From a millionaires playground to the big smoke to the highlands

At the end of Baja the original plan was to boat it over to the mainland. Doing these overland trips my only rule is not to fly. But with the expense of Mexico and the lack of people around we decided it would be worth our while just to fly to Mexico city. So I cheated! This Mexican girl we met at our hotel was so so friendly. Drove us around on a Sunday afternoon when she was meant to be working to help us find a travel agent to book flights seeing as we couldn´t book them online. Called them up when they weren´t there, brought us to the ATM when we needed money, the bus stop when we were leaving and showed us where to get good local food. She also told us loads of info of where to go and what to see in Mexico. Just love the friendliness of the people here. And unlike other countries I´ve been to, this wasn´t to make commission or rip tourists off. Everything has a set price which is the same price for locals and tourists.

On first impression Mexico city was amazing. It is 2400 metres high so was kind of chilly. It has an amazing metro system and we finally found a hostel so started to meet people!! Did a few of the boring tourist stuff that we are obliged to do been there including old aztec ruins and some famous museum. It´s a big modern and built up city. Passed though places where you could see the shanty towns in the distance but otherwise its just like any other big city in the centre. I guess the highlight of it was watching Mexico beat France in the central square with a few thousand people around watching it on big screen tvs. They had brought bus loads of a few thousand cops as well. The atmosphere was unreal and us among the only foreigners in the middle of the crowd. Got our colours painted onto our faces!

Oaxaca was our next stop and it was time for Seanie to move on as the end of his trip had come already. So myself and Dave got a very scenic bus ride to Oaxaca(for English speakers this is pronounced Whoa Haka!) which is further south. I had a view of Mexico from movies and the media and its all wrong. The whole country is very different than I expected, different food than you´d get from the stereotypical Mexican in most places, really friendly people, huge infrastructure, amazing roads etc etc. Oaxaca is a bit more sterotypical. Cobbled stone streets, old volkswagen cars some of them converted into convertables, people dancing in the streets, weddings parading down the streets with music and fireworks, smiling faces, amazing food, street stalls and markets with all sorts of food and products. First night we arrived in the place was packed. Students all over the main square drinking kegs and beer, bars packed due to the end of the Uni semester. Teachers were camping out on the streets due to a long running teachers strike. One thing I really like about here is that people don´t treat us like a foreigner too much. If someone is selling something they´l ask us just as much as they ask a local and not pester you like they do in other tourist area´s. They help us with the language if we aren´t doing too well. And the people all seem so happy and relaxed as well.

So far Mexico buses had been ten times better than buses I have gotten in any other country. As good as first class on planes. Times we could be on a bus for 16 hours and wish it was longer just cause we were enjoying it so much. After Oaxaca we decided to check out a different style of bus and this gave us a totally different view of the country. Creeping around windy mountanous roads, well above the clouds and for most of it in the middle of them, for 6 hours this was a bus we´d have called a chicken bus, just without the chickens. People packed on bringing everything from hundreds of shoes, to the furniture of their houses, and bags of onions and bread rolls. There were a number of people sitting on stools in the aisle, and a number of women breastfeeding their kids. We were a few thousand metres high for this, in torrential rain, mudslides coming off the side of the mountains, waterfalls gushing across the roads, and steep edges which we weren´t sure would the bus make. At one tiolet stop the bus driver put some bricks under the tires just to make sure it didn´t roll away! The driver chain smoked throughout the whole journey while playing the traditional Mexican music you´d picture from a movie. Front door of the bus was left open as the source of air conditioning. There are a number of road stops all throughout Mexico where the police come on and search the bus as well so this just added to the journey. Over the 6 hours it went from the mountanous rainforest into the tropical lowlands where it was finally back to the Pacific and some warmer weather in surfers paradise called Puerto Escondido.

