Travel adventures 2.0

What a day. I have been stuck in La Paz, Bolivia for two days trying
my best to get to Arequipa where I have a flight on the 24th (it is
now currently 10pm on the 23rd so I'm skating it a little bit fine),
but I was unable to go due to protests just outside of La Paz. It was
understandable why; they raised the tariff for entering the city by
50%, so there were large rocks across the road, and people sat across
the road to completely block any passage. It was STILL like this when
I passed through, but luckily after an hour of scouring the town, we
found an unblocked route and got through to the border to Peru. After
all those fun procedures, we found out there was ANOTHER protest on
the Peruvian side - this time miners were protesting that mining
should have to be completely legalised; people were rouge mining and
exploiting the country's resources. Again, understandable, and again,
dammit. So I ended up in another little van, or 'collectivo', for
another town two hours along Lake Titicaca and am now... finally...
Aboard a bus like what I paid for. I bought some natural sleeping
pills and I think this 10hr bus is the time to give them a whirl!

Nicaragua

I'm in an unlicensed taxi with black tape over his plates paying less
than a dollar to get somewhere. Some say sketchy, I say awesome!

(there were a bunch of them arguing over my friend and I... When I picked the nice guy, another cabbie said he wasn't licensed and we'll get robbed, shot, and killed. Then he shook his pelvis at us and winked and called us pretty. Such a great way to instill confidence)

El Salvador buses

It's about an hour/ hour and a half from Santa Ana to Lago de
Coatepeque, and costs a whopping 45cents per person. I bought a bag of
water (it's how they roll in central America!) for 15cents, so since I
packed a lunch, it should be a cheap day at the lake! It's wild
here... All around central america on these smaller or 'chicken
buses', people are constantly hopping on and off selling their wares,
foods or drinks. I admit it's really handy when you spend a whole day
traveling or even on short trips, and they're usually cheaper than
store bought items. One dude just finished up selling when the bus
pulled off, so he just opened the back emergency exit and hopped out
onto the road with his food and condiments as we were hitting a good
speed.

Operation El Salvador

I'm on the bus in El Salvador typing this while we dodge potholes on the pavement and the driver sits on a modified seat; the frame of its former self strung to be like a lawn chair. The front door never closes and there are still stickers from its days as an American school bus. I started the morning in Nicaragua, crossed into Honduras and finally into El Salvador.

No one here has a lot by western standards, the roads are often out of shape, and the comfort levels and personal space levels are constantly dived past and rules seem to almost be expected to be bent. I see shotguns ALL the time (aside from Nicaragua so far at least), and things are much more eclectic and worn in than our cultures in the west would approve of. The personal space and comfort levels being challenged mean that intercity buses can be as cheap as $1. Can't wait to see whats in store for me in this country.

Here are a few shots from Nicaragua!

In Transit

I've left Vancouver, and my train bound for Seattle is just about to pull into our terminus station. Next, it's off to the airport and after a 2 hour lay over in Texas, I'm off to Honduras.
I'm mostly excited, ready to roll, but a wee bit nervous as is normal when flinging yourself off on an adventure alone. I speak no spanish, and no nearly nothing about central or south america; two things I hope are drastically altered by the time my feet leaves their soil.

sleeping all over

I've just slept for two nights in the same place for the first time this week. I've had a king size bed and a room to myself, shared a fouton in a living room with a 4 year old, slept on a couch, and am now sleeping on a floating house! It's my last few days in town before I leave for Honduras - I've been in Vancouver now for about 5 weeks, living without a home, and hopping from place to place to both not overstay my welcome anywhere, and to also get some hang time in with some great people while also working insane amounts of hours at work.
That, and it's (somewhat) helping to save money. I spend a lot more on food out than I ever have before, but for the most part I'm at least trying to be spending those times with friends as well so I can at least in my mind justify the cost.
It's now Sunday and I leave on Wednesday for Honduras.
Time's are getting crazy; but I can't wait to get down there and have everything here all taken care of and done. I've been doing my best to find somewhere to couch surf, but so far no takers.
Wish me luck!

