Caribbean Lifestyles...

So I was in the Caribbean this summer.

Automatically you're thinking some big player names like Bahamas or Cayman Islands. Maybe Barbados or one of those nice Dominican Republic packages? Not even close! This little slice of heaven you would have to 'google zoom' into at least three times for it to even become noticeable. St Vincent & the Grenadines lasses and landlubbers, the tiny little tropical sand pit floating in the middle of (nowhere) the Caribbean Sea.

I left the breezy scuba diving wreck show of Utila behind me, enjoying another thirty hour ferry and bus ride back to San Pedro Sula. Writing this now, I cannot even remember what the airport, town or airplane even looked like, but it was my final goodbye to Central America. Adios! St Vincent being such a minuscule speck of an island, it proved to be a pretty staggering journey to get there, something along the lines of...

Utila -> La Ceiba -> San Pedro Sula -> Miami -> Barbados -> St Lucia -> St Vincent

With layovers and an extremely cozy sleep on a bench outside the Barbados airport, I was in transit for a couple days and then some. After fifty hours of little sleep, customs, shitty airplane food and more customs I was really feeling the joys of travelling abroad. The final leg of the journey was on one of those tiny little twin prop planes, and despite the noise I could not stop falling asleep. Barbados to St Lucia took about forty minutes, so the flight attendant takes it upon herself to wake me up for the landing as I'm drooling onto myself and my book. We land for ten minutes, I fall asleep, and she wakes me up again, this time for take-off. Buckle it yourself lady, I'm dying here!

After a short stint in 'immigration', basically a couch and a desk with some pictures of trees on the wall, I got to reunite with the big reason for all this trans-national island plane hopping...

Luckily she'd been standing right outside customs to vouch for my haggard ass, because the grumpy chick at the desk wasn't too keen on me entering without an onward ticket. She asked the reason for my visit, where I was staying and who with. 'Ummm. Vacation. Maddy's apartment. with Maddy? Oh, who's Maddy and where does she live? Not really sure, hopefully she's standing outside if you could go check for me' (And get this...the customs clerk leaves her desk, goes outside and talks to Maddy to verify my claims! Imagine that at Pearson or JFK!) Maddy assured her I didn't want to mooch off St Vincent's non existent social security system, and we were on our way.

The island is stunning. The main road basically stretches around the circumference of St Vincent in a narrow and twisted snakes and ladders game, where you climb up and down hills with turquoise ocean and palm fronds boxing you in. You can see the other islands of the archipelago off in the hazy distance  as sailboats and seagulls dot the oceanic landscape. Bit much? K, I'll tone it down. But check out this sunset...

Comparative to any other Caribbean nation, the island is basically untouched by tourism, but that's not to say there's nothing there. The main port is Kingstown, where massive freighters and the occasional packaged cruise full of seniors stops off. The town is a touching little collection of ramshackle residences and businesses, the most important of which would be KFC. Two of them.

Maddy's house was a quick but daunting fifteen minutes outside of Kingstown, arriving in a passenger van literally overflowing with human beings. You have people with legs and arms sticking out the window for space, babies being held by your seat partner to make room for your grocery bags, and complete strangers coming very close to face to crotch contact. It's sweaty and very uncomfortable, but kind of a cool way to get around. They just zip up and down this one main road all day, picking up whoever hails them down and taking a couple bucks each time, all the while playing this incredibly intense, bass driven, repetitive, very catchy pile of shit called 'Soca'. More on that later.

The first few days were spent exploring the island, albeit without the guidance of our host as she had to do really lame, sunshine-less office work. We rented a car that ended up getting abused not only by the amazing road conditions, but by our A-class driving skills on the opposite side of said road. We challenged a waterfall, a flower garden, a couple different beaches and almost a volcano, but not quite. We showed up around four o'clock in the afternoon, allegedly not a good time for trudging through the jungle up a volcano for four hours surrounded by nighttime, beasts and pot fields. Go figure.

'Ballers'

The next couple weeks were a myriad of activities and, of course, caribbean style drinking. Through the benevolence of the partying Gods I've been praying to for years, I showed up for the week of Carnaval, a mass of booze, costumes, music, events and overall pulsating energy that transcends the otherwise laid back atmosphere of caribbean islands. Most of you are probably thinking, Carnival? Isn't that the feathered semi-drag queen production out of Rio De Janeiro? For sure, that's the biggest one in the world, but it seems like the majority of the Caribbean islands participate as well, Vincy no exception.

The whole island is obsessed with this genre of music called Soca, which is a fast paced mixture of dance, bass & drum and the artist repeating the same phrase over and over....and over...for three minutes. One of the biggest ingratiations I had into this style was 'Soca Monarch', which as you can probably tell by the title, they choose the new king or queen of Soca music. I'll be the first to admit, I couldn't handle this music whatsoever the first couple days I was there. You can only play it extremely loud, it's extremely abrasive and comes with only one type of associated dancing, which I'll talk about in just a minute (after typing this I realize it makes me seem about 85 years old). After a little while though, despite your best efforts, you find yourself humming these tunes all day, pumping your fists and flailing around like everyone else. If you're interested, this was the winner.

Happening tune right?

If the music doesn't quite tickle your fancy, then you can join into the Caribbean dance phenomena called 'whining'. Maddy had given me the low down on this devious style long before I arrived, but nothing can really prepare you for this sexually charged shuffle. Like most dances there's different steps the men and women follow, but this one is particularly straight forward.

