Mexico!

Fever Dreams and Cloudy Skies

2011-07-20T21:20:00.000-07:00

Bus trips in Mexico are always longer than you would expect by looking at a map. It is that curious phenomenon that allows for a mile of intestines in a five foot tall person, where the road follows each side of a mountain, always doubling back on itself to gain elevation and making only superficial progress forward, overlooking switchbacks already traversed or else giving glimpses across the way to some small village not yet reached. This journey in particular, five hours between San Cristobal and Palenque, seems longer than most, due again to a particular intestinal effect. Waking up, my stomach felt like a brick, but nothing a strong cup of coffee couldn't pass. On reaching the bus station, I felt too weak to walk, had lost all appetite and nausea threatened to spill me into the bushes. The hour waiting for the bus I had a slight fever from the neck up and terrible chills from the neck down; even wearing two raincoats I couldn't help shivering in my seat.

Between aspirin and Dramamine, I no longer felt I was dying. The drowsiness was not enough to put me under, but I thought about two dreams from the night before: one where I was crushed in between two whale sharks and nearly drowned with broken ribs, and one where my appendix burst and was taken out through my ankle.

From Ocosingo on, I felt a little more alert and well enough to enjoy some of the scenery. Everything under the sky was green; this is one of the rainiest parts of Mexico, hot and jungly, looking nothing like the pine forests a few hours before. But more beautiful even than the land was the cloudy sky. It was as if someone had taken every type of cloud, jumbled them together, and then rolled them like crapdice. Here a typical stormcloud, grey and threatening, towering over the landscape; now a puff of cotton candy, brilliant white amidst blue sky. Between them sails a battleship, dumping white rain that never reaches the ground; overhead a sort of manic cirrus graffiti. I don't think I've ever seen a sky so lacking in organization, and the switchbacks only add to the tumultuous effect-- now the sun is on your left, now it's concealed over on your right-- so that it felt more like watching a planetarium from a slow merry go round.

The sun hid itself most of the trip, but towards sunset it finally slipped free of the clouds, illuminating whole valleys with that evening light that fills landscape with such contrast. Eye popping greens, deep shadows, golden rivers; baby turkeys fleeing the highway, shirtless men in the shade, sheep and goats grazing. And the clouds-- nightfall softened them, hued them with orange and purple, spread them out and gave some sense to the sky. Here in Palenque they look like bootprints, fading into the darkness.

Climbing to San Cristobal

2011-06-19T11:33:00.000-07:00

It was one of those mornings when you start sweating as soon as you crawl out of bed; as soon as you leave the narrow breath of the fan, plugged into the room´s one socket, that makes sleeping in a concrete box bearable at all. I was glad to be heading to the mountains, the promise of cold nights and the return of energy and motivation during the day. The colectivo ride back to Tonola provided a grand view of where we were headed-- impressive green peaks that were obscured by the foothills in town, and for the first time in Mexico I was excited about the coming bus ride. Clouds perched on these mountains, threatening to spill over but seemingly afraid to commit to the heat of the valley below. The constant lightning from the night before left the sky emptied and clear; when the minivan stopped, which it did often to let people off or more likely to cram people in, it was like a solar oven. One child went to sleep in his mother´s lap, a chubby faced baby next to us gripped Melody´s finger-- the nearest handhold on this bumpy ride. People held hands or discussed where they were going and why; back home they´d say this is the kind place you´d raise your kids.

Arriving at the plateau near Tuxtla is like driving over the lip of a volcano. The steep mountainside, green and jungly with good views down toward the Pacific, is replaced by land more akin to lava-- highland desert, hot and dry, with bright red clay. On the other side of the mountain, life is scraggly and harsh; the cows are skinny and the shade is scarce. To reach San Cristobal though, means climbing for several more hours. Close as the crow flies, but world´s apart; past hillsides littere with broken rocks, the bus teetering on the narrow switchbacks, headed ever higher. The trees come back, the rain-- the first we´ve seen-- is daily, and the culture changes completely. Tuxtla´s shopping malls and grown up attitude are gone; here in San Cristobal there are gringos-- also the first we´ve seen-- hippy tourists from the States and Europe, and a strong indigenous culture responsible for the Zapatista uprising of 1994. Health food and hair salons. The pious and the political. Idealism and escapism, world culture collapsing into a locality both resisting and resigned.

Stolen Shoes

2011-06-19T11:29:00.000-07:00

To be fair, they weren´t really stolen. They were placed in the trash by our hotel, and then some unknown person took them home from the trash. Why a hotel right on the beach-- where the shower is a plastic bucket and a trash can full of water, no less-- would see as trash a pair of shoes and socks carefully placed out of sight under a bush where the hotel´s paved walkway meets the sand, is beyond me. But such is life when your hotel is family run and the kids are put to work. It could be worse, and maybe it will be. But for now twenty dollars means some new kicks and a good story.

The Markets

2011-06-19T11:23:00.000-07:00

Tomatoes; watermelons; tortillas; plums; avocados; cucumbers; bananas; onions; limes; garlic; fresh bread; cilantro; bags of raw vegetables, cauldrons of cooked vegetables; chickens, pickup trucks full of chickens; pig head; pork rinds two feet across; mangos; pineapples; peppers dried and fresh of every kind imaginable; potatoes; radishes; always beef and flies; various spices and occult cures; yogurt and fresh cheeses; eggs; grapes; cantelope; apples; beans; broccoli; tomatillo; prickly pear cactus; cabbage and lettuce; arugla; dried fish and fresh shrimp.

Always a rainbow, pulled fresh from the Earth.

Beneath the Pavement, the Beach

2011-06-16T16:39:00.001-07:00

I wouldn´t recommend arriving in Salina Cruz at two in the morning. That goes for many Mexican cities, but some-- like Acuyucan, which we had left five hours previously-- exude a wholesome atmosphere which welcomes you at any hour. Looking at a road map of Mexico in Catemaco, only one bus south presented itself, and from there we knew to look for a bus towards Salina Cruz. Towards being the key word. But as things go in Mexico, the bus showed up late, left even later, and dropped us off in front of a bus pulling out for the Pacific Coast. And so we blindly ran inside, bought tickets and jumped aboard. Only then did I think to ask the driver when would arrive. Only on arriving did I think maybe we should have gotten off earlier, where the highway splits to the East, where people were still up eating and cheap hotels were stones throws away from the terminal. But sometimes you want to tear up the guidebook and take your chances with the unknown.

And so we came to be in Salina Cruz, a town known for oil and not much else. I´ll remember it for its gaudy hotel rooms and being the first time Melody saw the Pacific. It should have been a magic moment, like when we reached the Gulf after hours on a bicycle-- but it couldn´t stand in greater contrast. A pedestrian bridge took us over some littered train tracks, then we signed in with a security guard; the port of Salina dominates much of the coast here and we were to follow a fenced in portion inside the naval compound. The beach itself is blocked on one side by a mountainous pile of concrete rubble, several oil tankers lay right off the coast and a sign prohibited any swimming. It was the only craphole town we had visited yet, and my health followed suite; the first bout of traveller´s sickness in Mexico, moments of razor blades ripping up intestines.

In the end we lost a morning a few pesos, and got back on track with a new plan. I left Salina Cruz upbeat; we made a mistake but it taught me to trust me instincts and to remember that every tomorrow travelling is an unknown.

Vamos a la Playa

2011-06-16T16:31:00.000-07:00

Notes from Catemaco: stumbling off a bus at five in the morning and immediately being pressed to visit a black magic witch doctor across the lake; staying with "mom" and "dad" who wouldn´t cut us a deal but talked about all the important people who stayed with them; a fear of crocodiles, and being chased by rowdy cattle; the concrete hobbit house at the end of the trail; the constant chatter of birds; forty plastic chairs set up in the street facing a public bathroom; the oppressive midday heat and the chilly nights that only breach your bedroom at daybreak; riding 40 km to Ibarra, where a massive lagoon meets the gulf; fresh fried fish on the beach where exhaustion implores you to open your wallet; the beauty of sunlight through slow, shallow waves; mountains ringing the water like you´d expect to find in Thailand; a lancha ride across the lagoon with drunk Mexican tourists; the peppery night air as we climb back to Catemaco, not on bicycle, but the in the back of a pirata pickup.

Some memories should be scattered to the wind, seeding stories for another day.

The Starbucks Effect

2011-06-09T12:00:00.000-07:00

What is most striking about central Mexico is the lack of diversity. The sky is one shade of blue, the clouds one shade of white, the dirt and grass share a golden hue typical of somewhere as arid as this; one species of tree dots the landscape, broken up only by one species of cactus. It is both dreary and appealing in its simplicity.

Commerce in Mexico can follow this same pattern. At the bus terminal where I write this, there are no less than five "Deli Mart Express" shops within sight of each other. All sell the same products, at the same prices. In the city center earlier, there was a coffee chain stationed on three of four sides of the plaza; only a massive cathedral prevented them from dominating the zocalo. A side street designed for pedestrian shopping leaves you with a feeling of deja vu; passing certain chain stores every block and then turning away and seeing another across the street.

I understand how a barren region might support only a handful of species, but a bustling city of over a million residents? How is it that certain shops can thrive on the traffic from a single block, knowing that a consumer on the next block, or the opposite side of the plaza, has no incentive to come to you? Even if one person owns the chain, wouldn´t it make sense to put any other kind of shop there instead? It worked for Starbucks for a while, but even that empire couldn´t sustain itself. We need economies built like jungles, not deserts.

Burrito?

2011-06-09T11:53:00.000-07:00

Sitting in the front seat of a combi, or colectivo (a minibus that acts as a taxi), I had a burning question for our driver. Where are the burritos? This was the first driver who seemed eager to talk to us, and because he spent a year in Denver he spoke English while I replied in Spanish. "Tell me," I said, "My favorite food is the burrito, and I haven´t seen any yet in Mexico. Are they particular to a certain place?" He stared at me blankly. "Burrito?"

I tried to explain it´s like an enchilada, but bigger. "Is it chicken?" he asked, clearly unsure that I was talking about. I told him it could be chicken, or pork or beef, and he laughed. Never heard of it, seemed to be his response. But how is that possible?

What´s it Worth

2011-06-09T11:48:00.000-07:00

Hotels are funny creatures. So far we´ve stayed in a $20 room with three beds, two couches, a pool and a (very) loud dripping shower; and a $10 room with one bed, no windows, a shared bath downstairs with no working lights, and two glass tables with the glass removed. No key for the room, and the laundry room across the hall had a bare light bulb that flickered with each pulse of the washer. At the end of a long day all you need is a bed.

Ask for Help

2011-06-09T11:44:00.000-07:00

The best, and sometimes only, way to find something in Mexico is to ask for help. This is also the best way to get lost. People who are unsure of where something is or when the bus leaves or even if there is a bus, will tell you anything. But persist and your patience will pay off. A woman in Pachuca tonight didn´t know where Hotel Real (a cheap hotel we never found) was, but she walked us blocks out of her way to show us a place we could stay instead. So proud of her city, she wanted to know why were there, what we were going to see, tried to give us the history of Pachuca... it was a humbling moment. It can be so easy to brush aside a stranger, but so rewarding when you aren´t.

Bag Lunch

2011-06-09T11:37:00.000-07:00

People will debate to no end what food is "authentic" to a region. I love burritos and have yet to see one on a menu in Mexico anywhere; then again, I had "cheese volcano" for dinner at a restaurant last night. Today however, we went to the market for dinner-- what could be more authentic than food at the Sunday market, right? Almost before we could think about it, we had bought three bags of food. One mixture of tomatoes, onions, radishes and green beans, one of red rice and one of spicy, almost liquid, guacamole. No one would give us a fork, so we sat in the plaza, mixed the three bags and ate with plastic spoons from a corner store. Authentic? I´ll let you debate that at home. But delicious and affordable, yes. Twenty pesos (about $1.75) and it fed two with lots of leftovers!

The Irony

2011-06-09T11:22:00.000-07:00

The sprawling capital of Mexico, home to 20 million people, was built atop the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. While I didn´t visit those ruins, it seems as though everything in Mexico City was built to become ruined. Every building seems to be falling apart, with graffiti and broken windows, crumbling concrete and rusted roofs. Most of this sprawl cannot be more than a hundred years old, and certainly wouldn´t last another hundred. Only an hour north however, lay another set of ruins, those of Teotihuacan. These predate the Aztecs, built over a thousand years ago, and of such magnitude-- its Temple of the Sun is the third largest pyramid in the world-- that they could seemingly last forever.

Although the trend of building cheaply is seen the world over, how does a culture build something so permanent, only to be replaced by a culture that completely casts longevity aside? Perhaps it is a sign of progress, in an ironic way. Slaves focus the energy of a society on a few grand achievements, whereas individuals build what they can with what is available. Perhaps a free world leaves nothing to be remembered by; as much as I love seeing spectacular ruins, I think I´m ok with that.

Swimming with Gentle Giants

2009-07-26T14:45:00.000-07:00

Sea monsters do exist. Far off the coast, where you can no longer see the white ribbon beaches or the highrise hotels of Cancun, in open water as clear as any pool back home. They congregate here, for the summer at least; and given the right conditions-- sunny, calm water-- congregate is too mild a word. They show up in droves, by the hundreds. Whale sharks. Propelled through the water by the gentle swish of a tail taller than most people, the great gaping mouth sucking in the plankton rich water. Swimming abreast one of these beasts, keeping pace, looking into its unblinking eye, watching the gills discharge and the attendant fish that follow like an entourage of groupies-- is like living a National Geographic episode. Time slows down. Stirring, majestic music springs to mind. You become the creature´s equal for a moment, and will carry that magic forever. It´s a fine way to end a trip; awed again at what this monsterous world has to offer. Yes, sea monsters do exist.