One Year Prior

One year ago, I left Korea for the homeland, Australia. I still had yet to head to Malaysia, see wild orangutans and stay with the Iban tribe, do a road trip around Australia for a month in my dad's camper van with a friend from Canada, moved to New Zealand for an amazing 5 months, then off to Toronto for 3 months to live with my best friend and be there for her wedding and now here I am in Vancouver; days away from heading to Honduras in the pursuit of reaching my 30 by 30.

beneath; a photo from each of those places.

korea

 

australia

 

malaysia

toronto

30 before 30

So, being the stubborn daughter of my similarly tempered father, I have gotten something in my head and can't shake it out. In all honesty, not that I want to. It's developed into it's own monster that I am now basing the next few months of my life around.

THE IDEA.

I want to get to 30 countries before I turn 30.

I'm currently at 26 countries, but my birthday is quickly approaching, and lands only a few days over 4 months away. I can't got anywhere at the moment, because I'm staying in Canada until my best friend gets married (Nov 12th, so I've got only two months after that to complete the mission).

This is TOTALLY an adventure for adventure's sake. I could go anywhere that I can realistically afford, and being a photographer, I plan on shooting every second of it.

THE OBSTACLES

A few things currently stand in my way, and tend to be things that everyone can identify with;

TIME

MONEY

WHERE 

I will have two months to get to 4 more countries. It would be kind of cool to roll into #4 the night before my birthday, and celebrate like the Mayan calendar is right.

But even better than that would be to cruise right past that and hit even more countries on the list jsut for good measure and even better times. 

The main obstacle in my way, like most people, is money. The devil we both fight and need. Keep in mind that I live a fairly modest lifestyle; I ride a bike everywhere, have no internet at home (resulting in the local coffee shops quickly getting to know that I've now landed in their neighbourhood), no television, hell, I've got no radio, and I sleep on a mattress on my best friends floor. Some people might think this is terrible living at 29 like this, but in all honesty, I'm happy. I was MILES from this goal a year ago. I was at something like 14 then, a teenager in travel terms, but then I hitchhiked from Turkey to Poland, moved to Korea, caught a boat to Japan, and ended up in a few more Asian countries and found myself sitting atop a list of 26, and thinking that this was looking more and more doable to reach this goal. 

What does this mean? It means adventure, LIVING my life while I'm young and willing to sleep practically anywhere. And I mean anywhere. It's a skill I thank my parents for. I started out young sleeping under their feet on airplanes, on their laps on a bus, or just wherever my hyper-self passed out when I was finally worn out. Not much has changed, and in the last two years I've slept under a house, on a yoga mat in a kitchen (MANY nights), on a floor on a sign, outdoors on a sign, on the beach, on a pagoda, in a cube/fort made of insulation panels, in a front car seat (a weeks worth), on a truckers second bed in the truck, in a wood/corrugated iron fort, on multiple friend's floors, in LOUD night club in tokyo against some lockers, outside a library in a bush, on cardboard, in a campervan, in a room with no windows, in a tent, at a bhuddist temple next to the bathrooms where I hoped I wouldn't be noticed, and even more places I'm sure I'm either forgetting, blocking out, or can't be bothered listing. So as you can imagine, a mattress on a floor feels pretty damn good right now.

So the adventure begins, with the only question I'm unable to answer or begin to answer is WHERE. I guess the answer really is anywhere. I'm toying with anything from Norway, to Argentina as starting points, maybe Cuba or Haiti ... who knows. I guess it depends on which way the world opens it's doors.

Here's to the adventure that awaits!

it's a non-stop evolution

So I've been tracking my website stats, and how and where the traffic is coming from ... it's amazing watching the surges come depending on what I am doing, but it still hasn't ceased to amaze me how consistant one thing is: whatever city I'm currently located in, is where the majority of the traffic also comes from. This is kind of a strange phenomena, since I move around so much, and although I am obviously trying to get my name out there wherever I may be, it seems to prove to me the adage that you can most certainly be 'out of sight; out of mind', and therefore the opposite applies. As much as I pushed my work in New Zealand, the high level of traffic literally took a dive and Toronto became the major influx city. It shows you can't under estimate the self-promotion side of the industry - just meeting people and getting your name out there and doing your best to direct people to your work so that hopefully the right eyes will find themselves scanning the pages.

