Shaky Jake
The Vagabond Vendor

When I was in high school, I haunted a store called Shaky Jake’s. The story was that the Jake’s father was a rag dealer and his enterprising son culled the rags for usable clothing and sold it in a hip store in a hip neighborhood. It was my first introduction to the wonderful world of used clothing. The impression was so strong that I still prefer to shop used clothes stores than in malls.

My friend Anicka had a couple of naked parties while we were living in Salida and this was good fun too. The idea here is to clean out your closet and bring those items that still had lots of sass left in them but no longer worked for you to a party at which everyone piled their garb in different places. Jeans here, dresses there, tops over here and accessories in that room. Then, after a couple of drinks, you ‘shop’ through your friends stuff, getting naked when necessary, for new additions to your wardrobe. I always scored big at these events and just loved seeing someone else psyched about something I was ready to let go of.

It only occurred to me once we were on our journey how many articles of clothing I have with me came from the naked parties. A Dvorak Expeditions t-shirt, some Union Bay shorts that fit just right whether I’m 5 pounds up or 5 pounds down, a snappy cotton dress great for over your bathing suit or for flopping back and forth to the shower, a basic black v-neck t-shirt with just the right amount of stretch in it, a Royal Robbins quick drying travelers shirt…nearly half of the clothes I brought came from the naked parties, the other half came from some of my favorite used clothing stores: Boomerang and Free the Monkey.

So imagine my delight when poking around the tiny town of Bijagua we stumbled on a great, and I mean great, used clothes store! We are traveling with limited clothing with one or two things in each category: shorts, long pants, short sleeved shirts, t-shirts, etc. On a trip that will take us from tropics to tundra we need a little of everything.

And not everything I brought has earned its place in the closet. Some things are dangerously close to being jettisoned. And now, I have two new pair of capri length pants (key in hot countries where women in shorts stand out like the gringos they are) and Mike has 2 new pair of shorts and a pair of pants. Oh the little pleasures!