My 3 Best Kept Secrets

I was tagged by the really excellent blogger, Brooke of brookevstheworld, to do a blog about my 3 best travel secrets. Brooke's 3 Travel Secrets Go read her blog -- it is really good.

Here is what I've got to offer:

(1) Kindle (international edition). As those of you that have been reading my blog for some time know. . . I am a huge book addict. This trip has been great for having the time to rededicate myself to reading, having read somewhere around 40 books or so. The Kindle was a new addition, my parents got it for me for Christmas, and I wish I would have had it for the entire trip. Not only would it have far lessened the weight I have been carrying around on my back, since I usually have somewhere between 7-10 books in there, but the reason that is also the top of my list of travel secrets is something I had no idea about until I got it: free internet from almost anywhere in the world. You heard me right. Free internet. Not off wifi connections, which can be few and far between, but off whatever local cell phone reception you can get, which means you can get internet about anywhere. I have no idea how it is free, but this item is a must-bring for any long-term traveler.
(2) Lion’s Head. Cape Town is one of my new favorite big cities from this trip, along with Istanbul and Budapest. One of the iconic things about Cape Town is Table Mountain, which is the backdrop for almost every beautiful picture of this wonderful city, but frankly there is about no good reason to go up to the top of it. The best view of this incredibly attractive town is after the hike up to the top of the other mountain in town, Lion’s Head. It is a wonderful hike up and the 360-degree view from the top, of the harbor, Table Mountain, and the beaches, is not to be missed. Hike up early with some sandwiches, a bottle of wine and your Kindle and enjoy lunch up top.

From Capetown

(3) Cabo Polonia, Uruguay. I wrote a blog about my days at this great little village – for a longer explanation of why I thought it was a great travel secret goto Cabo Polonia. I think it qualifies as a legitimate travel secret, since I haven’t seen it emphasized in too many guidebooks. Basically it is a small beach town with no electricity, though some bars and restaurants have generators. It is cool, fun, and a great place to pass a few days away, when you want to just chill out.

so now I'm going to tag a few great bloggers to do there Top 3 Travel Secrets: Sherry Ott of Ottsworld Ottsworld and Jodi Ettenberg of Legal Nomads Legal Nomads and since I'm doing the RTW trip with no planes, partly for environmental reasons. . . traveling greener

Cabo Polonio, Uruguay

After hanging out for a few days in Montevideo, Uruguay’s somewhat sleep capital, I got talked into going to the tiny beach town of Cabo Polonio by a couple Aussies and a Kiwi. I had been hanging out with Liz, an Aussie, for a few days and she had heard about it from a couple other people when she was coming south from Brasil. The night before we left, we ran into Dave and Ben, each a chef from New Zealand and Australia respectively. We all had some beers at our hostel in Montevideo and they also said they had heard great things about Cabo Polonio and wanted to head there tomorrow.

That is basically how destination plans are made on the road, when you don’t make advance reservations. Intricate. Complicated. Well researched.

The three of them decided to leave on the 9 a.m. bus up the coast. I still had to pick up my Brasilian passport at the consulate sometime that morning, so I told them I would try to meet them there later than night or the next day.

I ended up managing to get a bus leaving at 1:30 that afternoon. It was supposed to take about four and a half hours, but because we made a number of additional stops, it ended up taking more like six hours. By the time we got to the bus stop, it was dark.

This normally wouldn’t be a problem at all, but Cabo Polonia is a bit of a unique destination. First, the bus doesn’t drop you off in town; it drops you off by the side of the highway at a gas station. From there, you are supposed to get a ride on a souped-up pickup truck with large tires capable of taking you over the sand dunes to the town, about 4-5 kilometers away. Second, there is almost no electricity at all in town – more on that in a second.

I knew both of these situations before I took off, but I was getting increasingly nervous after five hours or so that I might have missed my bus stop. At one of the stops, I got off and showed my destination on ticket to the bus driver unloading other passengers’ luggage. He didn’t speak English, but through hand signals, he assured me that my stop was still further down the road. My only other concern was whether the trucks ran people to the town from the gas station after dark. I assumed so, since there was scheduled bus service to there, but I wasn’t in the mood to sleep on a bench that night (or any night, really).