I recently dropped a large sum of money developing and scanning roll after roll of film, a few of which can be seen on this website I speak of (iamadroit.com), but below are also a few. I shot mostly with my yashica fx-103 on fuji colour film, between 200-400 iso, but also on the yashica EM with ilford 120 film. Just dropped off another roll of Kodak 120 colour film that I get to go pick up tomorrow night ... can't wait to see how they turned out.

Here I go again up in the air at about 20,000 feet after just having said goodbye to not only another city, but an amazing collective of new friends and some old. I haven't really slept the past few days - a few nights ago I slept only 2hrs, and last night I managed a whole half an hour of eyelids closed to the world before having to rise once more to head out to the airport.

My dear friend Ralph drove me out and hung out with me until i finally  had to conceed to the clock and head through security alone. I'm  pretty good at goodbyes; Ive done it countless times in so many different countries and to so many people, but it is sad not knowing  when I will see this face that has become such a part of my life  again. They're trying to convince me to come back for summer, and I'm  interested for sure, but it's more of a monetary question at this  point. At the moment, Im leaning towards this rough draft of a plan -  hustle and shake in Toronto until after my friends wedding in mid  November, then off to London for a bit (a week to a month there) then  perhaps on to Norway and onwards as long as I can handle the cold. 

I've got a goal of hitting a few more (4, to be exact) countries  before my next birthday in January, so I'd like to fulfill that then  that might be the time I could return to New Zealand for 4-8 weeks and  then heading back to Europe for a wild trek there by motorcycle after  first being a part of the Holi festival in India on March 7th. Ralph  is going to be getting the irresistable campaign from me to try and get him to come and taste a bit more of the world with me, so hopefully he is in the right space and will jump into that idea with the furvour of a man coming up out of the water for air.

Life of leaving

I'm now well and truly into my last week of living in new zealand. It's a bit harder than any other place i've left so far - I think in large part because I've only been here 5 months, so it feels too soon to say goodbye to people. I've really only begun to really find my crowd here, but like I've said many times before, I'm resigned to chasing down my photography career and if I'm not learning here or going somewhere with my photography... or at least saving up ... then I can't really justify staying. I don't know that I would have had the motivation to get up and go right now though if it weren't for my best friend getting married in Toronto in a few months, so I was going to pay the money to get out there anyway. Might as well go now and catch the tail end of summer and try and get some momentum with my photography there while I have the chance and a place to live with my friend.

The challenge now is to get my life packed back into a bag. A bag. one 23kg bag with one carry on. This includes my (not light) cameras, lenses, stand, flash, umbrella and somehow some personal belongings and necessities so that I don't have to buy stuff when I get to Canada. I'm considering shipping some stuff to my parents home in Australia, but thats pretty pricey too, so I'm not sure how I'll go about this, but I don't want to have too much stuff with me incase I want to get travelling again after my friends wedding in mid november. Trying to plan for a plan shrouded in fog is a little tricky, but I've learnt that it's always best to just travel light and make do with what little you have. The reality of packing your whole life into one bag over and over again can be tough, but everytime I get where I'm supposed to be you never miss the possessions of the last place, just the people.

I'm still working at the moment, but also trying to do as many shoots before I go and just take a lot of photos. I guess moving is always good motivation to remind me to keep shooting. I've given up a lot to live this life and to chase down photography. 

I met up with this great photographer this week, and she let me just pick her brain about things and how she works / gets work and it was so great to talk to another photographer who carved a spot for herself and does it really well. One of my big challenges is to figure out what direction I want to take so that I can really focus on that; but also just to shoot as much as possible so that I am getting as much experience as I can. This below is some stuff I shot for an actor friend of mine yesterday in Auckland, NZ.

One Way Tickets

I've purchased two one way tickets in the past two days, and I fly out in less than two weeks. Farewell New Zealand, you have been amazing!

 

some film i've developed lately

shots from korea