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Jason Kester


118 Blog Entries
13 Trips
198 Photos
Send email to Jason Kester add Jason Kester to my buddy list
Trips: Central America Australia Africa, 2003 Middle East, 2003 Pre-Thailand Roadtrip Southeast Asia, the Trans Siberian and Scandenavia Southeast Asia Again 2006 Surfing Oz in the Hooptie Southeast Asia, 2000-2001 Building Blogabond Europe, North Africa 1998 Living in Spain Morocco for no apparent reason Shorthand link: http://www.blogabond.com/Jason

Hey! I wrote Blogabond so I guess that makes me your host. Welcome!

I spend about 9 months a year on the road, chasing the sun around the world in search of good climbing and surfing. I carry a laptop along with me, and take on small programming contracts to take care of expenses.

The lion's share of Blogabond was written over the winter of 2005/2006 on Tonsai beach in Thailand. I spent the winter there, climbing rocks in the sun for 4 months. Along the way I'd skip the occasional happy hour to implement new features from my bungalow. Since then, about a dozen of our users have made the pilgrimage to Blogabond TransGlobal Headquarters at Andaman B7.

If you're headed out there for the winter, look me up. We'll grab a bucket!

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Blogabond Travel Tips

San Fermin 2008!!!

Pamplona, Spain

San Fermin kicked off at noon today and the place is going nuts. We made it down to city hall, where it all starts, a couple hours early. Helen and Martin-on-the-couch sought out the high ground and found their way atop a bottle bin. I opted to remain amongst the people, and got thoroughly monched as a reward.

For a full two hours, champagne corks popped and wine flew through the air, along with various colorful liquids, flour, mustard, and anything else that people thought to bring along so as to make matters worse. People kept cramming in, packing the crowd tight enough that it was nigh impossible to swill Kalimotxo anymore. Crowds surged. The faint of heart were passed back overhead to safety. Finally, the mayor and her entourage stepped out on the balcony and launched the rocket that officially started the festivities. Somehow it ramped up a notch. I wouldn't have thought there were any notches left.

That was four hours ago. The place is a mess. My previously white clothes are mostly yellow, with a bit of purple thrown in. We're halfway through the week's supply of wine. I need a shower.

Gora San Fermin!

written by

Jason Kester on July 06, 2008 from Pamplona, Spain

from the travel blog: Living in Spain

tagged SanFermin and Fiesta

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National Everything Closed Day

Nador, Morocco

So we stashed the car in Almeria and hopped the night ferry to Nador, waking up Bright eyed and ready to make our way down to Fes. Stepped out of the ferry port, ready to face the wave of hustlers, false guides, and "freelance" taxi drivers that had plagued my every step the last time I was in this country. "Elbows up. Make for the taxi ranks and don't make eye contact or respond to anybody no matter what! Ready... Go!!!"

Uh... Stepped a couple more steps... (insert sound of crickets chirping)... watched a tumbleweed roll past...

December 22, 2007 happened to coincide with the Muslim calendar's high holiday of sacrifice, whereby the head of every household must find a tasty looking sheep and slaughter it for his family. This takes precedence over everything else, including taxi driving, hotel operating and restauranteering. Nador ferry port is 15 dusty kilometers from Nador town. Both are deserted, as is the road connecting them. We're screwed.

Somehow, we found a lift from a passing motorist who dropped us off on the dusty, empty streets of Nador, where we ascertained that the bus station was closed, no grand taxis were operating, and we were every bit as stuck as we feared. The only unlocked door in the whole town belonged to the 4 star hotel on the sea, which at least kept us from starving to death that afternoon.

Finding a couple other travelers in the same predicament, we arranged a grand taxi all the way to Fes the next morning, banged on the door of the cheap hotel across the street until they let us in, and waited out the day as sheep blood flowed in the streets and the smell of roast meat wafted from closed doorways.

written by

Jason Kester on December 22, 2007 from Nador, Morocco

from the travel blog: Morocco for no apparent reason

tagged Holiday and Goat

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Big Weasel!

Biguezal, Spain

Hey! I have absolutely nothing new to report, except for the fact that I've now been to one of the three silliest named places on the planet. Biguezal is only a half hour from our place, so it was an easy one. I've already done Heol y Cyw in Wales, and I'm not really sure what the third place is, but I bet somebody will suggest it to me.

The folks are in town, and we've been showing them around the countryside. They've fired up a blog of their own, so if you honestly care what my parents are up to, you can go read that.

Spain still rules.

written by

Jason Kester on September 21, 2007 from Biguezal, Spain

from the travel blog: Living in Spain

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Pobre Mi

Rodellar, Spain

San Fermines just kept going, and after 6 days of wassailry we'd had enough. Time to pack up the car and head south to Rodellar for a few days of climbing.

Got back last night to clean streets and quiet sleep. Nice...

written by

Jason Kester on July 16, 2007 from Rodellar, Spain

from the travel blog: Living in Spain

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San Fermin catches it's breath

Pamplona, Spain

Taken out by the Vaca

Pamplona has finally settled into its groove, and San Fermin continues apace, but somehow not as franticly as it was the first couple days. Everybody knows they're in for the long haul, and they're pacing themselves a bit better now. Don't get me wrong, it's still basically insane, but at least people have stopped peeing on our front door.

Caught the encierro from inside the bull ring on Day 3. It's standing room only at 8am, as the fighting bulls are put away and they start releasing younger bulls into the ring to play with the crowd. These young bulls have their horns nominally padded to keep them from poking through anybody, but they are still capable of tossing anybody that strays too close (or doesn't run fast enough).

