30/05/2026
The Kickstarter for my book about traveling the world with my dog Thunder ends tomorrow. We're fully funded, so Thunder's gonna get his book! You can pre-order copies, or just "buy me a beer" to support the project. It all helps. Thank you, and feel free to share:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/promisetothunder/a-feral-memoir-on-the-sacred-art-of-not-dying
Here's an excerpt from Ecuador:
When Sani called to say she’d settled in Peru —“Dev… it’s a paradise here, you’re gonna love it…”—I knew it was time to head south. So onto another overcrowded chicken bus we climbed—Thunder, as usual, the star of the show, charming the hearts and hands of every passenger along the way.
Nearing a dusty backcountry border-crossing, I realized I hadn’t secured the paperwork to get Thunder into Peru. F**k. No time to fix it now. I had to think fast.
The official border was a sleepy bridge in the middle of a hazy nowhere—just a rickety span of concrete over a nameless river carving through the sand like a tired John Hancock.
No fences. No real lines.
Just a bus stop, a bridge, and a little border town selling trinkets out of little haciendas that cast long shadows in the late afternoon sun.
Without Thunder’s paperwork, I was convinced they’d peg him for some flea-bitten fugitive, a rabid revolutionary hellbent on toppling the health and hygiene of the Republic of Peru. My own papers were in order, though, so I got off the bus with Thunder on the Ecuador side and told him, “Wait here, dude.”
He didn’t.
Ever the socialite, Thunder made friends immediately. A pack of dusty, wiry strays emerged from the haciendas like jackals slinking out of a desert mirage. They circled him, sniffed him, welcomed him like a long-lost cousin, no doubt sensing a street-dog streak in Thunder. Then they were off, tails high, trotting through town like they ran the place. Which, of course, they did.
I crossed the border alone, head down, heart thumping, hoping nobody would ask about the dog. Nobody did.
Once I had walked the bridge and was officially stamped into Peru, I turned back toward the sleepy town, scanned the sand for my mutt. And there he was—on the far side, surrounded by his newfound gang, panting and proud, clearly having the time of his life.
He was a made man now. A pack boss. An honorary local.
I gave a low whistle. One note. That’s all it took.
Thunder perked up, broke formation, and trotted across the bridge with the full pack charging behind him—a desert stampede of fur and lolling tongues and naughty dogs. They stormed past the guards like they’d done it a thousand times. And maybe they had. After all, they ran this town.
The border agents barely looked up. Just another gang of neighborhood dogs crossing over for scraps, or trouble, or both. Thunder blended in perfectly—just another lean mutt on patrol.
He trotted right past the soldiers, past the flags and the uniforms and the illusion of order, and sat beside me on the Peruvian side, grinning like a seasoned smuggler.
We boarded the bus again, this time adding fugitive dog and international exotic animal smuggler to our rap sheets.
The gambit had worked. We were in Peru. On the way to Huaráz. We were coming home to Sani, where she was waiting for us.
A dog. A promise. A life in freefall—a brutal yet tender reckoning with meaning, mortality, and the modern human condition.