Stunning Sunning

2009-07-17T16:54:00.001-07:00

Central America has a lot of beaches. A lot of beaches-- but while the Pacific side has great surf and the Atlantic has great diving-- there isn´t much in the way of traditional white sand beauty. Enter Mexico: stepping onto the beach in Tulum is like stepping into a Corona commercial. Postcard perfect sand, palms, sun and crystal clear water. Sit down under a thatch umbrella with a cold drink and you are a Corona commercial. The heat is a lazy enchantment, and under its spell you fully appreciate the ideal of doing nothing for nothing´s sake.

Mayan Cave Archaeology

2009-07-17T16:39:00.000-07:00

San Ignacio in Belize offers a plethora of well known cave tours, giving the opportunity to explore Mayan history through remains hidden from the light of day for a thousand years. But if you know the right people and stumble into town on the right day, you can get a different kind of tour; ours was led by a dissertation student who has been studying Belizean caves for more than a decade. A bit more cavalier than most tour operators-- talking about psychotropics, strip clubs in New Orleans, and how he was ¨going to party [his] balls off tonight¨ between eagerly pointing out cave art and eroded architecture-- but no less passionate or knowledgeable about the caves we were exploring.

And what caves! There was no squeezing between boulders; some of the rooms were a hearty stone´s throw across and football fields long. There were intricate carvings, indicating the life that went on in the caves, and there were bones, skulls and teeth, to indicate the death. An altar of sorts that lit on the equinox, the sun´s rays illuminating droplets falling from the cave roof, and faces carved into stalagtites only visible by torchlight. And always the allure of more, deeper into the abyss: bat guano quicksand, pure azure lakes, caverns magnitudes of size larger, with no end found yet. ¨Real National Geographic stuff ¨our guide intoned appreciatively. I couldn´t have said it better.

Under the Sea

2009-07-12T10:58:00.000-07:00

Sometimes pride gets the best of us. Almost as an afterthought the snorkeling guide asked if we were all good swimmers and had used the gear before; I've gone snorkeling a few times and figured it was no big deal. Think is-- I'm not a good swimmer. And that can become apparently obvious at the worst times. In my case, the snorkel wasn't set up properly, and the tube kept falling into the water; so instead of swimming, I was more doggy paddling after the group, in search of Caribbean manatees. The wind was fierce that morning, and the waves piled up in a frenzied rush towards me. At some point, salt water swelling my throat, I looked around and couldn't see the boat or any other snorkelers. It is a most surreal feeling to be suspended over a stinging coral reef, in open water. I remembered the episode of Magnum, P.I. where Magnum had to tread water all night until he was rescued by a helicopter. I figured I was in no real danger, but I wondered how long I'd paddle if I had to-- probably not the 40 minutes we'd spend at this site.

So moments later when I caught up with the group (only a few waves over) admiring the gentle beauty of a manatee, I did what I had been telling myself all along not to do: I quietly panicked. I tried to slow my breathing enough to use the snorkel, but couldn't. I tried to float calmly instead of scaring off the timid creature with my thrashing legs, and couldn't. The fleeing manatee sent the group scurrying off again, with me limping behind. This time however, the guide noticed my struggles and brought me a life jacket to float on. I discarded any pretense of pride and floated gloomily back to the boat. But I'd glimpsed a manatee, and later I'd float serenely with sharks, sting rays, eels and sea turtles. The clouds lifted, so to speak, to leave me pleasantly sunburned.

You say hello, I say adios

2009-07-12T10:47:00.000-07:00

Today marks a special occasion. We reached Belize, the first day in a month we've been in an English speaking country. Being around your native tongue, you drop your guard, release a tension you didn't know you were holding. You see and understand things clearly, instead of half translating/ half guessing. The automated Spanish you pick up in your travels, which gets you around with no real expression, gives way to something real. Even with the simplest of replies, the inflection gives a range of meaning beyond my comprehension of Spanish. That must be what fluency is about-- more than the vocabulary or conjugations, its the ability to manipulate your sentence to transcend the meaning of its individual words.

Speaking of transcendence, we celebrated (or mourned?) Michael Jackson's passing at a nice restaurant on the beach tonight. Lobster in a succulent habanero garlic butter, caught fresh that day. Actually they were pulling one out of the water when we walked by the restaurant. They played only the King of Pop, and served free jello shots made from overproof Belizean rum. Kids danced outside, while we slipped home for an early bedtime.

Four Countries in 24 Hours

2009-07-05T20:38:00.000-07:00

Gorgeous green mountains sqeeze in from the distance, waiting patiently in line, six or seven deep. That´s how I hope I remember Honduras: green mountains, red terra cotta roofs and smoky cooking fires. Not as the country that overthrew its government only days before we were due to arrive. Last time in Honduras I met great hospitality-- this time I interacted only with the military, at two borders and a checkpoint.

And so we head to Belize the long way. Managua through southern Honduras to avoid the capitol and its massive civil demonstrations, to San Salvador for a seven hour night and onto Guatemala City and Flores. Twenty-five hours of bus in 2 days, but we´re eager to get closer to Cancun and our ride home. Eager to put long bus rides and borders behind us.

O Granada

2009-07-05T20:24:00.000-07:00

Where else can you stay in an ex-president´s house (ex as in exiled, unwelcome like so many Latin American leaders make themselves) for six bucks a night, take a horse carriage around the central square and then be hugged by street kids wanting your money? Okay, probably anywhere. But Granada may be the only place in all Central or South America with Mountain Dew.

I mention this as an allusion to its assimilation of Gringo culture. Not entirely, of course. At least not yet. About three blocks behind the Cathedral have been bought up by foreigners and turned into boutique hotels and fancy restaurants. If it sounds like I´m put off by this, I´m not; I´ll gladly pay through my nose for a cold Mountain Dew to fend off the indefatigable Nicaraguan sun. At the heart of it, is that nobody captures the feeling of home like a foreigner. You may have come to experience local flavor, but how many plates of rice and beans can you stomach before you give in a grovel for waffles and granola and unlimited refills of coffee made without powdered milk? You pay more, sure; but at least butter is included with the toast, as opposed to being an additional charge. Sometimes it seems as if every corner is cut to lower expenses-- at the expense of the consumer. That might sound like the American way, but it takes a lot of getting used to; we expect free bathrooms, free refills, free condiments, we hope for free breakfast and internet.

The down side is that we follow this trail of freebies to a cheap hostel where we´re seduced by the hammocks and soft music, and the allure of fellow travelers. And then we don´t leave. We stay isolated in our little domicile, self contained, shut away from the country and culture at large. It´s a balancing act, and you´ll meet people from both extremes: those who go to any length to avoid meeting other tourists, and those who go from the airport to the Hilton and back with the windows up and A/C on. Travel should bridge these worlds; to accept the changes we affect, instead of ignoring them always.

Conception

2009-07-05T20:18:00.000-07:00

Blood pounding in your temples, sweat drenching your brow, the jungle reverberating with howler monkey cries. Sometimes it all seems too much; like you´re reading an adventure novel, instead of traveling. But as my shredded shoes and sore legs will attest, climbing an active volcano is a very real experience. At the top the rocky trail is too hot to touch, and the sulphur fumes too potent to breathe for long. But the view-- well, hazy and cloudy. And such is travel. You don´t know what you´ll see from the top, but it´ll be a long, hard (worthwhile) journey.

Who Needs a Hotel?

2009-07-05T20:15:00.000-07:00

I wasn´t there, so I can´t be sure, but I think it happened like this. They showed up to the Hotel Castillo´s outside bar around nine, before the rain. At some point they must have felt pinned in by the downpour, and only one option presented itself: continue drinking cheap Nicaraguan rum until the rain stopped.

What I do know for sure, is that they were still there at five in the morning-- slumped over their glasses asleep.

Miscellaneous Memories

2009-07-05T20:04:00.000-07:00

Hammocks on the beach, bonfire and Bob Marley; lightning on the horizon, silver streaks backlighting Christ on the hill. Tiny kitten, perched on a palm stump. Sixteen years old Finn, studying abroad in Costa Rica; shock of red hair, the only gringo in his village. Vultures eating a dead dog on the highway. Vultures sitting on the picket fence, every picket. Seeing Isla de Ometepe suddenly, after crossing the border-- the frustration melting away as the twin volcanoes rose from the beautiful lake at sunset. Being pulled onto a moving bus through the emergency exit. Relearning how to use the camera. Finding a crab in my bed-- in the mountains. Laughing while gasping for breath in the raft. Coconut rum and coke. Hearing about swine flu in Mexico. Hearing about robbery in Guatemala. Hearing about robbery in Nicaragua. Seeing Honduras fall to Anarchy on the news. Meredith being robbed in Costa Rica. Is this a cursed continent? US blowing a 2-1 lead over Brazil, to lose in the last 15 minutes. Being told the shower will work later; that the internet will work later; that the bus leaves every half hour; that the bus leaves every hour; that this bus leaves in three hours, no this bus leaves in a quarter hour. The dancing flower photograph. Running trampoline style across a suspension bridge. Looking for iconic photos; sometimes finding them, sometimes finding something better. Malinche flowers strewn like rose pedals. The fattest pig ever. Orchids on the path, the relentlessly steep path up Conception. A whole plate of french fries, and never a drop of mustard.

Repent and Expatriate

2009-06-27T17:14:00.000-07:00

What is the new American Dream? I think I've found it.

The white house and picket fence of old-- idyll, but too idle for today's generation-- has been replaced with something more active, though just as quaint and innocent: the coffee shop. Not Starbucks, but something at once new and nostalgic; the homey, earth friendly, indigenous art on the walls kind of place, where people gather in the dim natural light and listen to sounds of the rainforest (or use the free wi/fi-- whatever).

Here at the coffee shop in Nicaragua where I'm writing this, the owner roasts his organic homegrown beans daily. He talks about the ecological consequences of Nicaragua's proposed canal, and the socioethical consequences of gringos taking over political control of a tropical paradise such as this. It's as wholesome as whole wheat bread; but before all this the owner was an oil company executive. It makes me think of Global Village back in Raleigh, with its organic shadegrown yada yada; the owner there was a marketing exec for Slim Jim before being reborn into environmentalist coffee. (I generally wouldn't compare Slim Jim to Shell Oil, but the factory that exploded several weeks ago and left a toxic cloud over North Carolina makes me wonder).

Neither shops fills a real need-- Hillsborough Street averages about one coffee shop per block, and here in Nicaragua the appeal is more about being around other gringos and escaping the need to speak spanish than anything else. So why coffee? I think it represents some kind of repenting. How could the warm, smiling face serving up delicious iced mochas from fair trade coffee possibly be associated with assassinations in Nigeria (Shell finally settled last month for $15 million) or stolen indigenous lands in Ecuador (the Cofan are still fighting this, both in court and in the rainforest)?

Or maybe, cynically, it's just the pursuit of profit in our new "green" economy.

Riding the Bull

2009-06-25T20:57:00.000-07:00

Whitewater rafting is a chaotic first time experience. Whereas most tourist adventures are pretty straightforward-- zipline over this canyon, rapel down this waterfall-- whitewater introduces a dizzying number of varials. The river changes day to day, especially here in Costa Rica where a majority of the rivers are dammed for hydroelectric purposes, and flow is controlled not just by daily torrential rain, but by some guy sitting in an office at the dam upriver. Factor in the earthquakes that move around the river´s rocks, and that passengers are relied upon to help propel the boat-- and you´ve got quite a situation.

While commands are simple (paddle forward or back, stop paddling and throw yourself into the boat), following them while being smacked in the face with waves isn´t. If you can hear the commands over all the screaming. And sometimes you go to paddle and find the water just dropped out from under you-- or else the raft just bounced several feet off a rock. So its disconcerting to hear the guide talk about the ¨other¨ river in the region, the one that families and newbies start on. That river is definitely not Rio Toro, Bull River. But then, who doesn´t want to say they rode the bull?

Arenal, you´re just a--nother...

2009-06-25T20:49:00.000-07:00

Dark, winding mountain roads at night, in the fog, in a volcanic countryside. High speeds. Red reflectors lining the road, lit up by the headlights, beckoning like a runway airstrip-- the illusion of flying melding with its metaphor. An accident on the other lane, and the driver wipes the inside of the windshield with a rag; as if he too just realized the potential consequence of manic latin american motoring. Turn onto a gravel road, the sole interior light flickering from a shorted circuit, in tune with the road. Each jarring pothole giving you a flickering chance to see this night´s companions: three germans, three americans. No names. And it strikes you as odd, for just a moment, that all this seems normal.

The driver pulls onto a bridge and stops, cuts the lights. To your left-- lava, spilling down a distant slope, like hot ashes dancing on the highway from a dropped cigarette.

From L.A. with Pepper Spray

2009-06-25T20:47:00.000-07:00

Met a german girl tonight who is bringing pepper spray back as a souvenir and gift, because it is illegal in Europe and quote: ¨yeah, pepper spray is awesome.¨

The Forest at Night

2009-06-22T16:37:00.001-07:00

The white faced Capuchin monkeys climb high into the trees to settle in for the night. After a long day of leaping from limb to limb--the longest day of the year, today-- they seek safety from the predators awaking below. Actually, a majority of the forest's creatures are becoming active as the cover of night closes in; sloths begin their slow migration, armadillos shuffle blindly from their dens, tarantulas stalk prey from the mouth of their caves, pit vipers unravel and slip to the forest floor to wait for rodents. The cicada's deafening drone gives way to the rhythmic chirps of crickets. Never quiet and never dark-- fireflies flash at regular intervals, while bioluminescent inchworms are seen sporadically. Lightning on the coast adds to the display, illuminating orange and purple clouds in the distance. The greens of the day, ubiquitous in Costa Rica, fade to rich hues of blue and deep, impenetrable black. Hidden somewhere in this blackness lurk the jaguars that grace the covers of books and countless postcards in Costa Rica's gift shops.

