Will Brubaker, Author at The Life Nomadic

Drinking Water

August 30, 2016 by Will Brubaker

Safe, clean drinking water is a pretty important consideration no matter where one is on the face of the earth. It’s even a concern in parts of the U.S. these days though we really didn’t give it much thought during our quick jaunt through the U.S.

Now that we’re in Mexico, however, ensuring that we have safe water to drink is a major concern and so far I haven’t gotten sick from our drinking water so I’m calling our strategy a success.

There are many approaches to managing one’s drinking water. Here in Mexico and the rest of Latin America, if potable agua is purchased in larger quantities, it’s relatively inexpensive. As an example, a 20 liter garrafon (plastic jug) costs about the equivalent of 1 U.S. dollar. So far as I am aware, many overlanders just use that as their solution to drinking water. Whether they fill their entire holding tank (if they have one) with water from a garrafon, or whether they just keep a full garrafon around for drinking and then just wash dishes, shower, etc with water from another source varies. Either way, one does learn very quickly how to minimize the amount of water one uses so it’s not terribly cost prohibitive to just always use purified water for everything in one’s camper.

There is, at least in my opinion, the economics of space to consider. We haven’t got much space. A garrafon takes up quite a bit of that space. Cate had been suggesting that we consider acquiring a Berkey filter for quite some time. This suggestion had come up well before we had made any commitment to overlanding. After I had purchased Moby, I started giving this some serious thought. Filling our holding tank with water from a garrafon certainly would have worked but it also seems like it could be a huge pain in the ass. If we also wanted to have a garrafon full of water, that would require special consideration in ensuring that we had one with a screw-on cap. This isn’t always possible so we would have had to become extremely vigilant when swapping our empty one for a full one.

This is our Berkey water filter plus 8 liters of potable water storage

I eventually settled on the Berkey solution. It’s less than half the size of a garrafon so freed up part of the space that was previously occupied by a garrafon (even with additional potable water storage). Aside from space considerations, we haven’t got to break camp to go in search of drinking water when we run out.

Basically, we just fill our holding tank with water from the hose whenever we’re at a campground/RV park and run some through the filter as needed (which is pretty much the entire time we’re parked). We also have a 6 liter dromedary that we purchased at REI before leaving the States.

I have to admit, I was a bit hesitant at first. Berkey makes some pretty bold claims and I hadn’t found any accounts of people using them on overlanding trips so I didn’t have 100% confidence in it. That said, 10 days into Mexico and the only water that I’ve drank has come from the Berkey and so far, so good.

What’s your potable water solution?

Most People I Know Would Probably Just Push

August 26, 2016 by Will Brubaker

The power button. I know, I just broke some journalistic rule about how titles work. Sobeit. There, I broke some more. Anyhow, before I get back to the subject at hand, there was a fucking naked guy in the middle of the highway today. I mean absolutely bare-balls naked. Nothin’ but the blisters on his feet – that’s it. And for some reason, it didn’t seem terribly weird at the moment. It almost was expected.

So….we’ve lived in Mexico for the 1.5 years previous to starting this trip. We’ve actually lived in a fair number of the places that this route will take us through. But, lemme tell ya, this part of Mexico ain’t what we’re used to. This is much more what we see in old spaghetti westerns staring Clint Eastwood and his ilk. I wasn’t prepared for this. The highway in Quintana Roo – that thing is splendid to drive down. Granted, there are quite a few topes (speed bumps) along the way but given that the entirety of the Yucatan peninsula is flat, it’s really not so much of a miracle how easy it is to drive across the Yucatan. That section of highway is also much better funded. Anyhow, last night we boondocked on some rocky beach on the Pacific side of the Baja peninsula. Somewhere just a few dozen kilometers north of Guerrero Negro. There was nothing, nada, zilch, zero. At this time of year, that side is chilly or maybe a tiny bit warm or, perhaps you would prefer the word “ideal”. I wouldn’t disagree. The necessity of a hoody just past sunset ain’t so bad. We’re not on that side any more and it’s a bit on the warm side. At this moment, I have an obligation to be in a certain place on a certain date. I’m a couple of weeks out from that date and maybe a day or day and a half drive from this particular place on the map. Cooler temps put me well away. Both geographically (Add another full day of driving) and calendar-wise. Plus, to go back to cooler climes means worse connectivity. I can’t have that.

