Latest / bit of a Rambler / 078 Ramble On

Transcript

078 Ramble On · bit of a Rambler

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello. My name is Kai, and I am a bit
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: of a rambler. I like to travel, learn and tell stories,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: and today I'm going to ramble on a bit. There
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: was a giant Christmas tree before I left Cusco, and
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: they had been building it up for a while and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: I was hoping they'd finish it before I actually left
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: the city, and they did in front of the University
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: of Andena. There was how tall is that? Fifty feet?
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: It was quite tall. It might have been taller because
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: it was taller than the university, which was at least
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: three stories, so that's thirty feet let's say fifty feet.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: It was a big tree, and it had an aluminum frame,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: and they decorated with all of these manufactured pine needles
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: and all these lights and ornaments, and they turned it
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: on and it was flashing at night. It was really
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: cool that they did that, and I just got lucky.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: I got to see it before I got to see
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: it fully set up, just a day or two before
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I finally left Cusco. And they had a big celebration
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: when it was finally ready. So there's a live band
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: and a bunch of people walking around, bunch of snacks
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: and good stuff, and I left Cusco, and I was
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: sad because Cusco rocks. I got new socks. I wrote
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: that down on the list, but we can move past that.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I got a new new hat. So I got one
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: hat that was good, but water would fall down the
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: back of it when it rained because it didn't have
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: a full brim. It had that like neck protector in
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: the back. And I was like, eh, So I just
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: got a new new hat for the same price fifteen soles,
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: and it's perfect. It's the perfect hat. It's big enough
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: that it'll definitely protect me from the sun. It's not
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: too big. It looks crazy, and it's a thin material
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: that can pack down, but it's a strong material so
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: the brim stays out even when it rains. It's it's
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: a good hat. I wrote down Thanksgiving. I don't know
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: what I did on Thanksgiving. I'm assumed. I assume I
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: ate a bunch of food because there's so much good
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: food in Cusco. So I just got a I probably
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: just got extra lunches from regular Oh. I finally upgraded
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: my computer to Linux Cinnamon twenty two point two I
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: think it is. It's been on Linux twenty four or
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: five six years for a very long time, and I
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: haven't updated it because there's this one log in that
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: I need a phone number four Amazon, and I can't
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: update the phone number because I haven't bought anything from Amazon.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: And then it just became this whole thing. But it's
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: solved now, so whatever. I was able to upgrade my
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: computer in the end, which was so nice because I
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: hadn't realized how much farther Ubuntu had come from, or
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: rather Linux had come from twenty to twenty two. It's
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: so easy to use. I'm recommending it to all my
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: family and friends who are still on Windows because it's
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: just so much faster. It has nothing to do with oh,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: I'm doing the new thing. I'm using Linux. It's really
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: just it's silly to use Windows or an Apple iOS
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: these days when you have access to Linux and really
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: like simple, gooey interfaces. Anyway, I'm loving linuxmint. I'm loving
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: the new flavor. Is that what it's called. It's great
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: the new version of it for now, unless you're listening
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: to this episode in five years, in which case it's
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: the old version. Someone has asked me about houses in
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: the Philippines, so I looked them up and I was like, WHOA,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: maybe I should go to the Philippines because I'm going
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: to have to go there for a wedding for a
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: friend in February anyway, So I sent them my friend
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: from the States who was asking about the Philippines a
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: bunch of links with really nice condos and apartments with
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: like full kitchens and ac and a pool and stuff
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: for about four hundred to five hundred US dollars a month.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: And I was like, well, maybe I'll just go. I'll
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: get one of these. They're a little more expensive than
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: I would usually pay. But the first time I went
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: to the Philippines and Sebu, I was pretty disappointed by Sebu.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to go to a different city and
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: get a really nice house and maybe that'll make me
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: feel better about being there, kind of kind of throw
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: off the bad taste from my first visit to the Philippines.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: And nothing was terrible, by the way, In case you're wondering,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Sebu was just it was just a big city. There
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: wasn't maybe I was in the wrong neighborhood. There wasn't
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: really anything to grab my interest, and it was so
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: hot the entire day, so I couldn't really go out.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: I guess I went to a cool dance like party club.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I' what that was. It was in a gymnasium. I
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: don't know what that was. I went to a cool
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: dance party there. But over the month I was just like, man,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: the city is hot and there's not much going on,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna check out a different city and see
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: how it's like. But anyway, I've been building up well.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: I think I had one hundred and forty something users
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: in that first one after eight months of using and
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: trying to build up the community, which is pretty decent
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: for a lemmy and not I'm not posting craze. I'm
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: posting maybe maybe three times a day. I basically wait
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: until double the number of hours have passed. It's a
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: compared to the points, and then if the points are
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: lower than double the amount of hours, then I'll post again.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: But it's yeah, I'm not flooding, and it's all original
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: content or travel information. So I've been Yeah, I've the
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: community has built up pretty well, so I don't mind
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: restarting it and doing it again because I feel like
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: more people will join fast with the new name as
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: just travel on this community. I'm excited about it. Okay,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: but The cool thing was on that community that I
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: had one hundred and forty people on, like four people
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: messaged me within a couple hours of each other. One