Photos up at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=187226&id=509199014&l=861e6e40e0

Road trip down the Baja Peninsula in search of the summer

San Diego - Still staying classy! Stayed at the Ocean beach hostel. Gotta say, I Iove hostels and as I´m sitting here in expensive Mexico I´m missing them at the moment. Hard to find the backpacker scene in Mexico so far. Ocean beach hostel is some deal. For $18 they provided a taxi from the airport which in itself was worth $18. Then a free bottle of champagne on checkin and a private room for the two of us. The second night they stuck some scandanavian girls in there with us. Plus besides that they do a really decent free hot breakfast and a dinner most nights! Although we missed this as we met up with Jodie who I used to work with there a few years ago and hung out with her for the day eating non stop in some classy restaurant that she works in!! Thanks Jodie!! Never been so stuffed. Seanie arrived in from Ireland that night to get the trip started.


We spent one day hanging around San Diego been pretty bored. Great city but without a car its hard to do stuff. Spent a summer here five years ago so walked around the all the old joints, beaches, met up with some friends but it was fairly cold and june gloom was hanging over the city. This is a dirty grey crowd that just hangs over the beaches and the city for june. Go 20 minutes inland and its sunshine! San Diego is great for the friendliness of the people. You could be walking around the city or the beaches and people just say hi or good morning like you would on a deserted Irish country road. Of course its still crowded with Irish but we did have a decent mix in our hostel which was cool. Spent the second night chilling out at some beach bonfires.

We thought it was time to hit Mexico and hope they didn´t have the junio gloomio. The aim was to escape the cloud and get some beaches and sunshine. Crossing the border into Mexico is an experience. Two very different contrasting worlds, with McDonalds on both sides!! I expected things to be cheap and to be bargaining like in Asia but everything seems to have a set expensive price, same for locals and tourists. The main problem with Mexico so far is its very very expensive. I knew it wouldnt be along the same lines as Asia but definitely thought it would be cheaper than USA or Europe. So far this is not the case. The main things we need money for are accomodation, transport, drink and food. And all of this was even cheaper in NY. I guess maybe when we get to the mainland it might go down a lot. I hope.

Ensenada was the first stop an hour south of the border and Tijuana. First day there was day trippers from the cruise ships so we partied with them. Drank too much tequila and spent the whole next day recovering. After the day trippers from the cruise ship left it was dead, tourism had left the city so we went out with the Mexican girl at our hostel who was very willing to drive us around and show us some bars and two Germans we met.

Decided to head south again in search of people and ended up in Lorete, about a 16 hour bus ride away. One thing I can say is Mexican buses are unreal. Best buses I´ve been on so far. Didn´t want the journey to end. This was the next biggest city down so we thought something must be happening here. Bus ride was amazing. I usually hate long bus rides but great scenery and so comfortable. Driving through deserts full of Cactaii, mountains, little shacks in the middle of nowhere and then glimpses of the turquise blue sea of cortez between it all. At Lorete we checked in to a random hotel been the only guests and headed straight to the beach. We were like the only people in the whole town. Had this whole beach to ourselves, actually the whole town to ourselves we reckon and at this stage were really just looking to meet people. So enjoyed the day, got a lock in at some little shack where we had a some beers, made up some story to get a refund on our room and hopped on another night bus down to Cabo San Lucas. So in what we thought would take a week has only taken a few days to get to the end of Baja California.

Cabo was finally proper sunshine again, sorching although nothing compared to the NY heat and still ridicuslouly expensive. Its a millionaires playground. Walking through this neighbourhood of mansions that would make some hotels look small. Some of these we saw in the real estate agents for up to $10 million. Others rent per night up to $6000 per night. They are all built on the hills around the city with amazing views. We didn´t think we´d be allowed to walk around but gave it a chance and got some decent views of the Bay. Cabo was nice but wasn´t really my scene.

Photos up at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=185885&id=509199014&l=dbaaf28a9b

The dangers of Mexico

Before coming travelling on this trip there are lots of warnings about how dangerous Mexico is and to be so careful. There is a drug war on and there a certain areas that are very dangerous, with lots of people getting killed every day. The general public read the media and then the whole country is portrayed to be dangerous and unsafe. I´ve read a lot on CNN about things that have been happening here lately and yes I was originally worried and was hoping to skip though these areas or avoid them totally. But not avoid the whole country. Since I´ve arrived here I´ve met nothing but nice friendly people who´ve gone out of their way to help us. And I´ve seen how much the tourist industry has been effected by both this and by swine flu(which has also spread to most other countries). Apparantly the tourist industry revenue here has dropped 15% in the last year due to these both reason.

