Backpacking Genius

Isla de Tortuga is a beautiful spot to snorkel, lizard lounge on white sand beaches and socialize with foreigners from all parts of the world.  It’s also a place my brother Damian will never forget.  We headed to the Isle to snorkel and swim with 8 people with different accents and ethnic backgrounds including Asians, Colombians, French and an old enemy, Montezuma.

Adventure Contributor Alex Stoy wraps up his Central American Epic with an ending that is beyond fitting. Thanks Alex for including us in your adventures.

Adventure contributor Alex Stoy continues the story of his own Central American escape.

My brother and I chose Montezuma on a whim, or at least we chose Montezuma by chance.  Maybe Montezuma chose us.  We also chose to meet there in our travels between certain dates and if that didn’t work out, we’d see each other back in the States, at some point when our vagabond lifestyles would cross.

We got a little confused when posting Part III of Central American Epic.  This chapter was supposed to go in between part II and part III.  Our apologies.

Cobano, Costa Rica is no place to be a solo gringo, entering a bank ATM, and being ignorant.  This is a town with one intersection, one ATM, one store, 4 dirt roads in the shape of a Catholic Cross, and about 50 people staring me down, staring my money down.

I’m not feeling well.  Something I ate is giving me Montezuma’s Revenge and I have yet to leave Park City, Utah.    This will make for a long and interesting journey to a place I don’t know anything about.  I have to leave as this is my ‘vacation time off’ from work and only have 2 weeks, not nearly long enough.

WARNING: This piece contains some salty language and a drug reference or two. If you're offended by that, you might want to pass on this one.

It’s been a long stretch without travel, adventure and alone time.  I needed to escape my everyday life, the life where travel had been replaced with a career, play exchanged for work and life put on hold for what, I don’t know.

WARNING: This piece contains some salty language and a drug reference or two. If you're offended by that, you might want to pass on this one.

A friend once asked me if I had ever been to the desert, I responded, “Why would I ever want to go the desert?”

“One day, you will understand,” she quietly said as she turned and walked away.

The PocketRocket has long been MSR's little stove that could.  One of the original small canister stoves, it set the bar for what a small, lightweight backpacking stove should be.  The Pocket Rocket has now been replaced as MSR's lightest stove by the new MicroRocket stove.

Back in my retail days I sold a lot of Kelty kids carriers. It was an easy sale. Kelty makes good products. People want to take their kids out into the out of doors. Sold. They offered a couple of different models back then. The difference was the amount of adjustability in the frame or lack there of and compartments for diapers.