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: guy wanted this, that's the Philippines. Guy I just mentioned
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: wanted specific advice on houses he could get in the
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Philippines and if he should sell his house in the US.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: The answer is yes to that, God for sure. He
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: didn't like his house, by the way, and he was
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: living in Florida, and he was like, I don't like
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: living here. I'm not comfortable and I have friends in
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: the Philippines. Should I just go? And I was like, yeah,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: oh yes, that's a great set of life circumstances for
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: you to start traveling the first time, start living abroad
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: the first time. Just get over there. And he's visited
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: the Philippines then he likes it, so why not? And
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: it's like I said, those they have super nice condos
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: for four hundred bucks a month. There's really there's a
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: lot of good reasons to go live in the Philippines,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: especially if you like it like he does. Okay, so
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: after that guy asked me about the Philippines. Another guy
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: is moving to Portugal with his family because he doesn't
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: want his daughter to get shot, which is a pretty
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: big problem in the US. If you're unaware, there's a
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: lot of gun violence in that country, like an absurd
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: you wouldn't believe how much gun violence. Like every twenty
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: two hours a US veteran kills themselves. There's I mean,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: I think it's once every eleven hours there's a school shooting.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Now I'm being conservative, it might be down to eight
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: at this point. There are a lot of school shootings
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: and just gun violence in general in the US, and
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: that's making him really uncomfortable. His grandparents were from Portugal,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: or I think it was his grandparents. So we were
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: talking just a couple of messages, and I talked to
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: him about visas and how easy those are, especially if
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: he has grandparents from the country, and especially in Portugal,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: and just how it works. You know, is it really
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: easy to move The answers, Yes, it is very easy.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: They have supermarkets, they have transportation, there's better healthcare, everything's cheaper.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: People are generally nicer because they're not afraid of getting
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: shot by their neighbor. And then he messaged me a
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: few months later, right after this first guy messaged me,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: and they are making the move. They decided to move
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: over to Portugal. They just don't They don't want to
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: live in Trump's America where women don't have health care.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: They don't want their kid to get shot. That's the
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: best reason. That's the one. I was like, Yeah, that's
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: a that's a good one to get out of the
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: States for. They don't need to worry about salaries because
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: he has enough that he's going to be perfectly comfortable
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: living in Portugal with a family. Again, most countries in
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: the world, even if you have a family, if you
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: have fifteen hundred two thousand a month coming in, you're set.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: You're totally fine, Whereas that is less than poverty wages
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: in the United States. So there's just a lot of
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: good reasons for him to move over at this time.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: And I'm really happy for him. They sound like they're
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: happy about the move. And there he sent a nice
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: thank you note about how yeah, I was able to
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: just help him feel more comfortable about actually making the
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: trip over there, okay, And then right after him, another
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: guy messaged me and saying that he's enjoying the community
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: and just the travel posts and he's trying to plant
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: seeds in his son's head. His sons like a teenager,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: and so whenever his teenager son is like, I don't
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: have any options this country, blah blah blah blah, He's
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: just like, well, just so you know, you can always
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: travel abroad and teach English, and just giving some of
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: the advice that I offer on the community. And then
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: he backs off because it's a teenager and you just
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: let those ideas percolate through their consciousness. He just wants
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: his son to be aware that he does have other
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: options because he's a dad. Now he's older, he feels
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: like he's past his prime. He always wanted to go
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: teach English abroad but never did, and now he's older.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: But if he has a teenage son, I told him,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: you're probably in your fifties. I've worked with people in
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: their sixties and they were not planning on going back
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: to the US anytime soon. And I actually worked with
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: a fifty something year old. We never found out because
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: he was worried about revealing his age, but he was
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: definitely in his fifties and he worked with me for
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: three years in the Beijing School, I think something like that,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: and we hung out a bunch, so there's no way
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: that if you're in your fifties and you're like, well,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: I'm past the age for teaching, Not at all. There
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: are seventy year old teachers in Beijing right now and
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: abroad in other countries. It's just there are almost two
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: billion English language students. Like students studying English, you have
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: to be severely you're you got to be pretty old
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: and immobile and like difficult to understand, and then you'll
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: have a difficult time finding a teaching position. But with
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: two billion students studying English in the world, like fifties,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: you're fine if you're if you're fifty right now listening
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: to this, or you're on the travel community and you're
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: wondering if you're too old, Not at all. I worked
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: with people as old as you for years. They loved it,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: of course, because they don't have to worry about retirement anymore.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: They can work with just the cute, smart kids, like
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: the you know, the best part of having a kid
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: like right when they're cute and compliant and before they
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: hate you as a teenager. So there was a there's
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: plenty of fifty year old teachers out there, so I
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: wouldn't worry about until you're like I said, like, until
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: you're sixty five and you're having a very difficult time
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: speak or being understood, you're pretty okay. Like, yeah, I've
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: worked with fifty year olds. I know there are older
