EXTRA FUERTE!!!!

This is a sketch i did recently. it is the only one I have right now because I left my thumb drive at the hostel I was staying at last night. Hopefully they still have it and I can go pick it up manaña.  

But this sketch and the others, that will hopefully be posted soon, are all part of a series Ive been toying with dealing with advertisements in magazines. 

More to come hopefully.

Other than the above mentioned sketch, A LOT has happened since I last posted. I am two countries farther south. I spent a week in Lima, Peru. I took a 55 hour bus ride south from there. 

I did not go to Machu Picchu, I am lazy, I know, hate me if you must. BUT, I was on Peruvian television. A Peruvian dating show in fact. Now all keep in mind that my spanish is still very, VERY, basic. I was fed lines, food, and to a certain extent women. But below is the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN1iOkoGnRk

Now however, I am in Santiago, I am actually posting this from my new apartment. I have a roomate who speaks no english, her name is Barbara, she is awesome and a really good artist.

In case some of you didnt know, I have an apprenticeship here in Santiago. I am working for a company called Walka Jewlery. They are pretty awesome and I am more than excited. It is a work exchange, so I will be redesigning this Web site (which right now is really just a blog they made) and in exhcange they are teaching me how to make jewlery. 

Peace out

No no Gitana!

Ohh Ecuador

I write this blog post as I wait to leave for the bus terminal which will be my jump off point for exit from Ecuador. The last post I had was the day I got here, so there is obviously a lot to talk about. But, because I am lazy I will not even try to touch on all of it. Here are a few keypoints.

This is a picture of the Malecon2000 in Guayaquil. Pretty clean, and as you can see from the parts of the sky that are green, my camera is doing strange things.

In Guayaquil we went to the largest street/flea market I have ever seen. It never ended, ever, seriously. These birds were one of the millions of items being sold there. Right below them were pigeons for sale, i don´t think the pigeons were being sold as pets though.

Our route:
Arriving in Guayaquilwe left to Cuenca where my friend Claire lives. Cuencas nice, clean, it has a lot of Spanish architecture and really feels more like being in Europe than anywhere else I´ve been in South America.We then went to Quito, the capital, and stayed for 4 days.

View from The top of our hostel in Quito.

Ahh Quito, where you´re greeted with men bleeding from the streets, Mafia Azul gang tags and a Metal Festival titled Quitofest. As some of you may be aware, I had been extremely excited about going to this South American metal festival. It was kind of dissipointing, mostly because there was not alcohol being served which really prohibited our ability to Wile out. Afterward however we had a grand time on the top of our hostel where we drank farr farr farr to much old times whiskey and a little bottle of hell called Norteño (It´s like sambuca, only made from sugarcane).

This is the view from the park where the Metal Festival was,
that Church in the city is pretty large!

Then, There was Montañita.

Think Vegas only you gamble with your life, not money.

This little beach town has every possible vice imaginable crammed into a 1/2 mile square area. There are world class waves that could easily suck you out to sea, at least 4 bars on every block, and some very, very dirty looking women (Of course, I would never make a judment as to what their profession might or might not be). Oh yeah, theres also a rasta in a giant tam running around offering you cocaine if you want it, but I´ve herd he rips you off, so just say no.

There are no pictures from Montañita, if you´ve been there you know why.

We were going to stay there for a week, but after trying to sleep the first night we realized two days would be sufficient (Alex later pinpointed the exact time of the techno turning off around 6am).

And now, we are here, back in Guayaquil, ready for Peru. Apparently the border crossing can be pretty sketchy, so wish us luck.

Oh and if any of you were wondering if ive cut my hair yet, the awnser is: definitley not.

One good sketch, some bad ones and a couple rando´s

Despite my best efforts I have made to Ecuador safely and with ease. My flight was this morning on the 3rd (a day earlier than I originally though). I spent last night in a really really sketchy hotel near the bus station, so that I wouldn´t have to walk far in the morning. To try and define the mood of this place in one statement I have chosen to write a brief non-rhyming poem.

Rubber bed, you are squeaky
but at least I have my toilet paper
that the desk attendant gave to me
this room smells like pee
like that time I was in jail

after my mosquito, and im sure bed-bug infested, evening I walked downstairs to the bus station at 5:45AM only to find out that I was not at the terminal where the bus to the airport leaves, making my sleeping there completely useless. I walk to the other bus station and got to the airport easily enough.

At check in i give the lady my passport and res. number, she does the necessary things and then walks away only to come back and try and tell me that my passport is invalid because it is is too ¨mutilated or altered.¨ She insinuates that I will not be able to leave the country and in response I yell a string of broken spanish at her and ask for her manager. I am then taken to Migracion where the immigration officer says, ¨It´s fine for leaving the country.¨ Needless to say it was fine for entering Ecuador as well. Upon landing in Ecuador I have no reservation at my hostel, but luckly, the name and address scibbled down on a piece of paper. I asked the woman at the information desk which public bus goes to the name of the hostel I looked up on the internet, or rather the Neighborhood in which it resides. Her response to me taking the public bus is one of bewilderment, but despite her better judgement I took the bus to roughly where i thought my hostel might be and started walking. But easily enough found, I am at my hostel: safe, refreshed from a beer, shower and nap, and ready for leg two of my pan american adventure.

In a capstone here are some photos of pictures and photos of things from Costa Rica, they are not necessarily in order because I have not yet mastered this blog-post-thing.

A detail of the bed we had at the hotel/bungalo where we stayed in Puerto Viejo on the Carribean side of Costa Rica.

A view of one of our travel mates at the ¨river camp¨ our first week in C.R.

here is a rather terrible drawing I did by the beach one night. The representation is horrible, but i think it´s kinda funny.

This dog was very sleepy and kinda lived at the hostel in Monteverde. This picture reminds me of a drunk friend passed out in the morning.

Obligitory guitar-river shot from Lake Arenal in Costa Rica.

This was the view from our hostel in La fortuna, That is the Arenal Volcano. La Fortuna sucked, don´t go there unless you want to spend a lot of money on very very touristy things. But the volcano is supposed to be cool looking at night, but it cost like $20 dollars to get to a view point where that mattered.

This is the first drawing I´ve done this trip that I really like. I bought a Costa Rican skate mag the other day so I could do portraits because I was sick of draing bed hammoks and hostels.