El Gringo y El Gallo

Chichicastenango and Antigua

2007-09-12T21:58:00.000-05:00

Hitting the Market

After a wonderful day and night in Semuc Champey, I hitched a ride and then caught a bus to Guatemala City. This is where my longstanding luck started to wear thin.

The trip from Coban to Guatemala City was the coldest bus ride of my life. That's right; in one of the poorest countries in the world they feel the need to blast the A/C like electrons are going out of style. I arrived in Guatemala exhausted and cold and went to bed around 7pm.

The next morning I got an early start and headed to the famous Chichicastenango market. I continued to feel sick throughout the day, but I was able to pick up gifts for all the remaining folks on my list.

Here's a areal shot of the indoor portion of the market:

And here are the woman and daughter I bought some coffee from:

Racing to the Finish Line

In the early afternoon, I caught a bus to Antigua, the place where it all began. I was hoping to stop in and say hi to the Monterroso family, who had hosted me so graciously when I was studying Spanish more than six months earlier.

Well, as the bus pulled into Antigua and everyone was getting off, someone stole my wallet. After hardly ever being sick on this trip, and no incidents since the tragedy at Valparaiso (where my camera, iPod, etc. were stolen), I was getting a hell of a send-off in my last three days.

But, I arrived at the Monterroso's house and they were happy to see me. Here's a picture of the family (except for Carol, the oldest daughter):

In a stroke of good luck, one of the students the Monterrosos were hosting was also leaving the next day and she took me out to a nice dinner. Unfortunately, I can't remember her name because I'm now writing this nearly two months after my trip ended; but I remember it was a pleasant evening:

The next day I caught to bus to Guatemala city and hunkered down for my early morning flight home. On the afternoon of August 28 I touched down at good ol' La Guardia Airport--and my six and a half month adventure had come to an end:

Semuc Champey, Guatemala

2007-09-12T21:34:00.000-05:00

From Las Marias to...Las Marias

Having escaped near-death in Honduras, I high-tailed it back to Guatemala. I now had less than a full week before my flight home--and I wanted to hit Semuc Champey; the famous market at Chichicastenengo; and a night back in Antigua to see my host family.

Several people had told me that Semuc Champey is one of the most beautiful sites in all of Latin America--which is strange because I never heard about it when I was in Guatemala the first time. So, I traveled for a ridiculously long time to get from the indigenous community of Las Marias on the Mosquito Coast to a hostel called Las Marias right outside of the waterfalls and caves of Semuc Champey. Here's the hostel:

Semuc Champey, which means "sacred water" in the local indigenous language, was worth the travels. On the first day I went exploring a set of caves. We started out by swinging Tarzan-style into the river.

Then we headed down into these cool caves. They were dark and filled with water, and at times we had to swim with one hand while holding our candle with the other. Here we are entering the caves:

Here's our guide posing under a mushroom-looking stalagtite (or stalagmite, whatever):

And here's our group under the same protrusion:

After we came out of the caves, we went tubing down the river back to our hostel:

That night, I met some cool women from Barcelona at the hostel. Here I am with Gemma, Yolanda, and Laura:

Someone was playing with a pet tarantula (that's definitely NOT my hand):

The next morning my new Spanish friends and I headed down to the main attraction: a set of beautiful, crystal clear limestone pools formed by the submersion of the Cahabon River.

The water was georgeous and the perfect temperature--and I wish I could have spent all day hanging at the pools. But, I was in a hell of a rush; so after one night and one full day in Semuc Champey, I caught a free ride back into the closest major town (Coban) in the back of a pickup truck.

From Coban, I was off to Guatemala City for the night so I could hit the market at Chichicastenengo the next morning.

Mosquito Coast, Honduras

2007-09-11T15:07:00.001-05:00

Crossing from Coast to Coast

By the time I got to Nicaragua, my trip was quickly coming to an end and I had to prioritize. I decided that I couldn't miss an excursion into the jungle on the Mosquito Coast of Honduras. The Mosquitia region covers the entire Northeast of Honduras, including much of the Caribbean Coast. It is populated by a few indigenous peoples, but mostly the Miskito.

I always assumed that the Mosquito Coast was named as such because there were a ton of mosquitoes there. Well, there are plenty of the little buggers; but the region is actually named for this indigenous tribe (although the spelling is confusingly different). Just to add another layer of confusion, the Miskito got their name because they were especially facile with the muskets with which the British armed them in order to fight the Spanish.

The Mosquitia region includes the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve, a world heritage site with pristine jungle that provides habitat for jaguars, monkeys, crocs, and more. I was hoping to see some dangerous critters.

So, I caught a 4am minibus out of Leon on the bumpiest roads i´ve ever been on; switched buses 2-3 times and arrived in the north-central Honduran town of La Ceiba at 8:30pm. La Ceiba is on the Caribbean Coast and the closest city to the Bay Islands, which has some of the best and cheapest scuba diving in the world. But, given my limited time, I had to skip diving in order to get into the jungle.

After more than 16 hours on the road, I sprung for a hotel with air conditioning and went to find an ATM. I tried at least 8 ATMs, none of which would accept my card. Finally, after walking around the city for 1.5 hours I was able to take out what I thought would be enough money to fund my jungle adventure.

The next morning I decided to get on plane instead of taking a 4 hour bus ride and 3-4 hour ride on back of pick-up on beach in order to reach the Moskitia region. I got to the airline office at 8:30, but the Lonely Planet was out of date and only flight was at 10am to a different locale and costing nearly twice as much as LP said.

I had to make quick decision and decided to jump on the flight (I was very lucky because there are only flights MWF and this was Wed). So, I flew in a puddle jumper from La Ceiba to the town of Brus Laguna with no real plan as to how I would get into the jungle. The LP had recommended setting up a tour in advance, but I hadn't had time to think about it in La Cieba.

Here's my plane:

Luckily, I met two nice guys from the U.S. on the plane, John and Robert, who were hooked up with La Ruta Mosquitia, an indigenous-run collective that arranges tourist trips. A woman named Dorka met them at the ¨airport¨ (a mud strip) and she helped me find a boat to take me to Rio Platano (where I had lunch) and then a car to Reista where I was to ask for a woman named Melisa who would help me find a way up Rio Platano (the river, not the town) to the town of Las Marias.