We got there, the bus driver called out “Cabo Polonio” loudly, smiling in my direction, and I hopped off the bus with another couple, which made me feel better about my chances of getting to town. It turns out that the truck service runs until 10 or 11 at night or so and there was a truck parked out front already half-loaded with others going to town. We bought our ticket, through our stuff into the truck bed, pulled ourselves up and got a seat.

The truck took off down a dirt/sand road towards the ocean. Through a guard station (its illegal for anyone to take any private vehicles out to the area, even residents) and then down series of roads through and past groves of trees and sand dunes. It was pitch-black, so the only things you could see were illuminated by the headlights of the truck. After ten minutes, the headlights provided a sight of the beach, accompanied sound of waves crashing.

Still not a light or building in sight. We drove down the beach for a bit and off in the distance you could see a lighthouse light sweeping around. Eventually, you also could see some small lights coming from what must have been buildings, about a dozen or so. As we got closer, some more lights became visible, but it was quite obvious this was going to be a different experience.

The truck eventually stopped in must have been the center of town, though you really couldn’t see a thing, because everyone got off. I had the name of the hostel that my friends were supposed to meet me at, but no idea of where it was in town. I asked the couple that had gotten on the truck at the same time as me whether they knew where they were staying tonight and they said they didn’t know. Some local approached the truck and told the couple that he had a place to stay (there are 3-4 small hostels here, but for the most part, you just rent one of the small houses from locals) and they turned to follow him. I was still asking people if they knew the way to the hostel I was looking for, Cabo Polonio Hostel. I asked the truck driver and he pointed off in the direction that the couple had walked off to.

Problem was that they had about a 50-yard head start and I couldn’t see them at all. I through my backpack on and took off at a fast walk trying to find them. . . and immediately tripped over a small little sand bump in front of me, face first into the ground, backpack somehow going up over my shoulders and head and almost pulling me over with it. An almost-full 180˚, with a half twist. The Russian judge only gave me a 6.2.

I got organized and took off after them again. My feet telling me I was walking down some sort of sand road. Hopefully able to remain upright. I caught sight of the local guy’s flashlight and caught up to them a few minutes later. The couple was looking at the local’s place (it turned out to be a small hostel) and I frantically went through my backpack with their flashlight looking for mine.

Knowing I was going to a town with no electricity, this item would have been a good one to put at the top of my pack. Once again, my planning skills shine.

The couple came back, said they were going to look at some other places, starting with the hostel next door. We walked over to the place and met the owner, a nice French-Canadian guy named Henri. There were 7-8 people, but none of my friends, eating dinner by candlelight on the front porch out front. As I continued to try to find my flashlight, the couple decided to move on. I asked Henri where the Cabo Polonio Hostel was and he said this was the place. As my friends weren’t there and the place looked much smaller than the pictures on the internet, I doubted it, but I needed to crash somewhere that night. I took a bed there for the night.

Henri showed me to my room and I dropped off my pack. I had finally found my flashlight by this point. He apologized and said that they had already cooked all the food for the night, so I couldn’t eat there, but there were some places to eat in town. He pointed off in the direction I came from and I walked back into the main part of town and found a spot to eat.

Though I had a flashlight, navigating even a small little town like in complete darkness was in interesting challenge on the way back, especially because I hadn’t had the chance to see the basic layout of everything during the day. I found my way back to the general location of the hostel and was guided the final bit of the way by the light of a television from the porch area.

Everyone was watching a movie playing on a 42 inch flat screen TV that was suspended over the end of the table by a jury-rigged system of ropes, tied into the ceiling. The TV was running on generator power and they were watching the DVD of “Wall-E.”

The next day, I woke up and stumbled out for breakfast. In the light of day, I verified that indeed this was the Cabo Polonio Hostel, as there was a large sign on the back side of the building proclaiming as such.

From Cabo Polonio

From Cabo Polonio

I think this means something like, "Freedom or Death."

I was the only one up and as I had coffee and toast with Henri, I complimented him on his place and told him I was surprised that he had a television here, since he didn’t have a regular source of power.

“O’. That’s not my TV.”
“Huh? Who’s is it?”
“Its Denis’ TV. One of the guests here. He brought it with him.”