The star of this night, however, is neither rare or creepy, nor cuddly or colorful. The leafcutter ant-- or several million of them-- steal the show with their prodigous work ethic; laboring without stop through the night to serve queen and colony. The smaller ants clean the leaves of parasites and fungal disease, the larger soldier ants guard the colony entrance and protect the workers travelling a hundred feet or more to reach that entrance. The average sized workers, which give the species its name, cut and carry leaves many times their size over huge distances, for the several months they are alive. Deep in the colony (this one was about 18 feet deep and probably the same in diameter) the leaves will incubate a special fungus found only in leafcutter colonies, and its sole source of food.

The fungus cannot exist without the ants, the ants cannot live without this fungus; a whole society is formed around this beautiful relationship. But within a decade, the queen dies and the colony disappears, like so many rays of sunlight beneath the canopy.

Green Coast Mystique

2009-06-21T14:56:00.000-07:00

Less obvious than the banana and palm oil plantations that line the coastal highways are government subsidized teak farms. These expensive hardwoods are planted close together, forcing the saplings to compete for light by growing straighter and taller than they would naturally. This allows longer boards to be cut with less effort, and results in fewer knots and weak spots.

It also allows the teak farms to undercut wild harvested teak prices, lumbered illegally from rainforest clearcuts. (The growing expense is offset by not having to slash roads into the wilderness, and also because many of the the trees clearcut are softwoods with low prices.) If the numbers are to be believed, this practice has cut illegal deforestation by 80%. Wheras its' neighbors are finding themselves with increasingly smaller rainforests, Costa Rica actually has more now than twenty years ago. Which means hopefully the green coast's mystique will last for years to come.

A Life Aquatic

2009-06-14T20:00:00.001-07:00

Pluck a starfish from the living ocean, and hold it like a rock in your hand; waves lap the boat and ripples blink at you in procession, but the starfish-- neither fish nor star-- is still and silent like the night sky. Return him and the ocean´s clear eye twinkles to you: a subtle reminder that, we too, once called the ocean home.

The sun broke up the grey sky just as we arrived for snorkeling, illuminating the cystal clear water and giving its inhabitants a graceful shimmer. And so of course the first fish you see, so obviously large and uncrowded between docks behind the restaurant, would be a barricuda. Honestly, the name evokes more than the image, because I would have called him a sturgeon or needlefish and jumped in right there for a closer look.

Thankfully, other passengers on the boat were suitably impressed to point him out before I made a meal of myself. Later, the barricuda would leave his sunning spot, the only piece of ocean in sight empty of fish, and come to the front of the dock where a school of some typical carib fish was ripping meat off a drowned crab. Staring intently through the magnifying snorkel mask, I heard children screaming above water on the restaurant platform. ¨Cuidado! Cuidado! Barricuda!¨

No fight or flight--a puzzled look towards the children then a long look underwater. Nothing. More screams, another puzzled look, step closer, look again under water: barricuda fills up your whole field of vision. Quietly panic so as not to embarass yourself and step behind another snorkeller. No need to get away, just get further away than someone else. The barricuda, apparently bored or untempted by gringo sushi, returns to his sunspot. Leaving us free to explore the reef, marvel at the brain coral, herd schools of fish, and pass under the shadowy docks unhindered, driven by a nervous curiosity.

Zissou would be proud.

La Frontera: Another Day, Another Dollar

2009-06-14T19:46:00.000-07:00

Ecologically, borders are notoriously rich in terms of biodiversity. Where a forest meets a swamp, or freshwater mingles with its salty cousin, opportunities abound for life to exploit a niche environment. Econonically, borders are notoriously poor, violent and exploited themselves; think of Tijuana or the Malquiladora zones on the Mexican border.

But political borders offer niche environments to their citizens as well. Take the border crossing from Costa Rica to Panama: after being escorted across a rickety bridge by a local looking for a tip, paying for a visa, and being hustled into buying a ride on a crowded mini-bus because a) there is no regular bus, and b) that bus that doesn´t exist costs the same and takes longer, you learn that to get stamped into Panama (nevermind you already paid for a visa) you need to buy a return ticket to Costa Rica. Return tickets, regardless of whether you want to go half an hour across the border or all the way back to the capitol, cost the same. Nevermind that you´ll never use the ticket because you´re travelling elsewhere in Panama. Nevermind that the border officials know you aren´t going to use the ticket that supposedly prevents you from living indefinitely and illegally in Panama. Nevermind you´ll probably face the same scam returning to Costa Rica-- then you´ll need a return ticket to Panama, forever bounced back and forth like the ball from Pong.

Arguing does no good, reasoning and pleading do no good. You´re a rich tourist and you´ll pay the bribe rather than turn around and go home. Everyone knows what is going on, but refuses to acknowledge their part. The bus hustler complains with you, the ticket vendor smirks under her breath, the border official plays it by the book. (¨I don´t care if you´re going to China next, you need a return ticket¨). We, as tourists, share the experience, but we take it home in different ways: does this justify our own exploitation of others? Or does it make us empathize that much easier?

Going Bananas

2009-06-14T19:42:00.000-07:00

First you see the fields, the endless rows of banana trees, the ditches separating them, the planks laid out haphazardly as bridges from row to row. Next, you see the shipping containers laid up in storage, five or six stories tall; first Dole, then Del Monte and Chiquita. Last you see the warning signs; don´t enter this field because of the dangerous chemicals sprayed. And the worker´s shanties laid out haphazardly in the shade of the broad banana leaves. And the kids playing soccer in sight of the warning sign. You won´t see the resulting health problems from a bus window, but I can see myself only buying organic bananas in the future.

Novelty

2009-06-14T19:30:00.000-07:00

Because my plane came in 10 hours late and no restaurants were open, and because I skipped my free breakfast to frantically search for an internet cafe and my separated travelling companions, the first food I had in Costa Rica was a bag of ham pizza flavored chips, bought for a long bus ride. (For the record, yes, they tasted like ham pizza. Or rather like pizza flavored chips with ham added. Which is to say, they tasted like ham pizza flavored chips. A lot of words to say nothing).

It was a novelty purchase. But it made me notice the number of people texting on the bus; these weren´t rich people-- they lived in little tin roof buildings on the side of the road, with clothes hanging out to dry and rusty dead cars in the yard. Cell phones and texting must require some measure of sacrifice. Is it a novelty for the culture, or a legitimate need? Cell phones are being held up as a modernizing force in Africa, one that will liberate people and lift them from poverty. Is that possibly true? Or just slick PR from Sony and AT&T? I´m always amazed at airports by the way businesspeople stay so busy on their Blackberries, organizing and rescheduling and ¨touching base¨. But where there is no business, can cell phones be any more than a lazy way to pass the time?

I don´t think I´ve ever seen a local reading on a bus. I don´t know if books are unavailable, or if reading is not a priority. Maybe the people are semi-illiterate.

My first impression is that cell phones should not be driving social change. Looking at my own life, however, of all the monthly bills I´ve given up-- rent, electricity, water-- the cell phone has stubbornly hung on. Is that desire for communication and connection an innate urge? Or an unhealthy addiction?

A Bicycle and a Bird

2009-03-01T12:08:00.000-08:00

Many birds migrate thousands of miles under their own power. How many of us can say that? Is there some value in mimicing that experience? Flying all day in the heat, in need of food and water, across homelands displaced. Looking for a camp, night after night, away from whatever is out there to get them. Somewhere safe and dry and warm. We're not so different, cyclists.

To Climb a Mountain

2009-03-01T11:46:00.001-08:00

Cycling can be an emotional experience. Here's what I mean: fatigue; you've gotten up early far too many days in a row, slept in a bed twice in the last 8 weeks, your knees hurt and you're just plain tired. Mind you, this is before the day's riding has even begun. Soreness; knees and legs screaming in unison, brain trying to ignore the fact that you're still on the flats and haven't started climbing the mountain yet. Frustration; to get up the mountain you need to granny gear it, and to do that you need to take all the bags off the bike and manually change the gear. Probably should have had that fixed a while ago. Anger; some at the bike, some at your weak legs, but mainly just to get the job done; like in Dodgeball, "You gotta get angry. You gotta get mean!" Elation; short lived, but hey-- anger is working! Fear; elbows grazing the semis hauling hay up the mountain. That sweet sour smell... what is that? Look down and see a broken animal carcass. That's what happens if your legs give out here; no shoulder and no mercy. Indecision; you've made it up the first grueling six miles, now: take the shorter steeper route? Or the longer, more level route? Follow the wide shoulder up the long and level. Regret; elevation isn't everything. Constant, brutal headwinds try and force you off the road and off the bike. Maybe the other way had no wind? Too late! Resignation; you're going up and over this mountain whether it takes a day or a year. Walk, if you have to, grimace if you must. Fix that flat and move on. Remember the Mountain Goats: "I'm gonna make it/ across this mountain/ if it kills me..." or something to that effect. Besides-- you'll be too busy laughing all the way down the other side to remember any of this.

Slab City

2009-03-01T01:49:00.000-08:00

Let's start with Salvation Mountain. The story, or at least how it's told out at the slabs, is that a man in a hot air balloon landed at Salvation Mountain-- at this point a piece of nondescript and hostile looking desert-- and built a painted spectacle with straw bales and lots of free time. Fast forward and Salvation Mountain is designated a National Monument. Fast forward a little more and you have a thousand people wintering at Slab City, what used to be part of an airforce base and now neatly protected by the Mountain's monument status.

Full of hippes (the original, about the expire type) and dropouts, the Slab is "the last free place". Free to camp or park your RV year round, free to be away from cops and society and do whatever freedom means to you. I was lucky enough to be brought into a circle of people known as the Oasis Club; membership lets you use the library and check out videos. Nonmembers can still get the $3 all-you-can-eat Sunday breakfast, something to look forward to after a night at the Range-- an open air talent show that may have been in "Into the Wild." It's an amazing place, but also a sad place. Full of faux intelligence and set-in-their-ways freedomists. Full of people who wouldn't belong anywhere else, and have found a community of each other. A place of quiet desperation-- old men offering you a hit, just to have someone to talk to-- and a place of great inspiration-- sitting around a campfire singing Beatles songs to an acoustic guitar.

A place both obvious and replete with mystery; after breakfast a woman arrived with a skinny well dressed 14 year old-- not her son, but whom she was in the process of adopting-- who could recite the periodic tables and totally upturn the social hierarchy. Mike Bright, the smart guy who rides an electric beer cooler around the Slab, was left dumbfounded and defeated. Who was this kid? Was he kidnapped? His guardian said "We'll just call him Kailin for now"-- an usual name, and also a street across from Slab City-- but in the end it didn't matter. "We don't have to compete," he tells Mike Bright, "we can work cooperatively." Wherever he's from, he's now where he belongs.

Holtville: A parable?

2009-03-01T01:41:00.000-08:00

After a long hot detour from the interstate I sat outside a food market an had lunch (tuna for protein, corn chips and soda for calories) and came to a kind of disturbing realization. Everyone driving by seemed normal enough. People driving to the store seemed normal enough. But everyone walking or cycling to, near or around the store seemed to be a cripple or mentally retarded. It was odd at first, though I didn't think too much about it. But as I left, my knees aching, I began to wonder what that said about me-- was I too a cripple? Was I a retard for biking somewhere instead of driving? Why was I doing this?

Almost out of town I passed a man slumped in a wheelchair, in the street, facing traffic. He looked defeated, resigned to his fate. And I thought I should do something, and I thought about all the times off the bike on a lonely roadside, people passing and not acknowledging me. Ceasing to exist. I didn't need help, but I wanted someone to offer. To reassure myself I'd make it through this desert, this oddysey in one piece. But everyone is too busy going somewhere to stop. Now I was the one too busy-- trying to get to a campsite before dark-- so I looked back and grimaced, but didn't stop pedalling. And I see I'm no different than the people in the cars after all.

California Dreamin'

2009-03-01T01:31:00.000-08:00

Cross the Colorado on I-8 from Arizona and suddenly you're in California. No visitor center, no free maps, but hey-- you made it. Things will be easy from here on out, right?

The shoulders are less well maintained in the California freeway, which is a moot point since it's illegal to ride them. After being pulled over, frisked, and interrogated about just why I wanted to ride a bicycle to San Diego ("you know how far that is?"), I was escorted back almost to the border and dumped onto a frontage road. These frontage roads look like they haven't been paved in a hundred years. If first impressions mean anything, California looks like a dud.

No, I take that back. California looks nice, with its cute little bomber plane on the "speed checked by radar" signs-- but it feels like flash with no substance. People in RV's everywhere, like Arizona, but camped out free on Reservation land. Rednecks riding dune buggies and drinking beer; more style than southern rednecks, with their clothes and cash-- but the same at heart. I didn't think California would be this way. I guess I expected it to be less like home.

{I've actually met quite a few good people since writing this, so don't think California is all bad.}

Haiku for Matt

2009-03-01T01:29:00.000-08:00

Wind/ you rhyme/ with friend

but/ you are/ no friend/ to me

wind/ my enemy.

Day 4: highlights and thoughts

2009-03-01T01:21:00.000-08:00

A security guard outside Gila Bend where the frontage road dead ends. At first she cops an attitude with me "Can I help you?" and "You're not planning on camping out here." But when I explain I'm riding just because, she asks me if I'm writing a "blog thing" and how she reads this one guy's blog who bikes around the country-- her friend recommended it to her because she's a "gypsy at heart". She ended by telling me to put Vaseline on my face, so I don't look weathered. Ha!

