It was a hot day in late August of 2012, the warmth of summer still sticking around. I had been working hard all year and decided it was time to take a mini vacation, so I rented a car for the week and headed out to visit some of the local sights in and around Cancun. During my excursion I hit up Valladolid, Chichen Itza, Ek Balam, Coba, Akumal, Puerto Morelos and the Ruta de Cenotes just south of Morelos. Read More
A group of glacial lakes situated in the northwestern Rila Mountains in Bulgaria, situated between 2,100 and 2,500 meters elevation above sea level, The Seven Rila Lakes are a popular day hike for Bulgarians as well as travelers coming to the country to visit. With spectacular views as well as the Rila Monastery to consider, there’s plenty of reasons to go…although planning your time of year can be crucial since the weather is subject to rapid changes.
Each lake carries a name associated with its most characteristic feature. The highest one is called Salzata (“The Tear”) due to its clear waters that allow visibility in depth. The next one in height carries the name Okoto (“The Eye”) after its almost perfectly oval form. Babreka (“The Kidney”) is the lake with the steepest shores. Bliznaka (“The Twin”) is the largest one by area. Trilistnika (“The Trefoil”) has an irregular shape and low shores. The shallowest lake is Ribnoto Ezero (“The Fish Lake”) and the lowest one is Dolnoto Ezero (“The Lower Lake”), where the waters that flow out of the other lakes are gathered to form the Dzherman River.
June, July and August make up the primary hiking months, right in the prime of summer. The rest of the time the elevations, rising from 7,000 to around 8,200 feet, mean that snow and freezing temperatures are a possibility just about every night of the week, and the storms are legendary throughout Bulgaria for coming up on you completely unannounced. Clear skies one minute, pitch black and whirling winds 15 minutes later.
It’s a bit of a hike if you want to see the whole circuit; 4 to 6 hours is the general time it takes if you want to walk the entire trail to see all seven of the lakes, and it’s not for the faint of heart. There are a few stark, steep passages where you are nearly climbing ladder-like up clefts in the rocks, and that combined with the altitude can make for a difficult climb. The views, however, are well worth it.
Getting up to the start of the trail is fairly easy. You can either hike the 10 kilometers up to the beginning of the main trail, or you can take the Pionerska chair lift, which takes people up from the base parking area all the way up to the top of the first plateau…which from there leads up to the rest of the lakes themselves.
One you hit the top of the chair lift, there’s a bit of a climb up to the next level of plateau, and then from there another bit of a hike before you reach the first of the lakes. But the views are spectacular, the landscape is untainted, undeveloped, and you can see for literal miles in all directions the higher you go.
And it’s not just the tourists that the mountains cater to. The plateau around the lower lakes is holy ground for the White Brotherhood, or Danovites, who show up once a year to celebrate their New Year. The celebration takes place near Kidney Lake and consists of ritual rhythmic unison while dancing in a large circle along lines of white stones that are set permanently to map out their location. For the Danovites, the Rila Mountains are a holy place where thousands of devotees gather every year to greet the dawn.
And while the vast majority of people choose to hike their way up the paths, you can always rent a horse for the day and ride up with the local guides and their pack horses.
By the time you get back down to the bottom of the trail where you started off, at the top of the chair lift, there’s a restaurant with plenty of beer on tap, wash rooms and places to sit down and relax and just enjoy a bit of a break before the final lift back down to the parking area.
As far as accommodations go, you can either sleep at one of the resorts in Panichishte and Sapareva Banya, or you can day-trip it with a rental car out of Sofia. There’s also plenty of guided tours out of Sofia which include transportation and a guide, so there’s always that option if you desire (I went with Bulgarian friends, so was spoiled in that regard; I also lived in Sofia for 2.5 years and made it up regularly).
Great day hike if you can handle the altitude and a good six hour hike. Four hours if you are in top condition and a regular hiker. Don’t forget to wear your hiking boots (no sandals/etc.), pants, and bring along a raincoat or a windbreaker of some kind, because the winds can get nippy really fast and the rain can literally be on you in 15 to 20 minutes. Sunblock and a bottle of water or two are also recommended.