So…here we are. I am going back to work next Monday (today is Friday). I need a good internet connection to work. Where we are now is surprisingly well connected. The campground wifi is exceptional so far as campground wifi has gone in our experience. It’s also extraordinarily cheap. Seriously – this place is 150 pesos per night. At today’s exchange rate, that’s just over eight dollars. That’s eight dollars for a full hookup. Water, electric, sewer – the whole enchilada if you will. For someone in my position, this is nearly ideal. Except, it’s hot. It’s hot AND our camper has an air-conditioner.

Manuel (the proprietor) had come by earlier to collect tonight’s fee. He was a very interesting gentlemen to have a brief conversation with. When Cate mentioned Chiapas, Manuel responded in-kind (he has experience in Chiapas while in the military, circa 1995). Anyhow, here we are and we’ve paid eight dollars for a full RV hookup and it’s hot.

Our very first RV hookup cost nearly $40 and I was livid. It was also a bit chilly there. But at $40 I didn’t give a fuck about chilly – I wanted to use my $40 worth so I immediately plugged-in and turned on the A/C to maximum. We walked away for several hours. Hell, we went to a county fair. The A/C wouldn’t even turn on anymore it was so cold at that point. Oh well, we filled up their dumpster with enough crap that we got some of our value out of that stop.

But now, tonight, it’s uncomfortably warm. I mean, it’s not intolerable like Vegas was nor it is horrific like Barstow after our first overnight breakdown. The temperature is a bit high though. But I just can’t do it. I just can’t turn on the A/C. Not after having paid less than nine dollars. I just can’t. There’s no reason for me to cool down my sleeping space so much that I need a blanket while at the same time, depriving a fellow-human of comfort. I can’t. Not only would I feel like I were abusing this person’s generosity but I also feel like I would be fucking it up for people who come here in the future.

So back to the naked dude. Really, it didn’t seem so strange at first. I had previously remarked to Cate that this reminded me of the Australian outback. Seeing a person, with much skin exposed, walking down the middle of the highway wouldn’t be strange at all there. Completely naked doesn’t take it much further.

There’s more to it though. For starters, I had absolutely no idea how long the Baja is. I figured a couple of days driving would pretty much cover it. I didn’t do any research. Secondly, the main highway is extraordinarily narrow. The white lines are actually falling off the edges. We’re about as wide as a lane will allow. Passing a semi-truck is fucking terrifying. It’s white-knuckle the whole way. If we put a tire over that white line at 100kph, it’s all over. This is the only place I’ve braked while passing.

So there we are, passing a semi. In the distance I can see a shape of something resembling a human but it can’t be. That makes no sense. It must be some weird shadow cast by one of the lonely trees in this vast wasteland. It is no shadow. Indeed, it’s a human. I’m still buzzing from the adrenaline high given to my near-death experience passing the previous semi. There he was, naked dude. Nothing. Swinging-balls naked and not a thing in his hands. He had nothing. In the absolute middle of nowhere. And we just kept on trukin’.

You know how sometimes 30 seconds seems like 30 hours? Yeah, that. As I recall, Cate broke the 30 hour (or 30 second) silence and this is pretty much what we talked about for the next 2 hours. There was a mention of too much peyote. There was a reference to some author who wrote about getting high in the Mexican desert. There was a motorcyclist who looked to be broken down, but as I slowed; looking for a place to turn around, his headlight appeared on the highway. There was a family, whose minivan protested after carrying the dozen or so of them up a massive hill. They were pulled over with their hood up. We did have ample room to stop and check in on them. They were fine but requested some water to replenish their radiator. I was happy to oblige. But the mental image of the naked man just lingers. What has been seen, can not be unseen I guess.

There’s really no point to this except I’m a bit uncomfortable because of the temperature, but at least it ain’t Vegas (the food’s not as good here).

Move in Day – It Is Real Now

August 14, 2016 by Will Brubaker

Just less than a week after I moved out of our rental house in Chiapas, we moved into our new home on wheels. I was glad to have gotten out of San Cristóbal when I did. Not that I was in any danger but certainly would have been inconvenienced a bit by the protesters when they blockaded the road to the airport.