Seeing Misfits t-shirts on the Indian reservation. The cashier at Bashas thought he had heard of Manowar. Ads for Full Blood, a native american skateboard company. Realizing the reservation is like a third world country; signs at the gas station saying you can't buy energy drinks with food stamps. Perhaps it's like Africa-- give them everything to get by, but not a reason to make things better. Trailer with stove, fridge, and hot water heater for $500. Everyone under 65 looks attractive after being around so many RV's.

Day 1

2009-03-01T01:10:00.000-08:00

Didn't expect much sleep on the Greyhound from Flagstaff to Tucson; wasn't disappointed. But all in all things wrapped up well. Aimed for 56 miles and quit at 76. Still daylight, but I want to rest. The highlight of the day was a German family that winters in Phoenix, who happened to be using a rest area at the same time as me. The husband asked me if I was riding to Ajo (126 miles from Tucson, which I thought I'd reach the first night so quickly was I gliding along the miles of flat blacktop leading away from Tucson) and responded with an exuberant "wuunderal!" When asked if I planned to camp in the desert (I was) it was "suuper!" When I told him I was en route to San Diego, it was "incrrredible!" Later they honked rowdily as they passed me in their RV.

Not everyone was so impressed; passing a farm I felt the horses looking at me curiously, while the cows seemed non-plussed. It actually seemed like they were looking down on me for riding a bicycle in the road. But later the bike stirred up a stampede of cattle, less running in fear than cheering me on, keeping pace on the opposite side of the ubiquitous barbed fence.

Hawks' cries cut the air above me. All around me, cactus; some regal , and others comically posed for my amusement. The high tension wire gurgling in some secret language, while the clouds stream by like subtitles. On my back, in the grass, it's all I can do to stay awake.

Space and Time converge

2009-02-28T12:02:00.000-08:00

Einstein believed time and space were two aspects of the same reality; clearly different, but fundamentally equivalent. Travelling has a way of making Einstein's observation abundantly clear, in that each day takes you farther from home, both physically and chronologically. And although travel brings up obvious questions about space-- why the West is perceived as more grandiose than the East for example-- it is perhaps the questions of time we should be asking. Several weeks in a car in one direction will bring you to lands far different than home; mountains and dust replace forest, ranches replace farms.

This seems normal. In fact, it would seem abnormal for the land not to change. But several weeks in a car and the landscape of time also changes. It's like being in a foreign place where everyone speaks the same language-- knowing the day of the week intimately, perhaps counting down the days til their weekend-- and you have this sense that you studied these days and weeks in school at some point, but that they've been lost in translation somehow. "Why are people riding ATVs in the woods after dark?" Then a moment of mental triangulation, pinpointing that monument on the horizon of your memory, the last firm connection you had between a place and a day of the week-- followed by some cautious finger counting: did we sleep at that campsite one night or two? Is there a day between Wednesday and Friday? And in a flash you understand. It's Friday night, and most people aren't going to bed when the sun goes down. But it feels so normal. And that is the shock-- that yourself a few weeks ago would ridicule the you now for being in bed by eight. These behaviours aren't ingrained. The bodies' rhythms, if you want to call it that, switch from speed metal to slow dance without missing a beat. So smoothly that it takes a troupe of prepubescent ATV riders to make you realize the music is still playing.

A year and a day

2009-02-28T10:38:00.001-08:00

It's been exactly a year and a day since my last post here, and it seems fitting that I'm still writing about the South-- a different south to be sure, but not so different in all the ways we might think. Still on the road, this time exploring the southern parts of America: beginning in Raleigh and heading down to Florida and then out to Tucson by car; followed by a trip from Tucson to San Francisco (and possibly onward to Portland) by bicycle. Writing this here in a library in San Diego, I can't tell you how the story ends-- two months in to this three month odyssey, and I feel things are only beginning. And I apologize in advance; the opportunities to write are few and far between, and the photos will have to wait.

Thank You / Goodbye

2008-02-27T12:31:00.000-08:00

First, thank you to all of the bus drivers, airplane pilots, ship captains, train engineers, taxi drivers, canoe tillers, and motocab maniacs for getting me safely where I wanted to go; I didn´t always think we were going to make it (for that matter, thanks to everyone else on the road, water, sky, etc. that didn´t crash into us). I´m assuming that all goes well my last day here in South America, and that my flight gets home just fine.

Thanks also to my family and friends and coworkers, who supplied encouragement along the way. Many thanks to the people I met on my journey, you guys are great and made my trip great. It wouldn´t have been the same without you.

Thanks to everyone who looked at my photos on Flickr. There are a few more photos to upload, but most of the good ones are online. The most viewed photo, if you´re curious, is actually not mine-- it´s a photo Rohith Modgil of Scotland took of me prancing on the salt flats. The second most viewed photo is a picture of my beard that I took my first day in South America-- I find that hilarious!

And of course thanks most of all to YOU, the reader; I hope you were enlightened, or inspired or motivated-- maybe to make some travels of your own. If you do, be sure to write.

Welcome to the Jungle

2008-02-27T12:12:00.000-08:00

Leaving the concrete jungle for a real one was a welcome relief. Still, it wasn´t all fun and games. Navigating the Amazon with a dying flashlight-- adventure, or just plain scary? Find out in this mock interview.

Interviewer: You went to the Cuyabeno Reserve in the Ecuadorian jungle, is that right? It´s supposed to be one of the most important protected areas on the planet, with a massive amount of biodiversity. How was it?

Me: Well, the guide quit after the first hour. But I suppose the jungle itself was pretty impressive.

Interviewer: I´m sorry-- you say the guide quit after an hour?

Me: Yeah, we drove three hours in a pickup truck with to meet the guide, he served us lunch and then left, promising to return within the hour. Three hours later he showed up and told us that the agency had not paid him, nor had they paid the local indigenous community for more than 3 months. He was going to leave us in the hands of a local so that he could file an official complaint and deliver a copy to his lawyer.

I: That´s... unfortunate. Did it affect your tour?

Me: Well the agency also hadn´t provided food, drinking water or sufficient gasoline either. So yeah it was a problem. We didn´t starve, but when another group showed up the last day we were able to see the food and service that should have been provided orginally. And we couldn´t go fishing for piranhas because there was only enough gas to get back out of the jungle, and none for side expeditions.

I: Did anything go right?

Me: Well, we left very late the first day-- from the park entrance it´s a three hour motorized canoe ride to the pueblo we were staying-- and so we ended up navigating the river in the dark, which is kind of creepy. But at dusk we were escorted by a swarm of bats, swooping and diving alongside the boat; although I´m not a fan of bats swarming towards me, it was amazing to be ¨flying¨ alongside them. You gain a real appreciation for their elegance.

I: What else did you see?

Me: Lots of insects-- dragonflies, stinging grasshoppers, the biggest cockroaches I´ve ever seen. Mosquitos of course. And a tarantula that was nesting in the bathroom. Lots of birds too, and frogs and lizards. Actually, before we even entered the park we were flagged down and given a turtle to release into the wild. He slept on my feet for a while and then tried to eat my pants. But alas, no river dolphins and no anacondas. I really wanted to see an anaconda-- although I hear they grow bigger in Venezuela.

I: And what did the company say about their poor performance?

Me: They promised me a refund as soon as my flight leaves. No, but seriously, I might get a refund here in a few hours. But I´m not holding my breath.

An Hour in the Life

2008-02-20T10:28:00.000-08:00

A few minutes before the noon checkout time, I stumble out of bed and then stumble out into the rain; here in Ecuador, more than anywhere else, has the summer rainy season made itself known. Fortunately (?) my clothes are still mainly wet from the rain last night. I have dry clothes packed away somewhere, but the closer I get to going home the more unorganized my pack gets. I probably won´t find those dry socks until after my flight-- not that it matters, since my shoes are wet too. The downside of waterproof shoes is that once water gets in, it can´t find its way out.

I stand in the street, thinking ¨I´m not supposed to be here¨. In Quito that is, not Ecuador. My tour to the jungle was supposed to leave this morning, but was pushed back a day, throwing my mainly improvised plans into even more disarray. I contemplated paying for another night at my hotel so I could sit in bed and read all day; two and half months of travelling, plus the lousy weather, has worn me down a bit. But since I´d need to get out of bed to eat something, I figured I might as well wander around town.

¨Old Town¨ would be my destination for the morning (or rather early afternoon); so called because all the old colonial buildings here, but also because it lacks all the new luxuries of ¨New Town¨like donut shops and internet cafes. I´d spent the past few days in New Town, and was a bit spoiled by all the sweetbread shops there-- walking past window display after window display of the most delicate and delicious looking pastries. I figured a sugar rush was just what I needed to get this day started out right. But although I walked up and down countless streets, the only stores I passed were printing shops and tailors. Finally I spot a sign saying ¨confecciones¨and my stomach rumbles with anticipation; I look in and see a pile of clothes and a sewing machine. Sigh.

A few minutes later I see another sign that looks promising, and head up a very steep hill to investigate. As I get closer I see the store is exactly what I want... and closed. Of course. But right behind me at this point is a store with giant trays piled high with bread and pastries. For 80 cents I settle on something resembling lasagna crossed with a brick. It has at least six layers of flaky bread, white cream, some kind of orange fruit paste (peach? I can´t tell through all the sugar) caramel and more flaky bread. And it was seriously the size of a brick; I picked the biggest one since there was no telling when I´d find another breadshop. Outside, the store I´d seen originally was open now. Of course.

Several blocks and half a sugarbrick later, I think I can feel diabetes setting in. Maybe it´s the altitude I tell myself and keep eating. By the next block I wrap the pastry up and set it down on a ledge; earlier I´d seen the guy walking in front of me pick up a cup of soda off the sidewalk, and figured maybe somebody would want the rest of my sugarbread. It was like an offering to the street urchins.

Now I was turning onto America Avenue, and, right on cue, was a KFC. I figured some grease would be helpful in sopping up the sugar in my stomach, but opted for the chinese restaurant across the street. On wandering days, eating and walking go hand in hand. Mainly I walk because the bus systems are so complicated, but also because its so much easier to stop at a nice restaurant if you´re not on a bus. And after a nice meal I usually waddle out into the street feeling like a walk would do me good; it´s a vicious cycle.

The chinese restaurant has a large banner offering a lunch special for $1.50-- the menu inside has nothing for $1.50. I´m used to these false claims by now. I get a different lunch special for under two bucks and of course it´s a heaping plateful. Somethings must be the same everywhere.

Watching the news in the restaurant, I notice it´s only been an hour since I got up. A story about Fidel Castro is followed by one about people somewhere, hopefully not Ecuador, trying to catch a treed tiger by pulling on his tail. Remember the nursery rhyme, ¨catch a tiger by its toe¨? I think something got lost in translation. The tiger promptly mauled the man and then jumped frightened into a river. The next story was about the proliferance of counterfeit cigarettes in Quito. Somebody was putting off brand cigs into Marlboro boxes.

It only took an hour to realize that as long as I´ve been here in South America, I still just don´t get it.

Market Day

2008-02-17T06:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you catch yourself thinking like a tourist, and this is when you are best able to understand the locals´ mindset; crossing the bridge between two ways of thinking can be a comical affair.

The guidebook says that the Saturday Market in Riobamba, where I am, is worth checking out. Now, normally I have no interest in markets-- I´ve always been offered things to buy, whether I was looking for them or not-- but it´s easy to fall into the lull of the guidebook, and it was Saturday and I had no particular plans. So I asked a local, a man who owned a tour agency and interacted with gringos everyday, in which direction was the market.

He got very animated and immediately went to the street to flag a cab for me; ¨It´s just a few kilometers away, they don´t allow the animals downtown.¨ Animals? I was both confused and curious. My tourist assumption had been that ¨the Market¨was the crafts market; the usual assortment of handmade hats and sweaters, along with t-shirts, keychains and other junk from China. But in a place dominated by agriculture, even to a man living in the city, ¨the Market¨ meant the Saturday livestock market, where locals haggle over the worth of skinny farm animals.

Mainly cows, trucks and corrals and alleyways full of cows, but also sheep, pigs, goats, llamas, donkeys and horses are for sale. Vendors sell cotton candy and Chinese caramels; I definitely got that ¨only gringo in the crowd¨attention. But it is an interesting place, at least for a little while. The immensely swollen cow udders, showcasing potential; the daisychains of hog-tied sheep, convulsing in the morning heat; people emptying their pockets, and then waiting for the bus with a box of mangos and a pig. Animals are treated like animals here; I don´t think PETA´s influence has reached this far yet. It reminded me of the mesh sacks of guinea pigs (a delicacy) on the streets of Peru, biting each other and fighting for space in their last few hours.

Later in the day I would see the Ecuadorian delicacy-- entire roasted pigs-- on countless streetvendors´tables, the heads smiling at you as you walk past. Pig stew, pig skin, any cut of pork imaginable; an entire table of skinned pig heads, the black eyes contrasting against the freshly stripped flesh.

But of course more than just animals are for sale in the market. Apples, bananas, strawberries, blackberries, mangoes, potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce; imagine a farmer´s market where everyone is still a farmer. And shoes-- I´ve seen more shoes for sale in this town than anywhere else in my life. There were entire market streets, lined on both sides, with nothing but shoes. And then there are countless shops devoted to shoes.

For me personally, market day is a chance to wander lazily, sampling the different ice creams and donuts and sweetbreads. Later I would discover the world of bootlegged products, where any cd, movie, or video game you´ve ever wanted is available for a dollar. And curiously, Ecuador, or at least Riobamba, seems to be a heavy metal mecca. I picked up some Iron Maiden patches, a shirt, some DVDs, and even a custom Manowar wallet. You would never find this stuff back home!

