Travel, Photography, Life.
Dan Perry
Dan created this blog to document his South America trip, which covered every country on the continent and lasted over two years. He currently lives in Madison, WI.
Homepage: http://www.trekkerglobe.com
Posts by Dan Perry
Sweet Dreams
Aug 17th
Last night I got my prescriptions filled at the local pharmacy. I was given a 3-week trial of Mefloquine for malaria to see if I would have any major side effects before I got a full year’s supply. The good thing about that particular drug is that you only have to take it once per week. The bad thing is that it makes you freak out in your sleep. I really wanted to try it to see what kind of trip I could go on in my sleep, so I took the first one last night. It tasted really bad going down, but later on in the night, I would be left with an even worse taste in my mouth.
I had a dream that I was interviewing Hillary Clinton, but we were in a car, and she was driving. She kept driving past gardens and forests and nearly killed a cute little bunny rabbit. I wanted to get to doing the actual interview because I had a lot of serious questions to ask her, but we couldn’t stop laughing at all of the hilarity that surrounded us. I never really figured out what that hilarity was, but I’m sure it was there somewhere. At one point, she drove past a Mexican and said to him in Spanish, “I hope you’ll vote for me,” and he said back, “Of course!” But then I got to thinking, no wonder Democrats are doing so lousy in presidential elections: they’re only trying to win one vote at a time! What a stupid dream. I was hoping to dream about worms that sounded like sheep and cats and dogs getting along, but instead I had to dream about Hillary Clinton, and not even in sexual way. What a rip off.
Emotion Overload
Aug 14th
So much is going on in my life it’s getting tough to handle. The highs and lows of planning my trip are incredible. Tonight I attempted to add a new module to my website so I could have a bulletin board of some sort for visitors to leave comments. It seemed like a harmless enough thing to try to do, but I should have remembered that nothing is as easy as it seems with computers. The script I was using to add the module had a bug that caused it to get rejected. When I tried to go to my main website, I got an error. That really made me freak out because I thought I had killed everything. I back this website up from time to time, but I haven’t done so in a few weeks, and I’ve added a lot of stuff since then. All was not lost, however. I just had to log into mysql (my database) and create the tables that were needed manually. This eventually worked, but not before two hours of heavy panicking. I hope this type of thing doesn’t happen when I’m on the road, but I have a feeling it will. Maybe I’ll at least have most of the kinks like this one worked out before I leave, but a website crash is still among my biggest fears concerning my trip, as silly as it may seem.
On a good note, I finally found my prescriptions. A few months ago, I was given prescriptions for Mefloquine and Cipro, but I lost them shortly thereafter. I do stupid things like that all the time. I’ve even been known to search for a pen for several minutes before realizing that it’s in my hand. Anyway, I was going through my filing cabinet to get some paperwork for my trip in order, and I ran into the prescriptions. They were in a folder titled “Company Info,” which I haven’t used in years. I have no idea why I would’ve put them there of all places. Oh well. Despite wasting several hours on my search, at least now I can expose myself to malaria and diarrhea all I want without worrying about any consequences. Mosquito burrito anyone? Now if only I could remember where I put those Ginko pills, I’d be all set.
I have a lot of stuff to do, but I think things are going well so far for me. This website seems to be holding up, other than the aforementioned problem (which I’ll avoid running into again at all costs), and I am getting a lot more visitors. I’m still not sure if I’ll be able to handle the load when I give word of this website out to the travel community on the Internet, but I feel that I owe them for all of the information they have given me. It always helps to have a few people with similar lifestyles to get advice from (no I’m not the first person to take a trip like this one).
There are lots more ups and downs that I’ll probably write about in the coming weeks before my trip. Someday, I’d like to put together a checklist of sorts to give to people who want to take a trip like mine. But for now I’ll concentrate on getting a somewhat good night’s sleep.
It’s Official
Aug 10th
I put in my letter of resignation today. My last day will be September 9, 2005. It actually wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be for me or my company. Nobody is taking this personally. Everyone seems to understand why I want to travel, which I really appreciate. It’s not easy to make a huge change in your life without some support.