Artists Interpretation

If it looks like some crude amateur drawing of some hot and heavy body thumping, that's what I was going for. The women assume a very inviting 45 degree posture and 'shake that ass' until the man, and I mean any man in the entire crowd of human beings, comes behind them, grabs their hips or whatever else they can hold onto and proceeds to bump front to backside. Some of you are probably saying 'right on' or 'wtf?' which were both my initial reactions. At times it's a slow and passionate rotating of many body parts, and other times it's a twenty second 'thump and run'. My absolute favourite moment of whining was watching a couple girls boogying at the front of the previously mentioned Soca Monarch, rain coming down in sheets, as two guys come up behind them, grab their stomachs and thrust away like it was their last night on Earth. Without a word between boy or girl, the guys walk off into the crowd never to be seen again. Legally it was about as close to dance rape as you could probably come, but after a few nights out I learned to appreciate this quick coupling for the absolutely fun and somewhat disturbing icebreaker it was.

Personally I was terrible at whining, usually losing my partner to a more experienced, taller, blacker and heavier pounding Caribbean dude than I will probably ever be in this life (probably). That being said, getting a little taste of this dance made every other style I will ever encounter on this planet look like a seniors home full of nuns doing the macarena, so I'm glad I got a shot at it.

When Maddy finished up her internship we had a week or two of beautiful beach lounging and soaking our souls with 'strong rum', the locally brewed crazy sauce that was also good for starting bonfires and removing paint. If you ever have the good fortune to pick up a bottle make sure you keep it away from open flame. When the time came to leave the island Maddy was a little choked up, mostly in part to the amount of girl gear she had to shed for the rest of the trip. I watched this speck of an island disappear from the plane knowing that I would never see a stranger, unheard of and untouched island gem like this again. Places like that don't stay a secret forever. Thanks to everyone I met there, and who knows, maybe see you for another rum addled, feather covered, Soca banging whining parade someday.                    

Thanks for reading!

Graffiti outside the airport: 'We nah tun back'. 

The Lost List

Of course when you're on the road for any amount of time, you are bound to misplace a few choice items. Unlike losing something at home however, you cannot silently swear to yourself and find under the couch when you get home. Once you realize that an item of yours has gone missing while travelling...that is usually the end of it. A bus two cities away, a hostel in another country or some down and out thief's shelf in his mud hut. There is no going back. Gone. Misplaced. Lost. Adios Muchacho.

Now some people will lose a camera, maybe a book or even a bank card along the way. These are all really useful items while back-sacking your way through some foreign country, and the initial wash over of disappointment when you realize it's gone is terrible. But there are a select few people out there that are so bad, so scatter brained, so unreasonably irresponsible that they are lucky if they end up with anything but the clothes on their back by the end of the trip. I'm one of those people. This is my lost list.

Ipod Classic

One of the first things to go missing when I got to mexico was my Ipod. Now it had been made obsolete by my shiny new Ipod touch (first world problems or what?), but the real kicker was it had 6000 songs from the last 5 years of my life which had yet to been transferred...A certain Ozzy had his eye on it from the start, so my best guess is it's either a mexican paperweight or being enjoyed at australian house parties all over the country.

Ball Hat + Sentimental Singlet

Now obviously these aren't the most devastating things that you could say goodbye to, but the way we parted was just the worse. When we were out at the hot springs, most of the day was spent soaking and boozing and this went far into the night. In my advanced years I can only stay up so long, especially when your waist deep in smoking hot water with a bottle of tequila in your hand. These hot springs are set up in a cascading kind of style...so as I nod off and have a quick snooze on the side of the pool, the tequila, hat and singlet all going pouring over the side into the canyon below. When I wake up a few hours later I have to no hat, no tequila an no shirt...but a pretty mean hangover and really pruny skin.

E-Reader

This one was a heartbreaker. Not only was there about a dozen books I hadn't even cracked into, I was 10% away from finishing the Game of Thrones series, and for those of you that have read them, it's not one you can easily put down. I was staying in a friends house and the E-reader was either on the bed, or couch or table. I guess this was the problem. I need a designated E-Reader location instead of finding it all over the house at any given time. That being said, when you lose an item in a contained environment, chances are you'll find it somewhere. Not this time. After tearing apart the furniture and cupboards and bathrooms...just shy of taking down the walls of the house, the E-reader was never recovered. When all else fails? Blame the maid. She will make another appearance in this list, trust me.

Sneakers

Although not the end of the world, costing around 400 pesos, or 30$, it was the lack of actually having a pair of sneakers that sucked the most. Hikes, runs and any sort of mild activity, these were great to just pull out and go. When you're expected to go out for a bike ride, and all you have is these dainty little dress-like bowling shoes, aesthetically and functionally you're going to suffer. They stayed with me from Mexico to Colombia (not bad!) until they were left in the trunk of a cab on the way to the airport. They were eventually replaced with a terrible pair of expensive purple hiking shoes, which would also make their way to footwear oblivion.

Loafers

Ultimately I was disappointed in losing these loafers because they were quality Canadian shoes, not some fake ass street buy. They would do you in about every situation. Great for sauntering, gallivanting, touring or dancing, they were the ultimate get up and go no-lace piece of footwear. After I had them shined by one of the many touts in mexico they looked like a brand new pair, too! Sadly they were left in the luggage closet in Colombia as I usually had them on my feet and my other pairs tied the sides of my bag. Not this day. All I hope is that someone is slipping into them and getting as much toe room and podiatric joy as I did.