To be honest we have felt perfectly safe here and as yet have experienced no problems and have seen no other tourists who have gotten into any trouble either(touch wood). I still keep my wits about me while travelling though. A lot of the violence is in certain border regions but Mexico is a big country with a lot more to see. The rest of the country the people are as friendly as ever. We´ve travelled through a number of tourist towns that just appear to be empty. We might be the only gringos around in some of them.

Ciudad Juarez is the one place thats getting a lot of attention by the media but apparantly there are a dozen towns along the border with the USA that are very dangerous at the moment, Tijuana possibly been one of them. We skipped through TJ within a few minutes and went further south. I didn´t go to any of the others so I have no opinion on them but from what I´ve read Juarez is very dangerous at the moment. On the other hand I´ve also read about the amount of shootings in Detriot. It is still a very high number. But this doesn´t mean the whole of the USA is dangerous.

I remember hearing about 15 years ago that some people were afraid to come to Ireland because of stories they´d heard on the news about Northern Ireland. I actually remember a priest who´d worked out in south america or africa or somewhere saying that the people he met had been shocked that he was from Ireland. They had considered it such a dangerous place due to what they heard on the news. More recently I´ve heard of people afraid to travel to Thailand because of troubles in Bangkok. Other friends of mine that have been in Thailand at the time had no problems and didn´t even notice what was going on. At the same time there is many other cities in Thailand and plenty of tropical islands that of course have no troubles. And even in my second year of university, some students were afraid to come to Uni in Limerick because of gang warfare and I remember in the first week of Uni that year some of the first years were afraid to go out in the city centre because there mothers had told them how dangerous Limerick was. Walking into a night club in Australia chatting to a bouncer and he heard one of us was from Limerick, he made a joke about how it was stab city and made a fake pass at him. I´ve realised that everywhere you go, can and can´t be dangerous and you just have to be careful. Obviously it´s stupid to walk into a warzone but the majority of people and places seem to be trust worthy and countries with problems are also big countries that might only have the problems limited to certain areas.

A New York Minute.

New York City, what can I say. What a city. Besides boring you with the facts that we saw a tall building or walked through the park I'll just say, I love it. Definitely have to live there at some point. It was hot hot hot. Bangkok. KL and Darwin are the most humid places I remember without going into degree's celcius but NY was up there with them. Made Bangkok look cool this week! Not that I'm complaining. Also its still cheap. Even the the Euro plummetting its easy to get by eat in good restaurants and not spend a fortune. What I can't get over is you can be in middle of downtown or Wall St and still get a drink or food cheaper than Ireland.

We stayed on 113th street, middle of Harlem but also not far from Columbia Uni which was nice. Went to many parts of the city and Coney island and just love the mix of culture, the different faces. You can be sitting on the subway for an hour and travel through so many different countries within that hour. Imagine two of you there on the seat, two pale irish faces and as the hour goes buy it changes from business suits, to chinese, to Puerto rican and then to african american surrounding you. I love it. Different faces, different languages, different hairstyles. Although one things I noticed is you'd hear more of a mix of languages in Ireland than you would in New York.

Walking around Harlem was like walking around Sister Act 2 movie!! Music coming out of the windows, cars blaring hip hop, people sitting around the street relaxing in the summer heat. Loved it!

Met up with a good few friends while there that used to go to Uni in Ireland. Was great to see you all and everyone else I missed out on, sorry my phone wasnt doing the best but will definitely catch up the next time.

We met some very interesting people in the hostel. Including a few long term travellers. One guy who was going for 11 years and had lots of great stories to swap!! Keep saying I'm going to settle down next year but with the amount of suggestions he gave me who knows!! The last day we just ended up hanging out in the hostel for the whole day chatting!!

