Gonna make a brand new start of it in old New York

Friends, family, confidants, and potential employers who found this blog from my LinkedIn page,


I'm moving back to New York. Yes sir and madame, you aren't just drunk, I did actually say I'm moving back to New York. My internship at WePay is coming to an end this Friday, and I have decided that there is much more for me, in many regards, in old New York. California has been a total blast, I made some awesome friends, saw and did some very cool things, learned an absolutely tremendous amount, and apparently, realized that I belong on the East Coast. As much as I wish things at WePay could have worked out better (because its an incredible company with some incredible people, and WILL be the next big thing), I have always been a firm believer in "Everything happens for a reason", and so I am entirely optimistic about what the future will bring me and extremely anxious about what my next adventure will be.


All of that said, let's tell some stories! Since my gym membership is now finished, I have nothing to do, so grab a beer or eight, this might be a doozie of a post. 


Back when I actually used to write things on this blog, I left off right as the boys and I had left Cusco, Peru and headed back to La Paz, the capital of Bolivia. La Paz is an incredible city, sprawling across the valley and surrounding hills in much the way San Francisco does (a great sight at night when all of the lights are on). La Paz's physical infrastructure is a bit...dilapidated. Streets are filthy and super overcrowded, hundreds of wires look like giant bird nests atop telephone poles (see photo, click it for a larger view), people are peddling any sort of item they can acquire, and the smell of dirty, delicious street food pervades throughout. 


We spent a day or two exploring the city, particularly the Witch's Market, where I bought Marie and myself each a pair of the coolest pajama pants I've ever seen. We also headed to the Coca Museum, an entire museum dedicated entirely to the coca plant, famous for its role in the product of cocaine. Coca apparently is a very useful and versatile plant; it's used in Coca Cola, teas, for curing altitude sickness, in soaps, of course for drugs, and much more. The hostel we stayed in was awesome- a giant house with a courtyard, of course filled with drunk American and Australian students. Some of the BC girls that studied in BsAs with us were traveling as well, and we were fortunate enough to spend a few nights in the same hostel with them.


Here's where the cool part starts (don't give up yet!):
One of the biggest attractions of La Paz is "La Ruta del Muerte", or Yungas Road. This is considered the most dangerous road in the world, and was closed to all vehicles but pedestrians and bicycles back about 16 years ago. From the time of closing until the time that we went, about 1 year ago, approximately 27 people had died on foot or bicycle (I don't believe that estimate included the bus that fell off a cliff on an opened stretch of road about 4 days before we were there). So naturally, we road our bikes down it. There are tons of tour companies that will take you on a 4 or 5 hour tour along the route, after you sign a mountain of paperwork. We suited up in helmets, gloves, knee pads, elbow pads, etc. and set off with 3 guides and about 5 other daredevils on a nice cool morning. The route started on regular open highway roads, where one guy lost control and ended up covered in road rash, but it wasn't really dangerous (he sucked at riding a bike). A little later on it got sketchy. We went under waterfalls, around hairpins, across super narrow land bridges, and all on some seriously rugged dirt roads along massive cliffs. It was awesome. We got to the end and were completely exhausted, so we hopped in the van and drove over to a "spa" nearby. We got some good food, hung out by the pool, and took showers- much needed break after an intense ride. 


We got back to the hostel and had some celebratory beers (nobody died!) and went to bed. Because we hadn't had even close to enough adventure, we hopped on a plane at 6am the next morning and flew to a little place on the edge of the Amazon called Rurrenabaque. That is actually the airport in that photo on that Wikipedia page, it is not a joke. And this is actually the bus that came to pick us up and bring us into the town, although that photo makes it hard to see the bulletholes (also not a joke). The landing strip at the airport was literally just a strip of blacktop in the middle of a small rainforest. Here's a photo I took:

The bus took us into a small town that looked like a Vietnamese village from a Rambo movie, filled with Jeeps and Land Rovers, thatched huts, animals running around, and people playing soccer, of course. We checked in with our tour company and they told us to wait a bit for our ride to come. We headed off to find some food, and with a little luck, I found a friendly Bolivian woman who offered to make me some sort of meat thing with a side of some other kinda stuff, cooked on some sort of dirty fire-producing mechanism placed behind a tarp, designating the kitchen. It was scrumptious. After a few more minutes of waiting, our ride shows up. A stern-looking Bolivian guy grabs our bags and straps them down to the roof of his Land Rover, and we set off...for 3 hours into the middle of what appeared to be absolutely nothing. I used this time to crush through the end of The DaVinci Code, although I have no idea how I didn't throw up on the insanely bumpy dirt roads. We continued further and further until we were outside of the tropical-looking area and more into a desert-looking area filled with small streams and frighteningly ghastly cattle. Finally, we arrived...or so we thought. Stay tuned!