So in the end, the guidebook was right. Market Day is worth checking out; but sometimes it takes some cross-cultural confusion to make it worth your while.

Wooden Nickels

2008-02-15T18:47:00.000-08:00

Ecuador switched to using the dollar in 2000, which makes travelling here easier than elsewhere. But I was surprised to find that although the bills are American, most of the coins are not. This morning I received one American nickel, and three Ecuadorian; they really look nothing alike.

Which reminds me of how I tried to buy a banana in Peru with a 50 centavo piece (worth about 16 cents) and was told it was counterfeit. Who in the world goes to the trouble of counterfeiting 16 cents?!

The Last Border Crossing

2008-02-15T18:24:00.001-08:00

I knew, even before I got on the bus, that it was going to be a long day.

The plan was simple: a night bus from Huaraz to Trujillo (9 hours), then directly on to Chiclayo (4 hours), go see the `Lord of Sipan´museum (amazing) and then hop on a bus to Piura (3 hours) in order to catch another night bus to Loja (8 hours) arriving in Ecuador only a day behind schedule.

That´s 24 hours on a bus altogether; long, but bearable. Unbearable, however, is spending the first two hours of the first bus ride cringing over Tom Cruise´s acting in The Last Samurai. But wait, it gets better. The second bus ride begins, and today´s movie... The Last Samurai. Again. By now I´m catching myself quoting scenes, and cringing in anticipation of the ludicrous plot. If the third bus had shown TLS instead of Underdog, I would have walked through the desert to Ecuador, seriously.

On the third bus I was surrounded by a salsa band who listened to the same song over and over for hours, as ¨practice¨-- this included playing drums on the seatrest and singing aloud. And the fourth bus... the couple across from me was bringing a puppy across the border, a very cute white puppy with diarrhea. So periodically a wave of stench would wash over the bus, accompanied by some unearthly puppy shrieks.

But I made it happy and safe into Ecuador. The first thing I saw there, right in the bus terminal, was a 24 hour diner; Waffle House appeared before my sleep deprived eyes for a moment, but sadly this was no Waffle House. They had coffee, but no milk. And to eat, they had chicken; everything else had been finished off already. Then some blackberry milkshakes appeared, and just as I made to order one, I was told they were the last ones. Nothing left.

And so to celebrate, since I couldn´t fly to Quito because the company´s website was down, I got on a twelve hour bus to Riobamba; that makes for 36 of the previous 46 hours on a bus. Makes you realize how precious time really is.

Hiking in Huaraz

2008-02-13T10:41:00.001-08:00

In the northern highlands of Peru, sandwiched between the jungle and the coast, lies Huaraz and the mighty Cordillera Blanca-- the highest mountain range in the world outside of the Himalayas. A devastating earthquake here in 1970 unleashed an avalanche wiping out the entire village of Yungay; today, the rebuilt Yungay is a stopping point travelling to the Santa Cruz trailhead, the most popular trek in the region.

The first day of trekking is a pleasant one, with views of stunning turquoise lakes, steeply carved canyons, and verdant valleys. Even the houses here, with their terra cotta roofs, are more attractive than elsewhere in Peru. The terrain is mainly flat, since you´re already at a considerable altitude when you start hiking, and burros are burdened with most of the weight-- the tents, the food, water, cooking supplies. Even the weather wants to cooperate.

The second day is more difficult, but infinitely more rewarding. Starting at breakfast at about 12,000 feet, you climb steadily until by lunchtime you reach the Punta Union pass at more than 15,000 feet. I was panting like a dog from the moment we started hiking-- the curse of being born at sea level. But Punta Union is special for two reasons: first, it is the continental divide. All water from here either flows to the Amazon where it will meet the Atlantic, or falls away the west and the Pacific. Second, the views from here are supposed to be some of the best in all the Andes. And quite honestly, this might be the most beautiful place I`ve ever seen; it is certainly the most impressive mountain range I`ve seen. The clouds drift in an out, providing everchanging views of the peaks; there is always another peak being exposed, a new sense of wonder being sparked. Descending into a seemingly never ending valley, even more mountains come into view. And although Alpomayo-- the perfect pyramid shaped mountain that Huaraz, if no one else, has deemed the world´s most beautiful-- remained mainly hidden, there is no sense of disappointment. If anything, it adds another reason to come back.

Day three is all down hill, and we have the first bit of rain for the trip. Reaching civilization we say our goodbyes and seek out a restaurant; as great as the mountains are for the mind and soul, the body craves a cheeseburger. And Huaraz obliges.

The Honk

2008-02-13T10:20:00.000-08:00

Spend any amount of time in South America, and you`ll become acquainted with ¨the honk¨-- the ubiquitous greeting/warning/invitation that transcends local culture. You find it in every city and country, at every time of day, and can always expect more around the corner-- literally.

In the city, the honk more often than not means ¨I`m going to hit you if you don`t move¨, and is applied not only to pedestrians, but also to other cars which are usually just as adamant about claiming the right of way. It`s kind of a not-so-friendly warning system. Other times in the city the honk simply asks ¨why aren`t you moving faster?¨As if honking will somehow reduce traffic to zero, allowing everyone to move forward simultaneously (you see this in New York as well).

In the country, the honk takes on new meanings. It often means ¨I am the only available transportation to the next town, so get on now while you have the chance¨-- an exciting opportunity to share a minivan with 18 other people, while a chicken sleeps on your feet. Sometimes the honk is used to acknowledge other taxi drivers; some taxis have multiple and customized honks which sound like car alarms or whistles-- honking taking on some of the nuances of language.

In the mountains, the honk is used around every blind corner, as a way of saying ¨here I come, ready or not!¨ A system that has worked well so far, given the inordinate number of blind curves on every mountain road.

It´s a complex language, albeit one without words.

Redemption

2008-02-06T22:30:00.000-08:00

Having visited only the most touristed areas of Peru, I hate to badmouth the country too much, but it has been a bit of a letdown. The people haven´t been as friendly as Bolivia, the prices have been more expensive than expected (3 years ago Maccu Picchu was $10-- now it´s $40), there is always a tax or fee not included; you have to pay to leave the airport, the train station, the bus station, the port. It´s not all golden backpacker paradise like I somehow led myself to believe. But today, Peru redeemed itself.

It started innocently enough; a lady named Pilar who was on the amazon boat trip offered everyone a free place to stay at her house. Since our group was large (20 or so altogether) we declined, but agreed to come over for dinner the next day. And it was amazing; there was loads of food, kids bought us drinks, volleyball, soccer, singing, dancing, laughing. I taught some 13-year-old girls how to say 'you have beautiful eyes' in english. When I took their photo, kids came running from every direction to be included. Then more came running to see the photo; everyone wanted to do everything at once. It gave the day such a triumphant energy, erasing the lethargy lingering from the river. Finally, the most adorable kitten curled up in my lap and fell asleep, while I talked about great horror movies with Marcela from Chile; all it took was getting off the map for a moment, and trusting in the power of the group.

Peru, you´re OK in my book.

Lines at Nazca

2008-02-06T22:08:00.000-08:00

When you see the Nazca lines on television, you always see slow motion video of the lines-- a technique which serves to emphasize their supernatural quality, but which is probably done because to photograph them from a plane is terribly difficult. It doesn´t help that the lines are surrounded, bisected and generally criss-crossed by tractor marks, roads, fake lines and desert graffiti. Although the town of Nazca relies on the lines for tourist income, they seem to take a remarkably laissez-faire approach to maintaining them.

Immediately after getting off the bus from Arequipa I signed up for the 'basic flight' package which means a general loop around the lines with no yawing (side to side action which you need to photograph the lines) for less money. I was promised a slot on the first flight. But, being in Peru, we arrived to the airport just as my promised flight was taking off-- bumping me up then to the deluxe flight where not only did we yaw with the best of them, but I got to copilot the plane!

Copiloting doesn´t actually involve any duties or responsibilites, per se-- but it did make me smile for about 45 minutes nonstop. Having never been in such a small aircraft (6 seater), and then being a noselength away from all the vital controls was as great as the lines themselves. There was a good video after the flight which tried to explain what you see in the air; most theories point towards shamanic attempts to bring rain to a region that has seen no major precipitation since the last ice age. As the culture got more desperate, the lines got bigger and more intricate; or maybe it was aliens after all.

Journey to the Jungle

2008-02-06T06:38:00.001-08:00

A flight from Lima, Peru to the central jungle capital of Pucallpa costs the same as a flight from Lima to the deep jungle capital of Iquitos. That´s because in essence they are the same flight; you board the same plane, you are served the same small breakfast, you pay the same $6.05 departure tax. You just exit the plane after an hour, as I did, instead of 1 hour 40 minutes. If you get off in Pucallpa, you then board a cargo boat bound for Iquitos-- paying extra money to take four unsavory days getting where you could have been in forty minutes. Why do it? Some things are done only for adventure.

Boarding the boat early seems like a good idea, in theory. You get to set up your hammock where you want (even if you don´t yet know where you want it), you get to hang out and meet people in the shade of the boat instead of the heat of town, and you don´t have to worry about the boat leaving without you. In practice, getting there early lets you watch a crowded boat transform into a manically crowded boat. The carefully managed spaces in between hammocks fills with all sorts of cargo, running kids, and more hammocks; the people you want to meet driven away by an ever-growing wedge of human bodies, as the boat delays departure until every inch of cargo space has been filled. Moto-taxis, refrigerators, potato chips-- as Iquitos is the world´s largest city unreachable by road, the jungle town relies on boats like mine to supply it with everything.

By the first night, hammocks are slung so close that one person´s unconscious swinging causes a pendulum reaction in the neighboring hammocks, until the entire cabin is swaying to the same lazy rhythm. Party music blasts from the ships speakers at absurd volumes, as if to say 'you´re having a good time-- enjoy it!' I had two children sleeping under my hammock. I would guess at least a hundred people shared the 3rd floor of the four story boat, built as tall as it was wide. More people slept below, where the engines throbbed so loudly you couldn´t think as you waited in line for your meal.

By the second day, you start noticing things. You notice how to kids on the boat, hammocks are like jungle vines; everywhere, and at all times, kids are swinging, chasing, diving under hammocks. On a boat with virtually no communal space, personal space is quickly sacrificed. You get used to people bumping your hammock; you get used to kids poking, prodding, kicking, headbutting you, whether by accident or act of boredom.

You also start noticing all the tiny villages along the river. The jungle is like a desert, and the river is like the one highway that runs through it; if people live in the desert, they live on that highway. To leave the river means risking losing all touch with the outside world.

By the third day, the boat starts feeling like a prison. You notice how the day revolves around mealtimes (a bowl of oat water for breakfast, bone soup for dinner, and some rice and a few beans for lunch), and you notice how people stare at you, sizing you up as you stand in line. The bars on the kitchen window don´t help the feeling. People talk about what they´ll do when they get out, or what they were doing before they got in.

As the boat slowly pulls in to Iquitos, a curious thing happens. From the bottom of their luggage people bring out dress clothes and makeup, shoe polish and eyebrow tweezers. They bathe their kids and touch up their hair in the mirror over the dish sink. They use cologne and deodorant for the first time in days. And so instead of ending with a prison break, the boat arrives with the appearance of luxury; as if this were a cruise ship and not a cargo boat.

Colca Canyon

2008-01-31T13:59:00.000-08:00

Bottle of water at the bottom of the world´s second deepest canyon, where there is no electricity or roads: $3

Mule ride to the top of the canyon, for those too tired to hike back up: $12

Egyptian anti-food poisoning pills, after getting food poisoning the first meal of the tour: Priceless
(Thank you Franic)

America vs The World

2008-01-31T13:42:00.000-08:00

Eighteen and female, traveling alone in Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. American? Not a chance. But for Europeans, it´s not uncommon. With the so called 'Gap Year', a break between high school and college, you´re almost expected to travel somewhere and teach yourself personal responsibility. Thats one of the big differences I´ve noticed between people I´ve met. Not only do Europeans travel here more (with a stronger currency and perhaps a less violent perception of the continent), they travel here much younger.

I can hardly imagine being alone in a foreign land and still being a teenager. Yet I´ve met people traveling much longer and farther than myself-- up to a year at a time, covering the whole world-- who couldn´t legally drink here in the US.

But although this trip has highlighted a lot of the ways we´re different, it´s also highlighted some ways we´re similiar. We´ve all seen shows on TV demonstrating America´s geographic ignorance; a talk show host asking a person off the street to locate Japan on a map, and then the audience laughing (maybe nervously) when they can´t. For the longest time I assumed this was an American problem. But no-- it´s a world problem. I´ve asked Australians, Israelis and Germans how many states are in the US, and not gotten a single right answer. One person tried to argue that there were 50 states, until Alaska and Hawaii. Not that I know how many German provinces there are (14 or 15, the German in my group wasn´t sure of that either)-- but it surprised me because the world knows our language, it knows our television shows and our pop music-- but it doesn´t know us.

Maybe the world isn´t a small place after all.

Secondhand Horror Story

2008-01-31T13:32:00.000-08:00

At an english restaurant in Cuzco our waiter-- who didn´t actually work there, but filled in for the owners when they needed time off-- told me this story. And it was in english, so there was nothing lost in translation.

When the owners of the restaurant got married, they took a month off to travel to England for the wedding and then for the honeymoon. The first night our waiter was in charge, the head chef died-- not in the restaurant, but in the hospital-- from gall stones. The day before surgery you´re not allowed to eat, because it can complicate the surgery; for four weeks the chef was told he would be operated on the following day, and for four weeks he wasn´t allowed food-- until he finally died from malnutrition.

