Abu Dhabi

Technology yet again proved it's worth as a backpacker. Staying in touch with a friend I met at the pyramids in Tikal, Guatemala gave me cause for a necessary trip to Abu Dhabi to visit half way around the world. After a seemingly unnecessary, arduous journey from Dubai to Abu Dhabi I was greeted with a warm welcome from a long lost friend.

After being picked up from the bus station we drove through the city to Yas Island to visit Ferarri World! Still being a poor backpacker we quickly toured Ferrari World where the worlds fastest roller coaster is and left. With a beeping empty tank button in the car, we headed out across the desert in hope to find gas before running out of petrol in the 40 degree sun. Joking the whole time "that we will dig for oil" in the event we run out of gas we luckily made it to a gas station about 20km later.

We picked up the 4 and 6 year old my friend nanny's from school and headed to the Grand Palace of Abu Dhabi. We spent a few hours swimming in the fountains in front of the Palace by people being proper, beneath the skyline of the city. When we were done we took the children out for some peddle boating around the harbor. After being exhausted of peddling around as a tour guide for the kids, we headed to the a famed needle tower restaurant above the Marina Mall overlooking the sea.

As one of the most classy of places, where billionaire businessmen were meeting with its grand view, we had a most hilarious dinner in our wet street clothes and 2 small children. Not realizing how fancy this rotating restaurant above one of the wealthiest cities was, we sat down and ordered dinner. I felt just like one of the children and am surprised we were not asked to leave for lacking class and eating spaghetti with out fingers!

After dinner it was time to leave and I was sad to say goodbye to two funny children and my long lost friend. However, I got a chance to see the main sites in the city of Abu Dhabi, relax, and have a day of acting like a child all for free! Very much a vibrant city, I would like to visit again someday!

Yes I'm From New York! No Not The City!

When travelling the world I am instantly assumed by most by saying I am from New York means New York City instantly. Usually it is not worth the time and effort to explain that NY is a State, and that Niagara Falls is 6 hours away from NYC.

My first time in NYC in 2007 with my roomate, I held a door for a businessman leaving a McDonalds who replaced a thank you, with a hasty "We don't do that for people here!" After the most stressful day of driving around Manhattan during rush hour in my Mother's car, able to only get glimpses of sites as we drove past, I was left with disappointment. However even with this first negative experience I now have so many friends in NYC and Long Island, that I've become a frequent visitor and I feel like a city veteran.

Every time I visit I make the same lap down 5th Avenue, passing the Empire State Building, Rockefellar Center, Chrysler Building, Times Sqaure, Madison Square Garden, Grand Central Station, Ground Zero and always ending with a nap in Central park! There are endless museums, art galleries, sporting events and numerous other entertainment venues that give the city no chance to disappoint.

Walking through the crowded streets of fast moving business people, slow moving window shoppers, and endless tourists with maps; makes for a day of intense people watching. Never do I leave Manhattan before grabbing my $1 hotdog and french fries at Papaya's underneath the Empire State building; before trying to track down the NYC Blood Center bus to make a blood donation.

NYC is an intriguing city to visit from time to time, but it's size and speed makes it a place unsuitable for my laid back living style. As long as I still have friends there I will continue to make my yearly jihads to NYC, my assumed worldly home...

My Capitol

While idling around Lewiston, my friend informed me about the poor man’s gateway to the eastern United States; that gateway being Megabus. For a mere $3.50 each, three of us hopped on a bus from Buffalo to Washington D.C. with a 30 pack of keystone and bag full of munchies. We pulled into a shady abandoned parking lot in D.C. around 11PM with proper buzzes. Thankfully they had a friend pick us up and bring us to Annapolis.

The next day we got dropped off to tour the quaint Annapolis harbor for the day.  We hung out around the Annapolis Naval Academy for the day which gave me great insight into what the United States Navy has, is and will do for our great nation. Seeing the original style US flag in the original US capitol building inspired a great sense of pride in my nation. After a good night of partying we headed back to Washington D.C .

The Capitol Building, Lincoln Memorial, Washington Memorial, White House and never ending Smithsonian Museums were amazing. However, visiting Washington D.C. proved to be one of my most inspiring trips yet. Visiting the war memorials left me with a much prouder sense of patriotism. Seeing the Vietnam Memorial after visiting the actual sites of war in Vietnam; having lived in Korea and understanding the war and seeing the Korean War Memorial; going to the Genocide Memorial and seeing the images of the Rwanda genocide post touring Rwanda; the end result was an indescribable feeling .

We are a proud nation, and I am a proud to be from the land of the free and the home of brave. That is, the brave men and women that not only protect our great nation but mankind as a whole.

Colombia Round 4!

I've now been to Colombia 4 times and it remains on the top of my list! Everytime I go to the country it's more developed and more safe! Bogota is a city that seems to have no limits on it's growth and expanison as a South American Capital.