Over the next couple days, I pieced the following together. Denis was from Montreal. The first time I asked him about the TV, he simply said he leaving in a few days and taking it back to Montreal for his kids. That confused me a little bit, because I didn’t figure that you would be able to get some great deal on televisions in South America – at least a deal worth carrying a large TV around with you on vacation.

I then figured that he was a regular visitor here, since he and the owner were French Canadian, and that knowing he was going to stay at this hostel for a few weeks, he just bought the TV at his last major town, so that they’d have some additional entertainment while here and then he’d just take it home, since he wanted a new TV back there anyway. So the next breakfast, I asked Henri if Denis was a friend of his from back home or a regular visitor.

“No. I have never met him before.” I asked what the story was about the TV. He said he wasn’t sure, but that Denis had showed up a couple weeks ago and after a day or two, asked if he could go back to his rental car and get his TV. He had been driving down to Uruguay from Brasil in a rental car and had the TV in the backseat. Henri told him that was fine and they then rigged up the rope harness for it. Henri didn’t know anything more than that. For what it is worth, he said he’d also never seen anything like it – though he didn’t seem nearly as intrigued as I was about this odd situation.

That might have something to do with Henri’s general outlook on life, probably best expressed each morning as we each began the day. We both started the day with coffee, toast and jam. He added to that hand rolling a good-sized morning joint, always nicely offering it to me after he took a few hits off it.

He was a very relaxed guy.

I had to ask Denis just a few more follow-up questions on the question of the TV. Later, I asked him when and where he had bought it. He looked at me strangely, as if the answer was obvious, and said “Montreal, about two years ago.” I thought it best to stop there, because I wanted to savor the incongruity of it all, without knowing for certain any more definite answers – though my imagination couldn’t have been any better than the reality.

He had brought a television down from Montreal for a couple month holiday in South America. He rented a car and didn’t have any definite plans on where he was going to go, but apparently he thought he might need a television somewhere along the way.

Luckily, he had stumbled upon Cabo Polonio. The road is rarely predictable and never boring.

From Cabo Polonio

The famous Canadian television.

From Cabo Polonio

The non-TV entertainment area.

So, if you want no distraction relaxation, Cabo Polonio is your spot, especially in the off-season, as when I was there. Here is a full list of your entertainment options during your stay here: work on a tan, walk on the beach, nap in a hammock, read, talk and drink. You can mix a few of those up and do them at the same time also.

At night, you can add to that list seeing more stars that you have ever seen in your lifetime – and maybe watching a movie on DVD, if there is a guy from Montreal visiting town.

During the Southern Hemisphere’s summer, December through February, it fills up a bit more with tourists. There are even some bars and restaurants that are only open for those few months. As we walked around town, we saw the shells of locations that get filled out with those places in the high season.

By the middle of March, the place had reverted to its sleepy form. I doubt there were 30 other tourists there.

Five of them were the people I hung out with for three days and two nights. I ran into Liz walking past my hostel the next morning on the way to the beach. She and Dave and Ben had rented a small house about 50 yards away from my hostel. She said they were partying so hard the night before, she was surprised I couldn’t hear them from my place.

Liz is from Western Australia, Perth to be particular about it. She was a travel agent back home and saved up some money to travel, quit her job, and flew to South America. She’d done Carnival and six weeks in Brasil, a bit of Buenos Aires, and was now back up in Uruguay. She was heading back down to BA for a bit and had a flight in a few weeks from there to Miami, where she was meeting a mate flying over from Australia for a Caribbean cruise. Then the two of them had a flight to Panama City and she had about six weeks to get from there to Las Vegas overland to meet another mate coming over. The problem was that she only had about $3,000 U.S for those two months. The flights were part of a round-the-world ticket, so they were paid for and the cruise was all-inclusive and paid for, but the six weeks from Panama City to Las Vegas were going to be interesting. She has promised to keep in touch and I am going to make her write up an occasional blog to post here with updates on how she is managing. From Vegas -- her round-the-world ticket was a bit strange -- she had to get back to Miami, fly to New York City, then she was meeting her sister somewhere in Quebec. Her sister is working in Canada and Liz is going to try to work there for a while, save up some more money and continue her trip in Europe.

