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Surviving the long haul

Overnight bus rides are a simple, unavoidable reality of travel.  In countries like Argentina, whose "distance between population" index is highest in the world; in Africa, where even a 300 kilometre trip can take three days; and in India, where you'll probably get stuck on a train for a week before a space in the crowd appears for you to escape through, you need to be prepared deal with and thrive during these adventures.

Focusing on recent experiences in South America (because that's as far as I've been so far), I will hereby enlighten and inform about the best methods for conquering the overnight.

Words of warning

In case it isn't immediately obvious, overnights are evil because they involve sitting in one uncomfortable bus seat for anywhere between twelve and thirty hours.  Your feel swell, your knees hurt, your bowels ache, you thirst and you starve, and your brain goes numb from either squinting at too many English subtitled movies or reading too many bouncy pages.

And you can forget getting any natural, comfortable sleep.  Rough roads, crying children and livestock will dash any hopes of that.

Remedies and consequences

The best way to conquer the overnight is through unconsciousness, which many travelers achieve through sleeping pills.  While guaranteed, in the right doses, to knock you out for the desired amount of time, they are not ideal.  First off, they are addictive.  Secondly, they don't actually give you natural sleep, so you will wake up groggy and confused.  And lastly, being comatose for the duration of a bus ride leaves you prone to banditos (on sketchy rides), vandalism (when traveling with ass-holes carrying permanent markers), and missed all-important pit stops and smoke breaks.

Now, speaking from experience, some of the best nights sleep I've had have been caused by late nights in the bar.  Recreating that experience on a bus is tricky, especially if your idea of a "night out" differs from a few brews at the pub.  I strongly recommend against hard drugs, especially any amphetamines, on overnight bus rides.  No one wants to sit beside someone who just swallowed two happy blue pills for twenty hours.

After extensive testing, the best mixology to follow is two to three cans of beer, one of which should be a tall can, or sharing a small bottle of whiskey.  Be careful to avoid dark beers (too meal-y), as well as very light ones (too quick to get through the system), as well as rye (too anger inducing), tequila (too party animal-ish, unless traveling in Brazil - see geographical indicators below), and absinthe (too hallucinogenic).  A two to three beer range ensures grogginess, without excessive drunkenness, minimizes potentially nasty visits to the loo, and reduces the hangover threat.  It also allows for a comfortable sleep that is easily interrupted by dangers.

The final coping strategy is a technological one.  An iPod, or other inferior music-listening device, should be listened too the whole distance of the trip, with noise-cancelling inner-ear headphones.  The key to this is to have a good selection of music - which should include nothing by Yanni, or any boy/girl band whatsoever - so that songs may be listened to at random throughout the night.  If trying to learn the local language, a few language lessons are also good to throw into the mix (¿done hay lugares gay?). 

A shout-out is in order to all those whose play-lists enriched my iPod before we left.  Thanks to you, and the extraordinary battery-life of my iPod Touch, I once listened to 264 songs straight over a 27 hour trip, without having to skip a single one.

Geographical indicators

Now, whichever method of dealing with the long-haul bus trip you choose, the shock of an unfortunate wake-up in the middle of the night can be disorienting.  Here is a short guide to a few South American countries, should you ever find yourself busing through the continent.

If you wake up in the middle of the night and the DVD intro screen to a bootlegged version of John Rambo is playing, and has been paying for the last three hours, at top volume, you are probable in Peru.

If are woken up at a rest stop that has no washrooms, no resting places, and only one small wooden booth last seen being used by Lucy to give psychiatric advice at 5 cents a pop, and is staffed by someone very closely resembling the bus driver, or maybe the bus driver himself, and at which pop is, coincidently 5 cents, you are probable in Bolivia.

If you are awoken by a lively fiesta on wheels consisting of any two of the following elements, you might be in Brazil: music from cellphones, small battery powered radios, or the buses speakers; food, both cold and barbecued somehow; dancing; disco balls, strobe lights, or black-lights.

If it is two am, and you are woken up by the stewardess and offered a tray of dinner, or a friendly game of bus bingo, you might be in Argentina.

Recovery

Your best chance at recovery lies in finding the nearest ex-pat pub run by either Dutch, British, or American hippies, eating something woefully unhealthy, and drinking too much beer.  Only at this point with the shaking stop, and will you be able to shake off the weariness, and residual wariness of the overnight bus trip.