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Everything had been going well up until the point the guard had woken himself up by snoring and just happened to catch Terrik in mid-pick on the lock of the door across the hallway. Purely chaotic, bad luck. Until then he’d made it past the three first-level guards, a tired manservant pushing a broom and an outbound prostitute before he’d made it to the door, completely undetected. And it was inside this very room that his whole reason for breaking in existed.
A quick jab to the throat sent the guard down in a gasping heap, but not before he’d let out a startled shout. After that, there was no point in worrying about silence and stealth anymore. Terrick wasn’t going to leave empty-handed, so boot to door made the most sense.
Splinters flew, heel jerked in pain that would turn into a bruise tomorrow, a yelp from the bed as the owner clutched his sheets around his frame and fumbled in the dark for his sword. Or a crossbow. There wasn’t time to find out, and a quick scan was all that was needed to locate the book he had been hired to retrieve. Impossible to miss, tucked away behind colored glass as it were, all displayed with pride and joy.
Other heel down, shattered glass, book in hand, into pack and out the door, only to come face to face with three charging guards from the left and two more from the right. Quick glance over shoulder reveals iron bars over the window. Not an exit. Take deep breath, commence getaway.
A couple of quick lunges got him up to speed for the right, and he spun slightly on his heel as he leapt, hoping to clear the guards. They cursed and tried to catch him mid-run, fingers wide and reaching, but he was above their claws. All clear, and then the toe of his left foot impacted with the left guard’s face, sending him into a stumbled landing, crashing into the wall, knocking a painting to the floor.
Two crossbow bolts shot from the three guards firing over the two sprawling guards he had just bowled over buried into the wall next to his head with a thunderous thwump thwump. He jigged to the right as he ducked and tried to recover from the landing. The rasp of steel drawn behind him, then horn blast, then another two guards coming up the stairwell as he reached it.
No choice but to avoid, so he swung himself up over the stair railing and took the leap down to the first floor, a good ten foot drop. He was ready for the impact, remembering it from earlier, crouching low to absorb and rolling forward into a somersault directly in front of the guard on the right hand side of the front door, both he and his fellow guard on the left in mid-turn as they heard his tumbled landing. A leg sweep for the one on the right, then as the one on the left reaches for his collar and swings a blade he ducks under the steel and half-stumbles, half-falls out onto the stairs of the front entry.
Cold night, torch light, shadowed burrows stretch out before him. The night is his element, and it’s time to disappear. He sprints for the nearest building with a first-story access and quickly scales its walls even as the shouts ring out behind him, “There, on the roof!” No worries. Six rooftops later and he’s slowed his pace to a casual run, springing from roof edge to roof edge as he makes his way back into the heart of the downtown district.
Time to get paid.
Terrik is what is known as a Player Character in the gaming world. He has something that sets him apart from the rest of humanity: PC Status.
PC Status is the defining skill that sets you apart from the rest of the masses. You are more than just ordinary, and you are much more than average. Rather than rolling a bunch of 8s and 10s and only a couple of 12s during your character creation, you got 14s, 16s and maybe an 18 or so.
You were smarter, prettier, stronger, faster, more skilled at something, but in some way or another PC status is what sets you apart from the rest of the meat suits. It’s what makes the difference between Bill Gates and anyone else who was born in the same year, lived in the same area and went to the same schools. It’s that special something.
It has nothing to do with luck. PC Status is what sets a Hero apart from the serfs. He’s the one who isn’t afraid to pick up the sword, to rob the castle, to brave the spider-infested dungeons of Kranthagol because deep within the lair lies the Sword of Thalius and the Bow of Bethar.
A Hero braves the cold, the heat, the sprawls, the dumps, the dungeons, the sewers, the mountains and the sea to achieve his or her goal. They inspire others to go along with them, leading through strength, bravery, wit, genius and beyond, based upon what their primary PC Status character trait is.
