Wow. I don´t even know where to begin. I have to say out of all my adventures, excursions and unbelievable situations I´ve found myself in over the years, these last two days have been some of the most fantastic adventures to date.

I arrived in Vina del Mar and got settled at my hotel and explored-- met a few local guys and had plans to hit the town. Of course dinner plans weren´t until 11pm so I went out for a beer before hand. I was sitting there with my 32 oz cerveza when the waiter comes over and starts speaking spanish and pointing to the patio. ¨No habla español...los siento...¨I studder out in my sesame street spanish. ¨Oh ok,¨ he says and grabs another waiter. He comes over points to these two ladies and says, ¨You want to get to know the ladies?¨ I look out the window and I see two women in the mid to late thirties. One is platinum blonde , made up like a Tijuana hooker and the other actually reminded me of Maria from Sesame Street. Haha, I thought to myself...what the hell...why not. So I took my 32 oz cerveza and went outside.

¨Buenos Noches..¨ Their names were Pepa and Theresa. Theresa kept falling into Polish when trying to speak English because her husband was Polish. I looked down at her finger...¨Donde estas wedding ring?¨ She just smiled and winked at me. AUUGHHH! Hahaha! Pepa kept leaning her tits on the table and saying ¨Guapo, Guapo.¨ It was completely out of control. So then the waiter comes out and starts speaking in Spanish and pointing in side the restaurant. I can tell something is going down. The ladies weren´t happy. The waiter laughs and leaves. ¨¿Que?¨ I say to Theresa and she answers in her Spanpolanglish, ¨The girls in there called us bitches for taking you outside. Away from them...no problem though. No problem.¨ What the hell? I really kind of wanted to see a Chilean cat fight...now THAT would have been a story. The story actually goes on but I´ll jump to meeting the boys for dinner...

So we met up for dinner and got a little drunk of Pisco Sours (think paint thinner and sour mix and raw egg) and headed off to Zeauzs, one of the gay clubs in VIna. Now Vina del Mar is a big city but Chile is still a little conservative. There is no sign, no rainbow, no nothing on the faceless bar. Just a black door. We walk in and this place is going off. Boys and men from every walk of life are there dancing to deep based latin music. Raul, an aspiring music industry writer, knows everyone so we are up in the DJ booth drinking like fish. Aye Dios Mio...then the drag show started. Of course, there has to be a drag show. Ok, ok it was fun. I guess with the Music festival in town the ¨big name¨drag queens came in from all over Latin America to perform. It was quite a show.

More later...adios!

Fires and Blizzards and Strikes, OH MY!

Yes, that´s right. I have been through fires and blizzards getting stranded for days at a time but I think this one might take the cake. Delta pilots are scheduled to strike this week shutting down ALL operations for domestic and international flights. Haha--oh my goodness. Well, Ma, looks like I´m going to be getting a few extra days of holiday here in Chile. Here´s hoping to a peaceful resolution with the pilots up there. We´re scheduled to head home on Friday...keep your fingers crossed everyone. :)

-W

Holaaaaaa!

I am having an amaznig time. I am suposed to be heading back to Santiago in a few hours but I have decided to delay my trip until tonight. I am going to a wedding here in Vina del mar! Muy Loco! I was invited last night to a couple´s wedding and I just cant pass it up. It´s out in the country and I can´t imagine want a Chilean wedding is all about. Haha! Love it!


Adios!

-W

Hey All!

I know, I know I am behind in my posts. Thanks for the emails. I will give you a full update on New York and the HRC event soon. It was absolutely amazing...

Just landed in Santiago this morning, came to the hotel and crashed. My clock is already screwy and weve been here all of 4 hours. HA! I am just about to head down town to get my bearings before nightfall. Turns out just about 40 ,miles away Chile is host to Latin America´s largest musical festival this week. I just booked myself two rooms at $50-night (the last hotel left in the city) And the adventure begins...

W

GOOD LORDY!

Where to even begin. I have been bouncing around the globe and so sorry it's been a few weeks since I've had some time to sit down and write.

My last big adventure was to Baja. What an adventure. Haha. I arrived at my friend Christina’s house at 8 AM sharp ready to start our adventure and found her sitting in her car on the cell phone! We had a group waiting for us at our last stop in San Diego and she’s sittin’ there chatting with someone on the phone. I gave her a polite “f*ck you” double beep of my car horn.

Rolling down her window she cringed, “I’m trapped in my car. I don’t know how my new car alarm works and I can’t open the door without it going off. I’m on the phone with them right now. Hold on.”

After being passed around from clueless customer service rep to clueless customer service rep I convinced her to try a few more buttons and to open the door. Ahhh—success. We hit the road at 9am for our 6 hour trek to Mexican paradise.

Out of all the traveling I have done I still think road trips are the absolute best way to get to know people and to see the country. After about 2 hours we easily slipped across the border into Mexico. Immediately the scenery changes from desert to a mish-mosh of colors and buildings. The roads go from painted order to street chaos.

We zipped down to San Felipe for our lunch stop and to stock up on supplies for our weekend get-a-way. The coastline is littered with camp sites with facilities as you head down the Baja coast. These campsites rent for roughly $5 USD but feeling adventurous we decided to take an even more primitive dirt road heading towards the coast. We found a great little spot tucked away from civilization.



“Um, Wes…what is this?” I look over to see Christina pointing to a sun bleached skeleton of some sort of mammal. I look around and the beach is littered with partial skeletons of an array of wildlife. Although this does have the makings of the beginning of a horror flick we didn’t want to be driving and setting up camp in the dark. So, Skeleton Beach it is.

Without the artificial light of a big city, night swoops in over us. The stars blaze and the glow of the beach wood fire lights our faces. After a few bottles of wine and a case of Budlight (an import when you’re in Mexico) the night’s weight lulls us all to sleep.

The scorching sun hits us early and it’s time to explore Skeleton Beach. It really is crazy how many skeletons are everywhere. Dolphins, seagulls, small rodents, fish…I’m a huge fan of the great outdoors, it’s just the death that’s a little unnerving. Christina and I hop back in the car for the short drive back up to Puertocitos.

Sandy beaches, hot springs and working toilets, Oh My! Puertocitos is like a movie set of a Mexican town and is really a great spot for a weekend jaunt. We head down to the famous hot springs that line a little cove and bubble up cooling in the incoming surf. It is almost paradise. Well, comparatively to Skeleton Beach. With the sun slowly dipping behind the mountains we head back to the rest of our group and Skeleton Beach and our last night in Baja.

“OoooooooOoooww—Yap! Yap! Yap!” We weren’t alone. With a sneak peak through the zipper door of my tent I see about 5 coyotes sniffing around our campsite glowing in the silver moonlight. Christina hands me her Leatherman with the knife tool extended. Um, yah. I knew if a coyote got close enough for the knife tool of a Leatherman to be useful, we were going to have much bigger problems.

It’s funny to think that these wild dogs were just sitting and waiting for us to go to bed so they could rummage through our camp looking for any tidbits left behind by us sloppy humans. We had responsibly taken all the food and put it up in the cars. It was just one bag of trash we left out that was now being torn apart and littered all over Skeleton Beach. We decide to sit and wait them out. If we scare them off, they’ll just come back once we settle again and I had no interest in a direct confrontation with something that could survive out in this sun parched desert. With the sniffing, snorting and rummaging Christina and I dozed off under the Mexican sky.



After the weekend I was MORE then ready to head back to the states. Good times, Good times.