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: ones and other schools that worked there for years. So
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: if you're into podcasts, if you're listening to this, you're
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: very likely not past your prime for teaching English. And
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: if you think you are, talk to me. I'll be
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: honest with you if we talk in person, and I
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: can judge how easy you are to understand. I can
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: tell you if you're going to have a difficult or
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: easy time finding a job. But for if you are
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: a native English speaker, unless you're very difficult to understand,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: there's a job available for you teaching English overseas and online. Okay,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: So that was cool. That was the third guy. And
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: then the fourth guy is the guy who moved down
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: to El Salvador and then around Central America. Probably the
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: youngest one of this crew, and he's roughly roughly thirty
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: and he's out for the first time going around Central America.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: And I won't say things have been flawless for him
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: because he, as I did, likes to drink at that
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: age and so rough patch. But I'll say when we
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: first started talking, this guy was very He sounded like
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: every other US American I know, especially of the younger
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: generation closer to thirty. Everyone's just like, well, I'm never
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: gonna own a house, I'm never gonna move up in
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: my job, I'm never gonna have enough money to live
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: a comfortable life here, and there's literally nothing I can do.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: I have zero skills. And I talked to him for
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: over a year. I would just letting him know, like
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: English is a skill, so regardless of anything else you
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: want to do, you do have one skill, and you
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: don't have to use that skill, but it's important to
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: recognize you do have that in your back pocket. English
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: is valued and valuable. That's probably gonna become a phrase
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: because I keep saying that and it just sounds so good.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: But uh yeah, So he came around to that, and he,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: like I said, has been talking to me for a year.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: So he's asked questions about the last dozen countries I've
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: been to, and I just kept telling him, yeah, India
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: also great, Guatemala also great, like every country great. It's
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: and I'm not saying that just to convince people they
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: have to live my lifestyle. I really find it. I
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: find so many countries so much more comfortable than my
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: home country of the US, because there's much less gun violence.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: There's much less spontaneous violence in general in most countries,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: So when you talk to people, they aren't afraid of
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: the people around them. Every time I'm back in the US,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: people are super worried about their housing, they're super worried
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: about their healthcare, they're super worried about food security, They're
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: very worried that someone's going to violently attack them. It's
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: just everywhere in the US. I that's what everyone talks about.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: We're in other countries, they talk about like what to
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: get for lunch, or like which local market to go to.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: It's just I find the general air of most countries
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: much more comfortable to be in than in the US.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: And so that's what this guy sounded like before we
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: start talking, and then I just kept telling him the reality,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: like yeah, India has supermarkets and Thailand has supermarkets, and yes,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: it costs three hundred dollars. I'd send him screenshots of
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: the flight prices and links. I never want to tell
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: somebody something that I can't back up, So when somebody
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: asked me about flight prices, I usually check them first
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: and then send over a link in a screenshot, because
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: if you live in the US, the story is you
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: have to be rich to travel. Flight tickets are impossibly expensive.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: And I just kept explaining to this fourth younger guy
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: in very simple terms, and you know, direct proof, this
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: is how much it costs. This is how you fill
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: out a visa if you want to go to a
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: visa count You don't need a visa for one hundred
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: and eighty countries to travel in since from the US,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: and eventually he jumped over to El Salvador, had a wild,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: fun party time, and then is stopping back in the
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: US right now before he goes to Asia because he
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: really wants to go to Japan. But he's learned from
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: those bumps, and when he talks now, he sounds very
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: positive and like he's taking action rather than despair, rather
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: than just well, there's nothing I can do. I'm totally screwed.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Now that he's traveled for I think I think it
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: was two and a half two months, how long one two? Yeah,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: two and a half or three months, I'll say it
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: was something like that. Before he's back in the States.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Now you learn so much anybody who travels. After a
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: couple months, you learn enough that you can travel for
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: the rest of your life. And it's all of the
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: things I say. You'll be able to afforde your life
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: for the rest of the once you travel for the
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: first time and you're actually living for these costs that
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about five hundred dollars a month for rent
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: utilities Wi Fi and electricity. Wait, what's the other one?
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Rent utilities Wi Fi? Something else? Whatever? Because the basic
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: oh groceries, groceries, Yeah, so food and housing can't care
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: for under five five. After you live like that for
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: a couple months, a huge weight will fall off your
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: shoulders because because all of a sudden you're like, oh,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: I don't need five thousand US dollars every month to live.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: I can have ten percent of that and live very comfortably.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: And if I have twenty percent, if I have one
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars, I live like a king in like one
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: hundred and eighty countries. So now that this guy knows
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: how to travel practically as an in practice, he feels
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: much more comfortable about his whole life, about being able
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: to live in the world, and that exact conclusion that
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: he told me is what I want to share with people.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: That's that's pretty much the whole point of this podcast
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: and the community. I share fun information, I share fun
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: pictures of where I'm going. The whole point is so
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: that people ask me, which they usually do, is this real?