Dave and Ben were the Kiwi and Aussie from the hostel in Montevideo. They were both trained and experienced chefs. Dave had spent parts of the last three years cooking on exclusive private yachts that went all over the place. Ben was going to make his first effort to latch onto a ship with Dave’s help and connections. They were headed to Spain after a few more months in South America, to catch the summer boating season in the Mediterranean. Both had been to culinary school and had about ten years experience cooking in various restaurants – and is almost always the case for Aussies and Kiwis I have met on the road, incredibly cool.

The chances of me not staying in New Zealand at the end of this trip lessen with each Kiwi I meet.

The afternoon that I coming in on the bus, they got there early and meet up with Mel and Marissa, another Aussie and Kiwi, and as is par for the course on the road, all seemingly become fast friends in one night. They both deserve a longer summary, but here is the short version for each: Mel was an Aussie with a perfectly lilting Aussie accent; Marissa was a stunning, auburn-haired Kiwi architect who had been working recently in London. Fun, interesting, beautiful – and there is just something about those accents. I wish that accent attraction worked in reverse, but I’ve yet to met anyone that says an American accent is sexy.

I was lucky enough to crash on in on their house parties the next couple of nights, though I always felt slightly like an outsider or intruder, because they had bonded so well.

Or I might have felt awkward because of how mind-numbingly drunk I got on the first night at their place. Ben had caught some 24-hour bug (Dave got it the next day and thankfully, none of the rest of us got it at all), so he slept through the entire day and night. Dave had decided he wanted to cook on an open fire for all of us. He tried to find some local fresh fish and surprisingly couldn’t find any. He settled for some great looking lamb and beef.

I wandered over to their place around four that afternoon and helped him (mostly watched, but put in a small enough effort to perhaps entitle me to that word – at least because I am the one writing the summary) make a roaring fire in a fire pit next to their house. Of course, we started drinking then, as manly men doing our parts as modern-day Prometheuses. By the time, Dave was feed the fire a few times and then let it simmer down into a healthy bed of coals, I already had quite a buzz on. I actually haven’t been drinking too much on this trip – much less than at home – so I am going to blame being out of practice. The girls arrived around sundown, when Dave was about ready to put the meat on the fire.

From Cabo Polonio

From Cabo Polonio

He grilled up the beef and lamb, did some sweet potatoes and regular potatoes up inside on the stove. Wine. Beer. It was a feast. Probably the best meal I had eaten in weeks.

After dinner the true drinking began, along with a game garnered to elicit some interesting drunken opinions: Shag, Marry, Kill. Someone came up with three people and you had to declare which one you would have sex with, which one you would marry, and which one was to die. I must say that Oprah, Rosanne and Queen Elizabeth stumped me for a bit. Obviously Rosanne must die, but the other two choices?! On the other side of the scale, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Charlize Theron and was difficult in the opposite respect. For the ladies, Heath Ledger (we were well into fantasy world at this point), Brad Pitt and Russell Crowe was quite the stumper.

I don’t remember the last few hours of the evening at all, except for a burst of extreme flatulence at one point – yes, I was on my game that evening. That may have been the point we decided to exit the small house and wander about town. I was quite happy to wake up the next day still with my camera in my possession. At least I didn’t leave it somewhere. And with a hangover commensurate with my evening’s level of debauchery (I love the definition of that from the thesaurus on this computer, “unrestrained self-indulgent behavior, or an instance of this.” Ahhhhh, that’s the word).

When I told my new friends I was going to blog a summary of the three days at Cabo Polonio, they made me promise to not give the following summary and use the term “typical Aussies and Kiwis.” And I won’t.

At the end of the three nights, there was a pile of empty bottles at the house. 24 bottles of wine. Two bottles of Bacardi (though one was not completely empty). One bottle of Cachaça, used to make Caipirinhas. And 15 or so bottles of liter-sized beer, though I think we had either returned some of the beer bottles to the store or thrown them out somewhere.

They all said that the first night, before I met up with them, was the biggest party of the three nights. I was happy I hadn’t found them that night – I don’t know if I would have survived another.