Here's my ride to Reista:

This was already quite an adventure, but I decided to make it a bit more interesting. While on the boat to Reista I began to realize that the guidebook wasn´t kidding when it said things were expensive around here. I didn´t have nearly enough cash on me to get up the river to Las Marias, take a guided tour of the jungle, eat, and get back to La Ceiba; and there were no ATMs anywhere in this region of the country. I couldn´t accept that I would have arrived here through such trouble and expense only to not be able to get into the jungle, so I started to think about what I had in my bag that I might barter with.

Getting Lucky in Reista

I walked into Reista and found Melisa. She had room to put me up, but told me there were no "collectivos" going up the river. This meant that I would have to hire my own private motor canoe--exactly what I couldn't afford to do in my cash-strapped state.

This is where I was bailed out in a way that would make my mom crazy (but happy for me of course b/c she's my mom). She's always saying how I just roll through life without planning or preparing and things just seem to work out. Well, this was a great example. By all rights I should have been screwed. I hadn't thought through how much money I'd need and now I couldn't afford to do exactly what I came all the way across Central America to do.

But, the fates shined down upon me in the form of Jeffrey. Jeff is a guy from the U.S. who was staying with Melisa and her mother Elma; had already booked a canoe for the next day that I could share; and had even taken out more cash than he needed--so he could lend me money. He was also a cool guy who had just spent a few months chasing iguanas around Latin America.

Here's Jeffrey on the porch of our place in Reista:

So, we chilled out in Reista, played some futbol with the kids, and had a fantastic lobster dinner in Elma's kitchen (see "La Comida Tipica"):

The next morning, Jeffrey and I headed out onto Rio Platano into the jungle and towards the town of Las Marias.

Las Marias

We arrived upriver in Las Marias and got settled in at Rutila's.

Las Marias' head guide came over to greet us and talk about what jungle tour we wanted to take. The head guide is elected by the members of the community and rotates every year or so.

Meeting the head guide was fascinating because he was incredibly effeminate--in a way that would suggest to most people that he was gay. The fact that he appeared gay and was elected to represent the community to foreign tourists raised a set of fascinating questions.

Was being gay just fine in this community? This seemed unlikely given the state of gay acceptance in Latin America; and given (I later found out) that the guide's father is the local Catholic priest.

Was being gay simply so out of question that no one would even conceive of it no matter how effeminate someone is?

Or, is being effeminate something that we have been culturally conditioned to associate with being gay in the U.S., but is actually totally unrelated--i.e. the strapping football player is just as likely to be gay as the effeminate hair dresser, but the hair dresser is just more likely to be open about it.

I didn't think it was my place to ask the head guide these questions. And, I'll spare y'all my philosophical musings at this point.

Jeff and I settled on the three day tour to Pico Dama, which requires the services of three guides. The next step was to stock up on provisions for our adventure. Our guides were to do all of the cooking, but we were responsible for bringing our own food. Here's the little store where we bought a ridiculous amount of rice, beans, flour, shortening (especially shortening) and snacks for just a few bucks:

I tried to tell the head guide that we would gladly have paid double for the food if the guides would have brought it for us, but he didn't seem to understand that they were missing an opportunity to make more money.

The next morning, we started with a brutally hot hike across the rather large village and then met our guides, Noe, Corbin, and Abelardo at our canoe, which we needed to take further up river. Here are our guides, with Jeffrey:

After these guys busted their butts pushing us up the shallow river in our canoe, we began a pretty tough hike uphill into the jungle towards our cabana. Here are some shots from that first day's hike:

Our head guide had us moving at a brisk pace, so after a pretty tough (and hot) walk, we made it to the cabana in just a few hours. I'm not an experienced hiker, but this was the toughest hike I'd ever done. Here's what our new home looked like:

This guy was hanging out right near our cabana:

We were all so exhausted that we ate dinner at about 4:30 and were in bed by around 6pm. The next day we'd set out on the coolest hike I've ever done.

To Pico Dama

We woke up early (not hard after going to bed at 6) and made some breakfast:

Then we got an early start on the way up to our destination. This ended up being a combination hike and mountain climb. We had to work our way up through thick forest at steep angles.

Here we are at the peak:

And, here's a view of the Rio Platano (the river we traveled up to reach Las Marias and Pico Dama):

Heading Back to the Modern World

The next morning we hiked back to the canoe, and got to Las Marias in time to make the trip back to Raista. We spent the night with Elma and then headed our early the next morning to get back towards Guatemala. Here's the sunrise we saw as we took a canoe out of Raista:

Instead of taking a plane, this time we hopped into one of the 4x4s that drive supplies (and people) into the various villages along the beach. Here we are on the back of the truck, driving down the beach:

They had rigged up a crazy raft system to get the trucks through some wet parts on the beach. They actually drove the trucks up onto the rafts and then pulled them across using ropes anchored on each side:

While I didn't see any jaguars, the trip was a fascinating experience both naturally and culturally. Our guides were cool guys and Noe was pretty talkative and engaged.

One of the most interesting experiences was trying to teach them a card game. I would have thought that these guys would play a lot of cards in their village since they don't have electricity to distract them in their downtime. But, they said they pretty much only play with tourists. It was pretty much impossible to teach them a relatively simple game. I think this is because the concept is so foreign to them and their education was so fundamentally different than ours.

Adam, a thoughtful Arizonian (in spite of being a Republican--only the second or third I'd met on my trip, and he was Jewish!) Jeff and I met in Las Marias (he's the guy on the truck with me above) suggested that perhaps the very concept of playing a game to occupy one's mind when you might otherwise be bored is not within their experience. So, they might not only have been thinking "how do I do this," but "why am I doing this silly thing."

Bottom line--the trip was well worth the difficult (but sometimes fun) travel it required. Also, I was even luckier than I realized. It turned out that a major hurricane was expected to hit Honduras while I was in the jungle. The folks in the coastal village thought we were screwed staying in the wooden cabana pictured above. Much of Honduras had been devastated by Hurricane Mitch in 1998. But, the storm touched down to the north and missed Honduras all together...and I emerged unscathed.

Leon, Nicaragua

2007-09-11T13:35:00.000-05:00

After my ordeal trying to mail my purchases from Masaya, I gathered my strength and headed to Leon. I had wanted to see Lago Nicaragua and Islas Ometepa, but ultimately decided that I should keep heading north towards Honduras rather than double back south.

Leon was founded in 1524, but destroyed by an earthquake in 1610. It served as Nicaragua's capital from the time it was rebuilt until 1857 when Managua took over. Today it is a politically progressive town that houses the nation's first university, founded in 1912.

I arrived in Leon in early afternoon, put my bags down at Hostel Via Via and got some very helpful advice from the Belgian owner Bart about how to get to the Mosquito Coast in Honduras from Leon in two days.