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Can I really do it? Travel can't be that easy.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: I'm fine with the confrontational things too, because the information
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: is so easy to check flight tickets, price, visa websites
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: and I just send that to the person. There's no
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: this is publicly available information. Healthcare, yes, much cheaper, higher
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: rated than the US, food much more fresh, much cheaper
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: than the US, rent better housing, much cheaper than in
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: the US. I just want people to know that if
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: they travel, they have better options because instead of one
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: country so you only have limited options, you can go
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: to almost two hundred countries and choose let's just say,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: two hundred more, two hundred times the amount of options
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: because you have two hundred times the amount of countries
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: to choose from. If you need healthcare, get to Thailand.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: They're killing it with healthcare. If you just want an
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: easy life, Thailand's also pretty good for that, but Columbia's
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: pretty nice. I like the weather better. You can just
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: choose and just choose the best situation for you. It's
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: so nice. So it was really great to hear this
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: guy who has moved abroad sound much more comfortable and
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: confident about his life going forward, because now that he
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: has the skill set of traveling and the experience of
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: a couple months, he knows that he can keep doing it,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: and he knows that he doesn't have to worry about
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: all the things he was told he must worry about
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: growing up in the United States, housing, food security, vehicles, transportation,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: gun violence, all of this stuff. Just those concerns pretty
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: much vanish once you start traveling. Once this guy started traveling,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I'm always happy to hear that. So that
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: was very exciting for me. That was a big moment
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: in the community for me. That was the first time
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: I got four message just in the same so close together.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: And that's kind of part of the reason why I
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: decided to make the new community just called Travel, because
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: I want those questions and I want to help people
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: feel more comfortable in this world and know all the
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: options available to them. And yeah, with just Travel, I'm
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: hoping more people keep asking questions and my information about
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: traveling helps them. And if you're like, well, how many
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: negative comments do you get in the community? Way more.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: But that doesn't bother me very much because if I,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: if not me, was making this Reddit community, let's say,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: a travel community and sharing the information I'm sharing, I
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: would be extremely skeptical too. So I'm never down on
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: the negative comments. I just send them the real information.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: The only thing is I don't allow misinformation in the
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Lemmy communities. So if you say that flight is impossible,
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: then I have to move that because there's a screenshot
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: and link to that price. So I want to spread
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: positive information that can help people, and I'll send it
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: to anybody. And I like talking too, and I i've
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm retired and I'm still young, so I
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: have a lot of energy. Young ish, i'll say, not
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: as young as I or anyone would like to be,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: but I still have enough energy that I still have
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: fun typing back all the comments. So that's another reason
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: why I don't mind the negative comments. I just have
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: all day and whenever someone talks to me, I'm like, ooh,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: someone calling me names. Well, at least I have something
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: to do. Now politely respond and provide answers. Oh but
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: I prefer when you don't call me names and just
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: ask nice questions. Okay, So those are the four people
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: getting real information. It was really cool to do that.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: So that's why we have the new travel community. I'm
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: excited to build it back up. Looks like more people
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: have already joined. I think it's almost at sixty users
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: after a couple of days. So yeah, I'm excited. It's
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: it's really exciting using this travel community and then getting
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: these messages from people letting me know that they're having
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: real results in their life, real positive results and taking action,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: taking their own life under their own control. Very cool. Okay,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: let's get back to me now, but we will. That
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: is what I'm doing, Okay. The host for my Airbnb
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: and Cusco when I left, they think in some countries
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: where Airbnb is not very common or there's a huge
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: local renting scene, so Airbnb just as isn't as understood.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: They treat it like you're actually renting with a contract
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: kind of thing, which is not what Airbnb is. And
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: Airbnb you put up, you pay the rent, and this
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: person is providing and it's an informal thing like, yeah,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: you're paying money is exchange hands, but you don't sign
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: any rental agreement. The host and you are part of
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: the same community, the Airbnb community, so you don't mess
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: up their place. They provide a nice place, accurate to
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: their advertisement, but they don't do walkthroughs and they don't
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: ask you questions about whatever. But if you're in a
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: country like Peru or like places where Airbnb just doesn't
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: more popular or there's a huge local renting apartment scene,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: you'll get more questions and they will think that it's
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: a formal renting agreement, whereas it is not. It's very
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: clearly just a community thing. It's like a CouchSurfing that
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: you pay for. So when I was checking out, they
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: kept asking when can we come up and when can
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: we check the apartment? And I kept telling them like
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: because I had already told them I'll be ready at
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: about I'll be ready to check out and leave at
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: about eleven am. And at six am I think they
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: said we're ready to go, and I was like, Okay,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: I'll message you when I'm ready, and they are, okay,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: are you ready yet? An hour later, No, not yet,
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: and just keep saying no, I've never had a host
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: like barge in. They just want to Yeah, they're just anxious.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: I guess their first time Airbnb reunters. And so when
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: I was ready, I said, I'm ready, but I was
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: at the door with my backpack. I gave them the
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: keys and I walked out. One of them went in,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: the other one walked with me to the bus stop.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: I guess to like grab me if the person going
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: through the Airbnb found anything bad. But I'm a super guest.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: I'm very I always leave it cleaner than I found it. Yeah,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: I'm a pretty good guest. So there were no issues,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: and I got on my bus went to Lima because
