snoop dogg, talib kweli, and buzz aldrin, together at last.  just heard the song on the radio today.

I made a 7 minute short video of our 70 hour trip 8-)

The Silver Crest is so sketchy. It’s like Sketch Central. I’ve lived next to it for six years and had never been inside. But look at all that great neon! Their sign proclaims: “We Never Close”. We decide we have to go.

Friday night Sam was driving us back from the spaz party at the Li Po Lounge, and we pass the Silver Crest. We’re full of Mai Tais and thumpy beats, but Bob and I have the same thought. We have to go.

We walk in and transported fifty years into the past. There is a bar in the back with a crowded pool table, but it’s 2am and the bar is just closing. We grab a booth in the front. These jukebox things on every table:

It doesn’t work and and eats Bob’s quarter. That probably for the best, since the jukebox is full of with Greek waltzes.

The menu is written on the wall. The food isn’t cheap, but we hope it’s good. The coffee is a ridiculous $2.75. Even for diner coffee, it tastes like crap.

They have these old pinball machines, which mang decides to check out while we wait for the food. There is a sign saying you have to be over 21 to play. We ask the server why, and she says they don’t want to encourage the kids to gamble. Whatever. The kids are all at Li Po, anyway, playing dice for drinks.

The food comes out. I’m surprised by how bad it is, but I don’t know why. I guess I expect shitty diners to have great food. That is not the case tonight. My hotcakes arrive with an entire stick of “butter” on top, which promptly slides off onto the table as soon as the server sets them down.

I’m disgusted but Bob thinks we need to come back. The Silver Crest has donuts, and they might actually be good. Maybe we’ll bring our own coffee next time.

Here are some pics from my recent trip! I did an 8 day trek in Torres del Paine called the Paine Circuit which is in southern Chile. It was beautiful! It was also really really hard. I can’t lie…there were many times I wished I were lying on a warm beach in Bali that week…especially when I was kind of lost, at the edge of a precipice, and the wind was so fierce, I had to grab hold of a tree or my makeshift trekking poles that I dug into the ground to keep myself from being blown off the mountain. The wind was UNREAL. I had to stop whenever I heard it coming behind me, hunch down close to the ground, and prepare myself to get hit. it came in phases like mini-tornadoes.

The weight of my pack also made it difficult for me to put one foot in front of the other sometimes. I’d never gone on such a long backpacking trip before and at the end of the first day, my back hurt so much, I gave my SLR to a chilean woman at the refugio by our first camp. Luckily I still had a small pocket cam which I used for the pics above (hooray for small pocket cams!)

The crazy wind and weight of my pack aside, the trip was great! I met lots of nice people, and learned a lot. It was one of the most beautiful places I’ve been to and I’m glad I went when I still had knees. I’m fairly certain they’re done for now. They’ve just told me that they will no longer be in on anything I decide to do this year. They are going on stike!

Here’s a map of the trek.

The penguins were at a penguin colony on Seno Otway, about an hour from Punta Arenas. To get to Torres del Paine, you have to fly to Punta Arenas (about 4-5 hrs from Santiago, Chile), take a bus to Puerto Natales (about 3-4 hours) and then another bus to the park (about 2-3 hours). It takes a while!

We are back from India! Happy New Year’s to all!

A BIG hug and THANK YOU for the support and encouragement! The ride raised a record-breaking $11 million for AIDS education and prevention programs and I had an awesome time. There were definitely days I thought I would keel over (mainly because I was still sick!) but thankfully made it through without any serious mishap. In the past two days, really simple things like waking up in a warm dry bed, resting my head on a pillow, taking a hot bath, using a flush toilet, and wearing clean clothes feel *500 TIMES* better than they ever have! it’s amazing. also, I now know that certain padded shorts are definitely better than others (even though they all look the same) and can *literally* save your ass.

More pics of the ride over here!