I will say “typical Aussies and Kiwis” in this regard – the five of them were some of the nicest, most interesting, and fun people I’d met in four months on the road. I hope it is not the last time I see any of them. In fact, while Dave was cooking and I was quizzing him about his experiences cooking on yachts, I made him promise to hire me on as a sous chef at some point in the future. He said he might be OK with that, but I’d have to give him half of my wages as a finder’s fee for the job.

I think I might be good with that.

From Cabo Polonio

The usual television at the hostel

From Cabo Polonio

View of town

From Cabo Polonio

Cow chilling on the beach

From Cabo Polonio

The way into town.

From Cabo Polonio

Main Street

trip to the boat

OK -- quick blog about how I got to where I am in the last couple days. Partly to show how incredibly lucky I am (hope I don´t curse that) and more to show how cool people are out in the world.

My boat to Africa was set to leave a port called Sao Francisco del Sur on the 31st. I had worked out all the details with the shipping company (lots of back and forth details, more later) over a period of weeks and they told me to call the local shipping agent a couple days before the boat left to figure out the time to meet the boat and agent at the port.

So I went to a little, little, little town in Uruguay called Cabo Polonio for about three days with some new friends I met. Pictures up when I get to South Africa. The place is not in the guidebooks. About 70-80 permanent residents. No electricity to speak of, except for the one store in town, a nicer hotel that I didn´t stay at, and the occasional generator. If you want seculusion and relaxation -- this is the spot for you. Obviously, no internet. So no way for me to get email.

No problem. I left on the 27th. I was planning on a quick, but long, trip to the waterfalls on the Argentina/Brazil border, then over to the port and catch my boat. Bus from the little town (not the town, which there are no roads to, but the bus stop is literally people standing by the side of the road - where big sand dune trucks take you to and from the highway to the village), left around 4 or 5 p.m. I was going to the border town between Uruguay and Brazil about 2 hours away, place called Chuy. Then hopefully catch an overnight bus to Porto Alegre in Brazil and then a 12 hour bus to the falls. Get there around the evening of the 28th. Hit the falls on the 29th. Bus to the port on the 30th. Easy.

Got to Chuy around 7:30 p.m. or so. There was a bus leaving for Porto Alegre at 11 p.m. Perfect. Stopped to check my email. Email from the shipping company. The ship I was taking was earlyto the port. Two days early, to be exact. It was arriving some time on the 29th. What mode of transport is ever early??

Had to obviously ditch my plans for the falls. Also realized that I had forgotten half of my electronic gear at the hostel in Cabo Polonio. And my jeans and more importantly, my belt. I´ve lost about 3 inches in my waist on this trip. My khakis barely, barely stay over my hip bone without a belt. Obviously no time to go back and get that stuff either.

Email Chance in Buenos Aires and ask him to sort out the stuff with the hostel owner. Figure out a way to get the stuff to him and have him ship it over to South Africa. As usual, he´s a rockstar and replies immediately and says he is on it. Check mark for that small issue.

Bigger issue -- how the hell do I catch my boat? I email the shipping company, but it is late Friday night in the U.K., where they are based. Try to email the local shipping agent from the info that I´d been given, but the email address was wrong. Damn.

OK, had a bus ticket to Brazil and from there an entire full day to get to the port. On the map and the guidebook, it looked possible. Finished up at the internet cafe, walked over to buy my bus ticket. It was about 10 p.m. Bus station was locked up, but some American standing there said he was on the 11 p.m. bus I wanted and the ticket agents would open at 10:30. I had read in the guidebook earlier that you needed to get your exit visa stamp from Uruguay about 3 kilometers south of town. I had already done that, so I was set. I went around the corner for a late sandwich to hold me over for the night.

I got back and bought my ticket at about 10:45. The ticket agent asked for my passport. I handed it over. She asked about my Brazil visa. I had gotten it a week earlier in Montevideo (blog later -- first time I had to get a visa in advance of the border). I pointed out my exit stamp from Uruguay and my paid visa into Brazil. She motioned and I eventually got the point -- I didn´t have an entry stamp into Brazil. But up to now, every time I had taken a bus over the border, the bus stopped, we all got out, and got stamped there. Apparently, not at this border crossing. I needed to go into Brazil beforeI had my visa stamped, get it stamped there, and come back and then board the bus. She said she could not let me on the bus without the stamp. She also said that to get the stamp, I had to have a ticket into Brazil, so she sold me the bus ticket for the bus leaving in 10 minutes and pointed to the cabs out front.