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: I was going to check out a coastal city before
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: I flew out of Lima to uh Hawaii for the holidays,
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: and then I'm going to bounce over to Philippines after
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: a couple of weeks in Hawaii to go to that wedding.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: I'm lucky. I have a couple friends in Hawaii that
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: I can stay with. But I've also camped outside at
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: several of the beaches in Hawaii, which is technically illegal,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: but they're very heavily wooded areas, and I'm you know,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: quite good at stealth camping at this point. And honestly,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: there's so many homeless people in Hawaii that as long
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: as you're not bothering anyone, you can pretty much camp
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: anywhere out of the way on any of these beaches.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: They just don't so many. There's so many homeless people
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: in Hawaii, it's wild. I always stop in Hawaii when
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: I'm going between you know, Asia and the Western United States.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: So when i'm crossing, yeah, whenever i have to cross
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: over the Pacific, I'll stop in Hawaii for a week
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: or something because I have a couple beaches I love there,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: And at first you would be shocked at how many
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: homeless people there are. But it's pretty good cover if
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: you're comfortable with camping. It's very easy to camp on
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: a lot of these beaches that do not So many
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: of the beach beaches in Hawaii do not have people
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: like it. It's crazy how many of the beaches in
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: Hawaii have maybe five people per mile on the beach
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: a kilometer, I'll say something like that, because the beaches
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: you can look down for a kilometer and there's maybe
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: five people in that whole area. Sometimes there's none. Is
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: if they're not on the list. If you type in
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: Hawaii beaches, if they're not on that list, then they
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: people just don't go to them. It's pretty crazy. So
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: you can go to the nicest beaches in Hawaii as
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: long as you go to one of the one hundred
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: other beaches that are not on Top ten Hawaii Beaches
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: list or top twenty list. Just go to any of
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: the other ones, and nobody's ever at them, so it's
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: even easier to camp there. Okay, but I'm going to
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: stop there before the wedding, So I'm gonna go to
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: Lima because I've only been in Cusco and I've loved
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: it the whole time I was in Peru. But I
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: figured I would check out a coastal city before I
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: flew out of and I was told many things. I
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: was told it was very sunny in Lima compared to Cusco,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: which was completely untrue. Cousco was much sunnier, even though
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Cousco rained so much, which I really liked. When it
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: wasn't raining, it was very nice sun. Lima was just
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: cloudy the whole time I was there. Oh and I
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: was only there for ten days. So all of these
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: observations are me only ten days. I was in Cusco
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: for over two months. I was told the food is
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: definitely better because it's more fresh. In Lima, I found
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: the complete opposite. I only found one diner in Lima
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: that I liked. All the other restaurants, the quality of
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: the ingredients was much lower than what I was used
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: to in Cusco. And yeah, just not cooked as well
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: as every place in Cusco. I'll talk that a bit
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: later when I talk about Tommy's Done. I'll just talk
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: about it now. In Cusco, every restaurant has like three
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: appetizers and five entrees or roughly that, and you choose
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: your appetizer an entree, and it's one fifty US maybe
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: two fifty US for the expensive ones. And no that's
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: not true, it's four dollars for the expensive ones. But
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: it's one fifty US to four dollars in Cusco, and
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: four dollars was more than norm and Lima. But that's
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: not a huge problem. The problem was that the ingredients
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: and Cusco are all for every single restaurant I go to,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: I'll say an easy four out of five of the restaurants,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: because I usually went to a new restaurant every day,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: in Cusco, depending on what the menu was looking like,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: we're as fresh as ingredients can be, and the food
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: was cooked so well and so just tasty. Whereas when
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: I got to Lima, I tried three or four places
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: and none of them had very good and they were
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: very popular places. There were lots of people inside, but
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: the food was mostly not worth the four dollars I
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: was paying. I would rather just buy something or make
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: a salad or something like that. It just wasn't good.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: And I got very lucky and I found this one place.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: I walk around cities and then when I see a
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: place that catches my arm, like Okay, they're probably good.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: That's how I found fine places these days. It really
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: is just like vibes, but it works pretty well. I
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: usually I'm not sure what the criteria are. It's like
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: out of the way, not in a main thoroughfare. There
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: are people, and the food looks correct, and the chef
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: has a focus, like if they're paying attention to the
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: food they're making. And I got really lucky because after
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: I went to a few not great restaurants in Lima,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: I was like, okay, you have to turn on your
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: restaurant radar and just figure out where the good one is,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: because I don't want to live here ten days and
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: just eat food like this. Even the savice, Oh, the
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: savice and Lima was terrible. Yes, I'm sure the fish
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: is fresh in some point, like in some it's more
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: fresh like technically maybe, But the sliced savice from my
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: favorite Civich place in Cusco, there was no second place
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: in all of Lima, even Tomy, which I didn't want
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: to tell him, but the way they cut the fish,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: the sauce in Cusco, at uh Perania Loca, at the
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Crazy Piranha, no comparison. There wasn't. There wasn't a distant
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: second in Lima. There was just a bunch of restaurants
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: not worth mentioning for their savice, and then Cusco has
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: good savice. Sorry, Lima, I know, I'm sure you have
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: a thousand recommendations now, but I went to a lot
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: of savice. Oh wait, I did find one place. I
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: guess they would be considered second place, but that's only because,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: like he it was just there's so much gristle and
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: poor quality meat in all the cavice I had in Lima,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: even from this relatively good place. I'm talking about Yeah,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: it's I'm not gonna put a second place cousco wins. Okay,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: let's talk about the trip before I get to Tony