Thieves and Liars in Cuzco

2008-01-27T06:18:00.000-08:00

Cuzco is a beautiful city, let me say that first and foremost. But the tourist district-- being the hub for tours to Maccu Picchu, the most visited place in all South America-- is so heavily saturated with people trying to make a buck that literally every other person you pass in the street is offering you something: wool hats, matches, cameras, lunch, dinner, drugs, massages, tours, better prices than everyone else. And the easiest way to stand out is just to lie about what you're selling, to make it seem worth every last gringo dollar. The following is a guide to 'Cuzcospeak' based on my trip to Maccu Picchu (which was amazing and worth every dollar I should add).

--So if I leave tomorrow, how many people are in my group?
It'll be six people total, plus a guide of course. You and 5 girls, four of which are brazilian. Very good people. (Of the 26 people in your group, some of them will be from Brazil. I think one is female, I can't remember. Very good people.)

--The first day is mountain biking, right? Is the equipment good? Is there traffic on the road? How many hours is the ride?
The ride lasts about 4 or 5 hours; we stop at two important archaelogical sites along the way. The bikes are very good, good Shimano components. Only a few local buses travel on the road. (If we give you equipment, it will be crap {I'll put a photo of my bike online later, which I'm pretty sure was taped together. I also got two left-handed gloves.}. Chains will break, wheels will come off, seatposts will snap, gears will refuse to change. The ride is about 2 hours total, plus a few hours of waiting for people with broken bikes to walk to the meeting point. You'll see lots of culture, but nothing from Incan times. And aside from buses, you need to watch out for chickens, ducks, turkeys, pigs, sheep, kids playing and old people standing in the street. {After the world's most dangerous road, this ride was a piece of cake-- and my duct tape princess bike rode like a champ, carrying me to victory at the bottom of the mountain. Although I was reminded that this was 'an adventure, not a competition'}

--What isn´t included in the price? Should I bring money?
Everything except entrance to the hot springs is included. You can buys snacks if you want. (Bring money because breakfast might be a bun with a piece of cheese on it, and a juice box. And if you order the cheese omelette for dinner, not only will you not get cheese, but you won't get french fries either. And you'll want to buy a giant bottle of coke with every meal to share with people, since you'll get pretty thirsty after 9 hours of hiking in the jungle.)

--What time do we leave for the ruins? How long are we there? When is the train back to Cuzco?
We'll leave for the ruins at 4am to see the sun rise over the sungate. There is a two hour guided tour, and then you have the rest of the day free. You can leave on whichever train you like, probably getting back to Cuzco around 9 at night. (You'll wake up at 4am, but you'll never leave that early. Your group is too large. Not to mention, there won`t be enough beds at the last hotel, so the group will be have to be split up. It`s ok though, it`ll be raining when the sun comes up, so you won`t miss anything. You get to hike up 3,000 stairs, wait for everyone; fill out your name and country on your ticket-- one pen for 26 people, so more waiting-- and then get your tour. Be back in town at 4pm to pick up your train ticket. We`ve given you the fake name Guillermo Grasso, so don`t show anyone on the train your passport. And to save money you`re getting off halfway to Cuzco, and then look for someone with a sign saying `Julia Tours`-- no that`s not my company, but it's ok. Just follow everyone else; they`ll call everyone but your name on the bus, but just play along. Oh, and plan on waiting on the bus for about 45 minutes, since the terminal is a cage and the buses are arranged like tetris pieces. You`ll get to Cuzco sometime before midnight.)

Peruvian Politics

2008-01-27T06:12:00.000-08:00

Graffiti is rampant thoughout South America, but in Peru you see a phenomenon unique to the country. A long bus ride will show you that every house, storefront, bridge, wall-- any flat surface facing the road is transformed into a political advertisement. And it's all local politics; so and so for mayor, he supports public works. Roads, potable water; anything to bring an increase in the quality of life (and hopefully work too). It's interesting to see a country so engaged in their political process.

Is Bolivia Dangerous?

2008-01-20T18:22:00.000-08:00

The morning before I left La Paz, I talked with my hotel´s owner (whose brother lives in Raleigh, oddly enough) about perceptions of Bolivia. He lamented the fact that Americans supposed the country was dangerous, and therefore stayed away. Indeed, when I crossed into Bolivia, the guards told me only about 20 Americans a month came through the border at Uyuni; I never met another American while I was in Bolivia.

In touristed areas, there are signs posted everywhere proclaiming that 'Bolivia is a safe country'; and I tend to agree-- to an extent. Leaving La Paz for Lake Titicaca, we stopped at the scene of an accident. A bus had gone off the road and tumbled down a hill, killing ten passagers. In a country as poor as Bolivia, safety features so common as guardrails are unheard of; it is this poverty that makes the country dangerous, for tourists and citizens alike.

I told the hotel owner that I thought things would soon change for Bolivia. Already tourists are flocking to Colombia, and if that country can shed its violent image, then Bolivia-- with all its natural wonders, and embracing people-- can hardly be far behind. I can only hope that some of those tourist dollars will go towards making the country safer for everyone.

The Coca Museum in La Paz

2008-01-20T16:06:00.000-08:00

The Coca Museum in La Paz was created as an educational extension of the anti-narcotics efforts of Bolivia, the United States and the United Nations. But rather than exist as a tirade against the use of cocaine (which the museum staunchly opposes), it provides a compelling argument for the continued farming of coca throughout Bolivia. The argument necessarily brings in the fascinating history of the Bolivian highlands, to which coca is inextricably entwined (and which I´ll try to summarize below).

-Archaeologists have discovered that Andean cultures chewed coca leaves as much as 4,500 years ago; more than 2,000 years before Christ.
-The chewing of coca leaves causes a reaction in the body in which oxygen is absorbed by the lungs more efficiently; obviously this is helpful at the extreme altitudes of the Andes.
-During Colonial times, the Catholic Church banned the use of coca leaves, having determined it was 'an obstacle to Christianity'. But when it was learned that miners at Potosi (the sole source of income for the Spanish Empire) chewing coca leaves could work longer hours before succumbing to exhaustion, it was quickly made mandatory and heavily taxed-- making workers even more in debt to the empire.
-Today, more than 90% of men in the Yungas region of Bolivia chew coca leaves (my bus driver was eating them like a bag of potato chips).
-In the late 1800´s cocaine was developed as a medical anesthetic; supposedly Freud was the first user.
-Coca Cola contained cocaine until 1912.
-Certain countries are allowed to legally produce cocaine; the US is the largest producer of legal cocaine, and is produced by a subsidiary of Coca Cola.
-Coca Cola is still flavored with Bolivian coca leaves to this day.
-To produce cocaine requires large amounts of chemicals you don´t find in the jungle; these are knowingly imported by western corporations.
-The US consumes half of the world´s cocaine.

Happy Birthday to Me / Death Road

2008-01-17T16:55:00.000-08:00

Today, for my 26th birthday, I conquered the ¨World´s Most Dangerous Road¨-- starting at the pass above La Paz (which had a surprise snowstorm last night) you descend 6,000 feet or so on a mountain bike, in about 4 hours. The road at times is no more than the width of car. There are no safety rails. And there are parts where if you fall, you fall a thousand feet or more. Did I mention the numerous crosses erected in memory of people who have died traversing this road?

Its an unforgettable experience. From the snow to the jungle, ending with a detour through coca farms, and then sitting poolside to bask in your own personal glory. And as we ride home, ¨We are the Champions¨plays on the car stereo.

La Paz, Bolivia

2008-01-17T16:34:00.000-08:00

Arriving early in the morning, we find a hotel and I head out alone into ¨the Witch's Market¨-- an orgy of street commerce where anything and everything is for sale, if you can find it. A common area between buildings, overflowing with fruit (fresh from the jungle) vendors; a street devoted entirely to shirts (pro wrestling shirts are big here, but dress shirts are everywhere also); a back alley with dozens of stalls selling blue jeans. It has a rough system of organization-- our hotel is near the ¨lights district¨and so when we walk out at night, the corner is lit up entirely with lights for sale-- but in the morning after a long bus ride, it just seems like chaos. People are packed into the road, the sidewalks covered with little makeshift stalls, and two-way traffic honking at whoever dares get in the way. After a while you get used to brushing up against buses struggling up the steep hills. After a while you get used to people trying to hawk everything from toilet paper to range ovens. It´s fun, in a dizzying kind of way.

Later in the day, we take a taxi almost to the summit of Mt Chacaltaya, and then ascend the last hundred meters or so in a breathless line. It seems like cheating, but when you´re 17,388 feet above sea level you don´t care; doing anything at this elevation is hard work. After an easier descent, we buy our driver lunch and then swing by ¨Valley of the Moon¨-- not to be confused with the different valley of the same name in Chile-- to see the sandstone formations. More impressive than the park itself is the drive through La Paz to get there. Built on a plateau that spills over into a daunting valley, there are thousands of red brick homes clinging to the cliffsides. Then there are sheer red cliffs and sandstone tunnels, all practically within the downtown area; probably the most beautiful city I´ve seen so far.

The Potosi Mine

2008-01-15T14:23:00.000-08:00

Potosi, at 4,000 meters, is the highest city in the world-- all downhill from here.

Potosi exists because of the rich mining opportunities here; mainly silver and zinc, but also gold, are in them there hills. At one point Potosi was the source of income for all Spain, at one point its population rivaled Paris and London and the great cities of Western civilization. But something happened; while its brother cities continued to grow and progress, Potosi was exploited and then left to wither into poverty.

Today the mining continues, not for a foreign superpower, but for the people who mine it. It is cooperatively owned, and in theory it will uplift the people here. But conditions are so wretched and dangerous-- children here start mining when they are only 12 years old, chewing coca leaves to help their respiration in the dust filled mine-- it is hard to believe. Workers are injured every day; three die every month. The work is hard and the hours are long. A miner must bring in a certain amount of raw material every day-- pushed from the blast site through the small passageways to the surface in a wheelbarrow-- or risk going unpaid that day; they make $5.50 a day when they do meet the quotas.

Within the twisted passages you´ll find twisted shrines, a legacy left over from colonialism. The workers offer alcohol to one icon representing the mountain, believing that pure alcohol brings more pure loads and a chance at striking it rich (little bottles of 192 proof alcohol litter the mining site). Another icon, Tio Jorge-- represents the devil. In colonial times slaves were told that laziness would be punished by Tio Jorge. In time, the workers came to offer coca and cigarettes to the icon, believing it will protect them from cave-ins.

The tour itself leaves you shaking, literally. The blast explosions, unseen, but heard and felt enough to shake your vision, continue as you stumble back into the daylight. Crossing rickety planks, balancing on narrow ledges, climbing up and down the slippery gravel floor in poor light; we all agree that the two hours we spent inside the mine are enough. Five thousand entrances exist for the 15,000 miners-- but few exits from this grueling life.

Bolivia, Leap of Faith

2008-01-15T09:52:00.000-08:00

Certain things scare travellers-- getting mugged, being kidnapped, dropping your passport in the toilet-- and these are things you work to avoid. But sometimes fate conspires against you, and you find yourself in a precarious position wishing for the moment you were home where everything is routine, and you know what´s going on.

I just got through one of those situations; first, I travelled to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile with very little money since I was about to travel into Bolivia and didn´t want useless Chilean pesos with me. But San Pedro exists for tourists, and as such is very expensive-- and the one ATM in town didn´t work. So far, that´s not a problem. I had enough money to pay for my Bolivian visa ($100, thanks President Bush for making everyone hate us) and there was one tour agency that took credit cards, so I left Chile with about $8 in the wrong currency and some emergency money in dollars. But things get hairy when you reach the Bolivian border-- a concrete shack in the middle of nowhere-- because they tell you need to pay for the visa, but that you can´t pay for the visa at the border, but rather 3 days inland at the terminus of the tour I was on. So they won´t take your money, won´t give you a visa, and won´t let you travel onwards with your passport, because then you would have no incentive to pay later. So... my tour driver held on to my passport for 3 days, joking that he´d lost it or left it at the border; so while everyone from europe or australia or brazil told me not to worry about it, I was worrying about it.

Fast forward 3 days-- we reach Uyuni, and retrieving my passport takes a backseat to everyone trying to arrange transportation out of this little dungheap of a town, which again has only one ATM, not working. But in the end, it all works out. I get my passport back, chitchat with the customs officials about studying in Guatemala, arrange a private jeep to take our disintegrating group to Potosi, and finally get to relax and enjoy the past few days. The altiplano lakes, with white, blue and pink water; the herds of llamas and vicunas, with pink and green tassels around their ears; the flamingos and salt islands; the picturesque rock formations; and best of all the Uyuni salt flat, the largest in the world, which was under about an inch of water due to the rainy season. It creates a reflection of everything above and around you, and gives the impression of you standing on a mirror, or floating through the sky. It´s really unlike anything I´ve ever seen.

And then we reach Potosi, me with a group of friends, and we celebrate being in a city once again. Working ATMs, restaurants, girls on the sidewalk; all the trappings of civilization. And once again I´m glad to be travelling. Bolivia immediately has a sense of beauty that Chile and Argentina lacked. The sun setting on the switchbacks, the simple pueblos at night, the abundance of stars you see at 12,000 feet. Poor and wild, at the middle of my trip I´ve reached the heart of South America.

Adios, Chile!

2008-01-15T09:46:00.000-08:00

I´ll remember you as a country that changes landscapes daily, from the glaciers in the south to the deserts in the north, and with so much in between. And I´ll remember you for the pocketfuls of reciepts that accumulated daily; I´ve never been anywhere so rigorous about their accounting. Every product, service, tour, entrance-- all need to be recorded, in triplicate, white copy for the consumer.

Good grief.