The final Game of Thrones book. Twice.

Do you remember how I said I lost my E-reader when I was so close to finishing the fourth book in the set? I said 10% of the last book be damned, and skipped to the fifth in the series. After a bit of confusion with the plot for not knowing how the last book concluded, I quickly picked up the trail and plowed through this great story. I bought the first one in the barbados airport and managed to get through about 4 chapters waiting for my flight. In all my excitement of seeing my future travel partner after customs on St. Vincent, I sprinted out of the airport for an embrace, leaving my new book on the bench inside. Total time owned - 2 hours 15 minutes. Now it's a tiny airport, about the size of a subway restaurant, so when I went back asking for my book. I got the ever apathetic Caribbean shrug and was sent on my way. If you can read, airport security, enjoy.

Not being able to just let those 4 chapters fester in my mind without any follow up, I dropped another 20$ on the same book. This time I made it until I had about 100 pages left. Battles and dragons and sorcery and sex and romance are all culminating to a point of utter chaos and excitement, WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT?!! Couldn't tell you, I left it in the Bogota hostel right before we flew to Argentina.

Two debit cards and a MasterCard

Unlike the other items I can only surmise as to what happened to these...maybe it's a size thing. The smaller the item, the less you pay attention to it, which in reality is a ridiculous policy, especially when it comes to access to your money.

The first debit card went missing after a night of mexican rock and roll and a three litre bottle of tequila. From what I can tell (read: remember) the card, along with about 40$ in cash, was in my pocket as I raced into some raging rapids outside the campsite for a late night swim. After flailing around like a dying walrus and trying to get my stupid drunk ass out of there, we continued the night as normal, albeit a bit scratched up and soaked. The next morning, shocker, I have completely wet and empty shorts, minus money and card. Not good. Luckily I was still staying with my friend Edgar at the time so there was no immediate call for cash. I cancelled the card and got both a new debit and credit card (as mine was snapping down the middle) sent from home.

The previously mentioned snapping master card was lost at a birthday party, most likely flying out of my breast pocket as I whipped my shirt around like a cowboy. Again, tequila night. The new one arrived a few days later, although I was pretty adamant about finding the other one as credit cards lying around  can go one of two ways. Picked up and never used, or picked up and raped for all they're worth. Of course, never locating it, I received the new one the week after, without any incident from the lost one. No incident at the time anyways.

The second debit card was eaten by an ATM at the bus station crossing the border of Venezuela and Colombia. This is after 14 hours of bus riding in the middle of the night, so obviously I was really, really pleased. So if you're keeping up I have one new Mastercard, and no debit cards. Luckily the last time I talked to the bank they gave me the ability to access my bank account with my master card, so that was my style for the rest of trip. You'd think with all these cards o' mine lying around in the world there would be issues, but not a one for the whole trip!! What luck right!? The day I got back to Canada there was 1600$ removed from my account, all taken on the same day from various ATM's in Peru. I'm hoping my best bet for recompense is the fact I was never in Peru. Time will tell.

Camera Charger/Camera

If you had your choice as to what to lose out of your charger or camera, most of us would say charger. Easily replaced but extremely annoying and somewhat pricey, my charger went missing right around the time of the E-Reader. Getting my camera out to take some fresh snaps that day I search high and low for the charger that had been plugged into the wall (plug by the microwave josh, every time, don't move it so you'll always know where it is, come on man you can do this!). No luck. A replacement was pretty easily picked up for about 25$, and the photos continue. Twenty five dollars is not that much granted, but the camera was only worth 100$. Where are we turning our gaze this time amigos? Si es verdad!! The maid.

The camera was a real bummer, not only because losing things is a bummer, but because it went missing on THE LAST DAY! My flight out of Argentina was only about 30 hours away, and I had to change hostel rooms. Never, ever taking my camera out partying with me for fear of losing it (ironic right?), I left it in the dorm for some late last night partying, only to pack up my bag for home, with no camera. Now there was a computer and ipod kicking around to steal as well, so it's hard to say what the actual fate of it the camera was, but it was gone none-the-less. Unless you have a 1400$ digital SLR the really shitty thing about losing your camera is losing all your photos as well. I was lucky in this sense that they had all been put on the computer by this point, so at least the memories stayed put. Adios little Sony, through all the wet, sandy and scandalous situations I put you through, I appreciate it. I hope you find a good home.

My Puffy Red Coat

I mostly bought this little number as a joke for about 40$, which is kind of an expensive joke. But the more I wore it the more merits I realized it had. For starters, it was bright red so you always knew where to find me. It was also very warm and very puffy, great for those little mountain treks we found ourselves in and made a great bus pillow. With the short time we spent together it became less of joke and more of a commodity in my travels. Once again finding ourselves in a Buenos Aires nightclub, I was finding the coat a bit too puffy and too warm, so I offered it out to one of friends to wear in a Michael Jackson like tribute dance. That was the last I saw of it that week. When we got back from a short side trip to a waterfall, it was waiting for me at the same hostel! Like a little bird you release into the wild but it keeps coming back!! But guess who pulled the exact same move that night, letting a fellow club goer tie it around his waist? The author of this ridiculous list of course. That was the last I saw of the puffy red coat, which I hope has kept some wayward backpacker warm or puffed up in their travels.