D.

Blowing this pop stand

A big huge sigh of relief came over me this afternoon when, with just about twenty-four hours to go, I finished the last of the paperwork, packed my bag for the last time, and said a final goodbye to the rest of my worldly possessions.

On Sunday, K and I packed up a seventeen-foot U-Haul and drove through the wind and desolation of middle-Ontario to my parent’s place.  My sister’s old room is now full of what used to be our apartment.  Our cats are adjusting to their new caretaker – and are even allowing her a few cuddles here and there.  Yes, it’s official; we’re gonzo, dunzo, outta here.  Nothing can stop us now.

Okay, so a bit more context maybe?  We just weighed our packs.  Mine is thirty-five pounds, meaning that in the last week, I’ve been reduced from a full seventeen foot cube van to a thirty-five pound bag.

In the last week, I’ve also said all my final goodbyes to Canada, including a drive down the 401 through a winter snowstorm, a trip to visit my sis and see her housing project (click the Grand House Student Coop link on the sidebar and see how cool she is!), and a couple of semi-relaxing days with my parents.  Oh, and a long overdue trip to Niagara Falls.

Now, believe it or not, I’ve never been before.  But, while home in Barrie, my parents insisted that I see them before heading into the great wide world, so K and I made the drive down there, stopped the car, got out, froze for about five minutes, then got back in and took the scenic route through Niagara-on-the-lake back home.  Was I impressed?  With the cold and the sheer quantity of tourist traps, yes.  With the falls, not as much.  Granted, it was a cold-ass day, and the falls were shrouded in ice-mist and fog.  But the point wasn’t so much to be impressed as it was to be aware of their existence, as any good Canadian should be.  Now, when I visit Iguaçu and Victoria Falls, in Brazil and Zambia respectively, I can say with the authority of experience that they are either bigger, better, smaller, quieter, or bluer than our own.

Armed with this last patriotic jaunt, I’m ready to hit the road.  Although I am only leaving with thirty-five pounds, they do include the most important things.  I am bringing my health, enthusiasm for the adventure ahead, readiness to take (reasonable) risks for the sake of a good tale to tell, and the love of my life.

Let’s ride.

D.

Musically Contained

The age of the iPod has its pros and cons.  The pros are easy to come by: cool device, good sound quality, the ability to carry your whole music library with you.

I can deal with most of the cons.  My biggest beef with the iPods is that you have to digitally compress your music, which can lessen the quality. 

If you want to know what I’m talking about, try listening to a store-bought music CD (not a burned CD) with real, studio quality headphones, or an awesome stereo system.  Listen to the sound of the drums, and pay close attention to the symbols and hi-hats.  Then, listen to the same CD after you’ve ripped it onto iTunes, or Winamp (do people still use that?) or whatever.

There’s a huge difference there, which is why I still buy CDs when I know the production quality will be worth listening to.

But I digress.

My current beef, however, is that for one year, I won’t be able to change the songs on my iPod. 

Last time I left the country for a year, way back on 2000, I only brought about a dozen CDs with me, and came back with about twenty.  And I survived, somehow – with the added unexpected bonus of being able to recite the Deftones’ White Pony album in its entirety.  I guess I’ll find a way to survive with the 170 album capacity of my iPod.

Albums are a dying art form in the world of popular music.  Bands like Radiohead and Beck are already breaking down the medium.  But, for my money, a well crafted album is much more rewarding that a single tune.  And, let’s not forget the concept-album, a-la Pink Floyd’s The Wall (also on my list of best albums).

I’ve spent endless hours refining the 11 gigs I have left (after downloading all of the LOTR extended edition movies – boo-yeah) into the ultimate collection of albums.  Part of that quest has been finding the best albums I don’t yet own.

Suggestions are welcome here, but my current favourite finds are:

Return from Cookie Mountain by TV on the Radio – This is a kick-ass album of moody rock and roll.  Good for long bus rides, and sleepless nights while on safari.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot by Wilco – An excellent piece of post nine-eleven commentary, which kind of sounds like The Weakerthans with a moral conscience and a bit more country.  I’ll be listening to this when nostalgia for simple home-life rears its head.

Untrue by Burial – Electronic of the highest quality, good for running, lounging, and waiting in airports.