Then, I headed out to explore the town. I headed first to the largest cathedral in Central America. Heading inside, I met Nubia and her aunt Nubia (yup, same name) and we explored the nooks of the cathedral together.

Here's a shot of the central square in front of the cathedral:

Then I checked out Ruben Dario´s old house, which now houses a museum before returning to the hostel to chill for a bit. Dario is credited with greatly simplifying written Spanish--making it clearer and more concise.

On the advice of a great Dutch couple who work at the hostel, Harry and Macha, for dinner I headed behind the cathedral for some great typical Nicaraguan street food. You can see pics of the food in the "la comida tipica" post on Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Honduras.

After dinner I headed to a bar with live music. I didn't see nearly enough live music while I was traveling--one of my biggest regrets. This band was really fun and the whole place was having a good time.

At the bar I ran into Pilar, who was also staying at my hostel. Unfortunately, all of the bars closed pretty early, so here we are back at the hostel drinking with my little mp3 speaker set.

I only stayed in Leon for one night--well, really half a night because I left at about 3:30am. It was a whirlwind tour, but quite fun.

Granada, Nicaragua

2007-09-11T13:08:00.001-05:00

I hopped on an early morning bus out of La Fortuna to cross into Nicaragua. Here's what the border looked like. Charming, huh?

I was thinking at some point that I'm always posting photos of the beautiful tourist attractions in the various Latin American countries I've visited; and have hence given an unintentionally skewed view of what life is like in these places. For every active volcano and sparkling beach there are probably 10 vistas like the one above--dirty, garbage-strewn places that remind one that this is a very poor part of the world.

The garbage is particularly noteworthy. For whatever reason, Latin Americans have no problem throwing everything and anything out of a bus window. At one point I was at a filthy bus-stop looking for a garbage. Two locals asked what I was looking for. When I replied "una basura," they laughed and pointed to the ground. "Aqui esta la basura" (here is the garbage). I certainly wasn't going to throw my half-eaten taco all over their country. The whole thing was kind of sad.

A Bit of History

Granada is Nicaragua's oldest Spanish city, founded in 1524. It became a rich trading port due to its easy access to the Caribbean Sea. But, the conservative city perpetually struggled with more liberal Leon for political control. This rivalry intensified after independence from Spain, and culminated in an strange event that would be humorous if it wasn't so tragic.

There was a crazy American guy called William Walker who was constantly trying to conquer Nicaragua. The Leonese actually contracted with him to subdue Granada. When he was eventually forced to flee, he torched the entire city leaving only a famous placard reading "Here was Granada."

Here are some shots of the central square:

I've included this last photo because it's a continuation in a series of pictures of phallic monuments I've posted over the trip. Some may recall that I've developed a theory--the more arrogant the country, the larger the phallic monument they display. The U.S., of course, takes the top slot with the Washington Monument. Argentina (known as especially "arrogante y orgulloso" to other Latin Americans) is not far behind with a large display in Buenos Aires. Well, here is Nicaragua's--appropriately modest for a nation its size.

My First Day
I arrived in Granada on Sunday, 8/12. I had come on a good day, as the annual festival del toros, featuring a running of the bulls through the streets of Granada and bull-riding at night was that day. Unfortunately, I was a bit too late to see the running. I got showered and changed and headed out to get some street food at about 5:30 pm.

After dining at a kiosk in the central square on vigarones, a local delicacy, I wandered around the square.

I heard a commotion coming from a large balcony overlooking the square. I inquired and was told this was a private residence having a private party, not a bar. There was music playing and a young crowd appeared to be having a good time. What the hell, I thought, and yelled up to the folks at the balcony, ¨Soy de Nueva York, puedo venir a tu fiesta?¨ (I'm from New York, can I come to your party?)

They invited me up and I soon discovered that the oldest person at the party was 20. Oh well, they were very friendly and introduced me all around.

After drinking some beers on the balcony a group of us headed out to the bull ring, which is used only once per year for this occasion. There we drank more beer and watched as locals rode and taunted bulls. It was nearly impossible to get a decent shot of the ring in the dark, but here's the best I could do:

And here's a shot of the revelry in the stands. Notice the charming hat on my new friend in the yellow:

The following day I headed out to Laguna Apoyo, a laguna formed inside an old volcano. It was a very pretty spot, but not a great day weather-wise.

Masaya

Here's an email I drafted to myself about the next day. I'll post in pictures where appropriate.

I had a classic Latin American day today, so I just had to write about it. It seems all my craziest adventures down here involve the mail.

I woke up early today determined to get my laundry done, go to the post office, and then head out of Granada to Lago Nicaragua to see the huge lake and its islands. I was on my last bit of clothes (no underwear today) and I´d been carrying around a bunch of heavy books I´d finished reading.

My first stop at about 8:30am was the laundromat. I was hoping to get my clothes back by around noon and hit the road because the last ferry to the islands leaves at 4pm and it´s a two hour bus ride and then a 30 minute cab ride away.

Well, turns out that isn´t possible because the city of Granada routinely has water outages during the day. The water had just gone out and wouldn´t be back on until 2pm. So, I could pick up my laundry at 7pm. So much for leaving today.

But, being a flexible and experienced traveler by now, I did some quick re-planning and turned a negative into a positive. I could hit the famed market in the town of Masaya, 30 minutes away, today instead of after the islands. Then, I could go to the post office this afternoon or tomorrow and send everything home at once--my books and my new acquisitions.

But, before I left, I wanted to find out for sure exactly when the post office closes--that way I could get back in time this afternoon if I moved quickly. So, I returned to my hostel, had some free breakfast, and asked the dude at the desk ¨donde esta el correo.¨ He told me, drew me a map, and I went looking.

Well, it wasn´t there. So, I stopped into a store. They didn´t know where it was, but they looked it up and pointed me straight down the same street about three blocks. On the way, I asked a third person, just for confirmation, and he told me something totally different. So, I asked a fourth, a woman who said she didn´t know. I was just through thinking ¨how can you not know where the post office is in your town¨ when I asked a fifth guy. He gave me a fourth location. When I protested that everyone had given me a different answer, he asked his friend for confirmation, who came up with a fifth response. So, I asked six people where the post office is in a relatively small city and I got six different answers. It turns out the woman who didn´t know was the only one who knew what she was talking about.