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: and his restaurant though, because his food was great. His
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: savich was not great, but his squitzavich his fish to
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: vich wasn't good. Skwitzavicha was great. All of his food
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: was great besides that, So let's talk about getting down there.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: Because I took a bus down there because I knew
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: my flight to Hawaii was going to take twenty four hours,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: and then my flight from Hawaii to the Philippines was
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: going to take like twelve hours, and I just didn't
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: want to be on a plane before two other longer
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: flights like that. So I took a bus twenty four
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: hours from from Cusco to Lima. And you might be thinking, well,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: what's the difference between twenty four hours on a bus
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: versus twenty four hours on a plane. Okay, this sentiment,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: you're probably from the US if you're thinking that, which
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: is how I thought of it before I started traveling.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: It's so comfortable taking national or metropolitan buses, and other
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: countries is incredibly comfortable taking a bus from if you're
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: going like city to city in most countries in the world,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: you have a reclining seat. Your seat is going to
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: be much much more comfortable than any airline. It's like
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: if you took a first class seat from an airline
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: from an airplane. That's what the bus, the economy seats
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: are in these city to city buses in most countries
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: in the world. So the seat's already very nice. You
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: almost always have electricity so you can plug in your phone,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: You have air vents that you can use. There's a
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: full recliner minded this time, so you have a footrest
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: that goes out and your seat reclines back. But there's
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: plenty of rooms so you're not you don't have to
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: worry about hitting the person behind you. Yeah, there's just
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: a ton of space, ton of storage space for your bags.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: All the amenities they do. A food you can buy.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: They don't have complimentary meals usually, but the food's a
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: couple bucks. They have bathroom breaks, and that bus that
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: I was on, and most buses I'm familiar with in
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: other countries have bathrooms on board, so you can just
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: go downstairs and pee and get back to your seat.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: And their schedules are to the dot. They arrived exactly
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: when they said they were gonna arrive on my ticket,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: and they left exactly when they said they were gonna leave,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: and they arrived twelve hours away, twenty four hours on
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: a twenty No, it was a twenty two hour bus ride,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: and I timed it from the time we left and
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: they got there twenty two hours and thirteen minutes after,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: and there was like a big traffic jam and Limo
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: when we got there. But that's pretty good for an
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: estimated drive time to be thirteen minutes. Not perfectly on schedule.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: They were in the city limits, but just getting to
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: their Yeah, they were in the city limits ahead of time,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: but getting to their bus station took an extra thirty
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: minutes after we got there. But it's just such a
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: comfortable track experience. Whereas a flight probably would have only
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: taken me three hours some like that, four hours, but
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: I would have had to get to the airport, you know,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: go through security, wait for the plane because I'm there
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: super early, So the whole rigamarole probably would have taken
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: eight hours or something. And I'd rather just walk to
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: a bus stop, chill out, not think about it, and
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: then I'm in Lima Yeah, on an air conditioned bus,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: it's just so much In a first class seat, it's
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: just so much more comfortable. Like I said, even if
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: you get economy, which I got, it's a first class seat.
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: So I think I paid eighty eighty soles, which is
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: about twenty twenty five dollars roughly for a twenty No
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: twenty three dollars something like that. Twenty three dollars for
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: a twenty two hour bus ride, because I remember, it
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: was still like a dollar per hour hour of driving,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: which is a pretty great price, especially when you're in
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: complete comfort and it's a sleeper bus so you can
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: recline all the way. Yeah, and there was electricity. Most
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: of the buses have Wi Fi. The Wi Fi was
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: broken on this bus, but we had Wi Fi. I
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: was surprised pretty much throughout the entire ride, even though
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: we were in the mountains, so like all of our
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: data still worked. Yeah, it was good. It was a
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: good ride. I did not regret doing it when I
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: got all the way there. Okay, the only problem was
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: that the dw next to me smelled like Cherizo's. And
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: that's the only thing you gotta watch out for. Maybe
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: you'll just get unlucky and you'll sit next to Cheriso
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: guy like I did. But it wasn't crazy, and there's
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: a lot of ventilation in the bus, and there were
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: windows and I opened that so it wasn't a huge problem.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: And everything else was so comfortable, And the schedule is correct.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: In some countries, like in Morocco, I remember the bus
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: to Casablanca was about twenty hours, and you're just like,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: when are we taking off soon? And that could be
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: two hours, four hour, it could be a long time
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: before they actually take off. I would wait around sometimes
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: in Morocco. But these guys Peru on point, their schedule
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: was exactly correct, just as stated on their sign, and
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: like they told me, it was very impressive and it
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: was a nice ride. I would do it again if
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: I go in Central South America. Every country I was
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: in had nice buses like this, So if I'm down there,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: I'm certainly going to keep taking these inter city buses
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: because great experience, and the longer I go, the more
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: comfortably these buses get. Ten years ago, when I started
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: taking them, they were pretty comfortable, but not all of
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: them had electricity inside. That was pretty rare. But now
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: they like everywhere Thailand, everywhere in Asia, Southeast Asia, and
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: Central South America all have electricity, all have the modern
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: amenities on board the bus. So if you're moving around
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: within the country, I do recommend taking the bus because
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: most of the time it's a very comfortable ride. It's
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: pretty much always a comfortable ride, and it's you know, cheaper,
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: and you just it's comfortable. It's much more comfortable than
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: taking a plane for me. Try it out. Maybe you'll
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: find the same thing. Try it out for five hours
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: at a time. See how a five hour ride is.