Someone with PC status makes their mark on the world and is remembered after they are gone. They are the Masters of their own Universe. They aren’t afraid to go out into the cold and the dark with nothing more than a torch and a sword or spell, because they’ve handled challenges like this before. It’s just one more step on the evolution to perfection, the learning experiences that shape us into the Heroes that Player Characters were born to be.
In the world of Terrik, he is the Player Character and the fumbling, bumbling guards are the Non Player Characters.
I’m a long-time D&D fan. Up until the point I left the U.S. at the end of 2007, it had been as much a part of my life as MMORPGs and video games had been. The 12+ years I was living on my own up until that point had been an accumulation of all those roleplaying experiences. Which in mind lead to some of the most critical thinking anyone will ever achieve as a result of continually brainstorming and finding new ways around challenges through group interaction with a dedicated team of like-minded thinkers and artists.
I’m a firm believer that gaming leads to life skills. You’ve seen it in the other Secret Life of an Expat Gamer entries. Just as I was running 15 to 25 man crews for the construction business back in the day, I was also running teams of 30 to 40 players through raids and dungeons for six years, leading the guild to two different top 10 lists in my time as a hardcore gamer (EQ2, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes). Management. Team-building. Teamwork. Leadership.
Puzzle-solving as you come up against dungeon traps and in-game quests require critical, out-of-the-box thinking. You can’t just pass the buck to someone else when you are playing a video game and walking your character through the depths of a dungeon or in the middle of a quest. The decision rests on your shoulders, and you and you alone are the only one who will gain the glory and credit if you pull it off. Or you’ll die trying.
Non Player Characters aren’t born with innate PC Status, but they can earn it. Just as in the games there are often tomes you can find after achieving lengthy quests or overcoming challenging odds that lead to stat increases, or earn more experience points as you go along to enhance your abilities as you see fit, in life there are many things which lead to experience that can in turn be traded in for enhanced skill in a certain area.
A person who wants to paint, for example, not simply dabbling in it in their spare time, but choosing instead to spend four to six hours a day, every day, for four years working on their craft, building and doing it for their own betterment as well as to get good at it. Studying under a master, serving a mentorship, spending day upon day, hour after hour, on enhancing that one specific skill. The reward is an enhancement of that attribute after hard work and persistence. It might take you 10 levels (10 years), but eventual you always enhance your status through long hours of study…and that’s no different than reality.
Being a Player Character is hard work. You don’t get to be a peon following someone else’s lead. Rather, you are the leader. The one people follow. You have the power, while others only dream about it. You have the freedom, while others only look on and wish. While the stable boy sweeps stalls and shovels horse shit, dreaming of winning the hand of the princess in marriage, you are out there, sword in hand, slitting the throat of the beast that was set to eat said princess, a night of steamy passion ahead as she sinks into your arms, not his.
You take the risks others are afraid to. You push yourself further, working longer hours, pursuing your passion with all your strength and dedication. Where others spend 10 mninutes a day focusing their time, you spend five hours. Training. Preparation. Becoming the best you can possibly be.
Giant spiders, dragons, the dark recesses of the Earth, glory, destiny and the phat lewts belong to you and those who are brave enough and skilled enough to come along for the ride. You are the Hero, the one the bards and storytellers will sing and write about for centuries to come. Your time…is now.
Are you a Player Character? What are you doing to enhance your skills? Haven’t broken out of the NPC mold yet? Have questions or comments? Leave them below or shoot them to me in an email and I’ll get back to you ASAP!
This blog post was inspired by Luck Is Just the Spark for Business Giants.
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While those of us who are traveling for a living often speak the language of the countries we are visiting, it’s not always a guarantee that where you end up will be somewhere where you can actually communicate fluently. And although you might only be on the ground a week or two, or maybe even as long as a few months on a passport stay, once you start to get into long-term immersion travel there are a variety of bureaucratic processes that can bog you down if you don’t speak the local lingo. Or, even in the case of those of us who speak the language, sometimes you just don’t want to be bothered with the hassle of doing paperwork when you can find someone else to do it for you.
