Adventure of the month

I don't always know where I am going. This is due to a number of reasons, foremost being my notorious lack of direction. If it were not for Google Maps, I would never make it to any destination on time ever. But there is another reason that I am often "lost". I don't bother reading my schedule as closely as I should, meaning that when work has me flying into, say, PLN airport, unless I am going to stay there for any extended period of time, I am not looking up that airport code. Therefore, when my schedule changes and I now have a full day in this PLN place, I'm at a bit of a loss. So I look it up: Pellston, Michigan. Nope, still means nothing.  More investigation reveals that it is near Mackinaw City.  That is now two places I have never heard of.  This is where you go to take the ferry to go Mackinac Island. By this point, I am wondering if I am being trolled?  Are these real places?  And if so, why didn't they pick one spelling for this Mackinaw/ Ma...

I realize that this blog is full of typos, grammatical errors and the occasional straight-up unintentional fabrication. I am not really keen on the whole 'proof-reading before hitting publish' thing and it shows. Therefore it is only reasonable to think that the title of this post is simply another one of my fuck-ups. Swimming with shurtles? What the hell is a shurtle, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. Swimming with shurtles is simply the trendiest new multi-island activity.  It's quite simple, really. Famed nightlife and travel guru, Stefon, describes it thusly: It is when you have been in Barbados on a cruise and then a year later, you return there for work.  By virtue of having already been there, you already have the contact info for super cool man-about-town, Neville of Swimmin Wid Nevil fame.

1. There is only one La Paz in all of Bolivia. This one came as a shocker. I had boarded an 8pm bus from Uyuni-La Paz and was set to arrive twelve hours later, at 8am. Yet, it was 4am and I had been woken up and asked to get off the bus. It was a local bus, which makes a couple of stops so obviously there was a misunderstanding. Me: No, I'm going to La Paz Driver: This is La Paz Me: (looking at my watch, then at my cell phone, confirming it is in fact 4am and thinking I may have gotten on the wrong bus). Is there another La Paz? Driver: (getting a little exasperated) No, this is the only La Paz. Me: (confused and certain that if I get off the bus, I will be stuck in the off-brand city of La Pez) Are you sure? I'm not supposed to be in La Paz for 4 more hours. Driver: Señora, there was no traffic. We are early. There is only one La Paz in all of Bolivia. Please, you need to get off this bus.

A $500 American Airlines voucher that was about to expire, a week off and a long-held desire to hang out in the world's largest salt flat: these were the factors that led to me standing in La Paz Int'l Airport, gasping for air at an inhumane 11,913 ft elevation. Minutes after landing, I was in line waiting to pay for my visa and ready to drop, when I noticed that the yoga instructor standing behind me had beat me to it. I bent down to help her up, so now the poor customs guy who came running over now had to help not one but two women to the nearest seats. It was 5am, I was in Bolivia and altitude sickness was kicking my ass. This was going to be a challenge. I expected this, maybe not to this degree, but I knew that the first day was going to be rough so my plans were simple. I was catching a connecting flight to Uyuni, choosing an agency for the aforementioned salt flat sojourn and napping...or as they like to call it acclimatizing.

Last week was kind of special. For only the second time in my life, I went out on a trip that went full circle around the globe. This means I left Miami on April 1st and headed East towards Europe. I then continued east and then more east (and still more east) until lo and behold, April 9th I was back where I started. In between, there was some sightseeing, plenty of sleeping on airplanes, curry galore and that giddy euphoria that comes from the coupling of seeing a new place and the certainty of oncoming exhaustion. To give an idea of what something like that is like, here is a cliff notes version of my schedule.

It is fair to say that Dhaka, Bangladesh is not on many "Must-see" lists of tourist destinations and I sort of understand why. It is crowded, insanely so. The greater city alone has a population of 18 million people so finding a moment of peace and quiet is a near impossibility. The traffic...oh, sweet ever-loving Zeus...the traffic is unrelenting. It can (and did) take close to three hours to go the equivalent of five miles. The historic sites, despite the valiant efforts of their caretakers, are in varying states of disrepair. The mosquitos, all 5 kajillion of them, will be first to greet you at the airport en masse. At this moment, every square inch of me that was exposed at landing is more welt than skin. During the day, it is hot, humid and sticky and a true test of the whole "try to stay conservatively dressed in a Muslim country" thing. Bottom line, it is not an easy city to travel in. Yet here I was in my first post-100 country, hoping to see as such ...

"We don't grow when things are easy, we grow when we faces challenges." That is a random quote I found online after googling "quotes about challenges". I am not going to bother looking up who to attribute it to because frankly, I don't think it is that great of a quote. I only bring it up as a prelude to bringing up my latest project (or if I want to sound really aspirational and stick to the theme of this post, my latest challenge). Having put to bed the goal of reaching 100 countries, I was looking for something new to focus on. They say inspiration can come from unlikely sources and it did. This time, it arrived via the click-baity newsletter, Thrillist. For anyone unfamiliar, this is a newsletter that is mainly aimed at guys but that happens to include a lot of lists on the best restaurants, bars, architecture, etc in x city, thus my subscription. The article that caught my eye was a list, published this past January, of the 21 best dive bars i...