Iquique

2008-01-09T10:16:00.000-08:00

I was drawn to Iquique, at the last minute, by three things: first, its name. That may seem silly, and it is; but I really wanted to see what this Iquique place looked like. Second, the ghost town of Humberstone is near here, and I read you could arrange tours from Iquique. And third, Iquique is renowned for its paragliding.

But-- Iquique is not exactly a tourist town. Tours to Humberstone only leave on Thursday apparently, unless you have a group of 4 or more people; not much help when you´re traveling alone. And one look at the steep, steep cliffs that dwarf the town told me that I´d not likely be paragliding like I planned. I made a half effort while here to find a company with tandem flights, but one place was closed the two times I walked by, and another was not where its website said it would be (not the first time I´ve experienced that in South America).

So Iquique was kind of a bust. I was interviewed for a show on national tv about tourism in Chile, but I can´t imagine they would actually use my garbled, nervous-to-be-on-tv spanish for anything other than laughs. I spent most of my time wandering the beach, playing like a local: shopping at the Mall of America (I got a Lamb of God t-shirt), attending a free 1st chair trumpet concert, eating banana doughnuts. It´s not a bad place here, but it´s hot and easy to get sunburned. It´s like a wild west town on one side, poor, but with wooden sidewalks and unassuming desert architecture; while the other side could be a rich California town, with its square modernism and electric fence security systems. A funny town with a funny name.

The Great Atacama

2008-01-09T09:53:00.000-08:00

Leaving Valparaiso for Iquique, another Chilean coastal town much further north and pinned to the ocean by the Atacama Desert, means roughly 29 hours on a bus as you drive first south to Santiago, and then transfer to an overnight coach. I´ve heard nothing but praise for Chilean buses so far, but this trip was awful. For lunch we had a shrimp, shredded cabbage and mayonaise sandwich-- which I couldn´t finish-- and for dinner we had a chicken filet and mayonaise sandwich, although I could never find the chicken. Mayonaise and a hamburger bun; that about sums up Chilean cruisine for me.

I did read about 200 pages of Garcia Marquez´s Love in the Time of Cholera, although that, or the interminable journey, or both, made me sick for home. I wanted to play music again, and I wanted to ride my bike to Waffle House, or Cook Out, or El Rodeo, or all three. To make things worse, the Atacama Desert, which I had such high hopes for, kind of appears and disappears without warning. After hours of dust and boulders and trash along the side of the road, you finally reach hours of sand and small rocks and trash along the side of the road. Tire tracks run like scars through the landscape, never to be washed away by rains that never come. Only at sunset does the desert redeem itself; the foreground gives way to the brilliance of the suns slanted rays, and the hills stand silhouetted against the everchanging pastels of twilight. But it´s all over too soon, and then your eyes are forced to the tv playing a low quality vhs without sound or subtitles. The desert is a melancholy place.

Jumbo Easy

2008-01-06T16:37:00.000-08:00

I have seen the future, and the future is Jumbo Easy. Imagine if someone took Home Depot, Dick´s sporting goods, REI and a superWalmart, crammed them into the same place, and then plopped down a bank and a nail salon in the middle. That´s Jumbo Easy. Camping supplies next to frozen dinners? Why not? Now why the name is in english... that´s the real question.

Valparaiso

2008-01-06T16:03:00.000-08:00

Valparaiso, or Valpo as the locals know it, is a city made for wandering. With patience and flexibility, aided by long hours of sunlight, you can explore the winding streets and side passages to find bursts of color around every corner. But be warned--throw your map away now; if you have a destination in mind, forget about it. The city´s Escher-like layout is unkind to those seeking the particular, and unforgiving to those looking for order or efficiency.

Imagine a funnel cut in half and folded like an accordion; that´s basically Valparaiso. To walk from one side of downtown to the other, along the coast, takes about 30 minutes. To do so any other way will take hours, and could take days. You might start walking up one of the many cerros or hills, and find the road splits in two; so you follow one road and it dead ends, but offers a pedestrian passage over to the next road-- but that road might go up or down a different hill, only to backtrack later to nearly where you were before. Did I mention many of the streets aren´t signed, at least not at intersections where it would be useful? Did I mention that with many of the streets you´re looking at a 45 degree slope? Did I mention that many of the streets that start in one direction will twist and turn, change direction and elevation and deposit you somewhere even the map seems to have forgotten about?

But here in Valpo the journey is the destination. Dilapidated grand old mansions aside makeshift shanties; more color in the houses, the flowers, the walls and streets than seems reasonable or feasible; old men herding alpaca up broken concrete stairs. Its a feast for the senses, a kind of anarchic free for all. Not something I´ve found anywhere else.

Once in a Lifetime

2008-01-04T08:18:00.000-08:00

I know that when I get home, the question I´ll get most is 'what´s the most amazing thing you saw?' Well, I have almost two months left, but I´m sure yesterday will fit in at the top somewhere. Imagine for a moment, standing in the crater of an active volcano, watching another volcano in the distance erupting. My words don't really do that situation justice, but try to really imagine it: the sulphur smell, the sounds of magma shifting, the rough lava rock clawing at your boots, and there only about 60 miles away, maybe less, an eruption making frontpage news across the world. It's not scary but it should be-- cheering on one explosion of lava, while hoping the lava directly below you stays put. Wrapping my mind around that still makes me smile.

The descent of the volcano is worth mentioning too; you climb up trudging like a pack mule. But coming down you squat, lean back and slide for all your worth, using an ice pick to guide yourself, but always enjoying those moments of out-of-control spinning, tumbling and slipping on the ice.

People Make the Place

2008-01-04T08:04:00.000-08:00

Despite everything I´ve seen so far, natural wonders and cultural capitals, the people on the street are almost the best part. I never get to photograph them and they´ll be forgotten before long, so here is a lazy attempt to record this overlooked aspect of travelling:

The kid in Puerto Varas walking with, I assume, his grandmother, rocking a full mullet and a Guns and Roses jacket that had been altered to say Punk Rock by changing the G to an P, etc... I almost broke down laughing when I saw that; The waiter at Rap Hamburguer who wanted to know how mispelled the name was in english; The street dogs that lay down at your feet and either sleep or paw at you until you pass them some food; The local women that all wanted to dance with Geoff on New Year's since we was tall and white; The metalhead couple using both sides of a public phonebooth, passing pesos back and forth as they each ran out of minutes; Our canyoning guide who spent 6 months studying mountaineering in Spain; The human pyramid trying to pick fruit off a tall tree down the street from our hostel.

Lessons Learned

2008-01-04T07:39:00.000-08:00

--I am not graceful. Not even a little bit. Watching a video of me rapelling down a 37 foot waterfall would probably make you wince at my clumsy technique. But no video exists, and the photos... well, we paid six times more for them than we were told originally, and they are still worth every penny.

--Israelis, love `em or hate `em, have got to be the most travelling group of people in the world. Three nights ago they came in at two in the morning, turned on all the lights, laughing and talking and carrying on like it was daytime. Two nights ago they woke up at three (or rather I was woken at three by an Israeli only wearing a towel, who needed to get into my room to wake the other Israelis) to hike the volcano and again turned on all the lights and talked loudly. Last night was quiet finally, but I woke up with an extra bed and two extra Israelis blocking access to the kitchen in my room. I can go days without interacting with another American, but Israelis are everywhere.

--Travellers will always try to distinguish themselves from tourists. My apologies to the travellers reading this, but we´re no different. We stay longer and spend less money, but we still speak english all day and gawk at the same sights on the same tours. Stop putting yourself on a pedestal.

--There is no such thing as a 'typical' tour. Even in Pucon, where we did a volcano ascent that was exactly like every other tour company, we returned to town and pulled into the guide's driveway so that his family could gather our neon orange uniforms and hiking boots and helmets and assorted junk to be washed and sorted for the next day's trip. It's fascinating to see where the locals live, what condition they live in.

--Touristy locations are not just like home. Sure, they have some of the same stores and restaurants, but just this morning I was walking past a mechanic shop that was playing Twisted Sister´s We´re not gonna take it in Spanish. And for whatever reason, when you hear western pop songs they´re as likely to be covers as originals. I´ve heard Oasis, Alice in Chains and Green Day covers in the last week, and all in english no less.

Starting the New Year with a Bang

2008-01-02T09:09:00.000-08:00

Arriving in Pucon on January 1st, I was thinking about New Year´s resolutions. Now, confronting your fears is kind of a vague resolution, but that´s more or less what I´ve settled on; I was originally thinking of skydiving here, since where else can you jump out of a plane over an active volcano, but the price ($300) is something I´m not ready to confront.

So instead I´ll be canyoning today (which as I understand it, means rapelling down waterfalls and generally overcoming your fear of heights and cold water) and climbing a volcano tomorrow. Now as some of you know, the first volcano I climbed in Guatemala left me doing a search and rescue with the American Embassy the next day. This trip should me much more organized and I´m not so worried about that, but apparently a volcano about 60 miles north erupted last night for the first time in 20 years-- causing the locals to be evacuated, and somebody at the BBC´s ears to perk up. Its strange looking at international news on the net, knowing it´s taking place an hour away on the bus (and almost making me wish I´d caved in on that skydiving package which probably would have been the best view on the block).

So keep your fingers crossed that the eruption continues until at least tomorrow around lunch, so that I can see it from my volcano, but that it doesn´t cause any other eruptions in this area. Hopefully, my days of search and rescue are over.

Ringing in the New Year

2007-12-31T16:00:00.000-08:00

Arriving on the boat from Puerto Natales to Puerto Montt (a city of something like 90% fishermen) we were lucky enough to get the first taxi to the bus terminal, a seething mass of confused tourists and vendors hawking tickets to everywhere you don´t want to go. This is where you make or break your plans; not finding a long distance ticket available, you settle for a nicer looking city half and hour away. In my case I made it to Puerto Varas, an intimate little german immigrant town of some 20,000 people, situated on a beautiful lake you could easily mistake for the ocean except for the two volcanoes looming on the far shore.

Having found the restaurants here quite pricey, we´re keen to celebrate (I´ve been hanging out with Brits and Aussies for the past 3 days, pardon my strange adjectives) with a nice picnic on the beach. You find fresh fruit for sale on every street corner here-- strawberries, cherries, nectarines-- and being New Year´s Eve the grocery store is a madhouse. The bread section was totally wiped out, and as soon as a fresh batch was put out there were grandmas fighting over it.

There will be fireworks over the lake tonight, and with some clear weather we should have a marvelous time. Hope you all do as well.

Doug

Not only was the weather great, we joined the locals dancing in the streets. The highlight for everyone was doing the ´train´ -- there was a tostada vendor with a train shaped cart that circled in the street blowing his whistle while we trailed behind him.

Perito Moreno

2007-12-27T11:13:00.000-08:00

The Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentina is famous because it is one of the few advancing glaciers left in the world, advancing about 6 feet every day, and because it is situated such that the glacier bisects the largest lake in Argentina. The smaller side of the lake, blocked by the glacier but also fed by its melting waters, rises faster than the larger one; it will eventually reach a level about 30 feet higher than its counterpart, at which point the built up pressure will exploit the weakest section of the glacier-- causing about 4 days of crashing ice, the size of buildings, while the people of the closest town camp out to witness the spectacle.

A typical day at the glacier is not quite so dramatic, but because the glacier is still advancing-- the temperature and humidity here work together to compress snow into glacial ice about five times faster than in Antarctica-- it is quite common to witness chuncks of ice falling with terrific 'booms' into the icy water below. It is a marvelous thing to watch, but it also makes you quite jumpy; camera ready, zoomed, focused, light levels checked, listening intently for the tell-tale cracking sounds in the ice, eyes scanning constantly, sweeping the ice face intently. And of course it all happens too fast. You see it start falling, unable to tear your attention away, a block of ice the size of car or bigger; now exploding into the water, sending a wave several feet tall cresting towards the boat.

And a few minutes later, its available at the bar, in a shot glass of Tennesee whisky.

The People, the Countries

2007-12-25T09:19:00.000-08:00

Carl, the twenty year-old Swede in Buenos Aires, who had been there two years before; the Israeli´s I met at Iguazu and then ran into again at the supermarket in Puerto Natales; Bob from Boston who I hiked in and around Ushuaia with; NoNeck, who has been to six continents in the last six months; the retired gentleman I met in Ushuaia who was about to travel to Antarctica, and who had been responsible for the bicycle policy in San Francisco; the teenagers I joked around with in Punta Arenas before my penguin tour; Renato and Willie, the owners of my hostel in Puerto Natales, and their whole family; Tine, my trekking companion who graciously shared a tent with me for 4 nights even though I refused to shower; the couple from Charlotte who I met in a restaurant 5000 miles away from home; James, who works for Microsoft now but only because they offered him 4 months vacation a year, and whose food was stolen while hiking the circuit in Torres del Paine; the couple from Brooklyn who bought me hot chocolate in exchange for duct tape (to fix some pants that caught on fire); Yuk-Sim, who told us about social work in Hong Kong; the Jewish hiker from Italy whose rabbi told him to go to North Carolina if he ever wanted to go somewhere without Jews; Andre, the head cook at Chileno Camp, who told us we couldn't possibly use the kitchen to wash our dishes, and who the next morning offered to wash our dishes himself; the South Africans who brought the Christmas dance party to life; the Spanish lady from France whose ipod made the dance party possible; Tyler from Oregon, studying in Quito and hopefully a contact when I made it up that way; Jeffrey and Jodie from Australia, traveling together for seven years now, who are taking the same ferry to Puerto Montt as me; Andrew from Australia who is working here in Chile for a year, and who bought me soda and ice cream with company money.

The United States, Norway, Sweden, England, Ireland, Spain, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Poland, Italy, Czech Republic, South Africa, China, Korea, Australia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil... and counting.

