NovelJourney

A long silence
Thought Turds	By Augustin Bralley on 4/5/2008

For those who may visit this site and see that I'm no longer keeping it up to date, here's an brief synopsis of my current situation. These days I work. The Metametrix has me... again. This time we're frantically scrambling to put the finishing vital touches on a project that's now almost a year in the running. Less than a month now separates us from the stresses of go-live. On the one hand, I'm not too keen on working long days and weekends, but on the other hand I'm grateful for the challenge... something to distract me from my now lonely personal life. Then there're the questions I've been rolling around of late. What am I going to do with this life? Where do I belong? How do I go about grasping success on various levels? All questions without answer. I have been excited about a couple things lately, though. New technologies continue to spring up that amaze and inspire. Maybe we're finally going to mass produce fuel from alge. Or discover never-before-seen particles that prove or disprove M-theory, and give us a better understanding of gravity and our many universes. I prefer to think that we won't create a black hole that consumes the entire planet... besides if it does happen, who's going to be around to care? Other than that, I try to keep my head down and my ears up. I'm just waiting for the next blinding shock of inspiration to hit... I'll be sure and let you know when it does.

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Through Iguassu into Brazil
Thought Turds	By Augustin Bralley on 1/16/2008

The falls of Iguassu are deafening. It's nice, though, meditative- the vibrations pounding out all other thought... except for the random fantasies about what it might feel like to take that plunge, knowing that fish and other animals must find themselves in that unfortunate predicament quite regularly. How would you feel if you one day found yourself plunging down some great chasm of water and rock, unable to move in any direction but those imposed by the violent forces around you? Sound like it would suck about as hard as the Garganta del Diablo. Let's just hope we keep our eyes and ears open enough to avoid such situations. After blowing our minds at the falls, we hoped on a bus to Florianopolis, or Floripa, as it's affectionately called. Seven days later and we're still there. We found a hostel smack on the beach, where there are parties every night, chill people, excellent food, icecream buffets, beer, etc. And we swam, surfed, and played beach futbol. No stress, no obligations, no travel, no hassle... just pure relaxation. Just what the doctor ordered. Lada and I have decided to take it very easy these last few weeks. We've seen enough to keep us satisfied for a while... the need to 'see it all' has faded just about as fast as my worn tees. Now we're waiting on a bus to the 'Magic' city of Rio de Janiero... or Hio, as the Brazilians call it. We'll spend 4 nights there, then get a tour of the city from some of Jim's friends. And on the 21st, Jim and Deb arrive and we ride with them to his house in Tere! Two days there and it's back to Rio for the long-dreaded goodbye to Pootie. Don't expect to hear from me much between now and then... Lada and I want to say thank you to everyone who followed our ...

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Patagonia
Thought Turds	By Augustin Bralley on 12/28/2007

This country seems undiscovered. We spent two weeks driving down to El Calefate and back, through a massive chuck of Patagonia, all the while wondering where the people are… why isn't this country saturated by tourists, adventurers, opportunists, and entrepreneurs? It's not hard to spot these people in the streets of any major city, but the country is still so vastly unpopulated- and gorgeous… really, even the broad expanses of shrubbed desert are serene and attractive, spotted with estancias which managed to find a water source and irrigate their fields lined with massive, luscious tree towers. And driving just the two of us in our Volkswagen Gol made it all the more enjoyable. We pulled over just as often as we liked for pictures, pisses, craps, stretches, etc. Sometimes our curiosity took us down strange little roads, where nothing would disappoint because anything was expected. We slept in the car and in the hammock-tent at various spots: parks, campgrounds in little towns, and out in the middle of nowhere. And in between we splurged in the major towns getting double rooms in hotels and dorm beds in hostals. We had no set itinerary, mostly letting the decisions come when they needed to- occasionally using the coin flip’s insightful decisions making abilities to aid us. What an adventure that was… The day before Christmas we arrived back in El Bariloche. All told we drove 5603 kilometres or 3,481.54 miles with me behind the wheel and Lada at my side preparing snacks, switching cds, navigating, and generally taking care of me as only she knows how. It was the most pleasant time we’ve had on this whole trip- just the two of us with no one to rely on or worry about but ourselves. If you ever take trip to Patagonia, I highly recommend you rent a ca ...

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Three nights in the wilderness
Thought Turds	By Augustin Bralley on 12/10/2007

It’s strange how you forget that living takes a lot of doing in the absence of society’s conveniences. After over two months of traveling around South America we were beginning to tire of all our transportation, sleeping, and eating needs supplied to us by others. Is a South American adventure really that if you’ve nothing to worry about but where to go and how to not let your stuff get stolen? Hardly. I’d been feeling the urge to do some trekking on our own ever since we left Laguna Quilatoa in Ecuador. Venturing out into the wild in a strange country is more rewarding than blowing your money in a modern tourist town, that’s for sure. So we did it. We bought a couple sleeping bags and mats, rented a tent, stocked up on 4 days worth of food, and headed out by bus to a little lake nestled between rolling mountains. The first night was only a short walk from the road, in an organized camp site, that cost us 10 pesos each. Since you can’t make fire in the national park, we were happy to stay here and have some cooked food. Hamburgers, cheese, burnt potatoes onions and garlic, boiled eggs, and fresh carrots and green peppers filled our stomach throughout the night. We placed our hotdogs and sandwich meat under a rock and encased in a large branch in the lake so as to keep the meat cold… hoping to eat it the next few days. It was secure when we left it- no small waves from the lake would dislodge it, surely. But to our great dismay and repeated disappointment throughout the rest of the trip, we woke up the following morning to find the rock and branch 10 feet apart, and the bag of meat mysteriously gone. Thieves, we decide, were responsible be they quad or bi-ped… oh well, live and learn. That& ...

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