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: If you don't like it, you're not gonna like the
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: twenty hour one. But if you like it, which most
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: people do, then yeah, you can take as long a
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: bus as you want. Just recline and sleep through it,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: or eat snacks or drink beer or whatever you want. Okay.
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: So I had three Guanmalin coins left in my bag
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: when I packed up, I realized, so I decided to
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: drop them off and like good luck or thank you
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: to Cusco. On my way walking to the bus that
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: I took to Lima, I dropped one in a park,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: and a second and a second park, and then the
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: third one I dropped under my seat in the bus
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: and I just left it on the floor of the
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: bus just for someone to pick up for good luck
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: for the bus. Whatever. I'm I'm just getting rid of
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: the coins. I'm not superstitious, but yeah, why not think
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: of it as a good luck token? And I put
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: it under my seat, wondering like when someone would notice
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: and eventually try to take it. And it happened that
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: evening when most people were asleep. The girl across the
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: aisle from me noticed it, and I was like, oh,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: got one. And she reached her foot over under my
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: seat because she thought I was asleep and no, I
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: was reading a book, so she must thought I wasn't
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: paying attention, and she started carefully dragging the Guatemalan coin
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: over to her side of the aisle, like real, casually,
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: real carefully. But she did have to go like almost
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: under my seat to get it, so it was noticeable.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: But I'm watching it all out of my peripheral vision
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: and tapping on my phone writing down her taking the
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: coin while she's doing it, but it looks like I'm
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: just playing on my phone. And she got it back
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: to her aisle and like I could see her like
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: she wanted to bend down and pick it up, but
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: she didn't want to be obvious about it, you know,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: because then people would see her grabbing this coin and
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: maybe she knows it isn't hers. And after a couple
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: of false starts, she like reached all the way down
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: and then shot back up real quick, like looking around again.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: And then the second time she leaned down and picked
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: it up like real casually, and I saw her flipping
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: it around in her hands, and she clearly didn't know
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: what it was. But it looks really cool because the
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: Guatemalan dollar coins what are they called in Guatemala, I
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: can't remember now cats all, kets all Guatemala and ketsl's
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: are gold in the middle with a silver rim of
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: like a quarter inch. So it looks really cool. And
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: she slipped that into her coin purse and then like
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: looked around again and there was like nothing, just casual,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: just a dude with a coin, just a lady with
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: a coin purse. And uh yeah, I was happy she
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: took it. That's a cool coin. Now, that's good luck
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: in some way, probably seems like good luck. Oh and
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: when I was walking to the bus, there was a
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: bird on one of the streets, one of the longer streets,
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: and as I walked, every step I put down, the
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: bird was like what, just squawking as I walked down
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: the street. So I was just walking to the beat
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: of this bird saying goodbye to me. Thanks Cusco bird. Uh.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: The ticket, like I said, super easy to buy, had
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: the schedule on it. Even with my crappy Spanish, I understood.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: And the bus arrived when it should and took off
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: when it should, So ticket was no problem. It was cheap,
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: you know, one dollar per hour of travel. It was great.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: I love international bus stations. They showed the beginning of
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: Deadpool Wolverine. They showed like the first half hour and
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: they were like built in TV screens in the bus,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: and definitely that's I love it when they do backstreets
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: back in a movie which happens well, I mean it
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: was in This is the End, I believe, and then
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: it was in this one and it was really funny again,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: so I got to watch a dumb, funny movie sequence
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: for a little while before that went away. I guess
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: they just wanted us to show us the beginning of
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: it and be like, this is pretty funny. Maybe it
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: was bedtime or something. I don't know why they didn't
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: show the whole movie anyway, that was fun. It was
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: raining when I arrived in Lima twenty two hours later,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: and all the flagstones in Lima are very sheer. In Cusco,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: they're like, well, it's going to rain, so make sure
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: we have gravel or some of them are sheer, but
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: it's pretty rare. They mostly have easy surface flagstones to
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: walk on on their sidewalks regardless of the weather, whereas
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: in Lima they clearly don't expect much rain or that
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: must be it because that happens in countries that generally
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: don't have a lot of precipitation. Their flagstones are very
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: large and very sheer, so when it does rain, which
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: is rare, you can fall very easily. So when I
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: got off the bus, tons of people were either walking
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: super slowly or straight up slipping. I saw two people
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: slip and almost fall down walking past them, and I
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: was too because my shoes are old and the grip
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: is crappy, so we were all just falling around for
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: the thirty minutes after I got off the bus, the
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: whole city until the flagstones dried enough. But it was
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: drizzling for a while, so my room wasn't ready. It
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: was the morning I did get there really early. I
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: think it was six in the morning that I got there,
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: and my room wouldn't be ready till later. But it
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: turns out it was ready at like eight thirty am
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: or nine am, something, really early. But I just walked
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: around to the different parks of the city for a