I decided it wasn´t worth trying to find it this morning and asked the two guys what time it closed. Four o´clock, they said. ¨Estan seguro,¨ I said (are you sure). Absolutely, came the reply. As I headed back to my hostel, I couldn´t help but laugh. I had spent half hour searching unsuccessfully for the POST OFFICE in a major city.

So, I headed out to Masaya. The trip was smooth, the bus came where the guy at the hostel said it would, and I ended up buying a shitload of stuff and getting back on the bus by about 1:30--in plenty of time to hit the post office this afternoon.

Here is the entrance to the market:

When I got back to my hostel overloaded with gifts for family and friends who´ve recently been married or had babies, I asked the dude to call the post office so I didn´t lug all that shit around the city aimlessly. He did and gave me a map of where to go (a decidedly different locale than he´d given me this morning).

So, I loaded up my backpacks with books and gifts and headed out. On the way, I stopped to make some CDs of photos so I could send them home as well.

I made it to the post office at about 3:40. It was not what I expected in one of a country´s largest cities. It was about the size of a college graduate´s NYC apartment. As soon as I walked in, I had a strong feeling they would not have a large box to pile my shit in as I´d hoped. Of course, they didn´t.

This, however, was the least of my problems. It turns out that Granada not only has routine water outages, but power outages as well. After about 2pm, there´s no power. Since the post office only has an electric scale, they are unable to weigh my yet-to-be-packaged package and therefore I can´t mail it today. I can´t mail it tomorrow either because it´s (of course) a holiday and ¨no hay trabajo.¨ So much for my well-laid plans to head out tomorrow.

Well, the only thing I could do was at least find a box to stuff all the shit into because I certainly wasn´t going to lug it around loose, and when I finally got my laundry back I´d need my big backpack for clothes.

It turned out that they are open until 5pm, not 4, so they let me leave my crap with them and directed me around the corner to buy a box and some tape.

When I returned, I started to tape up the boxes and began a conversation with two employees about my best course of action. Veronica took pity on my and agreed to come in tomorrow morning at 7am ¨solo por usted¨ (JUST FOR ME) to weigh my package and send it out, so I could leave town.

Wow. For all the efficiency we take for granted, can you imagine a U.S. postal worker opening up the office on a holiday so a foreigner can mail a package home to mom?

Here's Veronica:

It turns out there may be power at 5:30 this afternoon and if so I can come back then. So as I write, the story continues to unfold. It is already, however, a pretty good metaphor for life down here. Shit is whacky, but sometimes people´s kindness will amaze you.

UPDATE: The power was working by 5:30 and I was able to send my packages. The two packages I sent arrived about 2 weeks apart (making me extremely nervous about the second one) but ultimately I received everything--including a women's jacket that wasn't mine (must have opened and repackaged it all in customs.

La Comida Tipica de Costa Rica, Nicaragua, y Honduras

2007-08-14T22:51:00.001-05:00

This is a very special installment of "La Comida Tipica" for three reasons. First, it's the last one.

Second, it combines three countries. I would like to say that there's a good reason for this, but really it's because I drafted all the remaining blog posts for the trip already and forgot to draft "comida tipica" entries for Nicaragua or Honduras. Because as far as I can tell Blogger doesn't allow you to insert an entry before the end (thanks Sergei and Larry), if I were to create them now they would be all out of order--and we just can't have that now can we.

Finally, it's special because I would like to dedicate this entry--and the whole series--to my good friends Adam and Susie who got engaged in Costa Rica while I was away. Adam and Susie are a fantastic couple and, as serious foodies, are the inspiration for this series. They're going to have a delicious life together.

Costa Rica

Here is a typical Costa Rican breakfast, called gallo pinto:

Some tacos for lunch:

Casado con bistec:

A typical variety plate:

This is a "soda" which is a typical Costa Rican fast food restaurant:

Nicaragua

This is the most typical food of Grenada, called vigoron. It's yucca with fried pork skins and slaw served on banana leaves.

And, here's a fried stuffed taco:

This is tamarind-flavored juice, modeled by Jaser and Guadelope:

And, this is the kiosk where I got the vigoron and juice:

Here's some real legit Nicaraguan street food. These two I got at the famous Masaya market. A pork taco-type thing with some chocolate drink in a bag:

This was an entire meal I got behind the big church in Grenada. It was dirt cheap and delicious, and they even had tables set up outside.

And desert:

Here are some typically Nicaraguan drinks. This is Flora de Cana, a rum-like drink made from sugar cane and drank with coke.

Here's one of the two popular Nicaraguan beers, Tona. The other is called Victoria and the joke is that every Nicaraguan guy has at least two girlfriends.

Honduras

My primary activity in Honduras was a trip to the Mosquito Coast to canoe into the jungle. For the first night, I stayed in a coastal Moskito village called Raista. The proprietor was named Elma and she served us the most delicious lobster in red sauce with rice and fresh bread:

As you can see, it came from Elma's Kitchen:

After Raista, we took a motorized canoe up the Rio Platino to another indiginous town called Las Marias. From Las Marias, we hired guides and hiked into the jungle.

We had to purchase all of our provisions before the trip, even though our guides were going to bring their own food and do all the cooking. The food was incredibly cheap and we tried to explain to the head guide that tourists like us would gladly pay double for the food if the guides just brought it themselves and took care of everything; but he didn't seem to get it. Anyway, here's where we bought our food:

And here's the breakfast our guides made for us in the jungle. Rice and beans are essential elements of every meal. They fry the uncooked rice in shortening before cooking it in water. We also added a packet of chicken soup mix for flavor. On the right is a pancake-like thing made of flour and lots of shortening (they love the stuff). It was a bit bland, but certainly weighty.

And, here's some fish I had in Las Marias:

And the family that hosted us in Las Marias and served our food:

Finally, here's the popular beer in Honduras. Like most Latin American beers, it was unremarkable.

La Fortuna

2007-08-14T22:50:00.000-05:00

After a full day in Monteverde, I booked a combo trip the next day--a bus and boat ride to the city of La Fortuna; a hike and view of Volcan Arena (an active volcano); and a few hours at the local hot springs.

The Journey

Here are a couple of shots taken during the bus and boat ride:

Volcano

The town of La Fortuna is beautifully situated beneath the volcano. Here are some shots of Volcan Arena during the day and at night.

Hot Springs

After viewing the volcano at night we were dropped off at a beautiful resort featuring natural hot springs. The water varied from cold to scalding hot; and there were a few cool bars in the pools that served pina coladas out of pineapple skins. If you fall off your barstool here, no big deal...

A highlight of this day's adventure was meeting a great crew of women from the Peace Corps who were just starting their two years in Costa Rica.

