Unwilling to be that guy who didn´t wear a costume to the New Year´s costume party (you know the type) I broke down, made an index card eye patch and tied a bandana round my head. It was tough and I left without looking in the mirror. I could not bare to see myself dressed as such.

You see, I hate pirates. Hate is a strong word, I know, but there is nothing redeeming about pirates. I like stink, I like booze, I like ocean and although I´ve never touched them, I imagine gold doubloons and shillings and what have you are pretty neat too. But in excess, these things result in a ridiculous Hollywood craze over a historical personage no one has ever liked but suddenly do now, ridiculously so, just because of a certain actor whom I cannot truthfully deny liking as well. But come on, if Johnny Depp starred in a ninja movie everyone would think ninjas are the dopest shit ever. But he hasn´t and they are apparently not. Remember how cool persons with mental disabilities were after Benny and Joon came out?

Moral of the story is I swallowed my pride and wore the costume because I had no other option besides a woman, and those who have known me for some time would probably agree that I´ve ended up in a few too many skirts than should be considered healthy and sane. The saving grace was that I perched Sancho Panza upon my shoulders to be my parrot (Oh and that´s another thing. Parrots are not cool at all). He peed on me but I´m quickly getting used to that.
Of course, fate or perhaps Capt´n Silver himself had it that no one else got the memo and I show up on the other farm the only one shod for the occasion. Azucena and the other volunteer brought their costumes to ¨change into¨and the other volunteers were getting dressed to go to a disco down the street. I knew the idea of dressing up on New Year´s was off. And that the fact the others ¨brought¨ their costumes as well. But the food was great as it always is at Peregrino and the neighbors shot plenty of fireworks.

If I had a ninja costume it would have been better.

And yes, there is a disco dance club in the middle of farmland, Argentina. All Argentines, no matter where they are, insist upon at least one boliche a week.

I´m in the Santiago de Chile bus terminal waiting for passage to La Serena tonight. I arrive up there at 6am and plan on finding a sandy beach to greet the sun on.

Today comin over the mountain (when we come) we passed a couple thousand meters below Aconcagua, the highest elevation in the Americas. It looked skinny, undaunting and mostly naked and I felt big; big not just in a physical way but some other way I´d rather not start digging into right now with stinging eyes and a cacaphony of beeping computers, blinking arcade games, horrible 90s music from the US, the hungry gases in my stomach and the resevoir of pee expanding my bladder.

There´s a tarta galicia with my name on it somewhere around here.