When I arrived in Salt Lake City, it was evening so I wasn’t going to be able to get much done but I did stop and check-in on Moby to make sure she was still safe and secure. Indeed she was. I then went to Brigham City and reunited with Cate. The next day we met my dad for breakfast, worked in a few preparatory tasks, picked up all of the things that we had ordered for the trip at our temporary mailbox in SLC and did my best to squeeze in some work. It was a hectic day to say the least. The following day (Thursday, 4 August) we had designated as our move-in day. There was heaps of work to do and we also wanted to cover some miles so we got an early start. Move in day was also our first real test of challenges that we will face together on this trip. We had to mount the camper on the truck since the two pieces had to be separated for storage. Neither of us had ever really done anything like this before and we definitely hadn’t worked as a team like this. We allowed ourselves plenty of time for the task. Getting the camper positioned correctly is a bit of a precision job and Moby is most definitely not a precision instrument. All in all it went well and about 3 hours after we began, the camper was mounted and all of our things were packed inside.

We had some non-negotiable stops to make and the first one of those was in Wyoming to get the title/registration in both of our names as well as say hello and goodbye to some of my family in Wyoming so we pointed the truck east and stopped at a campground in Evanston, Wyoming for the night. While in Evanston we went to the truck pulls at the county fair. I’m really glad we got to have that experience and there’s something special about being a foreigner in one’s own native country. We also had our first post-move in purge of stuff. This purge was easy. There were some items that were bulky and we couldn’t anticipate ever being used. They weren’t worth the space they took and we don’t want to burn fuel carrying useless weight. There will be more purging, but for the most part we’re pretty well set.

Once our business in Wyoming was done, we did a 180 and headed back to Brigham City. Cate’s mom wanted to see what our living quarters looked like and it was nice to have somewhere familiar to park for the night. After that we pushed hard for two days to the last of our non-negotiable stops which was to visit a dear friend of Cate’s and meet his family. They live in Eureka, California and have a nice big driveway with an RV hookup so we settled in for the workweek and got a nice little tour of the area. We went to see the redwoods (awe inspiring), took a cruise on a historical boat in Humboldt bay. I was also able to make a few modifications to the camper and we did another, albeit much smaller, purge of stuff.

Today we will be leaving Eureka. We’ll put the Pacific ocean on Moby’s right side and beyond that, we really don’t know. There’s something resembling a plan but from here on out it’s flexible and fluid. We do want to cross into Mexico as soon as is practical but as of today, I feel the adventure is beginning in earnest.

Move Out Day – It Feels Real Now

July 31, 2016 by Will Brubaker

We moved to San Cristóbal about a year ago. Actually, moving there wasn’t the intention, it just kind of happened. We had been living in Tulum previously and it didn’t take us long to realize that Tulum wasn’t for us. In my mind Tulum is the classic case of “a great place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there”. Our intention was to move to Mexico City but we had spent enough time in Mexico at that point to know that we wanted to explore it more so we decided to take the long way to Mexico City. I took time off work and we planned for two weeks of exploration of Mexico. We arrived in the cool mountain air after a 17 hour bus ride and immediately fell in love with San Cristóbal. A few days turned into a few weeks and that turned into signing a one year lease.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end

–Closing Time by Semisonic

It usually doesn’t take us long to become restless after arriving someplace new. The newness of a place quickly wears off and the desire to be somewhere else kicks in. This was no exception. I was certainly more content in San Cristóbal than I had been in other places. It’s a fabulous little Spanish Colonial city in the highlands of Chiapas. The climate is close to perfect, if not a bit on the chilly side. It offers a great selection of small restaurants, cafés, artisanal chocolate shops and it has a very interesting if not tumultuous history. We found a very comfortable and well located house to live in and had a really great time living there. All of that didn’t prevent the restlessness.

The problem with the restlessness this time was that we just couldn’t decide how to direct it. Over the last several years there have been many conversations about the things that we might want to do. Some of those things we have explored deeper and decided against others have been dismissed outright due to changing political climates in the areas we wanted to explore. One of the ideas that has been lingering but not explored was the idea of a Pan-American highway trip. It was during a mini-vacation on the beach that the idea of this trip really sank in. It’s one thing to have an idea in my head, it’s quite another to make a public declaration of that idea. I wrote a blog post about the plans then. That post had us starting this trip next year. I wanted plenty of time to plan things out but, as is often the case, once a decision has been made I’d rather start sooner than later. When I spoke of this plan with friends I always ended with the disclaimer “This is still a maybe. Until money has been spent it isn’t really real.” In April of this year, I spent money on the purchase of a truck/camper for the trip. That step made it all the more real. As real as it might have seemed in that moment, there was still a lot of time and life generally plodded along as normal without too much thought of this upcoming adventure.