This time I found time to visit some of the museums like the Museo del Oro(Gold Museum) deemed the largest collection of gold artifacts in South America. Or the very interesting National Police Museum showcasing the arrest of Pablo Escobar! The city center never lacks luster and pride with an outstanding ice-skating rink in the central plaza in the 86degree sun this winter!

Only on this last trips departure was I disappointed with Colombia due to mistakes on the fault of lazy immigration officials on the Ecuadorian border. Within an hour of entering Colombia I experienced a life altering 36 hours of hell, like an opening scene of a movie.

Just one day after that I found myself both arrested and interrogated as a result of an immigration official giving me an exit stamp rather than and entry upon attempted departure. Several of my Incan clay masks were smashed while looking for drugs. I understand the safety they try to bring their country and the world. However somethings can just never be fixed or replaced.

It will take more than just one bad experience to tarnish my perception of a country that I love.

TSANTSAS! Shrunken Heads!

The Shaur and Achuar cultures who live in the upper amazon, we can thank for giving us the shrunken head! The Shaur live in the Upano Valley in eastern Ecuador and it was my mission to try to find a shrunken head while in Ecuador. The culture requires water just like any other culture but doesn't live near rivers. Also unique to their culture they don't use bows and arrows but only blowpipes.

To the dead, who do wrong during life, their heads are transformed into key chain sized charms. The skull is first removed and then the head undergoes a desiccation process of heating and cooling to shrink it down to size. Shrinking the head prevents the spirit from being able to seek revenge and also gives the spirits energy to their owner. The mouths and eyes are sewn shut to trap the spirit for eternity. Owning a head shows both braveness and power.

I came across 5 heads around Quito and they were awesome. They are smaller than a fist and still have their hair, eye brows and eye lashes. They are really unreal looking and a mythical thing that becomes a reality in person. You can look into their ears and see their hollowed heads. Its strange to fathom that these were actually really people with normal heads during life. You wonder what bad things they could have done to earn the right to have their heads shrunk. An awesome culture and interesting history!

Death On the Pan Americana

Along the entire Pan American Highway from Brazil down to Uruguay, across Argentina to Chile, Bolivia to Ecuador; there are memorials and flowers lining the road for those who died in accidents along it. While travelling along the Pan American and seeing how many there are it just becomes a commonplace sight during long distance bus routes. Only does it become reality when you see life taken from a person in less than a second.

As the bus departed from Guayaquil my only worries were my own petty problems and getting to Colombia to fly home. After 30 minutes of driving recklessly to get out of the city all would change. In the other lane of speeding traffic through a residential area outside of the city, a women carrying groceries attempted to cross the street. The only sounds were a thud and people around the scene shouting. No brakes. No screams of pain. Just the end of a life.

As her body flopped to the ground as an inanimate object people flocked to the windows of my bus and those around the scene ran over. Noone did anything. Noone checked if she was even alive, it was just assumed that she was dead.

Infact she was as she lay barefoot; her shoes having flown off from the hit. Her overweight body lay in a cheerleader position, something that during life she could not have done. Noone showed any remorse or sorrow for this newest casualty to the Pan American but moved about her as if ur were normal.

Disgusted with the way things went I slunk into my bus seat and thought deep and hard about life. The world is a strange place and things can come and go. My ordeal in Peru just turned to a speck of a problem and for days all I could think of was this pile of flesh that once had a family and a life, lying limp and deformed on the side of the highway.

Peru Medical Care!

Day 3 of visiting friends in Arequipa took a twisted turn for the worse. An out of control STAPH infection spread like wildfire in my lower abdomen and in just 24hours was the size of my fist. Thankfully I was with Michelle and Alex or I probably would have just died. The first hospital we tried was trying to charge 25$ just for consultation. So we declined and took a taxi across town to another hospital that was only charging 3$ for admittance. We explained what was happening and what I needed in the ER and I reluctantly sat on the ER table and waited.

I watched as the woman next to me was bleeding from her head, a baby cried in pain from double arm burns, and a criminal sat bleeding in his wheel chair with his tending police officer. The hospital was a bring-your-own-medical supplies type. So Alex had to go out on the street and find a place to buy anestesia, needles, and a cutting tool that were sterile.

The woman bleeding from her head took a turn for the worse as her young son was shaking her and screaming for someone to help her. The doctors slowly rearranged the ER ordering me to someone else´s bloody bed and Alex and Michelle out of the room.

Finally the doctor came over to me and without warning shot me with lidocaine causing the infection to burst open. Then he just began cutting away without saying a word. Blood and puss oozing into a bed pan then said finished. Bandaged it up and gave me a prescription for painkillers I couldn´t afford anyways.

For two days I slept on Alex and Michelle´s floor bleeding and in pain unable to move. Still pussing and bleeding I decided to take a 17 hour overnight bus to Lima where better hospitals or cheaper flights home are. Upon arrivlal I had blood stains all over me. I think that it´s improving so am taking another 17 hour bus journey to Tumbes on the Ecuador border and hoping for the best!