By: Manolo | On: 18 Jul, 2005
DAY2: what better than having a drop in a river in the morning?
having a drop in a warm river maybe…. anyway all night the
colorado has been calling us, and we replied.
the say was time for Canyon lands, no one ever speak about that
BUT i love the place. the hike was not so hard, but had great
landascape and from the top you could see the horizon till your
eyes can support you. the sky was a blue that i ve NEVER seen
before, the bottom was red, brown,yellow.. plain here but cliffy
there. good. a very well kept secret. if you go to Us, visit it!
i ve also learnt that Mate check is VERY important. poor Jason
was left behind and who cared? no fukking one. luckly after 10
minute we realise that , coz a car brought him to us. he had
blister on his foot due his running on the burning concrete of
the street! ahah . poor him
By: Manolo | On: 17 Jul, 2005
DAY1: the slept was not the best in my life, but better than
those on greyhound. i was kinda excited by the trip so that
might be the cause of my light sleep.
Devo, the bus, is a former/sort of School bus, painted all green
with this Tortuga verde writing on the side. Inside they left
the first 4-5 row of seats, and made a large bed with the
remaining 15 row. so overally its lenght is 1/3 seats, and 2/3
materasse. cool. it s the lazy ass paradise.
like this: http://www.macchetta.com/pix/displayimage.php?album=6&pos=9 ( and if you go on
www.macchetta.com/pix you ll see better what i mean). on the
first day i met this italian/german guy Valerio, who will be one
of my hikemate for the days left. near my slice of bed there was
Dave from SanFrancisco, Jacqui, Genki: as expected ( we humans
are so predicable..) the people you meet earlier are the one you
get along more during the travel… the adjective i wrote for
the night is Cozy. it was not so cozy. but i like it
First day hike: Arches canyon. first view was then very good,
but thinkingh back it has been probably the weakest of all ( i
guess the later view are Spectacular..). in the afternoon we
still were haking near the most famous arch. it was sunset so
everybody was hoping in a postcard view… i got bored to wait
so i went around and i see, just by the side of it.. a nice,
small canyon. it look like a basin, and i m sure native american
made a lot of fire and dance there.. so relaxing… so relaxing
i actually close my eyes and wandered a bit with my head. the
night was our first night off.
we camped near the Colorado river. the sky was klean but the
rising moon was too bright for me to enjoy the stars.. we
predate the devo of the mats, used our sleeping bag and sleep on
fresh air. i feel like a boy scout when i think about that !
nevertheless i didnt want to fall asleep too soon. the silent
milky way watching me from far was keeping me company. SHe and
some 7 millions mosquitos. mosquitos that liked more Jr and his
sister Valerie.
Jr is a fun guy, laid back, and with many interests.. some day
later we would have meet to make some yoga exercise in the
morning. Valerie is probably her famale couterpark, fun to speak
with, interesting and open minded! many compliments to the ones
who build in them such a good behaviour.
By: Manolo | On: 16 Jul, 2005
i left SanDiego in early afternoon and arrived to santabarbara at 19:00
Chrissy and Amy+eddy were waiting for me at the Greyhound station.
nice to see them, the two lady are in great shape, and eddy ( amy’s husband) seems very nice, too. pity they had to go to La that same night.
Chrissy introduced me his house mate jessica and many of his friends, we went to eat in a resturant and guess what? fukking cold! not only san diego was freezing, also santabarbara’ weather was bad. food was very good, and the night passed kindla fast. at 4 am i had my bus to vegas, so skipped the night and hop hop ready to Vegas. first stop: La. useless to say there were some interesting person there.
my fave was this guy/female who resembles the teacher from that 70’s show “Fame”… he was under crack or something coz his pupil were SO huge you cannot believe. he was also wandering with a tripod while having a plaid to cover his body.i keep using the male form coz his body was more male than female, but he had small tits…. very wicked! around 13 i arrived in La, at the grey hound station. this is kinda near to the old vegas downtown ( fremont).
i wandered a little bit but then i decided to go to the hostel. 14 fukking blocks. sun hammering on my head and an HUge backpack. poor rot was not sure to make it.
but will over flesh is my motto and i did it.. why didnt i took a taxi?
why dont ask me :-)
i arrived in the hostel some hours earlier than the meeting point. this hostel looks like a cheap version of merlorse place: swimming pool, yakuzi, door looking at the court and many pretty faces! i guess i ll stay there next time!
A nice swim under the vegas sun is always regenerating.
around 8:30 i was ready and i met some of my future travel mate. as a test i decide to speak a lot with some people and see if the next few days would have been influenced by this ( of coz they were: so as a suggestion for me: when there is a NEW group and you see some people you find interesting, approach them asap. probably you ll hang out with them all the holiday..).
i speaked with this beautiful 36years old girl marielle + her friend Carmela, david from new jersey, old english man gary, two english teacher ( hannah and amy) amd last but not least Jeremy.
david was very funny from the beginning, i got along with marielle and hannah+ amy soon. the wait was longer than expected ( they arrived at 23:30)
just as the bus aarived gary ( who i was told drinked during the wait) bended and fall… hitting his skull on the concrete. alchool and concussion are not a nice mix… he was not able to connect but still was insisting to enter the Devo ( code name for the green turtoise bus). police and ambulance came and brought him away. nice starting.. nothing to say… the Tortuga verde experience is gotta start!!!!!!!!!!
By: Manolo | On: 15 Jul, 2005
Trip was VERY long. around 20+ hours… luckly my strategy of skipping one night of sleep paid off and during the 9 hours from london to La I was awake no more than 3 hours ( 2 of which spent seeing Harry Potter III).
At the airport i met this guy, Martin who not only was going at comicon BUT was also hosted in my hostel. banana bungalow. This hostel is Right on the beach after mission, place is very nice, and it s full of crazy people… i met also many english plp there, among them Kat ( an amazing ass babe!), christian from munchen,the above cited Martin, a very pretty girl called Jenni.. the hostel room are VERY small but i guess you dont go to hostel to sleep. not this one at least. top reach the city center / convention there is the 34 bus and then the BLU trolley. orange bring you just in front of the convention.
if you need to go to the Greyhound it s better to get the 30. in Gaslamp, i saw my old Hotel, right in Broadway- it s called pickwick hotel and it s very close to Greyhound station. gotta remember next time. ( sorry for useless info, maybe useful for me in the future…)
Convention was HUGE and so many people waiting outside. i guess no less than 3 hours of queue! i had my 4 days ticket so i skipped all the lines.
Manga and Manwa (korean comics) had huge stands and so had games and tee. for my self a tee with 3 man-stone. experimantal child stuff :-)
for my brother a very cool Bruce lee on the mix tee. very funky tee: if he has no sex with that on, he will never be able to have with any other dresses. i met alberto ponticelli and i went to some panel ( one with Scott mccloud..).
during my kilometes in the exibition martin was waiting for some comments on his portfolio … at the end of the day i was wasted ( it had been very intense)
the day after i went around to trocadero and the Grey hound, heading for …
By: Manolo | On: 12 Jul, 2005
in 3 hours i ll be leaving for Kalifornia.
i ll be attending the comicon, then i ll meet a couple of girls i met in dk ages ago and after i probably ll go hiking in some National parks. if it goes like that i ll be offline for some days.. i d like to see how deep is my inet junkiness…
then i ll go up in Chicago and then in NY. where i ll be wired again! :-)
here it s a pic of my backpack ( thanx to Mr.funtain for that!)
between the start of the post and the end i completed some more shit like charging my brand new ipod, completing the OTHER backpack, pissing some chill out. documents, memorandum.. etc etc…
are you ready?
manolo