D.

Putting it all together

It’s no secret that guys like to take stuff apart.  I’ll admit that I can be a bit impulsive about this.  I can’t even pick up a pen without unscrewing it and playing with the little springs.

I’ve let this urge slide recently.  I’ve been trying to build a guitar from scratch for the past 10 years, which, while technically the opposite of taking something apart, does apply many of the same principles.  I chalk this up to a lack of access to that most coveted of male work spaces, a garage. 

Maybe it’s because we’re about to take this big trip around the world, which is in some ways a process of taking your life apart and putting it back together, but for whatever reason I’ve started to take things apart again.  Any excuse I can find.

Lately, it was my old iPod Mini, which needed a new battery.  Sure, I have a fancy new Touch, but that extra 1000 songs I can carry around on the Mini just might save my sanity while we’re gone.  The iPod was a piece of cake to take apart, especially since I cut my teeth on a much bigger project.

Just before Christmas, I had gotten fed-up with my laptop computer.  The wireless doesn’t work anymore – which defeats the purpose of a portable computer – and the damned thing would overheat and shut down even if it was sitting on a table.  For the past year, I’ve had to elevate it on four stacks of CDs, and during the summer, I had to point a fan directly at it if it was on for more than ten minutes.  I was stuck with a laptop computer that wasn’t portable, and couldn’t it be placed on your lap.

With only a Swiss army knife and some instructions from some random website, I sat down and took apart my laptop, cleaned the fans and heat sinks, and put it back together with only one extra screw, and one non-working LED.

Good as new.

And Mom and Dad, in one month, when I start to take my life apart, the laptop is all yours.  Proof that anything can be put back together.

D.

Slightly freaked

So, we are officially 38 days away from leaving.  On paper, cutting-and-running seems like an easy thing to do.

Step One:  Give away all your furniture
Step Two:  Buy a plane ticket, a backpack, sunscreen and some water purification pills
Step Three:  Fly away

However, reality has a way of getting all caught up in practicalities, so we’re mired in a slew of paperwork, research, and logistics.  Luckily, K is a logistics Queen.  And, after a few cracks of the whip, it turns out I’m at least a Prince, maybe a Duke, or a local Magistrate?  Something less officious and powerful than Queen, anyway.

But, as she said, by focusing on one thing at a time we’ll get through the list in no time.  This can be tougher than it seems.  Boo-urns to those who say “getting there is half the fun” because this stage, this pre-planning, is not “getting there” in the traditional sense of the term.  The trip is one whole year of “getting there”, where the actual destinations are secondary to the experience.

I can’t wait for the real “getting there” to start, because it will be more than half the fun.

Today, for example, I can only focus on the event horizon, when the pull of the unknown is far too great to turn back. 

When the paperwork is all done, and the goodbyes have all been said. 

When our accumulated junk has been safely stowed in my parent’s basement, our cats safely lodged in a townhouse in Bowmanville, and all of our remaining worldly possessions safely checked at the Pearson Airport. 

When she sips her first airport Caesar (her travel drink of choice – a great combination of veggies and alcohol) and I sip my first whiskey (my travel drink of choice - sophisticated and concentrated), and we are the only two people left in the world.

That, my friends, is when the real journey begins.

D.

That’s it – I’m outta here!

(or: an ode to my bikes)

The best way to learn the tough lessons of downtown bike ownership is by never actually buying a bike.  I’ve gone through three since first moving to Ottawa, and poor Kimu has also had a loss.

Bike number one is by far the best story.  About seven years ago, my good friend M borrowed his parents’ Buick station wagon (complete with beaver-panels) to help me move up here for university. 

At about two a.m., we were driving through Perth when an eighteen-wheeler, driving the other way, knocked my bike clear off the roof-rack.  In the interest of full disclosure, it should be noted that said bike was initially being held on by a complex series of bungee-cords and a thick length of rope. 

However, when the car’s fan belt snapped – at about one a.m. – M did some McGuyver-esque maintenance with the thick rope. 

Lesson learned: four bungee cords will not hold a bike on the roof of a car traveling at 100km/h when faced with the oncoming turbulence of a truck traveling at 120 km/h.

Bike number two was bitter.  I bought this one at the Stittsville Flea Market for about $20.  It was too small, and too rusted out for me to care too much about, so I rode it into the ground for a year. 