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: few hours and checked out, got a feel for the city,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: and it was kind of like what I was expecting.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: That's why I only gave myself ten days. Because most
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: big cities feel like most other big cities. Lima felt
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: like San Francis or I don't know, Detroit. I haven't
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: been to Detroit, so I can't see. I guess Portland
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: or Seattle or Yeah, and any other big city. Big
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: cities mostly feel like big cities unless they have something special,
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: Like New York is special. It has a special culture
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: to it. There's a lot more live theater shows going on,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: there's a lot more dedicated art. There are a few
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: cities that are different, but most large cities just feel
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: like large city. They just feel like hot concrete grids.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: And that's what Lima felt like, and that's why I
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: usually don't stay in larger cities, but coastal city. I'm
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: gonna fly out of there anyway, why not. And then,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: like I mentioned, I tried the restaurants and I was like, oh,
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: this is why not. Police canine dog harnesses are really
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: popular in Peru, which I was confused by because there
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: was a girl with a German Shepherd with a canine
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: police harness. But she was just dressed like any other girl.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: She was like or a woman. She was she was young,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: she was like twenties whatever, and she had this dog
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: that looked like a police dog to me. But I
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: realized a little while later, like, oh, everyone, this is
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: just a popular harness for your dog. Like everybody has
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: a canine dog harness that looks like a US police
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: canine dog harness, but there none of them are cops.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: It's just a popular type of dog harness in Lima,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: I guess because I never saw one in Cusco. But
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: then I never saw any leash in Cusco the whole
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: time I was there. They don't do leashes there. Lima
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: street art, the stuff I saw was pretty cool. Uh yeah,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: I found some cool Lima street art. Okay, Then interesting
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: thing happened. I got chichiern in Lima, which I had
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: not realized in Peru is not dried fried roasted porkskin.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: It's breaded and fried fish or seafood. So that's completely
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: different from any other chicheron I ever heard of. And
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: I posted that in the community and a couple people
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: said that different countries have different chicherons, and that's not
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: some do, like Peru. Most countries are the dried fried
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: porkskin that's the common chicharon across the world, but in
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: some countries like Peru, I don't have to say like that.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: In Peru, they do have chicharon that is different. That
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: is breaded, fried, seafood and fish, which is totally different
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: than how cheaceron is usually made. So it's not it's
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: not like every country has a different cheacheron, but there
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: are much more variations of cheacheron internationally than I knew,
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: so that was cool to find out. I was pretty
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: blown away by that. Oh Tira Dito. I should mention
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: that I tried for the first time in Lima and
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: it was pretty good. The first restaurant I went to
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: it wasn't great. The second one it was very good.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: At Eero Burger had great tiri dito, which is Peruvian
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: sashimi basically, and in the second place, they wrapped it
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: around a bundle of sliced cucumbers and herbs and it
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: was perfect. It was so good. That was that was delicious.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: So there for all the crap I talked about Lima food,
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: there's definitely Tomy who has great food. And there's definitely
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: Eero Burger, which had great food except the beef hamburger,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: but the tiera dito and the sushi was pretty good.
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: The tier dido is good. Anyway, I'm gonna go sign
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: off because I've been talking for a while and I
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: will talk to you soon. Talk to you on the
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: next one. If you want to talk to me, go
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: to a bit of a Rambler at gmail dot com
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: or a bit of a Rambler on Blue Sky and
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: Lemmy the new community Crazy Peace People dot online slash
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: see slash travel and we can talk about traveling. I'll
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: be talking there anyway, but I will answer you and
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: interact with you if you talk to me, because I
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: have all the time in the world. Oh except I'm
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: in Hawaii now and I thought I would try a
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: new service provider, boost Mobile, and it's awful. Don't get Boost.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: It takes six days for them to mail a SIM
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: card to you, and that's crazy. That's the longest of
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: any country I've ever been in to wait for a
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: SIM card unless you want to pay sixty dollars in store.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: But I had already ordered the SIM card and I
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: was like, well, it's in Hawaii. It arrived in Hawaii
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: after I think two days or three days, and then
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: they just held onto it for three more days like
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: Amazon does with stuff. So yeah, I not not recommending
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: Boost Mobile. Since it's taking so long to get this,
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: and they didn't mention how long the shipping took. I
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: should just stuck with Visible. Every time I'm in the States,
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: I just get Visible. It works perfectly. They shipped Visible
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: shipped a simcard from New York to Honolulu in one day.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: Last time I got Visible while I was in Hawaii.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: This is coming. The Boost is coming from Indiana, and
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: it's taken six days and I don't even have it yet.
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: I'm hoping it arrives today. If it doesn't, I just
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I have to cancel this sorder and
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: just get something because it's pretty inconvenient for someone who
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: manages an online travel community and podcasts to not be
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: able to connect to the Internet at all. I'll talk
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: to you soon. Have a great rest of your day.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna have a good day anyway. I already went
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: to the beach yesterday. It was awesome. I'm probably going
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: again today. Talk to you soon.