Every Single Pair of Flip Flops and Sun Glasses

This would be a guesstimate at best, but throughout the five months I'd say four pairs of flip flops and five pairs of sunglasses were either broken or misplaced. One of the better pair I can recall snapped after a day of parading and partying, and I flung them onto the nearest roof. 'Let that be a warning to any other pair of flip flops that I buy' my rum addled mind said. When you spend $5 or $10 on a pair of shades or sandals, you can expect two things. That they will most certainly break at some point, and that you will not take care of them. The only problem I have with this is: every time I have spent some real cash on sunglasses or sandals, they don't break, and I try to take care of them...but they easily catch the eye of any less than moral fellow traveler.

Throughout the trip I probably went through the same 10$ style Ray Bans five times. They got stepped on, sat on, stolen, dropped in a lake and crushed in my backpack. Until I either smarten up, or the more likely option, they develop a steal and break proof pair of sunglasses or flip flops, I will continue to bulk buy and destroy these items.

So what did I actually bring home? The two biggest ones of course were the MacBook and Ipod Touch, both making it the whole way through. These would have been devastating losses, but perhaps Steve Jobs was looking out for me and his shiny apply products from up high, who knows. The only positives I can see to all these lost items is the fact that I will have to replace them with more stylish and up to date gear. That is, when I get my lost money back.

thanks for reading.

The latest and greatest (and only) catch up post

So, as many of you know that read this blog, there has been NOTHING to read for the past three months. What happened, you ask? You used to document and satire the shit out of goings on on the last trip, not only as a journal relief to yourself but also the people who care about you but don't know where you are half the time. It's an update, it's a outlet, it's a story, it's EASY. So why so many blank pages?

The real answer is, I sat down one day in mexico and read through some of the posts from long ago, some honest, some naive, some overly sanctimonious...and I really didn't feel like the same guy who wrote those. Wether it's hitting some sort of imaginary age frontier or working in a job that boasts cruel reality instead of frivolous freedom, the stuff I read from twenty three year old josh greatly differed from the stuff I wanted to write from his senior. However, just because the old posts were wordy and full of attempts to be clever, it's no excuse to bail out on a blog that may one day remind me of how naive twenty five year old josh is. So, with enough self absorbed excuses masking laziness, let's start the blog again!

It's been too long of a trip with too many stops to strum up any sort of detail, so i figured a recollect of the highlights would suffice.

MEXICO

Every day with Edgar! 

First and foremost, this Papa polar bear was my host, teacher, connection and cook for about two months, never saying boo about moving on or being a couch surfing nuisance. Without this guy my spanish would be 1/4 of what it is, I would be in the financial tubes for accommodation, I would have never got to know the real mexico or tasted some of the best food I've ever had. I mentioned Edgar in a post from Australia almost a year ago, saying how he lived in a van, made his was by odd jobs and didn't even have a visa to be there. The Edgar I met in Mexico still had the same business attitude and aptitude, but with the actual means to turn it into something amazing. The ability this guy has to connect, interact and make people function has no equal. He will honestly turn nothing into a 'fantastico' contract just by whipping out his iPad and smooth talking (in Spanish of course, which is pretty smooth to begin with).  I owe this guy a lot, and I hope I can repay the favour when he comes up to the snowy motherland.

4 Wheeling trip in San Louis Potosi & Tolantonga

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume these two places were in the same state, although you can take that with a whole shaker of salt. For the 4 wheeling trip, with the little spanish I could grasp, I realized we were going on a some sort of trip, although totally lacking the details (where, when, how, what, who etc) *As a side note, before i picked up a bit of spanish, this was pretty much everyday in mexico.*

As it turns out, about 20 dirt bikes, 4 wheelers and  Polaris' rallied in a gas station parking lot with the only the yours truly gringo walking around saying 'hola' and 'que paso' to the majority of these strangers. The plan was to take a two day trip into the jungle/desert/ravine, smashing through rivers, rocks, culverts, trees and anything else that stood in the path. The drive down, sitting shotgun in the Polaris, was more than thrilling but we were also the ones carrying most of the supplies, we were responsible for stopping for any breakdowns and as tough as they thought their mexican muchacho machines were, happened often. Left up to me in 35 degree heat with no water or cigarettes, I would have left the stalled bike in the bushes and walked away, but after 2 hours of deliberation and mexican elbow grease we had it running again. The last leg of the journey flew by in a flurry of jungle leaves and splashing water, which took us at these A-frame cabanas. The site alone was incredible and I have nothing but good things to say about, but the course of the night left a pretty bitter taste in my mouth (and it wasn't just the gallon of tequila). Over estimating my savvy with said tequila, I over indulged and ran though a thorn field into the shallow but raging river. Of course, this was all recollected to me the next day, as I had no memory of such

Beer, goggles, dune buggy. Listo.

foolishness and wept over my shredded legs. As we packed up to leave that morning, I realized that everything that was in my pockets for my impromptu swim had washed away, including a bank card and about 25$ in pesos. That really put a damper on my day, so I took the highway back, which turned out to be about half as safe as the jungle. At the end of the day though, minus some cash, wits, and debit card, I had seen a piece of Mexico that no tourist would ever get to go on, as well feeling like the baddest ass mofo in the state cruising around a river valley in a buggy with a pack of crazy Mexicanos.