When I moved from my high-rise apartment (at which I safely stowed my bike on the balcony) into a brownstone in the dodgy end of the student slum, I didn’t have a lock, so I left the bike outside. 

After one night, the bike was still there, so I didn’t bother getting a lock.  By day three, the bike was gone.  The lesson here was an easy one: lock you shitty bike to something, dumbass.

Bike number three was the worst loss yet.  I bought this one from a friend who had it sitting in her apartment for about a year.  She bought it from a friend who “found” it, slightly dented and with one warped tire, somewhere in town. 

By this point, I had learned my lesson.  I locked it up every night and never tied it to any vehicle’s roof.  I only paid $10 for it, but I spent about $100 each year on repairs and maintenance, and it paid off. 

Then, in November, a snap snowstorm iced it to the “no parking” sign it was chained to in front of our house.  No problem, I figured, I’d be leaving town before the spring anyway.  I’ll just leave the key for someone else in need of a bike, and they can unlock in with the spring thaw. 

I hadn’t planned on having my bike, and the sign, be chewed up by a sidewalk clearing machine.  After the attack, the bike was still salvageable, but when the city came to repair the sign, thus freeing my bike, they ran off with it. 

Of course, I blame this one on our “Rock Star” mayor.  The lesson learned: don’t trust the city to preserve your property, especially if it is “illegally” locked to a street sign, and is almost bent in half.

D.

Off to a good start

For many years, my New Year’s resolutions were comprised of two or three “buzz-words” that I would strive for throughout the year.  Of course, this was met with great success, given that the reporting and monitoring variables of said goals were wholly impossible to measure.

How do you tell if you’ve actually “actualized, initiated and streamlined” any aspect of my life.

This year, I’m going full circle.  My goal is to work out at least four times a week and to write more blog posts - goals were chosen because they will be a cakewalk.

In case you are living under a rock, or just not reading my wife’s blog, we’re a little more than a month away from skipping town (AAAHHH!!!!).  For some parts of our trip, I’ll have no choice BUT to exercise seven days a week (please see: the thirty day hike along the Way of St. James, or the back to back Everest Base Camp and Annapurna treks). 

And even during those long weeks we plan to spend on beaches in South East Asia, I can’t wait to get up and run along the water’s edge in the morning sun.  And maybe do some yoga while I’m at it.

This new commitment is in part due to the personal trainer I signed up with in November.  Now, being a dude, I’ve always been of the “bah, I know what I’m doing” school of working out.  Boy was I wrong.  Turns out, the only way to really know what you are doing is to listen to someone who really does know what they are doing. 

I’ve seen such a change in the last two months, and I can’t wait to apply this new ethic to a whole year. 

Bring on those piddly little Himalayas. 

And the writing?  Well, when I first started writing in earnest, I was, coincidently, traveling around Europe.  There’s something undeniably inspiring about being on the road, in a constant state or renegotiation with your surroundings.  I only hope it translates well to the blog, as my previous writing escapades were done in the four to five notebooks I carried around with me.

I am blogging today, but I missed the gym this morning.  By all accounts, this might have been a good thing.  As besides, it was, like minus-30 this morning.  The bed was too warm.

D.

Why?

K lies asleep beside me, her question still ringing in me ears. She asks not because she doesn't know the answer, but rather because she just wants to be reminded and reassured.

Why are we traveling around the world?

For all of her big talk and bravado, K worries a lot about the coming adventure. In the simplest terms, to answer her question directly, we are taking ten months out of our lives in order to really live our lives.

Does it get anymore complicated?  Is there really a need to further justify this little adventure of ours?  I mean, if you are going to put your life on hold for 10 months, seeing the world isn’t such a bad way to go.  What’s the alternative, having a baby?  Same time frame, less responsibility, you decide (please note that I can’t wait to be a Dad and for K to be a Mom – we’ve got names already, try not to steal them).

What are we doing?

But, she is right.  There is more to it than that.  We’ve always called this trip a “learning experience” and a “life changing voyage”.  We are wholly expecting to return with a brand-new pair of (rose, verdant, crystal?) coloured glasses.  And, what’s more, this trip has already changed me in so many ways.  Because of it, I’ve learned to scrimp and save.  I’ve gotten myself into the best shape of my life (whatever that’s worth).  And, I’ve become a better person because of it.