Our lease didn’t officially end until August 11th but due to some timing considerations we decided that we would move out on the 2nd of August and make the trip to the US to reunite with Moby (the truck) and begin the trip then. However, there is currently a bit of civil unrest in Chiapas. That civil unrest didn’t really worry me too much. It was more an annoyance or a minor inconvenience than anything. That is, until the day that the streets were on fire in San Cristóbal followed by the protestors blockading the road to the airport. All of that coupled with the fact that Cate had to depart early to tie up some loose ends in the US before starting the trip and I decided it best to get out while I could.

It wasn’t until I handed over the house keys to the landlords that it really sunk in. This is happening. We’re all in. There’s no turning back now. For better or worse we’re embarking on a brand new adventure and I couldn’t be more excited or more apprehensive. This most definitely feels real now.

Getting to Know Moby – The First 1500 Miles

April 25, 2016 by Will Brubaker

We had been through several iterations of what the ideal vehicle for a trip like this would look like. We first considered an SUV which we would strip most of the interior from and add something resembling living quarters to it. From that came the idea of getting a rooftop tent. It didn’t take long for us to decide that that type of platform would be less than ideal. Next up was the idea of a flippac camper on the back of a truck. The flippac has great appeal to me because it is extremely slick and I’m a sucker for slick. Plus a platform such as that offers a clean slate to start from. It could be built to my liking. Long story short due to complications that I don’t want to bore you with, we decided that the best thing to do would be to find a turn-key solution. That conclusion was brand new when Cate ran across an ad for what would turn out to be a turn-key solution. We ended up purchasing a 2004 F-150 with a Northstar TC-650 camper as seen in the cursory introduction to Moby.

I’m originally from Wyoming, my driver’s license is from Wyoming and it’s advantageous for me to maintain as many ties to WY as possible so I knew whatever vehicle we ended up purchasing would be titled & registered in Wyoming. The truck was in California. There are a lot of miles between California and Wyoming.

First Day on the Road and Rookie Lesson Numero Uno

Google maps told me that it was just over 4 hours of driving to Reno, NV. That is a completely unrealistic expectation. Just after sunset I found myself beginning my ascent of the Sierra Nevada. I had pulled over for some fast food and did a quick map search for a campground. I clearly remember thinking to myself “It’s April. It’s Monday night. Nobody will be at this campground” that thought process was completely flawed. By the time I actually arrived at the campground the sun had set and it was quite dark which led to my re-introduction to assholes in America. I get it, I’m driving around in a campground with my brights on. If I had been camped there already I would have found this to be an annoyance too. But I never would have tried to declare my intellectual superiority by calling someone a “fucking idiot”. This is America afterall and you never know when someone is going to shoot you because they have been slightly annoyed. The rule is “never drive at night, always find your camping spot before sunset”. This rule applies even while in your native country. I ended up pulling over at the Donner Pass rest area and stayed the night there. Thankfully Moby came pre-equipped with everything I needed to prepare a cup-o-joe in the morning. I’m already in love.

The Altiplano of Nevada and the Salar de Utah

I haven’t mentioned that I work a full-time job (more about this later). I had only done a tiny bit of work on Monday and really needed to catch up on that. Also, I needed to get closer to Wyoming. This was my first real introduction to the practicallity of trying to work and travel at the same time. Suffice to say that this will need a lot of tweaks to figure out how to balance. I was a bit shocked to discover that, despite my pre-conceived notions, The U.S. isn’t necessarily better connected than any other particular place on earth. I drove to Winnemucca, NV and pulled over for a bite to eat and managed to get a bit of work done. Once caught-up I continued on to Salt Lake City. During that drive I made a point to stop along the way. I really appreciate the small history lessons that are available if you only take the time to pay attention. One example was this plaque at a rest area along the way:

I fully expected that someone would have died of dissentary. Also, this was dedicated in the future, apparently?

And then, there’s this art installation on the Salar de Utah (Bonneville Salt Flats – I just made the Salar bit up)

Metaphor: The Tree of Utah — Photo: craig Cloutier on Flickr

Again, I arrived after sunset but assumed that I would be able to get a spot at a KOA. Flawed thinking got the better of me there too. Apparently there are closing hours.

I stayed the night in Salt Lake City, worked through the morning and in to the early afternoon. While I was there I arranged a storage unit for Moby to live in and opened a mailbox account with the UPS store since we will be making a few retail purchases before the trip begins and need someplace to ship that to (more complications).