Tolantongo

This one I couldn't spell then, or now, but happily agreed to hop on board. It was about a 6 hour drive from Irapuato, in the dead of night...which had us turning up early morning, sun shining, hot pools sparkling and incrediblyt tired. Of course nothing kicks off a sleepy day like a refreshing Michelada, which is basically a litre of beer with a splash of tomato juice and hot sauce, little salt on the rim, love and a squeeze of lime. Most of the first day was spent floating in these amazing turquoise pools falling asleep and waking up only long enough to have a swig of your Michelada, although there a good 2 hours of warding off the advances of a mid-30s woman who kept inexplicably floating towards me. When a pack of wild mexican children came running up to the pool with dirty diapers and runny noses shouting 'Mama, mama' she looks at me and says 'Those aren't my kids'. Well played mexican predator.
The rest of the trip was filled with making some great friends, jungle hikes, incredible mexican barbecue and, of course, significant amounts of cheap tequila and late night pool swims (which eventually led the Mexican version of Walker the Texas ranger to kick our gringo asses out). Big shout out to English Paul for the invite and Pitt Harper for setting it up!

Waterfall trip in San Cristobal

J-Team!

This little trip was a great one, mainly due to the new amigos I had made back in Oaxaca. Julija, Jessie and Josh (me, duh)...or J-team as we became known to ourselves and few others, rolled up to San Cristobal with that touristy twinkle in our eye. The city itself was a wonder, cheap, easily walkable and had some fantastic restaurants and little dive bars. We had a few options for packaged tours, ranging from canyons, jungles, lakes or waterfalls. We headed out for the waterfall option, which included the ride there and back, entrance to the falls and a few really pleasant lakes. The lakes were beautiful, but the real kicker was this water fall.

I'm writing this four months later so unfortunately I can't recall the name, but there was loads of water and it was falling, so we weren't disappointed. We agreed with our driver and tour group that we had two hours at the falls, at which time J-team broke off to go talk about whatever white people talk about. We hit the main viewing point after a forty minute ascend where we cooled down, drank a beer and considered wether a zipline over the falls was worth thirty bucks (it wasn't). On the way back down, one of the guys running the rest area said you can go even higher then the lookout if you veer left and climb a 90 degree footpath. How could we pass that up? So we doubled back and hit the VERY top another forty-five minutes later, where we got some excellent photo opportunities and had the whole place to ourselves. Now, if you're keeping up with the math, forty minutes up, plus another forty-five minutes higher, plus another forty minutes down goes a bit beyond the two hour mark. So, after a sweaty descend we fount out that our driver, allegedly in a bit of a huff, had left without us. In the jungle, in mexico, alone... score one J-team. Fortunately another tour group had just enough room to pile our tardy butts in, and we met up with our slightly displeased original group for lunch later on in the day. No harm, no foul, just another great day in Mexico!

GUATEMALA & HONDURAS

Five minutes into the volcano hike

Guatemala was an amazing country that I just didn't give enough time to! It's cheap, it's easy to get around and as dangerous as everyone says it is, everyone I talked to was more than pleased to help you out. The majority of my time was spent in San Pedro on Lago Atitlan, which is easily one of the most beautiful vistas I've ever had the pleasure to look on. The hostel room I was in led out to a deck lined with hammocks overlooking this incredible lake that was backdropped by mountains and volcanoes. Yes, it was as amazing as it sounds. The funny part of it was, straddled along side all this natural beauty is a thriving piss pot town full of drunk backpackers and cheap drugs. Win win right! Anyways, one of the aforementioned volcanos had the pleasure of kicking my ass as I climbed up it, but underneath the wheezing and sweat it was a definite highlight!

Hiking San Pedro Volcano

Hiking a volcano, somewhere and at sometime, had been on my trip-list before I even left. I didn't know what country, but I knew if I found myself in the volcano area, which is almost any of them down here, I had to strap on my hiking shoes and make it my bitch. Of course given cheap packs of cigarettes and barely an iota  of exercise in the past...year...two? the volcano did most of the bitch making. I met a very adventurous spirit named Anja on the boat ride to San Pedro town, so having a mutual interest in self torture both signed up for the hike. Now by most standards it wasn't an overly challenging climb, and the volcano was dormant so the risk of getting covered in lava was pretty minimal, but with full backpacks and the lungs of a 90 year old woman, it was still a mighty chore. After about 3 hours, inclusive of many winded breaks, we made it to the little graffiti covered cabana near the top. Covered in dust, lewd pictures and insects and spiders of all sizes...this would be our camp for the night. We ditched the bags and went the further twenty minutes to the summit for a breathtaking, awe-inspiring...wait for it!!..sky full of clouds. Not only could we not see the crater, nor lake,  nor surrounding town and or pretty much anything more than ten feet away was shrouded in a heavy cloud cover. Certainly not the triumphant finish we were expecting, but like any tough physical exertion, being done was sweet enough. We set up shop in the creepy little cabin, just as the sky opened up in a crack of thunder and lightning.

It pissed down rain all night and the uncomfortable and chilly sleep was pretty much constantly interrupted by fruit falling on the roof, massive booms of thunder and things scurrying around your head. There was leftover pizza for breakfast, but unfortunately whatever creatures we were sharing the abode with got to it first. We went to the summit again right before we started down, hoping for a better view than the day before, and weren't disappointed. The nights storm and clouds had settled off into a perfectly clear morning with a spectacular view of beautiful Lago Atitlan, the neighbouring volcanos and the tiny little ant-hill of a town we had come from. In a word, magnifico. The rest of the morning was a very thirsty and hungry descent back to town, where I checked into the lap of luxury, which was a rat free bed and running water. It's been about a month and a half since that hike, so i can confidently say I'm well rested for the next volcano trek, at which point I will have reached my strenuous activity quota for the year.