All Photos at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=185881&id=509199014&l=47382b50fd

US Border + Immigration Control - Now just a friendly travel agent.

So arriving in New York to a large queue at immigation. They usually ask the standard Q's in a boring but serious monotone voice. "What is the purpose of your visit to this country?", "Where do you plan to stay?" Etc etc. I usually get asked a few more cause I have a number of US stamps and they tend to get a bit suspicious.

So after standing in line for about half an hour or more I step up to the box. The guy puts his hand up and told me to wait a minute. I thought I'd stepped up too soon or something. You never know with these guys. He preceded to go to the next immigation box get some chewing gum off the guy have a bit of a laugh then came back to me. Without even looking at my passport or the computer he asked me why I was so excited to visit this country. I told him the plan as he started flicking through my passport. After this he started telling me about some national geographic show I should see with all these top things in the world that are amazing. He then said, hold on I'll google this for you. So with about a 1000 people in line behind me, we start chatting for about half an hour about travelling!! You know me how I never shut up about it. He started writing down places in Mexico and California to see. Then showed me some really cool GPS phones I could get so I wouldn't lose myself. Then there was talk about tv shows like Man vs Wild and living out in the middle of nowhere. Told me a story about how he got lost in Maine snow mobiling and was scared shitless. Asked do I ever get in situations like this while I'm away. We were just there having a laugh. Big change to what I'm used to with border patrol!! Looking behind at my cousin in the line who was wondering what the hell was going on. He'd befriended a dutch guy at this stage who was getting pissed off waiting to long. Then in mid conversation we see this woman walk by and he says: Daaang, look at the ass on her!! Was a fair big ass all right!!

Spent the next two hours laughing about this guy, Definitely a good introduction to America.

Backpacking - Just an extended holiday or a lifestyle.

Backpacking - Just an extended holiday or a lifestyle.

Well as most of you know I love to travel! It's my biggest hobby and I'm always wondering how I can make a career out of this. Lots of people saying I should try write a book, other people ask me for advice on travelling and booking flights and then others saying I should become a private travel agent or even a guide who takes people backpacking!! So not quite sure what this blog will be. A bit of everything I guess. It will be my story. Any exciting things that have happened, where I'm at, what I'm doing. Maybe it will be travel advice for people or maybe it will be an interesting story. Maybe it will be boring and you'll stop reading after the first paragraph. I'm no Tony Wheeler and nor will I try to be but all advice about what and how I write is welcome! Some people I've met keep a travel journal or diary. I never have, never have the time, so I guess this will just be a public diary! Read it if you want. Don't if don't want to. If you do read it please click like or leave a comment saying whats wrong with it otherwise.

Everyone seems to travel for different reasons. Often its the drunken round-the-world trip that brings you from London - Asia - Australia - NZ - USA and home again within a year. Others do the Irish thing in Australia where they only seem to meet people they know from home, drink for most of the year in Irish bars and come home again. Then you meet the hardcore backpackers in random countries who look down on people who tread the beaten backpacker track. You hear them complaining about the drunk backpackers, or the ones who only do round the world trips, or only hang out with people from their own country. One guy I met in the Ukraine once said he was so over places like Latvia. That tourism wrecked it. After this, him and a number of people in the hostel preceded to go visit some random graveyard to see the grave of some dead poet I've never heard of. Fun times!! One time we walked into a hostel room in Te Anau. You could see the guy in the room was a hardcore hiker. All the gear. Got chatting to him he was asking had we been on any hikes yet and we said no. His reply was he'd ONLY been on a few two or three day hikes and wasn't too interested in chatting to us after that. You meet the people who only go to museums and old buildings thinking thats what everyone should be doing and your wasting your time going to the bars and not seeing the old culture or history! Or you meet the people who've been travelling for a few years and think they're better than the ones who've only been away for a few months. You see the Swedish hanging out in the islands of thailand and indonesia, the canadians in byron bay, the argentinians in NZ, germans and dutch in norway, new zealand and all over east coast of oz, and the Irish all over the ozzy cites, israelis in Goa and Koh Phangan, and the australians following the festival route around Europe and ending up in London. Everyone has a different trend on where they go, what they do and how they do it. And everyones into something different I guess. So I guess I want to try it all. Not just do the regular Irish thing but not look down on what everyone else is doing either.