The Final Push

I had made an assumption that when I got to what qualifies as civilization in Wyoming that I would be able to catch up some more on work. Again with the flawed thinking. This time my mobile carrier doesn’t have coverage so I was not able to tether my phone’s data connection. This necessitated a quick turnaround. I had an early AM breakfast with my grandmother who was thrilled to have me stop in for a even a brief visit, I took Moby for an oil change and by the time that was completed, the county governmental offices were open. I was pretty nervous about this one, thinking that perhaps I would be missing some critical piece of paperwork, but all went smoothly and Moby is now titled and registered in Wyoming.

Wow – I’m memorialized at the county courthouse!

With the main objective of this part of the trip completed, I needed to get back to somewhere I could get some work done so I headed back towards Salt Lake City. I arrived early enough in the evening to be able to check in to an RV park which was convenient as I would need a proper place to drain the grey water before taking Moby to the storage unit.

This was one helluva road-trip. I’m really hoping that the rest of our overland journey is nothing like this. The point is to slow down, relax and enjoy these places.

How Do You Plan for a Trip of Indefinite Length?

February 10, 2016 by Will Brubaker

Planning for any trip can be a daunting task. Planning for a trip of indeterminite length and unknown starting and ending points is a whole other monster entirely. At the same time it’s exciting and fresh. I think back to the first trip I made outside of the U.S. as an independent traveler. I planned obsessively – down to every last detail. Now, if I’m going somewhere about the only planning that is put in to it is the purchase of airline or bus tickets and possibly making a reservation for some sort of accommodation. I miss those early days when everything was exciting and new. That’s what it was really all about, the newness, the uncertainty and figuring out how to deal with it. A huge part of why I want to take this trip on is to get back to the elated feeling – to make travel exciting again. It has become so easy to just settle in to the same old routines now and I’m ready to, in fact I yearn to, have more uncertainty – to “figure it out” as I go.

When Reality and Fantasy Collide

Fantasy

We spent last week on the beach, doing nothing except watching sunsets. It’s impossible for me to be in a situation like that and not imagine every day of our overland trip to be a day of lazing around the beach, watching life go by and waiting for the sunset. I’ve done a fair bit of travel in South America and I can tell you that there are thousands of miles of isolated coastline that would be perfect places to do nothing but watch sunsets.

Reality

This trip is going to cost money. We both need to be connected on a near constant basis in order to earn money to help finance this trip. There doesn’t tend to be a fast wifi connection on these isolated beaches where, in my mind, we are spending all of our time.

Fantasy

In my mind I have a rather romantic notion of what spending endless hours in a vehicle will be like. Driving about aimlessly, moving on our own schedule on the open road. Campfires, starry skies, camping in unspoilt wilderness.

Reality

Mosquitoes, rain, breakdowns, traffic, getting lost, cramped living space, cold, hot. The list could go on. We both really enjoy having our own personal space. We don’t have to think a whole lot about organizing anything when there’s plenty of room. I certainly enjoy conveniences and comfort. We’re going to have to give that up if this trip is to be a reality. At least we do have experience with driving across several countries in a tiny vehicle – we even camped out while on one of those trips. I have fond memories of both of our European road trips. Our overland trip through the Americas will really just be a larger version of that. We can do this!

It Starts With a Waypoint

There’s a lot more clashes of fantasy vs. reality in my mind, but this post is supposed to be about how to plan for this trip, so I’m going to get back to that. At this time, the only thing we have is a waypoint. One single spot on a map. We can’t even say with any certainty if that will be the first place we visit, the last, or something in between. There are so many decisions to make about how to get to and from that spot on the map. At the same time planning can really be broken down in to the simplest bits by realizing that this trip is just about getting from point A to point B. Simple, right?

Up first is the vehicle. We’ve actually had discussions around this ever since the idea first came up. The original plan from way back when was to drive the Nissan Patrol that we owned at that time. It would need some modifications so that we could live in it but it seemed feasible. At the time it was an easy choice because that’s what we owned. Now we do not own a vehicle so we need to make a choice. Broadly, here’s what we have given consideration to:

SUV – roomy and enclosed. We’re not going to be living in our vehicle full-time so just throwing a bed in the back and a bit of camping gear could probably work. Still great for getting off the beaten path when we can.
Van – similar to an SUV with the main advantage being that it’s much easier to make customizations since you could start with more or less a clean slate.
Motorhome – has the advantage of being purpose built for living in. Has the disadvantage of being too large to fit in a shipping container if we are to go from North America to South America. There are shipping options for larger vehicles, but those options don’t really appeal to me. Also, a motorhome is nowhere near as nimble if we want to get in to the mountains or even on the beach.
Pickup truck with a camper – in my mind this option combines the advantages of all the above options.