Alexia and I are still in touch. I call her "mi mexicana linda pero republicana." She's actually from Texas, but she has Mexican heritage and speaks fluent Spanish. And, yes, she's a Republican AND in the Peace Corps. I'm working on that first part...

Here's our whole crew outside the resort:

Monteverde, Costa Rica

2007-08-14T22:02:00.000-05:00

On Thursday morning, August 9, I walked across the Panama/Costa Rica border and hopped on a bus to San Jose. On this busride it really hit me that I had to throw my trip into high gear. I had 18 days to get through Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Honduras and get back to Guatemala City for my August 28 flight home. I also had delusions of spending some more time in Guatemala since there was so much there I didn´t see the first time around. After six months of being ¨muy tranquilo¨I was now in a serious rush.

I passed an uneventful night in San Jose and got on a 6:30am bus out the next morning to Monteverde a small town that´s become a tourist destination due to jungle-related activities. I arrived at 11:30, checked into a hostel, and signed up for a 12:30 canopy zip-line tour.

Flying (Through the Jungle)

It was pretty sweet flying through the top of the jungle. One of the lines was about 500 meters long. Here are some cool shots of the closest I´m ever likely to get to flying (until I finally try sky diving).

And, towards the end they had a free-fall, tarzan-style jump. Here´s me swingin´from my artificial vine:

Nightwalk (Through the Jungle)
After flying through the jungle by day, I decided to see it at night. Several companies in Monteverde offer guided nightwalks. I was a bit skeptical at the $12 price for a two hour walk; but it was well worth it. Our guide was excellent and I saw more cool animals on this trip than on most of my other vacation combined.

At the beginning of our walk very high in a balsa-like tree we saw what our guide said was a two-toed sloth. We had to take his word, because it just looked like a dark blob way up there (not even worth posting a picture).

Sloths are fascinating animals. They live for 20-25 years, mostly alone. They used to live on the ground, but they now spend 95% of their time up in the trees to avoid predators (wildcats and eagles), mostly upside down. They come down only to defecate, which they do ONLY ONCE PER WEEK. They will actually bury their shit in the ground so that the smell doesn't attract predators. The reason they seem so "lazy" is that they eat very rough leaves and their digestive system has to work very hard to consume them.

Next, let's talk spiders. I hate spiders--especially hairy ones. But, I have a morbid fascination with them as well. Plus, I always thought that tarantulas were deadly poisonous, but it turns out most of them can't really hurt you that bad.

This is a female, orange-kneed tarantula, which lives 18-20 years:

And, here's an albino tarantula:

And this little guy is a relative of the wolf spider:

Our guide said this was the find of the night, a very poisonous side striped palm pit viper:

This cool bug looks exactly like a leaf and is called the "leaf mimic katydid."

This is a giant ant hill which houses a colony of at least 3 million ants--all with only one queen.

Here's a nice shot of a cricket:

It was a very full day--the kickoff of my new (rushed) life as a traveler with severely limited time. But, it was quite fun.

La Comida Tipica de Panama

2007-08-14T19:43:00.001-05:00

Panama's cuisine is not what I would describe as "inspired." It is heavily rice and beans based, and not very strong in flavor.

Here are some shots of the most typical Panamanian "comida" there is. Rice and meat with beans or another side.

This is a very typical Panamanian dish called hojaldres con carne ahumado. It's basically deep fried bread with deep fried beef jerky--and it's delicious.

This is not exactly "typical" Panamanian food, but it was the best meal I had in the country--and perhaps the best meal on the whole trip that wasn't Argentine steak. It was a beautifully cooked and crusted tuna dish with wasabi mashed potatoes and a ceviche appetizer that I enjoyed in Bocas del Toro with my German friends Jenny and Claudia:

Shifting to the other end of the culinary spectrum, I couldn't resist this imitation McDonald's. I know this seems crazy to folks in the U.S., but this place was way more downscale than the original.

Careful blog readers will recognize this as my own chicken parmesan from the previous post. Obviously not typical Panamanian--but I cooked it in Panama and this is my damn blog so shut the hell up.

Finally, another non-typical dish that had to make the cut. The Peace Corps volunteers in Panama are always passing through the city of David in their various travels. Well, they've discovered that a particular casino in David offers a huge plate of nachos for a very reasonable price. Eating lunch at the casino has consequently become a popular Peace Corps pastime. I was fortunate enough to join them one day:

Wrapping up in Panama

2007-08-14T19:38:00.000-05:00

Las Lajas

After hiking in Parque Amistad and cooking up our cheap but good dinner (see two posts ago), Leah and I headed back through David (the transportation hub of this region) to head to a beach called Las Lajas for a going away party for a three-year Peace Corps volunteer. We played football (U.S.-style) on the beach and drank--a lot. We started with jungle juice (see photo) and I ended up playing flip cup with Seco, the Panamanian rum.

The following day it was back to Leah´s house for my last night in Panama (through David, of course). We celebrated by cooking chicken parmesan and getting a bit drunk off cheap wine. I show the chicken here because a) this post is a bit short on pictures; and b) it's my favorite thing to cook and eat. As I think Leah would affirm, it was damn tasty.

The next morning I crossed the border and was on my way to San Jose.

I ended up spending a lot more time than planned in Panama--almost three weeks. I think this was due to a combination of factors. First, and foremost, Leah was a wonderful host. It was really cool to hang out with someone who was both a local and a gringa with similar interests and experiences. She kept having a next fun thing to do...so I didn't leave.

Second, I think I was a bit travel-fatigued by that point. This made me all the more happy to be hanging out with a friend and, unfortunately, speaking English.

Finally, Panama is a beautiful and diverse place with a lot to see. My extended stay of course cost me the chance to spend more time in other countries; but I don't regret it.

Bocas del Toro

2007-08-14T19:28:00.000-05:00

On Sunday morning, after our fun night out dancing Tipico, Leah was exhausted from having traveled for the past 10 days--and the house was about to get crowded because Leah´s host mom Noah´s two daughters, who normally stayed in David during the week, were going to be home since there was no school.

We decided that would be an ideal time for me to see Bocas del Toro and get out of her hair for a few days. I got on the bus and headed through David (surprise, surprise) and up towards Bocas. Knowing I couldn´t make the last ferry onto the islands, Leah arranged for me to stay at Lost and Found Eco-Hostel for the night (see previous post).