For some backpacking is about waking up in the morning with no plan. No accomodation booked or transport planned and just seeing where you end up. Eat when your hungry, sleep when your tired and go where you want. For a lot of people the uncertainty of this is absurd. For most backpackers this is the highlight. Make the plan up as you go. I remember in a place called Sihanoukville a great little beach town in the south of Cambodia. If we asked someone the time. They'd look at their wrist(where there was no watch) and then at the sky. And reply with its daytime, or night time. When backpacking, time doesn't really matter. You do what you want when you want. I love the flexibility of this. I also enjoy the flexibility of meeting cool new people whenever I want. Imagine been at home and sitting down next to a stranger or a group of strangers in a restaurant and asking can you join them. Or even been on a bus or train in your home country and start chatting to the person next to you. When backpacking this is the norm, usually its other backpackers you decide to talk to. The beauty of this is meeting all sorts of new and interesting people. Some of these randomers have turned out to be life long best friends that I've kept in touch with since. Others I may never see again but ended up having a good nite out with or a few nights out.

So people ask me why do I travel? Why did I go to certain places? For many reasons. Every new person I meet has a story. They've been to a new place or seen something different and word of mouth spreads about where to go. More often than not someone suggests this small little beach town somewhere random with good night life and not too many tourists and is cheap, a few years later this becomes Lagos in Portugal or Koh Phangan and has thousands of people arriving!! I want to see the world, meet the people, see the scenery and the different cultures. I try not to look down on anyone for the type of travelling they do although I really don't understand doing solely the package holiday thing or the sticking to the Irish bars of Sydney and Melbourne. I like to get off the beaten track at some points and go to places nobody else goes, but then I like to get right back on it and drink in the backpacker bars for a few days or go to beach parties in thailand or hang out on Koh Sahn road, or stay in Queenstown or Lagos and never leave! I love to try the food, meet the locals but actually prefer meeting other backpackers as well. Plenty of times I've made good friends with other backpackers and then gone to visit them in their own countries. I love to see the scenery, I love to party, I love to see the famous things and to try new things all the time. To be honest the most boring part of it for me is museums and old buildings. Its not my thing. Some of my favourite places are favourite just from the people I've met whether they are local or the people on the journey with me.

A lot of people say to me: Steve, when are you going to settle down get a real job, get a house etc. In other words stop been a bum. I keep saying next year. I love the life been homeless, unemployed and free!! Since I've been young I've had this addiction to travelling. Since I've been finished school 9 years ago I've been off every couple of months and pretty much non stop since I finished Uni in 2006. I remember when I was 15, in history class, myself and Damien started talking about this world trip we'd do when we finished Uni. Travelling overland across Russia to Asia and Singapore, around Australia, North to South America and then Cape Town to London. All overland. Back then it was a dream. But a dream we said we'd definitely do. And I'm still living that dream. Damien has also done a lot of it in separate trips. He did Africa where as I skipped it. He tried getting across Russia but got deported 100km in!! Ended up flying to China instead. Perhaps I'll stop next yr, come home, get a "real" job or go back to Uni, perhaps I'll end up staying in Argentina for the rest of my life. Who knows!

A friend told me about this guy called Tim Ferris. I read his book within a few hours. A few things in this struck my mind. One question is people asking him: "What do you do?". His reply is this: Assuming you can find me (hard to do), and depending on when you ask me (I’d prefer you didn’t), I could be racing motorcycles in Europe, scuba diving off a private island in Panama, resting under a palm tree between kickboxing sessions in Thailand, or dancing tango in Buenos Aires. The beauty is, I’m not a multimillionaire, nor do I particularly care to be.