Things like getting your residency paperwork filed with the local immigration office. Or getting papers notarized and translated. Or dealing with lawyers for a property purchase/sale. Every country does things differently, and as most of us have found out over the years, sometimes the only downside to living in a developing country is the bureaucracy.
Such as looking at the immigration website for your country and downloading the required papers, filling them out and then going to the local immigration office and talking to the individual at the information desk only to find out that the papers on the website aren’t up to date and you need to fill out these papers instead and supply copies of these two pages of your passport along with a translated copy of this document and copies of these bank statements.
So you take the next day to follow the instructions, come back to the office only to find another employee working…who tells you that you didn’t actually need that copy there but actually this copy here and you need two more copies of that document and this one has to be notarized but only after it has been translated and you have to be back between the hours of two and four in the afternoon only there’s a line halfway around the block to try and get it when you return so you say screw it and come back the next day and submit all your paperwork, finally, and they tell you to check the website in two weeks for an update but when you do nothing updates and you wait and you wait and five weeks later you finally decide to go to the office to find out what’s up only to find out that your paperwork has been there the entire time but no one ever entered it into the website to let you know to come pick it up, but before you can pick it up they have changed the laws and now you need these other documents filled out and notarized and…
Having done my own visa paperwork in three countries now (Bulgaria, Colombia and Mexico), I can tell you from first-hand experience that the hassle — even if it’s only once a year — can be enough to drive a person mad. In Bulgaria, for example, I went through the residency visa process three times, and every year it was completely different…and I had to spend three to five days jumping through hoops that would change on a daily basis depending on who was working. It’s literally the only thing I dislike about living in developing countries: the lack of a streamlined filing system.
Which is where local fixers come into play.
Think of a local fixer as a temporary personal assistant. They are going to do all the little things that you don’t want to be hassled with. Like running around to the notary and the translator and the lawyer and the copy shop and the immigration office for files and copies and forms. They speak the local language and can thus communicate on a far greater level than yourself (even if you do happen to speak fluently; they are native speakers after all), but there’s something else that a local fixer has which is greater than their communication skills: Local know-how.
They know the way things work. They know who to talk to, how to grease the wheels, how to talk to the right people to get the desired result. They have built up connections with lawyers, immigration officials, bankers, notaries and beyond, which gives them a streamlined way of doing things that just isn’t available to you, even if you (like myself) happen to live in a city and speak the language reasonably well. They are often friends with the people working behind the counter at the offices and have built up a rapport with them over the years, which means your paperwork gets pushed to the front of the line rather than lingering away, lost in some bin.
But most importantly, you don’t have to waste your time doing the little things. Instead, you simply show up a couple of times, put your signature on some paperwork, pay the fixer his fee and go on about your business. Time = money, after all, and by using your time to be more productive and work on your income, you can pay a local fixer their minimal fee and let them handle the paperwork for you.
Local fixers are also often the difference between living as an expat in a specific city and being denied the right to live there and forced to leave if you have overstayed your passport stay or your visa. For the most part they are people working on the right side of the law helping to “fix” bureaucratic issues for non-native speakers of the host country language. They either work on commission, tips or referral fees (such as in the case of fixers for local immigration lawyers who get a kickback from the lawyer after they bring in a new client, who is you, the digital nomad and/or expat who needs help).
Contrary to what some people might think, fixers are not working illegally…for the most part. They do exist on both sides of the fence. However, if you do things by the book you will be working with the legal ones, the ones who are simply helping you navigate the minefield that is dealing with your visa in Japanese when you only speak English, for example.
Fixers can also take care of some shadier types of activities (disclaimer: I do not personally recommend these methods, merely mention them for your reading), such as working with a legitimate fixer to help you grease the local wheels with bribes and tips. This involves things such as paying off local officials so you don’t have to leave a country while your visa is processing or your status is changing (such as in Bulgaria). Or it could involve overstaying your visa while in a country like Russia and then having a local fixer bribe the local officials and help you navigate the loopholes to get your visa renewed and take care of your accidental hiccup.