The next morning, after sleeping in a bit, taking a hike on the property, and grabbing some lunch I headed up to Bocas. Bocas del Toro is a set of islands off the Caribbean coast of Panama known for beautiful jungle and great surfing. It has become somewhat of a gringo magnet over the past 5-10 years.

Getting to the islands requires taking a bus and then a short water-taxi. Water taxis are a staple in the area, shuttling people from island to island from anywhere from $1-3 depending upon the distance--I ended up quite enamored with them.

I got off the boat on the main island of Colon (also known as Bocas del Toro), wandered into town, and was greeted by a local who had been on my bus the previous day. He led me to the Mondo Taitu hostel, which was also the first listing in Lonely Planet. I had a basic prejudice against the first places listed--mainly because Lonely Planet has created a sort of winner-take-all economy amongst hostels (get listed, have business, don't and struggle--even though what's listed can often be quite random); but I figured it wouldn't kill me this time.

Mondo ended up being the main party hostel, run by a few college buddies from the U.S. It had upsides (a fun happy hour every night right downstairs) and downsides (hard to take early evening naps; the water would often be off for hours--this was a problem throughout the islands, but most large hostels had taken steps to correct it). Here's a shot of the hostel entrance:

A big upside was my two roommates for most of my time in Bocas were Jenny (left below) and Claudia (center below), two cool German women from Cologne. Here we are enjoying a nice dinner on one of our last nights:

My first night out I met Marlen, who is a waitress at the restaurant/bar across the street from Mondo. She came out to meet us after her shift and from there on became my private tour guide to the islands.

The Beaches

The next day, Marlen took me to the island of Bastimentos. We started this amazing trip on a water taxi, then hiked across the island through jungle before finally emerging on a beautiful secluded white sand beach.

A couple of days later, we went to Playa del Drago, which is on the other side of the main island. Here are some shots from that adventure.

First, the mangroves right up against the beach. I love these--they remind me of the enchanted forest from the Princess Bride (the place with the R.O.U.S.--rodents of unusual size).

Next, some beach shots:

A couple of days later, I hit the famous Red Frog beach on Bastimentos to try surfing. Ivan from the boat from Colombia was also around and, being a great surfer, he gave me some tips. Unfortuantely the conditions were less than ideal, this was only my second time surfing (the first being 10 years ago in Australia), and I generally sucked. Oh, well.

Nightlife

In addition to being famous for surfing and diving, Bocas has a pretty active nightlife. The bars rotate their "ladies nights" on various days of the week, and this is where most gringos head--often after staring out at Mondo hostel for 50 cent beers and $1 international drink specials. These drink specials were quite conducive to drinking games on the patio:

One of the bars had a swimming area with a sunken ship out back. Another had a diving board so folks could get drunk and then dive into the sea. Here are some pics:

Chiriqui Province

2007-08-06T15:12:00.000-05:00

Progreso and Frontera

After a 9 hour busride to the border town of Frontera and another 15 minutes on a small bus, we arrived at Leah´s hometown for two years--Progreso.

Here´s a shot of the property. There are a couple of houses on the same property shared by an extended family.

Here's a shot of the main intersection in town.

And, here's the grocery. These places are universally known as "Chinos," because they are nearly always owned by Asians--who seem to actually usually be Chinese (although Panamanians don't really make distinctions amongst various far-eastern cultures or ethnicities).

Here we are eating a pasta dinner we threw together our first night.

Saturday morning, Leah took me to meet the folks she works with. Leah is in the Peace Corp's economic development program. She works with a group in the community that grows chile peppers that are eventually used in Tabasco sauce. Her group has been having problems getting paid on time--or sometimes at all--by the subcontractor that they work for directly.

Leah is working to get them a fair shake with the big growing companies. But, in order to ensure a steady income stream she's also helping them start a business growing chickens. The morning I visited, the group was dismantling a chicken coop and moving it about 30 meters.

The story goes that the coop was currently on the property of one of two brothers who were involved in the collective. Well, there was a falling out between the brothers and one of them (the one hosting the coop) left the cooperative. Because he was no longer invested in the cooperative he failed to adequately protect the chickens--and they were all stolen by the "maleantes," or bad people. So, now the group was moving the coop to the other brother's property (who, of course, lives next door).

Sorry I don't have any pictures of this, but I didn't think it would be too cool to take pictures of these folks that Leah's working with.

A Night on the Town

The next night, we decided to head out. This was a special occasion for Leah, who doesn't get to go out near her hometown much. First, she lives and works with evangelical Christians who don't take too kindly to drinking. Second, it is not considered respectable for women to go to bars--especially without a male escort.

So, my being in town allowed Leah to head out--in Frontera, the larger town next door (she would still never go to a bar in Progreso where she would be recognized and her work potentially compromised).

Around 8pm we headed to Frontera. It was a bit too early to start dancing, and we passed a pool hall so we decided to head in. Well, as we walked in it kind of felt like the music came to a screeching halt. We were certainly the only gringos and Leah was one of only two women in the joint. Plus, as we got about halfway in, we noticed that there were no open tables.

We were about to turn around and head out, when a young Panamanian guy approached us and welcomed us in. I asked if he worked there and he said it was his friend's place. In a confusing exchange he ushered us to a table which had mysteriously cleared (in retrospect it appeared he had paid the folks at the table to quit).

As soon as we started playing, he brought over beers for Leah and me. At this point, we were completely confused and trying to figure out this guy's angle. Before we got halfway through our beers, he was back with two more, making small talk. After the third round, I finally asked him to stop bringing beers. Leah didn't want to drink very much, so I was "stuck" drinking about four of the six beers.

We weren't sure what this guy was up to. I figured he was trying to interpose himself between us and the bar, and tack on an extra quarter per beer. But, beers were only 50 cents, so no matter what he was up to there wasn't a lot of money at stake. So, Leah and I relaxed, played pool, and had a good time. We found it pretty funny that you could pretty much feel the eyes on Leah's butt as she leaned over to take a shot.

When we were done, I headed straight to the bar, wanting to pay directly, not through our new friend. When I got there, though, the bartender told me everything was taken care of. This guy had paid for all of our drinks and our pool (he was actually $1 short which I gladly threw in).

This incident was both heartening and sad. Obviously, it was cool that this guy welcomed some unfamiliar faces. On the other hand, we treated him with such guarded suspicion when in the end all he wanted to do was show a couple of gringos a good time in his town.

The reality, though, is that I don't think we were wrong to be suspicious. All too often, as gringos people (correctly) assume we have money and we wear a target on our wallets. It's just a shame that our appropriate caution prevented us from opening up to this guy until it was too late.

