Travel Talk

My Laptop Died in Tanga, Great!

Welcome from my private hell,

The photo above is my laptop, looks like I’m that guy who bought a Toshiba laptop in Bangkok with the 0.001% faulty board. The guys who I met yesterday took it apart and tried lots of thing. He has one that something similar happened with, warranty time he said. Nice guys, originally from Zanzibar. Asked how much and he said don’t worry about it.

What a crap thing to happen, yes? It’s like getting ready for a wedding, squeezing into that old suit and hearing the pants rip as you sit down at the reception, crap. I’m in this beach paradise and JUST GOT the gsm modem working where I could be online under palm trees while eating a full octopus for less than the price of your coffee and my $@#$ing laptop dies? WTF, what timing!?

It’s funny really how everything in this universe has a weird way of evening out. I may be a guy who is kinda living his dream at the moment, but I’m also the guy who breaks his face in Vietnam, gets attacked by rabid dogs and of course, buys the 1% faulty laptop from the other side of the planet. Please, do not forget that. I believe good luck comes with bad. Look at the Kennedy’s… They have it all and the worst luck in the world.

So yeah, I could sit here and cry on a curb in this African city while people with polio plead for change, that would be ridiculous. It’s hard to feel bad for myself about a laptop I could easily replace when I see so much poverty around here. Flip side is, it sucks, it’s one of my tools, I paid a good price for a good tool and got screwed basically.

Could this be an opportunity? After coming to Tanga with just 1 small pack, it’s liberating. Many people become mules lugging around things they don’t need. I have a 52L pack that is half full and never wear most of it.

An internet acquaintance of mine known as “Le Fly” in France, suggested Dragon Natural Speaking. Used to use it back in the day, supposedly it has gotten much better. Perhaps blog while dictating into my iphone… Laptop is soooo 200’s, we’re in the 201’s, yes? Maybe just get an ipad? Maybe get a rainbow colored apple tattoo while I”m at it, haha I’m kidding.

I really do believe that every catastrophe is an opportunity. Curious where the opportunity in this is, right now just looks like a loss and has me confused. Also considering I don’t care much about material things, I’m now sorta over the laptop and curious what I should eat for lunch. This place called “Food Palace” looks interesting. Africa is not really the place to go electronics shopping, FYI. They want $1200US for a 16GB iPhone 4…

Going to roll back to Pangani tomorrow, booked room one more night as I thought they may be able to fix it. Kinda on topic, my visa expires on the 8th… I need to renew my visa or get to Dar in the next day or so… I have some decisions to make, big time.

Finally, should a dead laptop derail plans? My Canadian friends are moving back to Canada, maybe go back to Arusha for a few weeks to help them tie up loose ends and climb Kili? Decisons, Decisions, Decisions…

I digress.

Until our next update, stay classy and ladies, stay sassy or something of that nature.

Tips hat in most egregious fashion,

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