Tikal

Right off the bat, let me say I'm not much of a ruin person. I mean, at times I'm a wreck, but as for centuries old dust blocks in the middle of jungles, I'll take the beach and a margarita any day. However, there are certain sites in the world that you would be a complete fool to be near, and not have a visit. Angkor Wat was one of these back in cambodia, and if it had a rival in the Americas, Tikal would be it. Being one of the largest Mayan ruins known, it was politically and economically one of the most important sites out of all the Meso-American cities. It's situated right in the centre of other large and strategically placed Mayan cities, being sort of a 'economical hub' in the Mayan society. It approximately dates back to 200AD and had a steep population decline by 1000AD, probably because some badder ass mofos' conquered it, but no one's really sure. History lesson aside, it was a phenomenal hike through one of the most popular and culturally rich places going, a big part of the experience owed to our tour guide Rueben. He had all the answers, as well as adding a few perks that you wouldn't find on your own, including tarantulas, Mayan astronomy and the truth behind '2012, the end of the world'. (For the record, it's just the beginning of a new calendar according to the original Mayan estimates, kind of like tearing off the December page of your 2011 muscle car edition hanging on the fridge, so don't go selling all your shit or building a bomb shelter.)

I climbed the main temple with a Swiss guy who was biking through central America visiting all the ruins on his way. He informed me that some people just like coming to the most popular ruins and don't actually care about the history as long as they can snap a good photo. I feigned shock at this, of course being the exact human being he was describing. The whole hike took about three hours, but was luckily interspersed with tiny canteens where you could a get a wonderfully refreshing beer and stare at fat tourists fighting off heart attacks after climbing the stairs. Something like eighty percent of Tikal is yet to be excavated, so the rest of the tour was spent gazing at these small mounds that we're hiding hundreds of buried temples. Pretty cool. Reuben and I went to the 'Tikal Bar' outside the park to smash some very cold beers and talk about anything else but ruins, which we were both pretty tired of by then. Big thanks to Reuben and all the dead Mayans for a great day!


Utila

Although getting to this little Caribbean island was an absolute pain in the ass (roughly 35 hours from Guatemala on buses and boats) it was the ultimate-caribbean-laid-back-drug-induced-scuba factory that everyone had told me about. Getting off the ferry you're immediately accosted by dozens of island dwellers donning their 'Such and Such Diving Co.' singlets, touting the various benefits and bonuses of their shop. I ended up following one of these people to Parrots Diving, a fairly new but extremely popular outfit with a smattering of trans-national dive masters and bright eyed newbies. I hadn't dived in over a year, the last time being a quick fun dive in Australia

and the only opportunity before that had been my actual diving courses two years prior. Picking up on a customer with a dusty dive certificate, as well as a less than adequate memory of hand signals and equipment usage, I was sold on a 35$ 'tune-up course'. Major thumbs down on this one as it was a 30 minute lesson on basic skills that you could remember over breakfast by watching a 30 second youtube. It did however put me right back into diving mode, and the next day we went out for a few fun dives off some of the more popular reefs, although the north side of the island was apparently 'too cloudy' so we missed the always promised but rarely seen whale sharks. On these dives we did get to meet a nurse shark, turtle, seahorses, some kind of eel and an assortment of other tropical aquatic critters. Overall it was a fantastic couple days on the water, but if I'm ever again presented with the 'cheapest' and 'best' diving in x island or y coast, I will be passing. For upwards of a hundred dollars, once you've seen a reef and the various colourful fishies it's depths have to offer, they all start to look the same. If the whale sharks or manta rays were guaranteed, I'd be the first one on the boat, but diving has become too expensive and the sightings of such creatures too sporadic to be worth it for me. Next time I hope it won't be the 'best diving on the island', but 'the best diving on the continent'.

That being said the island itself had an incredible bundle of bars and restaurants on offer, giving way to more variety I had seen thus far. My first hour had me sitting in front of a massive plate of nachos and a mojito followed by a walk down the only main street on the island planning the inevitable pub crawl. It was a fantastic couple days of being submerged in the ocean and Salvador beers, meeting lots of different and interesting people and getting a great preview to the caribbean lifestyle that was coming up. Gracias Paradise Diver's and Mama's Restaurant for a delicious, fun and fiesta full week!

She's a tough ol life on the rigs by's

Trust me when I say, this will be the only time I delve deeply and nostalgically in the wonderful world of roughnecking, but it needs to be discussed and dis and cuss it I will (so F'ing lame josh!)

Last October, my dear friend Ethan and I set sail for the wild wild west just like so many goofie newfies before us seeking fame and fortune. We found neither obviously, as none have you have seen us in the paper, television or Forbes magazine...but like my ol' friend Donnie Dunphy would say, we had a time.

We lasted about two weeks in Edmonton, which turned out to be an alright city at the end of the day, and we thoroughly enjoyed the sights and sounds while putting a gratuitous amount of effort into job hunting (karaokeing and getting drunk in a hostel)

 Ethan, the clever and fully qualified salty old sea dog he is, managed to hammer down a job, or career as the big kids call it, at a engineering firm in Calgary. So with heavy hearts and huge sigh of relief to be out of each others' presence, Ethan went southerly and yours truly headed up to the bunked out waste that is northern Alberta for some good down home oil rigging.