There’s a lot of different ways fixers can help you above and beyond just visa issues. They are also extremely common in the journalism industry, as well as the travel documentary industry, helping people nail down their film and gear permits as well as access to press passes and the like. You can read more about them and how to utilize them in your travels within The Expat Guidebook itself, but in the meantime you can watch our YouTube video on the subject as well.
This is an expanded version of a post originally written for The Expat Guidebook blog.
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We are, as a species, nothing more than physical manifestations of The Universe. We are the exact same as the ants of the Earth, the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, the plants that sink their roots down into the rich soil. A bird does not need a manager or a schedule or a spreadsheet to tell them when to lay eggs, when to fly, when to eat, when to hunt for food, when to mate. A bird does not need a schedule to order its life; it simply lives.
You and I are no different than the animals and the plants of our Home, Planet Earth. We do not need banks and credit and 40 hour work weeks and 15 minute breaks and 30 minute lunches and 2 weeks of paid vacation and four sick days and two personal days and a boss and a manager and a house payment and a car payment and beyond. We simply need communication and freedom of information to allow us to flourish in all the ways that The Universe has made available in its infinite possibilities.
Psychological Review published a study based upon research performed in 1993 which showed that individuals who only work four-hour shifts are far more productive in comparison to those who work eight hours a day. People’s minds function better when they have a specific task at hand that they can focus on over short periods of time, rather than being required to multitask and spread their energy out over multiple hours and multiple job requirements.
There have been a variety of professionals who back up this claim, including best-selling authors such as Stephen King or Tim Ferris, the guy behind the Four-Hour Work Week book. According to Business Weekly, “While completing a novel, famous authors tend to write only for 4 hours during the morning, leaving the rest of the day for rest and recuperation. Hence successful authors, who can control their work habits and are motivated to optimize their productivity, limit their most important intellectual activity to a fixed daily amount when working on projects requiring long periods of time to complete.”
The basic concept is simple: the brain is most focused during short bursts of energy. And yet despite the research, and despite the fact that multiple cultures around the world have been employing this principle (albeit on a more physical, heat-and-bodily-safety level) for millennia, we continue to see countries such as the United States pressuring people into believing that eight hour work shifts are more productive, and that anyone who doesn’t work eight hours a day is somehow inherently lazy or unproductive. “Take a nap?” your boss asks with incredulity in their voice. “Out of the question. We have a schedule to maintain here, and a bottom line to push. You’re burning daylight, so get back to work!”
I did some initial research on this topic back in February of 2010 for one of my clients, where I took a look at the raw numbers and compared the United States to Italy in terms of productivity. You can read the whole post here, but the gist of the study (another person’s numbers, not my own) was that when you compare the average U.S. citizen compared to the average Italian citizen, the Italians are 76 percent more productive on a hours-worked-per-year basis…yet they are only working half the hours that regular U.S. citizens work! That’s right…half the hours. 20-25 hours per working week, and they are one of the cultures that employs the siesta as part of the regular routine…at least in the Mediterranean regions of Italy.
People who work fewer hours per day, on their own schedule from a position of well-rested happiness and enjoyment of their work, outperform 40 hour wage slaves every day of the week, in every way.
The first thing I tell people when they arrive in Mexico to take part in one of our retreats (and it’s mentioned in both The Expat Guidebook as well as Beyond Borders) is “throw away your watch”, just as the title of this posts suggests. But it’s not just because they need to adopt a new point of view for the classes and the schedule we work on while living here in Mexico. It’s also part of the culture down here: people just simply don’t pay attention to time in the way that Westerners do.
When a dinner party is set to start at 9 p.m., the vast majority of the guests don’t start arriving until 10 or 10:30. If a person says they will be there in an hour, it could be two or three hours before they actually arrive. The same goes for Colombia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Macedonia and dozens of other countries I’ve traveled to and lived in since I started traveling in 1999. Only in The West is there an addiction to time, an addiction to schedules and routine and structure and rules, rules, rules, rules.
