First 3 weeks in Nicaragua

It's been quite the experience here the first few weeks. We have had some trouble negotiating our pay and schedule. Even though we are working for the same company we've always worked for, they've made some big changes for the job down here. Since it's international work, they've decided to create a Nicaraguan company to pay us through. It's still owned by the same parent company though. Anyway, long story short we were told we'd get raises to come work here and literally 10 minutes before we board the plane we find out that we'd actually be taking a pay cut. We've been trying to straighten that whole thing out since we got here. It looks like we've made some big progress but nothing is definite just yet.

Getting all of our equipment and sensors set up on the rig was also more tedious than usual. We were called down here several days earlier than we usually would be and there wasn't much we could initially do. But they wouldn't let us leave the job site and come back a few days later when they would be ready for us. So we were coming out and spending a lot of time sitting around, setting up a sensor when we could and generally getting in everyone else's way because they weren't ready for us. Normally it takes us one day to get everything up and running but here we stretched that out over about 5 days.

We were initially staying in a hotel and were supposed to be taking the arranged van out to work with all the other workers. The job site is about 45 minutes from town and we don't have our own vehicles. For the first week or so we were just working through the day and the van would leave by 5am to get us here by 6. We did that once and then started hiring our own driver for myself and the two guys from my company to come out around 9 or 10. Now we're living at the house for the workers and working our regular 12 hour shifts, I'm working the 6pm to 6am shift. It's not exactly ideal. We normally work 12-12 so each guy has a chance to do stuff either before or after work but we're at the mercy of what everyone else is doing because we don't have our own transportation. Hiring a driver everyday would be too expensive. My coworker and I have talked about splitting an old truck to use to get back and forth but it may be too much hassle.

The job itself is moving along. They hired a few local guys that actually go out and catch samples for us which is pretty funny. It's one of the only things I regularly have to do and they have someone do it for me. It's nice having those guys around though, they don't speak any English and it gives me a lot of time and opportunities to practice my Spanish. Between them and the staff at the house I've been speaking a lot and hopefully improving a bit.

I guess that's all for now, there's a lot more to say about these first few weeks and I'll get most of it on here eventually.

Nicaragua '10

Well it sure has been a long time since I've updated this. I feel like I need to fill in the two year gap. So briefly, the rest of the trip in South America was great. Jess and I had a great time in Uruguay, at Iguazu Falls, Mendoza and Buenos Aires.

After we flew home (she to Tahoe, I to NY) I went out and visited, we went camping in Mammoth. A couple weeks later was my brother's wedding on Cape Cod, which was awesome.

And then Jess and I drove out to California to start in San Francisco. We've been living there for about 2 years now. I spent the first year working in the Geysers and Nevada. At the end of May we went to Nicaragua for a couple weeks of vacation in Granada and San Juan del Sur. It was great, we loved the country.

Then I spent almost a year working in Hawaii on the big island, working for a few weeks and going home to SF for a few weeks. It was actually nice. The first time I actually enjoyed my job. I surfed almost every day I was there.

And then a project was starting up in Nicaragua and my company wanted to know if anyone wanted to go. I enthusiastically volunteered. And that's where I am now. Sitting in the courtyard of our company house in Leòn in the Northwestern region of the country. The job site is nestled right in and amongst several volcanoes, one of which has a constant cloud of steam rising out of it and last erupted a few years ago.

valparaiso

I´ve been in Valparaiso for a little over a week now. I surfed a few days but the water is really really cold and I got sick. I wanted to go today anyways, but it´s quite cold out and raining. I´m pretty sure I´d just get sicker.
Anyway, I´ll be here for a few more days and then I´ll start heading back to Buenos Aires to meet Jess.
Not much else has been going on. I´ve met up with random people that I´ve met along the way, in Santiago and here in Valparaiso.

new board

I got a surf board today in Santiago. It´s used and a little dinged up, but I like the shape of it. Should be cheaper and easier than trying to rent boards all over the place, I think I´m going to start by going to Viña del Mar on Sunday. It´s a only a few hours away and I can be in the water on Monday. I´m psyched now though because it´s one less thing to worry about, now I just have to get to the beach.
Two of my friends I met back in Puerto Madryn should be showing up here today too, so that´s cool.
I guess that´s all for now. I worked on getting pictures up, but I´m having some problems. I have tons to go through.

