Now I know why Shakira's hips don't lie-- I'd be a pretty good belly dancer too if I lived in Boringquilla! After a couple of nights there, we headed out to Santa Marta. Our second night, we met up with another friend of mine I had travelled with back in Brasil, Itamar (Israel). It was good to catch up with him on his travels over a few beers while watching the Lakers beat the Nuggets.

We decided to head out to Ciudad Perdida, a pretty grueling six-day 52 km (32 mi) hike through varying altitude changes and INTENSE heat and humidity. The mosquitoes pretty much had an all-you-can-eat buffet for the 7 of us throughout the trek. There were two German girls, Sandra and Carmen, who ended up in pretty bad shape-- getting the stomach flu and attacked by ten million mosquitoes. (pics up shortly) There was also Thomas from Switzerland, who ironically enough, carried a fake Swiss Army knife and his girlfriend, Valerie from Seattle.

Ciudad Perdida is sort of like a poor man's Macchu Picchu, much smaller, less "discovered" ruins and consequently, way less tourists. Every once in awhile during the day we would cross paths with no more than two groups of less than 10, so it was nice not having to battle through crowds. I had no expectations really about what I was going to see once I got there, but the truth was, the actual trek itself was pretty amazing. Crossing rapid rivers, climbing slippery moss-covered rock faces, stomping up over 1300 steps to get up to the City, and going to sleep amidst the light of fireflies (!) was uniquely different from my experience in Peru. I even had the opportunity to drink pure rain water, as well as natural spring water cascading down waterfalls, two things I had not done up until now!

One of the funnier things that occurred during this trip was on our fourth day, when I was walking down a relatively narrow trail with Carmen and Sandra. We encountered a family of about eight or nine grazing cows, two of which were young baby calves. Carmen just walked right past them, even though one of the bigger cows (probably the father of one of the babies) tried to headbut Carmen's hiney, just narrowly missing her. Sandra and I were a bit spooked by this, so we decided to backtrack a bit and wait for the herd to go by. However, Sandra, with her two left feet, accidentally kicked loose a huge rock that rolled down the trail and made enough noise to gain the unwanted attention of the entire family of cows. Let me tell ya, being on that narrow trail with a bunch of cows all staring at you is not something I would wish upon anybody. I missed the Running of the Bulls, but I think I got a good enough experience here to make up for it. I, nor Sandra, did not move or say a word for what felt like an eternity, but luckily, no stampede occurred. The cows cautiously/nervously walked past us, and Carmen snapped a picture of me and Sandra up against the trail. Will update this blog as soon as she sends it over but it's a classic!



I also learned, during this hike, about the cocaine manufacturing process. For example, that it takes about 1,000 kgs of coca leaves to make just 1 kg of pure cocaine. I also did not know that as part of the process, gasoline, acetone, and sulfuric acid are key components. I never tried cocaine before in my life, and never will. Knowing how to make it with such poisonous ingredients only reconfirms this belief.

After six days of trekking through the hot jungle with dirty, wet (never dried due to the humidity) and smelly clothes, sleeping in stinky hammocks, and taking cold baths in the river, it was a welcome relief to check into the Hilton Cartagena. Normally, the rates are about $300/night, but since I had some points I had saved up, it was completely free! Upon check-in, I took an hour-long hot bubble bath, then a long hot shower, and proceeded to pass out in my queen-sized bed under a nice white soft duvet for a good 12 hours. Ahhhhh, the lap of luxury! After over a year of travelling in hostels, staying at the Cartagena Hilton was definitely a nice way to wrap up my trip.

I will be coming back to Los Angeles on June 17th, and have a couple of job interviews lined up already (yikes!) since I am completely. dead. broke. For those of you who have been reading my blog, I will continue to write (though probably less frequently.) I thought about this at great length, whether to wrap this up or continue writing. What I have found is that my trip around the world will continue in spirit. Whether it be visiting travel buddies in the future, or staying in touch via email/Skype/Facebook, my trip will not end. My daily ear-to-ear smiles guarantee that it won't.