After our pleasantly surprising time at the pool hall, we headed a few doors down to go dancing. This was the true purpose of our venture--to dance "tipico," the typical Panamanian dance involving (as all Panamanian music seems to) plenty of accordian.

We entered a cavernous dance hall featuring a large dance floor surrounded by plastic deck chairs. The music alternated between "tipico" and reggeton. We were again the only gringos in the place, which made it extra fun. The bizarre thing, though, was that every minute or two, the DJ would interrupt the music and talk for 3-4 seconds--just enough time to throw you off your rhythm.

He was speaking way too fast for even Leah to understand, but I kept hearing "punto com," or dot com. We later learned that he was doing two things: a) saying general stuff like "everybody get up and dance;" and b) advertising for websites that feature pictures from the party (which is apparently quite popular in Europe as well). I did notice people taking pictures, but I assumed they were trying to sell the pictures on the spot.

In the end, this was one of my most genuine local experiences, and a truly fun night as well.

Lost and Found

On the way from Progreso to Bocas del Toro, a set of islands off the northern coast, I stopped for a night at the Lost and Found Eco Hostel, nestled in a national reserve forest. It is owned by Andrew, a 31 year old Canadian, and his Panamanian wife Stephanie.

Lost and Found is a cool place, as you can see from the photos. They´ve set everything up in an eco-friendly way, there´s a nice place to chill out and watch the sunset, and they have some great trails on the property.

Here's the view from the spot pictured above:

But, they can´t advertise the place widely. The problem is that a hydro-electric company that owns much of the surrounding land wants to build their own eco-resort. They got to the relevant government officials before Andrew did--and likely with more money than Andrew could--and now the Panamanian government is making his life hell trying to force him out. So, Andrew and Stephanie are trying to run the place on word of mouth for now.

The next day, I headed to Bocas del Toro, but that gets its own post. So, for now I´ll skip ahead.

Las Nubes and El Parque Internacional Amistad

When I returned from Bocas, Leah met me in David and we headed up to the mountains, where the climate is more moderate. Becca, another Peace Corps volunteer, is based in the small town of Las Nubes, which is at the base of an international park (because some of it is in Costa Rica). She was away and let us use her charming casita (small house). Here are some photos of the house and surrounding area:

After settling in for some blissfully cold sleeping, we got up the next day to hike into the park to a waterfall. Here are some photos:

On the way back from our hike, we stopped at the local tiendita (small store) to pick up some provisions to cook dinner that night. We got two chicken breasts, some pasta, a huge head of broccoli, and some garlic to make a pasta-based stir fry. Leah asked me to guess the price of it all before they rang it up. Knowing it would be cheap, I guessed $4 total. It was less than $2. Amazing--we ate a great dinner (see picture) for a dollar each.

Panama City

2007-08-06T14:46:00.000-05:00

I went to Panama City twice on this trip. The first time was on a full day layover when I flew home in the middle of my trip. I left from Lima and stopped over in Panama City on my way to Miami and then New York. Apparently full day layovers are common there because there was a tour conveniently designed to show you the canal and other spots and return you to the airport in time for an afternoon flight.

The second time was when I headed there after my boat trip from Colombia to the San Blas Islands.

Panama City I

The biggest attraction for a one day visit is obviously the canal. I didn't realize what an incredible feat of engineering the canal was at the time, and how many people died during its destruction. Sometimes I think that due to our incredible world-altering achievements as a species (both good and bad) I get lulled into thinking we can do anything and sort of unwittingly discount the difficulty of certain projects.

The French tried to build the canal starting in 1880, but after 22,000 of their workers died, they gave up. The U.S. took over and eventually completed the task--but not before a total of nearly 28,000 people had died--largely from landslides and diseases such as malaria and yellow fever.

Plans are now afoot to build an even wider canal, as modern ships are starting to exceed its capacity.

Here is a monument to the canal's principal engineer:

The key to the canal is an elaborate system of "locks" that moves millions of gallons of water to allow ships to pass through.

Tolls on the canal are based upon weight. This ship paid more than $200,000 to pass through. The smallest charge ever recorded was less than 40 cents paid by a guy who swam through.

Here are some shots from the historic portion of Panama City:

Panama City II

Our crew from Captain Hernando's boat shared transport from San Blas to Panama City, arriving on Wednesday afternoon. Here, I had plans to meet up with Leah Donohue, a law school friend currently serving in the Peace Corps on the Panama/Costa Rica border. My timing was fortunate because she was in Panama City that week to attend the swearing in of the new Peace Corps class the next day.

Here´s a shot of the swearing-in ceremony at the Canal Museaum in the old city (featuring the U.S. ambassador amongst others). More than 30 new volunteers were sworn in after having undergone 10 weeks of intensive training. After a night of drinking in Panama City, these new folks were ready to head out to their sites all over the country. Some will be building latrines in indiginous villages and others will be helping start business cooperatives in small towns.

We partied with the new folks on Thursday night and then headed to Leah´s site on Friday, which took about 9 hours on the bus.

Islas de San Blas, Panama

2007-08-06T14:32:00.000-05:00

The San Blas are a group of 357 small islands off the Caribbean coast of Panama inhabited by the Kuna indigenous people. The Kuna are politically independent and therefore the San Blas archipelago has its own law. At times the Kuna have made deals with narco-traffickers from Colombia, making the area a prime route for drugs coming up to the U.S.

While in Colombia I had heard that rather than fly to Panama, one can charter a boat that would sail for several days in the Caribbean Sea and that the cost was approximately the same. Since I had just secured an extension on my trip (thanks Margie), I opted from the slow and beautiful route.

Inauspicious Beginnings
After staying out all night and watching the sun rise on the beach, I headed to the Cartagena Yacht Club to meet up with Captain Hernando and the rest of the guests for our voyage to the San Blas Islands off the coast of Panama.

I arrived at 6am with the captain´s niece Maria Jose and her friend Margarita, with whom I´d been partying the night before. Here they are:

Hernando had asked us to arrive between 8 and 9am. Because we were waiting for the fifth passenger to arrive and had issues getting our passports stamped, we left Cartagena at 6pm. So, we started our adventure by spending an entire day waiting on the docks and developing increasing skepticism about the competence and/or sincerity of our captain.

But, as we bid South America farewell, our spirits were relatively high. Everyone was frustrated with the delay, but anxious to get on with the trip. Our crew consisted of Captain Hernando, 57 years old, from Bogota; Joris and Judith, a young Dutch couple (in rear below); Ivan a surfer from Madrid (at right); Maria from Buenos Aires (at left); and me.