Patagonia

I´ve been down and around the southern part of Argentina and Chile now. And it´s been quite a journey since my last post.
From Buenos Aires I went south to Puerto Madryn. I stayed there for a few days and rented a car with some other guys and drove up to Peninsula Valdez. While we were there we were extremely lucky and saw a few orcas. They were really far down the beach from where we were allowed to be, but they were there swimming in towards the beach and then back out. The park rangers said they weren´t hunting seals right then, but I don´t know what else they would have been doing. There were tons of seals and sea lions on the beach. We also saw penguins on the peninsula. We found one on the beach just standing there alone, we kept getting closer and closer to take pictures until we were within arms reach of it. Later on we saw a whole colony of penguins, hundreds, maybe thousands of penguins all over the place. The penguins we saw are Magellanes penguins, they´re small, maybe two feet tall tops, and have two black bands that go across their chest.
We camped on the peninsula that night and went back to Puerto Madryn the next day.
My next stop was Rio Gallegos, 17hrs by bus south of Puerto Madryn. When I got there I met two Polish guys that I had met a few days earlier in Puerto Madryn. They were at the bus station getting on a bus to Ushuaia and told me to just get a ticket and not waste any time in Rio Gallegos. So I did, and spent another 13 hours on a bus. So 30 hours in all, plus a few for border crossings. I was exhausted when we arrived.
My bed that night had bed bugs. But I was too exhausted to do anything about it at the time, so I spent the next few days itching like crazy. I washed my clothes, took a shower and switched beds; but the damage was already done. I had tons of bites all over that itched like crazy for the next few days.
Ushuaia is the southern most city in the world. It´s pretty amazing too, it´s on the Beagle Channel and is basically where the Andes mountain chain begins... or ends, depending on how you look at it. So there are glaciers and sharp peaks all around the city on one side and ocean on the other, with some more islands beyond. We took a tour in a small plane for half an hour and it was unbelievable.
I also did some hiking in the Tierra del Fuego National Park while I was there, it was alright but it rained and made the end of that day kind of miserable.
From Ushuaia I took a bus to Punta Arenas with the two Polish brothers where we met an English chef and a girl from Austria. The girl from Austria had actually been on the previous like 2 bus rides with us, but we all stayed at the same hostel in Punta Arenas. Punta Arenas was my first official stay in Chile. We all had a good time there, drinking bad vodka (the pole´s drink of choice) and the local chilean liquor pisco, which is sort of like brandy.
There´s not much going on in Punto Arenas, it feels like a very European city with a central square and everything.
The Polish guys and myself went to Puerto Natales from there where we caught a ship to Puerto Montt. The ship, the Navimag owned Puerto Eden, is basically a smallish container ship that has been retrofitted with passenger quarters. It´s not very fancy at all. The cabins were nice, and we had full access the ships bridge and Captain which was pretty interesting. But the weather wasn´t very nice and we didn´t get to see any of the supposedly amazing views of glaciers and fjords along the way. The second day we crossed the Gulf of Sorrows, an exposed open passage into the open Pacific. It was very rough. My Polish friends, who had balked at the idea of needing any sea sickness medication while we were still in Puerto Natales, quickly found out how horrible it is to be sea sick. I gave them some of my medication, but it was too late and they spent the next 14 hours puking and being miserable. I wasn´t sick, but it was too rough to actually sleep. Stuff was flying about, including myself. The Captain apparently considered turning back several times because it was so rough, but kept getting promising weather reports which kept turning out to be totally wrong. The ship pitched forward and backwards about 15 degrees and we would skid down the back side of waves as we passed over them.
Anyway, the boat was pretty boring aside from that. There´s not much to do on a boat like that. And the food was terrible.
So now I´m in Puerto Varas, in the lakes district very near to Puerto Montt. It´s a nice little town and there are a few volcanoes in the area which are supposed to be very nice to look at. It´s been mostly raining since I got here though, and I haven´t seen any of the volcanoes yet.
Tonight I´m taking a bus to Santiago. The Polish guys that I traveled with for a while are heading up into the mountains to do some trekking. I want to get to the coast and do some surfing before I´ve got to get back to Buenos Aires to meet Jess in 3 weeks. I can´t wait until she´s down here!
That´s all for now, I´ll be putting some pictures up on the photoblog today hopefully.

buenos aires

I´ve been in Buenos Aires, Argentina for a week now. The city is nice, it reminds me of so many places. In some ways it´s like New York City, there are a lot of upscale stores in one area that reminds me of Manhattan. Other places remind me of Taiwan, some smells (not good) bring Taiwan back to mind fast. And it also seems very European in certain places. All in all, it´s a really nice place to visit. I´ve had some trouble adjusting to the time here, it´s not so much jet lag (it´s only an hour ahead of NY) but the way of life here. People don´t eat dinner until late at night, 10pm is on the early side for dinner. Last night, I ate dinner and then went to a few bars with some people I´ve met that are staying at the same hostel as I am. I ended up not getting home until about 8am. I was so tired. But that´s pretty normal here, that wasn´t really crazy.
I´m enjoying myself here, but also I miss Jess, my girlfriend. In some ways I feel like making this trip was a bit of a mistake. The timing was bad, and it´s been difficult. I´m glad I met some nice people to hang out with in Buenos Aires, it takes my mind off of how much I miss Jess and how hard it is to be so far away all alone.
Tomorrow I have a 20 hour bus ride to Puerto Madryn. It´s overnight and I will have some sleeping pills and also some whisky to get me through the ridiculously long trip. I´m looking forward to getting there though, there is some good diving there and I have the chance of seeing killer whales hunting seals onto beaches near there at peninsula valdez. Traveling alone is difficult though. You´re always "on". You don´t have anyone else looking out for you and you always need to be aware of everything. That doesn´t sound like a big deal, but when you are in a totally foreign place it can take a lot of energy. Also, I´m obviously responsible for figuring out what I´m going to do every minute of every day. I know that doesn´t sound like a big deal, but it takes a lot of energy. And I want to make sure I don´t waste time anywhere, so it´s a lot of pressure. And on top of all that, I get very lonely. I´ve met some nice people here, but that´s not the same as old friends you´ve known for a long time. I´m also shy, so I find it stressful to put myself out there and make all kinds of new friends. I´ve been hanging out with some Norwegians most of my time here that I met at the hostel, they are nice and have made me feel comfortable in their group. But even as nice as people you meet along the way can be, I never really feel totally comfortable with people until I´ve known them for a sort of long time. I suppose this trip is a good experience for me, always on my own needing to meet new people. When I moved to Taiwan it was hard too, but I moved there and was living there, not really traveling like now. I got there and met some awesome people and had a group of friends... this is totally different.
Anyway, I am having a good time. And I´m sure I will the rest of the time I´m here!

south america

ok, so i'm going to south america for a few months. i leave for buenos aires in argentina on thursday, i'll be back in june. i'll be putting stuff from the trip up here while i'm gone. i'll be going to argentina, chile and peru... maybe bolivia.