Torres del Paine

2007-12-25T08:19:00.000-08:00

The weather in Patagonia is notorious for changing without warning, going from sun to snow and back within minutes; from stifling heat to hurricane force gusts of wind; and probably most common, the rain that starts and then ends just as you finish unpacking and putting on your raingear. My travel plans in Patagonia have proved equally unreliable. The trek and boat trip I planned at the bottom of Chile (which would have set me back a week) fell through, turning into a flight, a different trek, and a different boat trip which actually put me ahead of schedule.

Instead of trekking in one of the most remote parts of Chile, I found myself in Torres del Paine National Park, which is probably second in South America only to Machu Picchu in terms of numbers of vistors annually. It is a park made for hiking, and made generally accessible to almost anyone; you can camp for free, you can pay to camp and get hot showers (or not pay and hope to go unnoticed, as me and my trek companion Tine did), you can stay in little hostels right on the trail, or you can stay in lodges on the edges of the park. You can hike carrying 50 or more pounds of gear, or you can hike the majority of the park carrying only a water bottle (and if you forgot a bottle, you can drink water straight from the park´s countless pristine streams). The western edge of the park is dominated by a glaciar, the eastern edge by almost desert-like conditions.

The constrast is most apparent in Valle Francais, the section of trail that forms the middle of the `W´shaped hike the park is famous for. Approaching camp at the base of the valley, the terrain looks like somewhere in Arizona; blue sky and red sandstone, massive blocky formations and sheer faces over a green treeline. Enter the valley and you´ve crossed into Alaska-- black jagged rock buried in snow and ice, shrouded in menacing clouds; how these extremes coexist in such close proximity is totally beyond my comprehension.

The last full day of hiking, after after four days of sweating and shivering, sore feet and sunburn (apparently the park is right under the hole in the ozone-- making fair skinned people like myself quite vulnerable), boring food and bad sleep, amazing wilderness and amazingly friendly people, you reach the pinnacle of the trek-- los Torres del Paine, the Towers of Paine-- for which people from all ages and countries scramble up a seemling endless pile of boulders to see. And it´s worth everything. After so much climbing, you nestle into a little concave depression in the mountain; the three granite spires looming over you and the small lake that you never see in the photographs of the towers. The setting is so powerful visually, so dignified and almost ceremonious, that you just sit in awe watching the clouds drift past; but for the wind and cold you scarcely notice the passing of time.

Christmas in Puerto Natales

2007-12-25T07:57:00.000-08:00

I can honestly say I´ve never had a Christmas like this. Returning from Torres del Paine on Christmas Eve, I was hoping my hostel would have room for the night, that stores (and particularly restaurants after 5 days of camping food) would be open for at least a little while, and that I would get a hot shower to make the day perfect. I got all of that, plus a Christmas feast with the two brothers who own the hostel, their two younger brothers, and their mother. Roasting a rack of lamb over an open fire in the backyard, swapping stories with fellow travelers and sharing Christmas traditions from our varied nationalities; learning about why Argentina has wine but not peanut butter, why films made here are exported to Europe and not America, and watching a subtitled Santana DVD that bridged the language gap between English and Spanish.

People from the United States, South Africa, France, Chile and Argentina joined under one roof in celebration. We looked on as the family owning the hostel opened presents at midnight, then we cranked up the music and starting dancing!

Penguins

2007-12-18T15:38:00.000-08:00

Waddling, throwing up, standing upright, sitting, kissing, fighting, pooping, grunting, swimming, burrowing, jumping, pecking, showing off-- and always cute, no matter what.

Skin of my Teeth / Teeth of Navarino

2007-12-18T15:09:00.000-08:00

Sliding down a snow bank hiding the trail, we decide it´s time to turn back. Its only 4 hours into the 4 day `los Dientes de Navarino´ trek and we´re already lost. All is white at this point; clouds and snow intersecting on a seamless horizon, masking any clue of where we are or where we are trying to hike. The spectacular views the guidebook promised are here somewhere, but not for us; not today. So after a long descent and an expensive ´hostal´I decide its time to fly out of this place that has been one setback after another. I try the airline agency around 9:45 in the morning, and they are closed, like everything in this small impoverished community. Puerto Willams, a town of many stores but no consumers, meaning the doors remain shuttered except for small windows of time around lunch and dinner. I pass my hostel host and he tells me the airline opens at 10 or 10:30, apparently whenever the workers want to arrive. Luckily it is near Christmas, and many people are air-mailing gifts, so the store is open when I come back at 10:20. A flight leaves at 11 am I´m told, and there is a last minute cancellation which means I´m golden. All flights tomorrow are booked solid.

How did I get here? Although Ushuaia is the more popular end of the world, Puerto Williams across the border in Chile is a little further south and feels immediatly like the real end of the world. The customs office has cows laying in the yard. Riding into town I shared a bag of chips with the woman who stamped my passport. Later I will ride to the airport with the guy who sold me my ticket (who also takes my ticket at the airport) and the guy who will load my luggage on the plane; we have to stop at his home to get fuel for the baggage car. Cows, pigs, and horses roam free everywhere. The ¨information center¨is a choice between two restaurants open at lunch and dinner only. A waitress calls the ferry center and tells me that the boat leaving for Punta Arenas saturday is booked solid, and the next boat leaves December 28th; apparently my reservation has fallen through. This is an isolated place, physically and mentally-- at least for me. For the first time I feel small and doubt why I´m here. The people are reserved or shy; they know everyone here, and they don´t know me. Sometimes it takes straying from the beaten path to remind you just how far from home you are.

Gone but not Forgotten

2007-12-18T15:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes life on the run is like that Pixies song ¨Where is my Mind?¨ A list of things lost along the way (hopefully not to be updated too soon) :

Alarm clock-- left at home; so far I´ve made do with just my watch alarm
Sunglasses (bought in the USA, made in China)-- left with the alarm clock
Sunglasses (bought in Argentina, made in the USA)-- broke the first week
Pack Towel-- left in Buenos Aires
Knit hat-- lost in restaurant, found in restaurant

My mindset is devolving into a compulsive pattern of wallet, check; passport, check; camera, check; everything else being incidental. Which reminds me of a guy I met recently who has been traveling for some 19 years now with only a canvas sling bag. He travels light since all he really needs are his flute (don´t ask) and a change of clothes. Enlightened? You be the judge.

Ushuaia

2007-12-15T08:49:00.000-08:00

The bottom of the world is funny place; you can buy everything imaginable (ipods, rei type boots and clothing, digital cameras) making it feel like home in some ways, but to buy something simple like milk, you have to buy a bag of it (yogurt comes in cups or bags) making it feel totally foreign in other ways. It´s also funny to hear the Ramones blasting from cars and seeing ´Good Charlotte´spraypainted on stairwells.

The city itself is amazing however. It sits right on the Beagle Channel, and is ringed by snow capped mountains even in summer. And being summer, it gets dark here around 11pm and lights up again about 3 am... that makes for a short night even by Argentine standards where people are using to coming home from the club at sunrise at a more reasonable 6 or 7 am.

Today I´ll be heading out on a tour to see sea lions and cormorants; yesterday I hiked up to the snowline with an American from the airport to see Margot Lake, which was more like a glorified pond. Eating snow was a nice treat though, and the views overlooking everything were spectacular. Monday I´ll head to Navarino Island in Chile for some more serious hiking followed by a ride on a cargo boat up the Chiliean coast. It looks like I´ll be on the boat for Christmas-- not exactly like I planned, but maybe better than I expect.

--Doug

Iguazu

2007-12-13T20:06:00.000-08:00

The pictures you see in guidebooks make it seem like Iguazu is this amazing must-see waterfall, but really its like a thousand must-see waterfalls smashed together into one spectacular valley shared by two countries. The Brazilian side is supposed to be the prettier side, as you get a vantage point that allows you to see everything at once; but since the Brazilian visa for Americans is $100, I can´t say for certain if that is true. What I can say is that the Argentinian side is an incredible example of sheer power-- you walk out along the river on a catwalk that ends above `gargantua del diablo´ or the devil´s throat, which is comparable to Niagra, only bigger and probably louder. Spray from the falls shoots hundreds of feet up in the air to cover you and your camera and everything around you; all you can do is choke back laughter at the colossal magnitude of whats going on below.

You can also take boat ride, which I did, that takes you through the second largest of the waterfalls. It´s like being slapped by the wet hand of a giant, and it´s incredible. It also makes a nice break from the heat, which takes its toll on these long park walks.

--Doug

Back to Buenos Aires

2007-12-13T11:58:00.000-08:00

I´ve left my little hotel room since I last wrote, making a crosstown trek with a fully loaded backpack (the first time I´ve actually carried the full weight-- it feels much heavier than the 19 pounds the airline scale registered) to the Tango Backpackers Hostel. That first night I woke early for my flight to Iguazu, and there were hurricane force winds whipping chairs around on the roof patio, and rain drenching the hallway outside my room. Back in Buenos Aires now, there has been nothing but sunny weather.

Yesterday I met two Spanish girls staying at the hostel, and also a Swede named Carl who has been here in South America for three months and is flying back home this weekend. He says traveling alone is the best way to go, and highly recommends Bolivia as the place to travel. He´s also been able to explain some things that I´ve noticed, like the disproportionate number of Israelis traveling here. There were about 10 at the hostel in Iguazu, and several more here at the hostel in Buenos Aires, and apparently there are entire hostels devoted to Israelis which are only recommended if you speak Hebrew. Apparently Israelis are really into drugs and come here to party where things are cheap and available. One Israeli I met in Iguazu told me Colombia is the best country in South America, and now I´m wondering if coca has something to do with it. And apparently Swedes are alcoholics because of the winter depression that sets in, and so the taxes on alcohol there are intentionally very high to keep people in check. Carl told me that if he were to go to the French Alps (the party place of choice for Swedes during the winter) and tell someone he was Swedish he would be punched in the face, so bad is the Swedish reputation for drinking and being out of control.

I´m almost learning more about the world outside of South America than the places I visit! So far I´ve seen most of the main districts or barrios of downtown: Palermo, Centro, San Telmo, Puerto Madero, Recoleta. Each has its distinctive little quirks; for instance pure-bred dogs are very chic in Palermo, and everyday you see professional dog walkers with their herds of orderly canines walking the streets. The parks here are filled with dogs. One park I visited this morning must have had a hundred dogs, all barking at each other from where they were leashed, and people sunbathing yards away as if the racket was nothing. And the parks here are something else; like if Pullen Park and the Rose Garden were put together and expanded, with a splash of Japanese Gardens, and then a planetarium were thrown in for good measure.

After an out-of-breath soccer match this afternoon, it´ll be one more steak dinner to celebrate my last night here in the city, and then perhaps going to a transvestite club with some people from the hostel around 2am; the clubs here don´t really open until then, and with a flight at 5:45am, I figure there is no use trying to sleep tonight.

The Little Things

2007-12-10T16:26:00.000-08:00

Flying over the Andes at midnight, lightning strikes illuminating the horizon; 39,000 feet above the Amazon rainforest in Bolivia, an impenetrable green backdrop broken by curling brown ribbons of river, switchbacking into inexplicable patterns; the `phht phht phht´ sound of the buses; the swarms of dragonflies above each park in Buenos Aires; the kid playing with his own hands on a doorstep while his mother makes out a few feet away; the monkeys and vultures, the coatis (cody?) which `can and will bite if you are holding food´but look like a racoon crossed with an anteater, and the iguanas which are big enough to belong in zoos but still seem as startled as I am when they jump out onto the trail in front of me; realizing that reptiles can jump and that dinosaurs were reptiles; the guy who, when I told him I was from North Carolina said `oh, Pepsi! I like Pepsi´and remembered me as `North Carolina´ when I walked by hours later; the marine working construction in Hawaii who was traveling Argentina with three UNC grads; Jorge Luis Borges avenue in Palermo district; the old lady who wanted me to make sure she was getting on the right plane, and yet who I instinctively followed through the mess of tourists and taxis after arriving; the traveling hippies selling bracelets who were heading to Bolivia to get cocaine; the charcuterie slicer at the local store who asked me how much I made per hour, after I blurted out that I did the same work in the United States; occasionally settling into the moment, instead of wondering what comes next.

Buenos Aires

2007-12-08T11:54:00.000-08:00

I touched down yesterday and took a nice taxi ride 25 miles into downtown Buenos Aires. Since then I´ve spent a lot of time walking the city, taking photos and eating local steak. This city of 15 million people (according to the taxi driver) is pretty amazing. It makes me think of Guatemala and Italy at the same time. Lots of colonial architecture with balconies and interior courtyards, but with all glass storefronts at streetlevel, selling anything from kayaks to modern furniture.

I´m staying in a little hotel/guest house in the downtown district, that the taxi driver recommended. It would have been impossible to find had I not been let off right at the front door-- the 6 story building is (i think) three top levels of private residences, two levels of guest rooms and maybe more private residences, and then a car dealership on the bottom floor. It blows my mind that I´m sleeping above a Fiat showroom; but the building is great, with marble stairs and window sills, and a kind of double-helix shape that lets in light and fresh air through centralized wells that open out to the roof.

I can´t upload photos yet, but I´ve only explored a tiny portion of the city. Breakfast at Macondo´s, steak lunch and hopefully a tango show tonight.

Ciao,
Doug

27 Hours til Takeoff

2007-12-05T11:45:00.001-08:00

The supplies are bought, the bag is packed, and the loose ends... well, this is about new beginnings, not loose ends. Three months of open road lay ahead, so join me in wishing for sunshine and friendly faces, good food and safe trips through the wilderness. Or research some fun places to visit and I'll take photos for you! Either way, I'll try to keep this up-to-date, and I'll be thinking of everyone back home.

-Doug