After only the planning stages, I’ve increased my knowledge of the world around me by leaps and bounds.  Go ahead, ask me about Africa – I can finally rhyme off a half-dozen countries on that continent! 

But, but, but…

Oh, sure.  It isn’t all fun and games.  We’re without a home, or a car.  Our comfortable little lives here in O-Town will be put on hold.  Our family and friends won’t see us forever, even as we wean them onto our blogs, and enticed them with promises of photos, postcards and travel opportunities while we’re on the road.

Sure, we’ve put everything we’ve been doing for the last three years into this trip, but it all comes back to the most simple of statements:

We’re traveling around the world for ten months.

See ya.

D.

Turkey for Thanksgiving

You know, I’ve never properly had a Thanksgiving turkey dinner.  Sure, there have been close calls such as Pietro’s noble attempt at student cooking in ’05, which will be forever known as the “pureed potatoes incident”. 

Not that I’m complaining, mind you. 

Thanksgiving dinner in my childhood home was always a culinary adventure, and I would inevitable show up to school on Tuesday morning with envy-inspiring stories of “duck a l’orange” or “braised lamb”, owing to the fact that a) we were a family of four, and cooking a whole turkey would mean eating leftover turkey for weeks and b) my dad’s a Swiss chef, and “turkey and gravy with all the fixins” is just not in his repertoire. 

I merely bring it up as a moderately clever segue into the best Turkey experience ever.  In fact, even the Thanksgiving part is merely incidental.  What I’m really trying to say here is that the best Thanksgiving turkey ever was actually honeymoon in Turkey. 

Dinner on said occasion was chicken, stuffed peppers, tuna casserole, salad, and a variety of melons for desert, prepared by the crew of our Turkish Mediterranean cruise, enjoyed in the company of two other Canadian couples, and one Turkish economist.  Over delicious Effes beers, we gave thanks to being on a sunny boat cruise instead of in the rainy fall of Canada, then we probably talked politics for a few hours before falling asleep to the gentle rocking of the boat on the calmest, clearest water in the world.

I had visited Turkey before, at the tail-end of my “Finding Myself European Tour 2001”.  At 5 am this morning, when jet-lag woke me up, I re-read my old travel-journal entries from my time in Turkey.  It’s incredible how much a country can change in seven years. 

But equally incredible is how much a person can change.  And for that, for finding my wife, and finding new strengths in myself through her, I am thankful.

D.

Road rage on two wheels

In a different life, under different circumstances, maybe a different city, I could have been one of those crazy bikers you see racing down the streets with no regard for other cars, people, or even your own safety.  Oh, I would wear a helmet and proper shoes, there's no doubt there, but the ora of invincibility would surround me.  All other would flee before me.  And a swath of green power would flow in my wake. 

I am not talking about riding a big, noisy, machine, clad in leather chaps and a horned helm; I'm talking about the sleek, efficient pedal bike.  I'd have a big white "One less car" sticker blazoned across my frame and look down at anyone driving anything less than a Prius.

As anyone who has driven long distances with me will attest, I am uncharacteristically prone to road-rage.  I am slowly getting better, calmer and more at peace with the act of driving a car.  The essence of road rage, I believe, is the fear of other drivers' actions, the need for predictability on the road, and the feeling of entitlement to the space allotted by your car. 

On a bike, those things are magnified because you have less space, less predictability, and less protection.  And above all, there's no freaking horn.

Instead of settling for ringing my little bike-bell at cars that decide not to treat me like any other vehicle, or just obviously don't see me coming, I've taken to yelling at them.  The requisite bell works great for scrambling groups of runners on the path, but has very little impact on cars, trucks and busses.

I contend that this is a perfectly healthy act, and an especially great way to shake the sleep from your lungs while riding to work at 8:00am.  Lately, the angry spew of four-lettered words directed at random motorists have become a bit shocking, I do admit, but for someone as generally quiet as I tend to be, I see this as an improvement.

And the more I do it, the more I enjoy yelling at cars.  Just as much as I secretly enjoy singing at the top of my lungs in cars on long solo car rides.  I'm sure if some young entrepreneur started renting small soundproof rooms to people who just want to scream for an hour, it would catch on as a form of new-agey stress relief.  I'm sure this exists somewhere in Japan.

D.