For the next month, I’m sure I’ll do a lot of reflecting back on my corporate career. In some ways, the last five years have flown by, but in others, it seems like I’ve been here forever. Time has a funny way of doing that.
I’m getting really excited about my trip. It was just a distant dream when I starting thinking about it, but now it is becoming a reality. I’m sure it will be a positive experience for me, and I hope you get to live vicariously through me for a little bit. Maybe you’ll even get the travel bug and I’ll be reading your blog in a year!
Finally I’m Online
Aug 8th
I finally got my site online. It was actually pretty easy to do. I just had to move my computers to my uncle’s basement where they won’t be blocked by his ISP. Now anybody can read about my trip. I hope this test period goes well because I’m not sure what kind of bandwidth is actually required to host a website like this. It seems to be going well so far, though, and hopefully I’ll get all of the kinks worked out before I leave.
Lost Focus
Jun 11th
I can’t believe it’s been almost a month since my last post. My life has gotten really busy lately, and my trip planning has suffered as a result. And to make matters worse, I found out that my god-damned ISP is blocking all incoming ports, which means that nobody can view this website outside my apartment. So right now, I’m writing this to nobody. I hope somebody reads it someday, though. I’m going to try to find a home for my computer soon. Hopefully it will be located somewhere with an ISP that understands that I am paying for bandwidth and won’t block me.
Like I said before, not much has changed with my trip planning since my last post. Hopefully that will change soon. On Monday I get my last round of shots. I found out that my insurance will cover 80% of everything, which is a HUGE relief for me, considering that the hospital charged me $300 just to tell me which shots I needed to get, which I already knew from the 5 minutes of research I did online beforehand. Now I feel like I can go on a spending spree. Remember, it’s not what you spend, it’s what you save.
I just thought of something: you’re probably reading my blog thinking it sucks so far. All I’ve written about has been my blog itself and my vaccinations. Well, I’d like to lay out some ground rules now. This is a travel blog, so I plan on mostly posting stuff about my trip. Right now I’m in the planning stages, so nothing extremely interesting is happening. Don’t worry, once I get going, I’m sure I’ll have lots to write about. I probably won’t review and polish the entries in this blog very often, but I will try to write an occasional well-polished story about a specific place I visit.
I’m not trying to make a living with this website. Instead, I just feel that it’s the best way to keep in touch with friends and relatives when I’m on the road. Of course, you’re welcome to follow my journeys if you don’t know me. I’m just asking that you don’t complain if I start to cleverly split infinitives or use prepositions to end sentences with. But feel free to email me if there is an event near me that I could go to that is worth seeing/writing about.
So in summary, I don’t have any audience yet, but I still feel the need to criticize them. I’m my own worst PR nightmare.
There’s No Turning Back Now
May 16th
This is my first blog entry for my trip. I don’t plan on leaving for over 3 months, but I feel that now is a good time to start writing because I made a big commitment toward my trip today: vaccinations. I got 4 shots: Rabies, Tetanus/Diptheria, Typhoid, and Hepatitis A. Getting them wasn’t bad, but a few hours later, my arm felt like it went 2 rounds with Buster Douglas (so not too bad). I still have to go back for 2 more Rabies shots and a Yellow Fever shot, which I’m told is pretty bad-ass because it basically gives you the flu for several days. I also got prescriptions for Mefloquine for Malaria and Cipro in case I get severe diarrhea. Anyway, I was told that this all could cost $1500-$2000, so now there’s no turning back. I’m not one to waste money, and after spending that kind of cash, I’ll have to run barefoot through the jungle while eating raw oysters and drinking brown tap water to get my money’s worth. I’m hoping my insurance will cover at least some it, though, so maybe I’ll be able to limit myself to sleeping a few nights without a mosquito net to make up for my new spending habit.
Well, it feels good to get my first entry out of the way. Hopefully, many years from now, I’ll reminisce about how I voluntarily let someone stick 4 needles in my arm just so I could travel.