I got into the cab, pointed to my passport, and said ´Brazil visa,´ímmigration,´and made stamping marks in it. I also through out a bunch of ´rapidos´to make sure he understood we had to haul ass. He got the point. I got in and we started off. About 5 minutes later we jetted right past what I assumed was the Brazil border stop. I frantically pointed at it as we went by, and for about 5 minutes after, and tried to get him to understand I had to get stamped and get back by 11 p.m. In Spanish/Portuguese and more with sign language, he got the point across -- that station was closed and we had to go 20 more kilometers to get to the next one.

Well I´m fucked. And not remotely in the good way. Plus, I am now steaming.

I figure that the ticket agent knew I´d never get back for the 11 p.m. bus and she just made me buy a $25 dollar ticket for nothing. I was wondering if we´d make it back before the bus stop closed again. I recalled there might have been a bus leaving for Florinopolis (in Brazil, even further up the coast, towards my final destination) at 1:30 a.m., but I had asked another agent about that bus earlier and wasn´t sure it ran on this particular night. Could I catch any bus tonight? Could I trade in this ticket?

Damn it. I think I have been screwed by everyone. And when I asked the cabbie how much, when I got in the cab, he said 400 pesos -- about $20 dollars. At the time, I figured ´what the hell´, get me my stamp and I won´t mind getting totally and completely ripped off. Now I was pissed about the bus ticket, the cab fare, and that I might miss my boat. Not necessarily in that order, of course.

The cabbie got me up to the town where the police/immigration station was open by about 11:15. I went in, got stamped and came back out to the cab. He then started driving off, but not the same way we came. About 2 minutes later, he pulls up to a bus station in the town in Brazil. He then tells me that the bus that left 20 minutes ago from Uruguay would be at this station in about 10 minutes. I could catch the bus here with my ticket and be on my merry way.

There are about 2 cabbies in 10 that I think are the greatest people in the world (and about 5 in 10 that should rot in hell). I think I must have told this dude ´mucho gracias´ about a dozen times. I handed him a 1,000 peso note for my 400 peso bill. He said he didn´t have change. I pulled out the smaller bills and coins I had and told him I only had 360 pesos. And he took it.

Great cabbie andone of the South American change moments. My trip to the boat was looking up.

So, the overnight bus got to Porto Alegre at about 6 a.m. I needed to get a bus about 10-12 hours up the coast to Sao Francisco that night (the 28th), so that if the boat was leaving early the next morning (the 29th, per the email), I would be there and ready to go. One of the frustrating things about buses in Central and South America are that there are usually about 6-10 bus companies and only some of them go to certain locations. And I was in Brazil. New language: Portuguese. Similar to Spanish, but I was beyond clueless.

I pulled out the email about where I needed to go and starting going down the bus ticket line. They kept pointing to other companies. I asked at about four of five of them and finally got to the one that I was fairly certain was right. I asked him about the bus to Sao Francisco and he pointed and said to go to the agent in the stand immediately next to him. I went there. That guy pointed back to the person I just came from. I went back and got pointed back to the other guy.

It was ´Who´s on First,´ but in language I didn´t speak. I saw a bus outside bording people - the sign in the front of the bus said ´Curitiba.´ That was reasonably close to where I needed to be, after consulting my map. I went back to one of the ticket guys that kept pointing me off next door, pointed at that bus, said ´Curitiba?´, got a nod, and bought a ticket. Curitiba was a big city, over a million. I figured that I would get in at about 5 p.m. or so and be able to catch a bus to Sao Francisco that night. It looked like about 150 kilometers between the two. I also figured that I would get into Curitiba early enough to call the local shipping agent and confirm the time the boat was leaving. Maybe I wouldn´t have to rush down, if the boat was leaving late on the 29th.

The bus was supposed to take 11 hours by the guidebook. It took more like 14 hours. I got in around 8 p.m. I found the internet cafe at the bus station and checked my email, hoping for an email back from the shipping people in the U.K. that I´d emailed asking for follow-up. It was Saturday. No email. I used Skype to call the number I had for the shipping agent in Sao Francisco (after getting help navagating the menu, which was in Portuguese, by another helpful bystander).