No decision on our vehicle will be final until there has actually been money spent, but I’m leaning very heavily towards the pickup truck with camper option. I’m a sucker for things that I think are “slick” and as I was researching various solutions I came across something called a FlipPac. For now, this is the decision and the vision:

So there it is – a place to go and a way to get there. The who, what and how have been broadly defined. The “why” can be summed up by saying that I feel a bit stagnate and my own personal experience with stagnation dictates that I need to do something about that before it does something to me. The “when” isn’t terribly important so let’s call it sometime between now and June 2017. I guess all that’s left are the thousands of small details to be worked out. Simple, right?

Destination Ushuaia

February 2, 2016 by Will Brubaker

It started as an off-handed comment – you know, something similar to “A cold beer sure would be nice right now”. We had been living in Panama for some time at that point and at that time we owned a Nissan Patrol. As per usual we had been talking about what’s next and, as I recall, Cate commented that it would be cool to ship our Patrol to Colombia and have an epic road trip through South America, eventually ending in Ushuaia. People do similar things more often than you might think. We have a LOT of details to work out before we even begin but I feel confident enough that some version of that road trip will happen that I thought I’d do a post here – mostly so I can begin to organize my thoughts.

The first major detail that needs to be decided on is which side of the Darién Gap to begin on. There are very solid arguments in favor of north or south:

North

We are already on the north side.
We can purchase and register a vehicle in the US. It seems like it will be much less hassle if the vehicle registration is in the same country as our passports. We’ll be crossing a lot of borders so as of right now, this is my major concern.
We’ll cover a lot more ground – if we decide to start on the north side, we might as well start in Prudhoe Bay, right?

South

Wouldn’t need to bother with shipping a vehicle around the Darién Gap.
We could avoid huge swaths of dodgy territory – there’s a fair bit of lawlessness along the route but in particular in Central America.
Plenty of people seem to be selling their vehicles in either Buenos Aires or Santiago. These vehicles are generally fully equipped and have had various tweaks made during their trips so most of these are turn-key options.
Would probably cut 6 months to 1 year off of our trip time. I’m not sure if this is an advantage or not.
It is financially advantageous for us to mostly remain outside of the U.S. Starting on the south side of the gap would mean we haven’t got to concern ourselves with how much time we are in the U.S.

As of right now, I’m definitely in favor of starting on the north side and the plan we’re working on has us in Prudhoe Bay on 21 June 2017. Stay tuned….

Observing Labor Day by Not Doing Any @La Zebra Tulum

May 7, 2015 by Will Brubaker

Full disclosure: This stay was comped, however, there was no arrangement that I write this blog post about this stay, this hotel or anything related – I am writing more to journal what I found to be a delightful experience.

In many parts of the world International Worker’s Day is observed on May 1st. Mexico is one of those places and so we decided to take the day off in observation of the holiday. We have been going pretty much full-speed for the past six months. Sure, we’ve had a trip here or a trip there, but those trips have all been something akin to what you might refer to as working holidays. We haven’t really just consciously decided to do nothing for an entire day – all of that changed on the first of May.

When the idea of doing nothing for this day first came up we really didn’t have any plans of where to do nothing. Ultimately we decided to unplug at La Zebra Tulum. I haven’t got enough superlatives to describe how this is the idyllic place to do nothing. I think the best way to sum it up would be with a Corona commercial:

Really, it’s exactly like that.

The Room

Unfortunately I haven’t got much to say about the room – we didn’t spend much time there. It was spacious, clean, comfortable and came with a complimentary bottle of tequila.

Organic soaps, shampoos and mosquito repellent

There are some small touches in the room that are in keeping with what you might expect from a hotel of this caliber. A personal welcome note that provided a brief overview of the important things about the hotel such as where to find coffee early in the morning. I did notice the selection of bath/hygiene products – all organic and quite stylishly presented.

The Property

The property embodies everything you would expect from a boutique hotel. The motif isn’t immediately obvious to me, perhaps that’s more due to my lack of an eye for design than anything else – suffice to say that there’s a mix of a maritime theme combined with something more mexi-caribbean, which given the locale fits perfectly. Regardless of my lack of ability to understand the connection, it is abundantly obvious that a lot of thought has been put in to the details and functionality of the decor.