I remember a few months into my overland trip to Singapore and I met a girl called Danni. Everyone used to ask each other what they do back home. Her reply was: "I do this!!" I thought it was quite funny at the time. I had just left college and my job teaching computer programming. That was 3 years ago. I've forgotten it all now. Now I pretty much answer the Q the same as her.

Another quote from the book is this: "People don’t want to be millionaires — they want to experience what they believe only millions can buy. Ski chalets, butlers, and exotic travel often enter the picture. Perhaps rubbing cocoa butter on your belly in a hammock while you listen to waves rhythmically lapping against the deck of your thatched-roof bungalow? Sounds nice. $1,000,000 in the bank isn’t the fantasy. The fantasy is the lifestyle of complete freedom it supposedly allows."

For me this is so true. I know this truly sounds conceited but I'm living the life of a millionaire without actually been one. People think I have all this money to travel which I don't. I work minimum wage jobs every now and then to save enough to travel, or to get the benifits of the stuff that costs a lot. Things are a lot cheaper in other countries and the kindness and generosity of others I've met allows me to live like a millionaire. Stay in five star hotels, sky-dive, scuba dive off tropical islands, rent private islands, have your own little beach huts or exotic hotel rooms, eat fresh lobster and drink good wines, drink that coffee that the millionaire in the bucket list was talking about that costs thousands, party at the multi million euro penthouse on new yrs eve in Kuala lumpur with a 360 degree view of the city, snowboarding for free in a number of resorts, live in a multi-million dollar house in NZ, fly first class across the atlantic and get into the cockpit for the landing into JFK, drink any drink I want for free every night in portugal, go to top clubs in Barcelona, thai and swedish massages on tropical beaches, VIP passes to clubs in NY, 20 euros passes for three days at the grand prix with a jamaroqui conert included, drink for free with the owners of a multi million dollar boat complex in Missouri, sail around San Diego bay with a movie director on a private yacht full of brazilian chicks. This and more all sounds like the life of a millionaire but its all due to friends I've made and the kindness of strangers. I pay my own way all the time and if someone does a favor for me I try to repay them back. Its strange how something that could be so little to you could mean so much to someone else and vice versa. And most of those things are due to a few of you friends on facebook so thank you!!

I'm not trying to show off by saying this. I want to try let people know how they can do it too. I love to give advice to people where to go, what to see, how to get it for cheap! Give them contacts to meet up when they get there. Money isn't really the issue. If you have a small bit saved then you can keep going and just work odd jobs along the way. I think time is the biggest issue for a lot of people.

I like to go away with no definite plan. Lately a few people have been asking me how the planning is going for my trip. I like to know a lot about where I'm going and what to see but I never plan much in advance. I like to go with a one way ticket and just go with the flow. See what happens. I could end up anywhere. At the end of the day your never really much further than 24 hours away from home and if something goes wrong or I get homesick I just hop on the next cheap flight home. So basically starting in San Diego after a few days in NY and heading south through mexico, central america and south america overland on buses or whatever means of overland transport I can. I'd like to get to Ushuaia in south of Argentina and possibly the Antarctica if money permits. After that who knows.

Most of my facebook friends are people I've met from travelling and some of you still travel so most of my status messages say where I am. I'm not trying to show off where I am just it usually ends up that I get to bump into people that I've seen in other places due to this. One time I was leaving NZ and flying to Indonesia. I put this up as my status message. Then Adrian who I'd lived with in San Diego 4 yrs previously sent me and email saying he was in Malaysia and would come down and meet me. This was a four hour flight away. He didn't even wait to find out where in indo I was going to or wait for an email back. He flew down and a few days later we met up and travelled for three weeks. Another time I see on facebook that Neil (a guy I'd met in Boston and ended up on a bus to Canada with after a drunken night out) was passing through Bangkok airport same time I was so we met up for a few drinks. These type of things happen all the time due to facebook, which is quite handy.

So in conclusion. I'll be updating my trip on facebook and blogspot. Let me know what you think if you read it. Come join me if you want.