For the last few days I’ve been spending time in El Rodadero, Colombia before setting off to Palomino for Hackerbeach. Another participant arrived today, and joined me in relaxing before the primary Hackerbeach work in Palomino. It’s peak season here in El Rodadero, which means all the restaurants, the malecón, and the beach are filled to the brim with people, mostly traveling Colombians who come here for what is justifiably one of the most gorgeous beaches in the country.
Whenever I encounter people as I travel, they are often curious about my luggage. It seems to be invisible. They’ll often ask where my bag is, assuming that it must have gotten lost in transit. Their eyes go wide and confusion sets in when I tell them that the bag on my back is the only one.
It is my estimation that at least some people would be curious about what gear I travel with.
As many of my friends know, I’ve been spending the last few weeks in New Zealand. Primarily it’s been for a small holiday, but also in preparation inimitable Linux.conf.au 2015 conference. Leading up to that, one of the goals of my visit was to experience the variety of places across both islands.
A few weeks ago someone clued me in to a service called TransfercarThis is that this is a service for people who need to rent a car for one-way travel.
As would be familiar to anybody who knows me, I’m always interested in new tech, especially when it’s running free software and portable enough to be in my every-day carry arsenal.
For the past month or so I’ve been looking at a few devices as a secondary to my laptop to carry with me. In a few weeks I’ll be joining those already there at third installment of Hackerbeach, on the Caribbean island of Dominica.
For the uninitiated, Hackerbeach involves a group of hackers (historically 15-20) gathering in a tropical location for a month to hack on various open source projects. It can be thought of as a month-long hackathon or code sprint for nomadic open source developers. All of the code so far has been focused on the open web ecosystem.
Last year it took place on a small island of Vietnam named Phú Quốc.
Woke up with a sore throat. A bad omen for a long travel stint. I hadn’t packed the night before, so it was all done day-of, which surprisingly didn’t result in me not packing important items (that I can think of yet). Maybe I’m getting used to this, or maybe I’m just being more reserved in what I consider necessary.
Managed to get to the airport 2 hours early and thanks to my GlobalEntry card, was able to bypass the security line affording me enough time to sit at Rogue and enjoy some nourishing lunch before catching my 10 hour flight from Portland to Amsterdam.
In order to enter the airport, you must show proof of identity and flight documentation (such as an itinerary) to uniformed, armed guards stationed outside the entrance of the airport. After reading a bit, this heightened security must be due to some of the recent bombings in Mumbai. Metal detecters are everywhere in the country, including the entrance to shopping malls and other high profile public places. Ironically, none of the places that employ these devices actually CARE about the result.
That said, they’re an excellent way to access the city. They’re affordable, readily available, and their open-air nature really allows one to take in the spectacles, cacophony, and (sometimes) smells of the city.
One of the perils of being a westerner in India (or really anybody that one can identify as not being born and raised locally) is that often others will try to take advantage of you. This certainly isn’t restricted to auto drivers either, as this will also happen on the street, in shopping malls, at the airport, and generally everywhere.