Somehow or another the property feels simultaneously very large and very intimate. The small touches are really what stand out in my mind. Little things that might be considered silly in any other context. Things like coconut shaped lights in the coconut trees and little nooks where you might find a rowboat converted into a swing or a couch. You can also take time to enjoy the uniquely painted table tops and regionally appropriate art that can be found throughout (hint: look up when inside the restaurant)

Food & Drink

I usually try to refrain from pretending to be a foodie. I’m more of an “eat to live” kind of guy more so than I am “live to eat” so I don’t think I can provide a very robust narrative surrounding the food at La Zebra. I will say that I thoroughly enjoyed everything I ate during our little vacation and I was especially fond of the cochinita pibil which is a regional favorite consisting of slow cooked pork (traditionally cooked in a pit) with various accoutrements.

...green glass dishes with the tiny bubbles and imperfections, little bits of sand, proof they were crafted by the honest, simple, hard-working indigenous aboriginal peoples of wherever... — …green glass dishes with the tiny bubbles and imperfections, little bits of sand, proof they were crafted by the honest, simple, hard-working indigenous aboriginal peoples of wherever…

Again there were some small touches that really stick out in my mind. Hand-blown glass is quite common in Mexico – your grandmother may very well have a set of glasses of the Mexican hand-blown variety with the blue rims. I really loved the glassware used at La Zebra which are hand-blown but not like what you typically find in the local tourist shops. It’s a small detail but it does a lot to really cement the uniqueness of this place in my mind. On our second night we did opt to have desert with our meal. Our server suggested we try the churros which saved me the arduous task of deciding on what to have for desert. We were very delighted with this choice. The churros ended up being a bit of a footnote to a much larger and exceptionally whimsical dish. This particular desert appears to want to help you relive your favorite childhood memories of the local county fair – bright pink cotton candy, chocolate, pie, cream and churros. I’m very grateful that I had someone to share this with.

The Service

I don’t want to stray too far from the point here, but I feel the need to wrap a little bit of context around what I’m about to say. Since I first really started traveling, I’ve stayed in almost every class of accommodation that exists – from sleeping in ditches on the side of the road to a weekend getaway at the St. Regis on Saadiyat Island in Abu Dhabi and everything in between including $2/night bunks in dorm rooms in the dingiest hostels on earth. In my experience the service staff at any establishment can make or break one’s experience – but it’s not an easy balance to achieve. The service at La Zebra is top notch. They will ensure you are able to spend your time with them completely stress free. All of the staff members are friendly, helpful, attentive and FUN without being over-bearing or creating a clinical atmosphere. The staff at La Zebra bring all of the smaller details together; something like the conductor of an orchestra bringing all the pieces together at the perfect time as they work towards the crescendo.

The Point

What I’m trying to say here is that if ever you need the perfect place to go and truly relax, I mean really, genuinely, truly relax there is absolutely no better place to do it. That perfect vacation depicted in “having a great time, wish you were here” types of postcards – La Zebra is the type of place where those moments happen. It’s the perfect place for that to happen because it’s on the perfect beach, great attention to detail is given to every aspect of the hotel to make it less a hotel and more an experience. I hope you are as fortunate as I and get to visit it one day.

It’s All About the Onions, Babe

January 11, 2015 by Will Brubaker

Arguing on the internet is like…you know the meme. Arguing with your spouse on the internet, that’s a whole ‘nother level of stupid and yet, here I am.

Not really arguing so much, but rather commiserating while playing devil’s advocate. I’m tired too. I often wonder “what’s the point?” Here we are, we’ve spent some stupid amount of money to spend yet another night in some shitty hotel/hostel/airbnb room; and for what? If we tried hard enough we could probably get bedbugs at home. We could spend far less money and still have the privilege of hanging out with drunken Poms or Ozzies. Our contact list is full of annoying know-it-alls, why aren’t we hanging out with them if it’s annoying asshats that capture our attention? Burn the couch, sell the truck and smash the refrigerator so we can have a more authentic experience of sitting on plastic chairs, riding on chicken buses and eating foul-tasting food and let’s go hang out with those annoying acquaintances. Naw, fuck that, I’ll hold out for my one-in-three type experiences such as we had tonight.

For me, it’s never been about the place, though you’ve probably heard me gush about how awesome I think the next destination will be. For me, it’s always been about being somewhere else. The one constant in my life has been that I have a burning desire to be somewhere other than where I am right now. In my youth it didn’t matter; if given the opportunity to go to somewhere as benign as the grocery store, I was all over that shit. Imagine being excited about going to the grocery store – that place sucks the life out of people and yet it was someplace other than where I was so I was overjoyed at the opportunity to go.

