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First Dispatch

Today was a very good day. Last night? Apprehensive. But today, ah, today was the introduction to a world I’ve never known. We’ve all been to Nowhere. It might have been in the middle of Seattle or Saskatchewan. It might have been at a Zen monastery, a no-man’s-land border outpost, or a bungalow in a nameless beach town. You may have found Nowhere on a sultry summer night in Paris when you’d spent your last euro and had no place to sleep; or on a midnight jeep safari in the Botswana bush after you’d blown your last spare tire, with your campsite a distant pinprick of light; or in the comforting cocoon of an all-night train compartment, sharing soul-secrets with a total stranger. Nowhere is a setting, a situation and a state of mind. It’s not on any map, but you know it when you’re there. This time it has taken, as it usually does, a tremendous amount of energy and an open mind to get to Nowhere. This time, Nowhere is Mae Sot, Thailand. I tend to prefer the places that Lonely Plan
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Haleakala: The Fast Way

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*Photos: Eddie Gianelloni --> Haleakala: The Fast W ay “Mainland, yea?”   Biting the top of her knuckle, the old wooden desk creaking as she leaned in heavy.   Pressing the phone to her ear and tripoding her elbows on the desk, she listened close for a few more seconds then looked up at me and asks: “So the dogs came after you?” her tanned forehead crinkling into the shape of a ‘V’.    “Well, no.   Not really.”   Pausing mid sentence and putting myself in the ranchers boots on the other end of the phone line; this must sound ridiculous.   A runner from the mainland with no shirt and short shorts wanders off his ranch into the Kaupo General Store and wants to know why his dogs, specially trained to protect the livestock, come after him when he runs towards the livestock. Meg presses the old phone back to her ear then leans back in her springy office chair: “Okay, thanks John, got it.”   I wander aimlessly in the cubical sized store.   Meg tilts her head, pin
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South Bound

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When a person rolls into town on an iron donkey people ask questions. We must look like a couple of lost gypsies. Buggy (unaffectionate bike name) has a massive yellow bag mounted on a single axle trailer with a broken rear fender that rubs on the wheel. Kitchen equiptment and other essential crap hang off in all directions. We must look lost, but we seem to be making a lot of friends this way. Rodrigo is a guide here in Pucon. He popped out as soon as our wheels stopped rolling and offered a place to pitch the tent. Yesterday he took us up a dirt road towards volcano Villarica. We crossed three ridges and swooped up through several different glacial fed rivers before ditching the bikes and hiking up to a waterfall. Rigo is full of life and knowledge. He´s a guide on the volcano and super fit local adventure buddy. We are tentatively planning to race the Ironman Pucon 70.3 here on the 16th. The town is nestled between a massive lake and subtropic mountains. We´ll be
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