The number I had wasn´t working. I went downstairs to check on buses to Sao Francisco. No buses that night. The first one left at 6:30 a.m. and got in around 9 a.m. or so. Rent a car? Hitchhike?

I went back up to the internet cafe and re-read the email. The boat was ´now due to arrive on the 29th.´ There had to be some amount of time to load and unload, right? I also checked the boat schedule again, after this port, they had two more stops in Brazil. If I missed it the next day, I was absolutely sure I could catch it in Rio de Janeiro before it was to leave there three days from then. Totally and completely sure.

I decided to trust to fate, buy the bus ticket for the next day, get a few hours sleep (I hadn´t slept more than about four hours total in the last two days) and see what happened.

Got up, took the bus, got into Sao Francisco around 9 a.m. or so. Took a cab to the port. The guy at the enterance to the port didn´t speak English, but I showed him the email with the name of my boat. He seemed to say that the boat was there and let me in, pointed down past some of the huge stacks of cargo containers waiting to be put on freighters and said ´go up there a ways and look to the left.´ I assumed. I walked down there on a complete travel high -- I´d navigated the shoals and made my boat. Cool.

Two freighters getting loaded. My ship, the MOL Wish, was not one of them. Hmmmmmm. Now I figured I had missed it. One of the guys loading one of the two freighters spoke English. I showed him the email, he immediately nodded and said that the MOL Wish wasn´t due in port until 4 p.m. Golden. I had made it. I asked him where the local shipping agent was in town and he gave me directions that I didn´t understand, but it was a fairly small town and I had hours to find him. No worries.

I walked back towards town, looking for an internet spot to check email from the shipping agent in the U.K. (hopefully) and also to verify the address of the local person I was supposed to contact. Its a Sunday, which means that about everything is closed. I asked a guy on the street about an internet cafe and he pointed off down one street and said there was one down there. I walked in the direction I thought he indicated for a couple hundred yards, as he was stopped at a train crossing to let a train pass by. I saw him back up from the crossing and come towards me. He honked, pulled over, and told me I was going the wrong way. He told me to hop in -- I did, and he drove me to the internet cafe.

When I got there, I still had plenty of time before the boat arrived. Since it was a Sunday, I assumed the shipping agent probably wouldn´t get to his office until a couple hours before the ship arrived, so I checked email and killed a half hour reading the news. Then I got up and asked the owner of the internet store, Mohammad, who spoke very good English, if he knew where the shipping agent´s office was.

He said the office was close by, but it was closed because it was Sunday. He asked why I was asking about it and I told him I was catching a ship that afternoon. He got the ship´s information and the name of the agent´s company and said he knew the agent, Fabio, but he didn´t have his cell number. He told me to hold on, while he tried to track it down. He then made a couple calls, got the cell number for Fabio, called him for me and put me on the phone with him.

Fabio just came by Mohammad´s place about an hour ago to pick up my passport to take it to Brazil immigration. I´m sitting here waiting for him to come back and trying to figure out how much I should tip Mohammad on top of my internet bill (he waved me away earlier and told me I didn´t owe him anything).

There are plenty of times I love being on the road. And the people are usually at the top of the list of reasons why. It has been a really good, though long and tiring, two days to get here.

Can´t wait to see my ship in another hour or so. And get some sleep.

Offline for about 11 days or so. And then get ready for lots and lots and lots of content. Do me a favor -- tell a few of your friends -- I still need more eyeballs ;)

Uruguay

Perhaps the mental hangover from playing poorly in a poker tourny has slowed down my blogging. Don't know why, but here are some notes on Uruguay.

I took the ferry from Buenos Aires over to Montevideo and then hopped on a bus for the two hour trip to Punta del Esta. Punta del Esta is referred to as Buenos Aires' beach suburb. Its thought of as sort of the French Rivera of South America.

And its a pretty nice place, all in all. Certainly one of the more upscale places I've visited in South America. For example, all of the taxis are beige E Class Mercedes and the drivers wear suits -- and also charge a heck of a lot more than anywhere else down here I've been to yet. The stores in town are have designer labels that even I can recognize. . .with the accompanying high prices. The beaches surround the town and extend up the coast both ways from town. The town itself is on a peninsula and no matter where you are in town, you are no more than 3 blocks away from a beach. I can see why its a popular spot with the well-to-do in South America.