Eventually I joined the military. For all the hell that that was, at least I was never in the same place for any extended period of time. My acquired skillset in the military led to job opportunities aplenty in exotic locales like Nebraska so I jumped on that. It didn’t take too long for that to become too mundane so one day I applied for a job in Antarctica. That was probably the complete undoing of me. It was with that stint of employment that I became convinced that I would never have to live a conventional lifestyle again. Antarctica led to other opportunities – one of which was a quick trip to Hawaii which led to a couple more trips to Hawaii. If you are familiar with the intimate details of the outcome of that decision then I might be in love with you.

I don’t love Hawaii. I have no emotional attachments to any geographical place on earth. I do, however, take great satisfaction in some of the experiences I’ve had and I’m fairly certain that it is because I ventured away from whatever “home” is that I invited these experiences in to my life.

As I said before, I’m tired too but the thought of quitting is completely unfathomable to me. I can’t imagine how horrible my life would be if I went back to whatever is considered by society to be the norm. Some nine to five job, some suburban apartment done all up in neutral colors. Mortgage payments, layaway at Christmas, dinner dates at Texas Roadhouse? No thanks! Despite my weariness I’m gonna stick it out for the chance of experiencing something as divine as onions sauteed in Nicaraguan cacao liqueur and whatever accompanied it – I think it was filet mignon, but I can’t be sure. I’m gonna stick it out because every now and again I encounter awesome people (remember Guy?). I’m gonna stick it out because it’s not just another job. I’m gonna stick it out because every now and then I can snap a photo of steak and foie gras and caption it with some snarky comment about how I have far exceeded the expectations of some dead soul who told me I’d never amount to anything. I’ll stick it out because this is who I am and I know that no matter how tired I am of this life that the life I left behind sucked the soul out of me.

By the way, if you ever find yourself in Granada, Nicaragua I recommend you get away from the touts and the doughy mid-westerners and go have yourself an awesome experience at the Ciudad Lounge. I’m pretty sure they serve food there as well.

Misheard Spanish – The Dangerous Bear

February 26, 2014 by Will Brubaker

sloth — Image by praziquantel on flickr.

On a recent outing to Bocas Del Toro with friends, we took a day trip to Isla Zapatilla, which is a Panamanian National Park. Zapatilla is an uninhabited island with some very lovely beaches. We enjoyed an afternoon of beach-type activities and in summary had a great time on the island.

On our way back to the main island we asked our boat captain if there were any islands we could go to that had monkeys. He replied positively that we could vist – what we heard as (translated to English)- “Island of dangerous bears”. Unaware that non-dangerous bears existed, this place-name was puzzling, nonetheless, we asked to make the detour to the island of dangerous bears in hopes of spying some monkeys.

Monkeys tend to be more of a dawn and dusk thing and today was no exception. We didn’t see any monkeys. We did, however observe a sloth slothing about high in the canopy of this mostly mangrove island. Seeing the sloth prompted us to ask what the word for sloth was in Spanish to which our boat captain again replied with the same string of words that has thus far caused us much vexation. “Oso Peligroso” (is what we all heard) which would translate to “Dangerous Bear” in English. At the time, nobody really said anything about it. On an individual basis I can say for myself that I felt a bit embarrassed about not understanding the words but figured since I’m not a clergyman and I don’t plan on giving any sermons on the seven deadly sins in Spanish, it’s pretty safe to say that I won’t ever need to use the Spanish word for ‘sloth’ so no practical need to know it.

A few days later when some of the same friends were together, somebody uttered the words ‘oso peligroso’. I have no recollection what prompted it, but I do recall that the utterance of those words resulted in uproarious laughter. We all understood that none of us had understood. Either that or the Spanish word for sloth really is oso peligroso, which would actually be quite humorous.

Fast forward a few more days, and there I was, in some waiting room for some governmental agency and the National Geographic channel was on the television. Oddly enough I was actually thinking about the dangerous bear and if a Spanish speaking priest gives a sermon on the seven deadly sins if the same word would be used. “Thou shalt not dangerous bear” or some such… Anyhow at that exact moment an image of a sloth came on the tv and its caption read ‘Oso Perezoso’ which would translate to something along the lines of ‘lazy bear’ or ‘slow bear’ which makes much more sense than dangerous bear. So much for the humour, but hooray for new knowledge.

So now I have increased my Spanish vocabulary with something that, seriously, I will probably never use again. Unfortunately, this bit of knowledge probably occupies the space formerly inhabited by the location of my keys so I’ll never be able to find them.