Das Da Rig's By's

Two days of those circa 90's training videos and some congenial chit chat about things I didn't understand whatsoever, and I was off to Slave Lake, Alberta. You may have heard about it last year as the little town that mostly burned up by wildfires. It was very strange to drive through this place with the left hand side of the street gone up in flames and the other side untouched. But I digress.

They shack you up in a hotel for the duration of your employment, and my first experience checking in was 'Oh, tell him sorry, I know he didn't want a roommate'. Awesome, good start. So I crash down on the bed, throw a six pack in the bar fridge, and await my first meeting of my rigging-bros. 'You're on my side, get the fuck out!'. I make it sound angry, but it was all in good fun...we talk a bit about what's in store for my first stint in the patch, and then, of course, the party starts! It was some kids nineteenth birthday, so the whiskey was flowing and so too did the karaoke. In the back of my mind, as I'm just crushing a Billy Idol song, I think 'don't you have to work your first day in a job you know nothing about and have heard pretty terrible things about?'. Oh yes Josh, you do.

Que first day, 6:00 am, head pounding, nerves jumping, I climb into the truck and we head out. 

'Got any experience kid?'

'No I don't.'

'Fuck why do they keep sending us these guys?'

'Well he can sing karaoke'

'Ohhh so you were out getting liquored on your first day eh?'

I really wanted to puke at this point, but I held it back to avoid further admonishment.

Breakfast. Lunch. And Dinner.

When you get to the site, which takes anywhere from twenty minutes to hours, the crew piles into the 'doghouse' which isn't actually like Snoopy's little pad or anything, but a big industrial trailer where you get changed, eat, rip on whoever did something stupid that day (usually me) and everything else that isn't freezing your balls off outside. I gave my name and a little background information, after congratulating myself when they told me I 'didn't look as stupid as the rest of them', they all figured out I knew nothing about mechanics, lifting things, hunting, trucks or fishing. Aka fresh blood.

After a couple of hours of running around like a headless chicken, getting yelled at and made fun for just about everything, scrubbing oil and mud from every little crevice possible, I'm shaking my head asking what I've got myself into. Ah grasshopper, it was just the beginning.

I didn't hear my own name for about four months, throughout that time it progressed something like this.

'Where'd you work before this?'

'I was in australia working at the dockyard'

'Ya probably on a fucking gay cruise!'

'Hey gay cruise, make some more coffee!'

'Bruce get me a clevice!'

'What's a clevice!?'

'It's a shackle numbnuts!'

'What's a shackle?'

'Ahhh you fuckin' newfie!'

aka Fuckin' Bruce

I found out that Bruce was pretty much a regional term for a fairly dumb or sub-standard worker, and it pretty much stuck for the duration of my employment, which in a twisted way became kind of endearing!

After Bruce, I became 'maggot'.

'Climb up there you little maggot, you shouldn't even be allowed to do sweet jobs like this' (the sweet job was propping two wrenches against your sides in -30 degrees with no gloves on trying to pry these little fluorescent tags into a giant piece of cable...complicated I know, which is why it was such an honour)

'Maggot'

After maggot came Puddy, which was a misspell and as close as I would ever come to hearing Purdy, so naturally I was stoked!

We met a few rig pigs in Edmonton while staying at the hostel, and the general consensus was, even if you're hating it, give it three weeks and it will get better. In my case, exclusive or no, it lasted about three months. The tricks, insults and curses seemed limitless, even impressive at times but in all honestly it was probably the lowest point of happiness and self confidence in my life (not to be melodramatic or anything). There were a few days when I was a breath away from sprinting out of there as fast as I could and never looking back, but those pay checks that had started to fill my empty bank account kept my sorry ass there.

One of my favourite jobs came in November before we got the luxury of a heated bathroom. Of course on a crew of five guys in the middle of the woods, the outhouse piles up pretty quickly. At -15 it all turns into quite a little shit-berg too.

'Bruce, we need you to grab the steam wand and melt this shit pile down while this guys sucks it out'

Finally, I've found my higher calling.

It was actually kind of fun until the toilet paper plugged this guy's suction hose and the outhouse filled with a thick steam-shit cloud, sending us both reeling and gagging backwards. That was one of those days where I said..'Wasn't I in australia or something a few months ago?'

Top of the world

So, long story short, October to December was an absolute hell, as the temperatures dipped lower and lower, I seemed to be making no headway with these guys, hadn't had a day off in 70 days and lived in a one horse town in a two man room. Les Miserable to be sure. 

But a funny thing happened after Christmas holidays. I knew what things we're called. We had new workers, and although I was still the greenest and dumbest roughneck there, I had seniority. I went out with the guys, drinks, parties, friendships. What's happening I thought? And as more people quit, as they're wont to do in this awesome industry, I became somewhat of an asset instead of this east coast, dumb ass kid who didn't know what a pipe wrench was. In a twisted way, after all the grief and sweat and all around rough times, I started to appreciate these guys and at times even enjoy the work a little bit. It was weird.