The less said about the poker tourny the better. It was a good event. I played very well for about eight hours, building my chip stack from the initial 10,000 chips to about 48,000 or so. There were about 200 entries into the event and with about 60 people to go, I had one of my typical blow-ups. The person to my right was a newer player that had recently been brought to our table. He made a raise in the cut-off position and I called his raise from the button. Both blinds folded. The flop came down K-4-6 with three different suits. He made a small bet, I made a complete and total bluff raise (I had 9-10 suited). He called my raise. I should have clearly realized at the point that I was totally lost and he wasn´t going anywhere. I didn´t and then bluffed again on the turn and the river, losing about 3/4s of my chips on a stupid naked bluff. I was out about a half-hour later in 60th place or so. O well. I should have learned that particular lesson long ago, but I guess relearning it will be good for me, eventually.

After getting knocked out, I wandered around upstairs looking for a live poker game. Problem is -- no one plays live, cash game poker at these things. After they get knocked out, all the kids huddle up in the lobby, pull out their laptops and proceed to play 4-6 tables of online poker. The only live poker they play is in the tournament. I did manage to run into two really cool women from NYC that were in town for a couple days, Erika and Lauren. Both were high-ups at competing fashion magazines. I got a good craps lesson from the guy that was flirting with Lauren and got the low-down on how the magazine world works at the same time from Erika. And lost a couple hundred playing craps in the meantime. . .

Other thoughts about Uruguay. I haven´t seen a place with this many bookstores in a long, long time. Just wandering around Montevideo, the capital, I´d bet that I saw 20-25 bookstores and even more small magazine stalls on the streets. Of course, I had to feed my book addiction. And feeding that beast in Latin America is damn expensive. They apparently love their books here -- and show it in the prices.

PDAs -- public displays of affection. This is also apparently the norm in Buenos Aires and Montevideo. I couldn´t count how many couples I saw in full make out sessions in the plazas and just stopped on the sidewalks. Friendly and affectionate people, by the looks of it.

Montevideo is also a town on a peninsula, sticking out into the ocean. There are about a million people that live here, but you´d never be able to tell on a weekend. The town basically shuts down for Saturday and Sunday. You can find some places to eat and drink, but that is about all that is open downtown. Its like a ghost town on the weekend - nothing open and no one, I mean no one, on the streets. Eerie a bit actually. The town itself is pretty cool and laid back. Lots of fully grown trees planted everywhere in cut-outs from the sidewalks, which is a great thing in an urban setting. Mostly 2-3 story residental buildings all over the place. In that regard, it reminded me a good bit of Washington D.C., except with a more European flavor of architecture. I really love the rounded corners on the buildings here and in Buenos Aires.

Lastly, matte tea. I haven´t tried it yet, because the reviews I´ve even got from the locals that drink it hasn´t been that favorable. I suppose I should try it in the next couple of days though. They fill up these cups (below) with the crushed matte tea leaves. And by fill it up, I mean fill it up. The entire cup is totally full of leaves. Then they pour in some hot water (you see hundreds of people carrying these cups and a thermos of hot water everywhere walking the streets), mix it up with a special spoon that also functions as a straw and drink it through the spoon. Seeing everyone walk around with these a cup and a thermos is an interesting sight.

Never be surprised

There was a news story a few months ago talking about the possibility of soon getting wireless internet access on airline flights. Apparently the technology to do that is already out there. The stories concentrated on the airlines concern that people might sit on the plane and download or watch porn, so that other passengers would have to be subjected to seeing it.

I laughed the story off. Who would sit in a public place and watch porn? It just seemed like a ridiculous concern.

Then I got up this morning to have a cup of coffee and check the internet on my laptop in my hostel in Montevideo, Uruguay. I plugged my computer into one of the plugs in the reception area, where the three public computers are located.

And the guy two computers over from me is watching spunkmonkey.com -- Sorry, I had to get a good enough look to see the exact website, just so I could write about it.

Well, the sound was off. Maybe he thought he was being discreet in that way.