A watch will only cause you frustration in Mexico and other countries that operate on a take-life-as-it-comes pacing. You will constantly be glancing at it and cursing the fact that everyone around you is “late”. But late according to whom? You, the “Master of The Universe”, the “frantic Westerner”? Or late according to your watch, which is a simple device that shows you a set of arbitrary numbers that have nothing to do with life or love or passion and evolution and universal understanding.
Because you aren’t going to need them where you’re going. The land of never-ending sunsets, endless sunrises, countless days spent wandering the lost paths of adventure in your host country…time simply fades away once you leave the rat race of the Western world and corporate greed behind. When you start traveling the world and exploring other countries you find a truth buried behind the propaganda the Western world tries to spread about them. These are simple human beings doing the same things that human beings all over the planet do: live life. They just do it at a different pace.
One of my favorites is when Westerners try to look at countries where the siesta still functions and term those people unproductive or lazy. In whose eyes? For those of you who have read any of my previous materials you know that I actively preach the siesta concept, or only working a few hours per day and making sure to have plenty of rest including a nap in the afternoon.
The reasons for this are numerous, but the point is that just because people around the world enjoy a relaxed pace and naps in the afternoon doesn’t mean they are lazy. They just don’t rely on Americanized time where everything is broken down into 8 hour work shifts with 30 minute lunch breaks and a 15 minute break in the morning and another one in the afternoon and overtime and double pay and holiday pay and structure, structure, rules, rules.
Take Colombia, for example. Most people in the business world work 8 to 12, break until 2, then work 2 until 6. And there, just like in Bulgaria or Mexico or Uruguay or Italy or Turkey or numerous other countries, if someone says they are going to be there in 30 minutes it might actually be more like an hour and a half. Punctuality is not a concern in most countries outside of the U.S. and the U.K., and that’s something which is very difficult for some people to break away from. It’s one of the leading concerns for first-time expats and digital nomads haven’t yet learned to disconnect.
If you’ve been on the road for any length of time this probably doesn’t affect you anymore. One of the nice things about getting out of the “system” or unplugging from the Matrix is that you don’t need to adhere to the breakneck pace of life anymore. You can take things slowly, one day at a time, and you don’t have to worry about a never-ending tide of stress-inducing factors.
It’s just a shrug-your-shoulders, let-the-day-pass-as-it-will attitude that could be best described as Bohemian if you had to put a term to it. It’s the kind of mentality that says it doesn’t really matter if it’s nine in the morning….I wouldn’t mind a couple of mojitos and a joint while lying on the beach or going surfing or cenote diving. Or at two in the afternoon. Or whenever.
If you haven’t experienced this yet, let me tell you from personal experience: absolute creative and financial freedom is the ultimate experience. No screeching alarm clock telling you when to wake up, no boss leaning over your shoulder demanding productivity from you…there’s simply your own desires to create what you want, when you want, and then using those creations to fund your lifestyle.
That’s not to say it doesn’t take hard work. If you want to get into movie-star shape you have to spend 3-4 hours a day, every day of the week, in the gym pushing your body to its absolute limits. The first few months are incredibly hard. Being your own boss has its own levels of difficulty attached. But once the routine is establish and you are living life on your own terms….
I put more money in the savings in my first three years of being a digital nomad than I did in the ten previous years when I was working in a trade that I grew up in and was earning $75+ an hour. And I did it all by working at my own pace. Drinking beer/wine/whiskey on the clock. Working out of Internet cafes. Without shaving. In the same clothing for two or three days at a time (yeah ok that’s probably not such a great thought, but hey, it’s the freedom to slack off while working that counts!). Having the ability to work on my projects when I wanted, not when someone was telling me to…no matter if it was in the middle of the night, the middle of the afternoon, on a beach, in my bed, on a plane, bus or just out at a restaurant.
So relax. Cast off those shackles. Shred that time-card in half and start living life the way you want and you’ll find yourself with all sorts of free time to just explore your creativity and true human potential…once you throw away your watch and learn to stop worrying about some silly little numbers.
The above excerpts were pulled from the pages of The Expat Guidebook, the associated blog, and Beyond Borders – The Social Revolution.
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