"When reflecting upon my choice of staying home or going down to Acapulco, I am fucking glad that I made the voyage down there. Otherwise, if I chickened out I would have missed out on a series of opportunities, meeting beautiful people, having such deep intellectual conversations and so much more."
Originally I was just going for the hell of it, but suddenly an opportunity was presented to me. I got a notification in my Telegram feed saying that the Agorise team was looking for some additional assistance at the Acapulco conference. Immediately my ears perked up. They were planning to promote PalmPay which is a chain agnostic, point of sales system for businesses to accept multiple cryptocurrencies at NO COST on the merchant. In a heart beat I messaged @kencode and sent him the info he requested to be considered. Within a week I found out I got the gig and started to prepare accordingly, doing my best to contain my added excitement.
Arriving in Acapulco I was welcomed with open arms from the other travelers as well as the locals. Not once on the trip did I feel threatened or intimidated, goes to show you that you shouldn't believe everything you hear. The hotel I stayed at was a short walk from the Princess hotel where all the anarchists were converging. The Princess was beautifully constructed and protected with armed personnel. This place had everything you can possibly imagine even food for a vegan fuckboy like me. It was magickal! To be honest I was a bit shy meeting other people, but quickly came to realize that within 10 minutes of small talk almost everybody I spoke to became a good friend of mine. It seemed as if we had met in a past life and were reconnecting.
Since most of my experience was "Work" related I will spare you beloved reader from having to read any repetitive parts and just share a couple of my personal highlights.
First Day
Surprises came within the first couple hours of the conference. Jeff Berwick kicked it off with his introduction and announced that two members of the Wu Tang Clan came down to perform along with Backwordz later that evening. Being a big fan of the Wu, I was high on life. Fast forward to later that day, the club that all the artists were performing at was really popping off. Once Backwordz started to perform, myself and a couple others started a mosh pit in the tiny dance area. It was a glorious sight to see since it resembled the punk and metal shows at my old warehouse space. Wu Tang Clan killed it that night playing some of their classic tracks from the 36 Chambers album. In my opinion it was an excellent way to start off the conference and will definitely be remembered. I recall getting back to my hotel at 3:50 am and having to get up a few hours later just to have enough time to get ready and back to the booth. It was brutal, but very well worth it.
Some Day
One of the evenings Ken, Seven and myself (PalmPay crew) decided to get dinner with some friends. We agreed to go to a local restaurant that Ken had went to the night before. Hopping into a taxi we arrived within minutes and sat ourselves down in this freakishly hot room. The way the room was designed it surprised me that it was able to contain such an unbearable amount of heat. Once one of the parties left we took over their table and were given our menus to get ready to place our order. As I scanned the document, I realized I was shit of luck. Hesitating a moment, I broke the ice about the difficulty in finding satisfactory vegan options and found out shortly after that one of the friends that came a long was also vegan. He even started out with the same strict food regiment that I am currently following by Dr. Sebi, causing us to instantly click. Going back and forth, we both ended up getting beans and tortillas to make our own tacos. What made it hysterical was that the beans had bits of sausage in it so we were constantly fishing out one bean at a time and putting them into our little corn tortillas. The struggle was real.
Last Day
The Taco Pool Party was a nice way to end the conference. The food was delicious, the people were merry, it was all perfectly packaged. There were these two gentlemen I met while getting a water from the bar who arrived for another conference earlier that evening. They had no idea what was going on and were asking me about the event. I simply told them that it's an annual conference where productive anarchists go to network, share ideas, relax or party like a rock star. From what I learned the previous three days, the options are really limited to your imagination. When they heard that they were mesmerized by the idea and we ended up chatting about cryptocurrencies and personal philosophies for good while before drifting off into the night.
As I mentioned above I wouldn't change a damn thing and I'm very blessed to meet such amazing souls. If you are contemplating whether or not to come out to the next one I would suggest asking yourself this. "How bad do I want to make a difference to positively effect humanity as a whole?" This is one of many places where ideas manifest and changes are made. I guarantee that not all of us agree 100% on every issue, but each of us are looking to make a positive impact to society and I personally think that is why the numbers are growing exponentially. People want change even if that means taking matters into their own hands. A big thank you to everybody for putting this event on and I look forward to seeing all of you the following year if not sooner in some other part of the world.