It's a pretty simple game, really:

1. See how close you can get to the Rampaging Bull

2. Attract the attention of the Rampaging Bull to impress your friends.

3. Land.

4. Try to get up and escape before the Rampaging Bull tosses you again.

5. See how far you can remain from the Rampaging Bull.

The nice thing about Sanfermines mid-week is that you can walk around in the daylight and not be immediately doused with gallons of Kalimotxo. You may get smacked in the head by some guy in a big mask, but for them most part it's a pretty family friendly time. After the fireworks are finished at night, the place transforms back into party mode and you'd best just roll with it. We had 3 separate marching bands colliding under our window at 3:00 this morning. It's probably best if you don't plan to sleep much this week...

written by

Jason Kester on July 12, 2007 from Pamplona, Spain

from the travel blog: Living in Spain

tagged SanFermin, Fiesta and Encierro

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San Fermin Day Two - Family Style...

Pamplona, Spain

Day One of San Fermines was Huge. Thousands of wassailing wastrels in red and white packing the back alleys of the old town. Elbow to elbow carnage of spilled drinks and shouted enthusiasm. I need new clothes!

The Blogabond She-Squad in Full Pout!

After a late night, we were all up bright and early for the Running of the Bulls. Carnage ensued, and eventually we made it back to the place in search of siesta.

Pamplona actually cleans up pretty well, and 40,000 gallons of water later the streets were safe for parades and marching bands. This is the part that makes it into the tourist brochures. It's actually pretty cool!

The sun is setting now, and spirits are starting to kick up again. There appears to be a crowd of lads in the square cheering enthusiastically for the Blogabond She-Squad on the balcony. I think I'll have to go investigate...

written by

Jason Kester on July 07, 2007 from Pamplona, Spain

from the travel blog: Living in Spain

tagged SanFermin and Fiesta

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!San Fermines!

Pamplona, Spain

San Fermines just kicked off here in Pamplona, and the town is going nuts! It's just after noon, and already we're down 3 liters of Calimotxo from where we started. Just spent 10 minutes dumping buckets of water off of our balcony and onto the crowds in Plaza Del Castillo.

If you're not yet in Pamplona, get here. Now. I'll buy you a drink (or at least dump one over your head).

written by

Jason Kester on July 06, 2007 from Pamplona, Spain

from the travel blog: Living in Spain

tagged SanFermin and Fiesta

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Moving the HQ

Pamplona, Spain

View of Plaza Del Castillo from our terrace!

So it's official. I'm livin' in Spain! Signed a year lease on an apartment in Pamplona, and am now sipping my Cafe Solo' on the terrace overlooking Plaza del Castillo. It is all good here.

The calle out our back window

There is tons of great climbing within an hour's drive of this city. We've been sampling a bit of it, but mostly we've been trying to sort out little details for the apartment. Helen has gone into Nesting Mode, and is busy finding kitchen towels and throw pillows and all sorts of stuff it would have never occured to me to buy. I've been trying to get phone lines and DSL set up in broken Spanish.

San Fermines is about a month away, and I'm starting to think about gathering a pile of Blogabonders here for the festivities. See how many of us can get gored Running with the Bulls! If this sounds like a good idea to any of you, let me know and I'll find a way to make it happen.

written by

Jason Kester on June 03, 2007 from Pamplona, Spain

from the travel blog: Living in Spain

tagged Blogabond, Apartment and PlazaDelCastillo

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¡Pantalones Pantalones!

Onate, Spain

Poking the Henge!

These last few weeks have gone by fast. Flew to England, bought a new car, packed Helen's entire world into said car, booked a ferry ticket and drove to Portsmouth, visiting everybody we knew in England along the way.

Here's the plan in a nutshell: I needed some time off work, and Helen needed to get out of America. Frankly, I needed to get out of America too, since I seem to work so much better from a little terrace overlooking a square. I like my walls made of stone.

We've been looking at places to live in Europe, but haven't settled on anything for certain. So now we're just going to roadtrip around for a while until we find a place worth stopping. I guess the requirements are a cool town with a good vibe, plenty of climbing nearby, and of course, a fast internet connection so that I can work. Once we find all that, we're gonna stop for a while.

Breakfast at Apellaniz

Now we're in the little town of Onate, having done the whirlwind tour of Basque crags around Vitoria-Gastiez. This is a really cool town, and the climbing up the hill in Araotz looks pretty good. If the rest of the climbing around here is as good as what we've seen, we might not make it out of Spain!

written by

Jason Kester on May 20, 2007 from Onate, Spain

from the travel blog: Living in Spain

tagged Climbing and RoadTrip

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Votes, Photos, and Discussion

Portland, United States

This weekend, I've been blowing off a bunch of paying work so that I can put some new features into Blogabond. This is stuff that's been bugging me for a while and I think it will make the site just that little bit more usable.

First, it always bugged me that when you clicked on "Photos", you didn't get to see any Photos. Just a bunch of links. That was lame. So yeah, we need to put some pictures up there, but which ones? I dunno. Guess we can't do that until we do...

Voting. Yeah, check out the bottom of this post. See the little "This Rocks!" link? Click on that, and you'll give this post a little karma bonus. If enough people click it, maybe it will boost my profile up onto the homepage. Democracy in action!

So yeah, every post and every photo on the site now has one of those little vote buttons. You can vote photos onto the "Cool Photos" list, and vote people onto the "Featured Traveler" list.

And finally, I've messed with the discussion forums a bit so that people can actually figure out what they do. Try it out. Click the "Talk" link up top and ask your fellow Blogabonders a question. I bet you'll get a few replies.

Anyway, let me know if you like any of this new stuff. And hey, I'm off to Europe in a few days. If you're touring around France, Switzerland or Italy, let me know!

written by

Jason Kester on April 22, 2007 from Portland, United States

from the travel blog: Building Blogabond

tagged Blogabond, Photos and Community

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