Another fun story was breaking my finger. We we're finishing up for the day, always at the end instead of the beginning so you already worked, and these big ass things called tongs come swinging at me. Thinking the steel is more precious than my bones I put my hand out to try and slow them down, only to be rebuffed straight into a piece of piece pipe behind me, hand still trying to slow this 1 ton piece of crap down. It turns into a little ring finger sandwich, followed by a few choice curse words. It hurt quite a bit, obviously, but I thought it was just a bad little pinch...until it turned every shade of black and purple you can name (not many?). The best part about the whole ordeal was the dire concern I got for 2 months after!  Not from my coworkers, who eat broken bones for breakfast I guess, but from the office in edmonton, the nurse in calgary and everyone in-between. The worry, I suppose, is the whole liability factor on their part, although it healed up nicely, who's to say I won't come back and demand recompense when I can't find a wedding ring that will fit...come to think of it that's not a bad idea. They we're prepared to do plastic surgery and have me on compensation for four weeks, which would have been the remainder of my employment...and I turned it down. Why? We do silly things sometimes I guess. The last week there I got two black fingers to match...there goes my career as a hand model.

Should have amputated

But this is what I've taken away from oil rigging, other than a fat finger and a few bucks...no matter how big of a pile of crap a situation is, given time, most things turn around on themselves. Living up there with no friends, girls or much of a life F'ING SUCKED!!...true...but there are at least a dozen more hairs on my chest, I can probably do an oil change for you, can lift TWO full pales of diesel (more when I had my moustache) and have the confidence to approach almost anything full on, content in knowing it can only be so bad. The bar of shittiness has been set, and I hope to live under it for as long as possible, but like so many before me, would not turn my nose at a few more months on the rigs, if for nothing else than to come to Mexico for a new surfing blog picture.

DO YOU WANT TO WORK ON THE RIGS?! (why the hell?)

Here's a quick rundown of how it all works out there, for anyone who is interested...bare in mind I was on a service rig the whole time which is quite different from a drilling rig, I'll explain.

Geologists, using science or magic or both, determine where these underground pools or channels of oil should be. Seismic testers go out on ATV's setting off chunks of C4 to determine if they we're right and if it all looks good they level out a large chunk of land called the 'lease'. The drilling rig then comes in and drills constantly day and night, anywhere from a couple hundred meters to a few kilometres. Once they're done drilling they put in a 'casing' which is the steel tubing lining the hole so it won't cave in on itself, and then put the 'wellhead' on, which is just the like the cap on a pop bottle.

Pumpjack

The drilling rig peaces out, and that's when a service rig comes in. Service rigs do all the work that isn't drilling the hole. When the service rig get's to the wellhead, they're just dealing with a really deep cemented hole. Kinda useless eh? It's up to them to get the well producing oil and get it ready for a pumpjack (one of those up and down thingies you see in texan movies) or another means of extraction. They also abandon the well when it's out of oil (because you can't just bail on it...ya know, greenpeace and all that), repair wells that still have oil and aren't working and tons of other stuff! Excited? No...k whatever.

Service Rig Derrick (a la rainbow)

Service rigs don't use the casing left behind by the drilling rigs to work on the well, they have their own pipe. This is smaller pipe that they put down the hole...I say 'small', the ones we usually worked with we're 9ish meters long and weighed about 200lbs each. They are delivered on a big rack in bundles, so it's up to the lowman roughneck to hoist them onto his shoulder and slide them up a ramp to a place where the rig can latch onto it. Try it 150 times in a row....it's a hoot.

Single rigs can put one pipe down the hole at a time, doubles two pipes at a time (doubles are just higher than singles, thus allowing more clearance for more length). The pipe is connected to each other by 'tongs'  , but very unlike salad tongs, so don't even go there. The pipe is held in place while it goes down the hole by 'elevators', which is a just a big heavy ass latch that needs to be able to hold hundreds of tons, no biggie.

Tongs

Once all this pipe is in the hole, you have to clean out all the mud and water left by the drilling rig,  and you do this by swabbing. I was picturing a Q-tip when they first told me about it, but it's more like a cleverly shaped cup that goes down the pipe on the end of a cable, submerses itself in the excess fluid, and then keeps the fluid above it as it's pulled back up to ground level. It's actually kind of neat the whole process...until you change these cups out thirty or forty times a day.

How's this army arranged anyways?

Consultant - This dude, usually fatter than high hell and richer than god, calls all the shots on the lease, taking his orders from big wigs in calgary. He works for the oil company, not the rig.

Toolpush - This is the boss of the service rig, who makes what the consultant wants, happen. He tells the driller what needs to happen and figures out the best way to go about it.

Driller - This is the ground level boss, who listens to the tool push, tells the low guys what's to do, and works the controls of the rigs

Derrickman - This guy climbs all the way to the top of the derrick (which is VERY high) and puts the standing pipe into the elevators...you stand pipe vertically so you don't have to do that shitty picking up and down thing every time. The derrickman also works another piece of equipment called the 'pump truck' which is used to pump fluid up and down the well

Roughneck - My bread and butter. Basically everyone higher's up bitch, runs the tongs, listens to commands and makes coffee...this is where all the other guys started.

That's the gist of it, wether drilling or service rigs, I can personally say you don't need to know much to get out there and do it...it's all learn as you go, but fair warning, it's absolutely trial by fire...no one holds your hand along the way, and it can be really tough, mentally and physically. That being said there are loads of days when nothing is going on and you pretend to sweep, shoot the shit and eat sandwiches (my favourite). 

I'll miss you frigid temperatures, long hours, lacking social life, tough work and early mornings. Oh, and you pay checks, I'll miss you the most. Ciao.