A few hours out, we got our first reality check. We were on a small boat on the open ocean and it was impossible to spend much time downstairs without getting sick. After helping to make sandwiches for dinner that night, I couldn´t eat mine and then threw up. I think everyone actually threw up that first night.

The next morning, our troubles continued when we discovered that lack of wind would extend our trip time; and that the refrigerator on the boat was broken. Hernando had told us that all meals were included, but encouraged us all to bring snacks and beer. Our crew responded admirably to this request--and we now faced an extra day of travel with several cases of beer that would have to be consumed warm.

El Capitan's response to this situation confirmed our growing suspicions about his generally surly nature. Here he is:

Apparently used to drinking warm beer, Hernando consumed a large amount of it. When we finally arrived at the islands and pulled up to our first stop, a solution to our warm beer problem presented itself. Hernando had described the indiginous owner of the huts where we'd be eating lunch as "like a brother to him." But, when I suggested that he ask the guy if we could put our beers in his refrigerator he balked--he wasn't comfortable asking such a favor.

Well, I suggested, we could pay him a small amount to "rent" his refrigerator for the afternoon. Hernando agreed this was a good idea and said it was fine with him if I wanted to pay him.

Wait a minute, I responded--the broken fridge is YOUR responsibility, not ours. It's not our fault that your boat is broken. He responded a) by saying he was fine drinking warm beer so it wasn't his problem; and when I pushed back on that b) taking credit for the natural beauty of the surroundings--complaining that he brought me to this beautiful place and all I could focus on were the small things.

This was emblematic of his general attitude the whole trip. He treated us like deckhands rather than clients. I kept wanting to remind him that WE were paying HIM.

Well, I don't think he was quite prepared for a law student who increasingly didn't give a shit if I pissed him off--so he eventually relented and got our beers into the fridge (not sure if he paid).

Things Looking Up
Aside from the lack of wind, broken fridge and crusty captain the trip was great. The islands were truly beautiful; the weather was perfect; and our crew got along well.

We swam in crystal clear waters, snorkled around beautiful reefs, explored a wrecked ship, ate seafood caught hours before, made a campfire on the beach at night, saw dolphins and tuna swim beside our boat, drank warm beer and whisky at night, and generally did not much else for 3 days.

Here are some pics, with many more to come once I receive a CD with hundreds more in the mail:

A Lesson Learned

Overall the trip was great. But, apparently I didn't do enough research on my captain. I was warned beforehand that some captains are way better than others and this could make a significant difference in your trip. But I had found Hernando through the main hostel in town, where the folks vouched for him; and I had just hung out with his niece all night--so it seemed like a good fit. Oh, well...

La Comida Tipica de Colombia

2007-07-28T17:03:00.000-05:00

Fruits and Juices

Colombian cuisine is perhaps best known for its spectacular variety of fruits--many of which make delicious juices, and some of which can´t be found anywhere else.

Here are two shot I was able to take at the grocery store before I was politely informed that taking pictures of the food is not permitted (didn´t really get an explanation of why, but wasn´t going to push my luck).

In this picture, going clockwise from the top left, we have maracuya (yellow, aka passion fruit), granadilla (orange), something I can´t read from my notes, papyuala, lulo (orange), and higo.

Clockwise from the top left in this picture, we have tomate de arbol (red), guayaba (green), curambola (green) on the right and more tomate de arbol (orange) on the left, feijoa, curuba, and more guayaba.

Here is some beautiful papaya:

This is juice from lulo, served to me by the Aristizabals.

This is the curuba fruit, found only in Colombia. I was using it to make juice at the EcoVillage.

Regional Specialties

This is ajiaco, the specialty soup of the Bogota region. It is made with chicken, corn, and potatoes and served with capers and cream. The Aristizabal family provided this treat for me, which was absolutely delicious.

This is bandeja paisa, the typical dish of the Medellin region. It is made with rice, beans, fried pork, a fried egg, and served with fried plantain. I actually didn´t like this too much.

Breakfast

This is a typical breakfast of the Medellin region, called paisa calentado. As you can see, it´s plenty to fill you up ion the morning--eggs, rice, beans, sausage, cheese, and two types of bread.

This is called huevos pericos, and it´s a scrambled egg breakfast served by the Aristizabal family.

This is a breakfast tamale served to us on the train on the way to the Catedral de Sal.

These rolls are called almohabana, and they are extremely buttery and delicious when eaten hot.

Street Food/Fast Food

I was riding on a bus in Bogota when I saw this out of the window. It looked so enticing, I had to backtrack and find the store.

Here´s what the actual food looked like. I was a bit disappointed because there was lots of rice and not as much freshly cut pork as I´d hoped. But, what the hell, it still came from inside a whole pig.

OK, this is probably the most truly ¨typical¨ food around. Throughout most of Latin America, roasted chicken on a spit (what we´d call ¨rotisserie¨) is wildly popular. You can get it almost anywhere. Fried chicken is a close second in popularity.

I don´t know how typical these things are, but they were awesome. They´re called torta choclo con queso, or basically a fried corn cake with cheese in the middle. I got one of these for breakfast in Medellin and it was incredibly tasty and filled me up for hours (for something like 50 cents).

Seafood

Seafood is very popular throughout Colombia, especially the coastal region. Throughout my stay I enjoyed extremely tasty fried fish (often talapia, but various kinds).

This fish is called sierra and it came as part of a typical lunch, which I enjoyed with Marcela´s parents in the town of Chia outside of Bogota. The lunch started with ajiaco and came, as you can see, with rice and salad on the side. Interestingly, many Colombians do not drink anything with their food. They will eat their entire meal and then sip a drink afterwards.

This was one of my favorite meals in Colombia. It is a shrimp ceviche--cooked shrimp mixed with mayonaise, ketchup, onion relish, and served with crackers. This cup cost $3 right outside the walled city in Cartagena, and was enough to fill me up.

Finally, here´s a shot of a simple fried fish meal that I enjoyed often during my stay. This one was from my adventure with Carlos outside of Medellin, and I´m pretty sure it was talapia. The best fried fish meal I had actually came on Playa Blanca, but I neglected to take a picture of that one. Sorry for letting down my demanding fans.

At the EcoVillage

While spending time with my friend at Aldeafeliz, the EcoVillage outide of Bogota, I enjoyed many meals and snacks with the residents.

This is a typical ¨calentao de frijoles con patacones y ensalada.¨

And, here are a couple of snacks. On top are chicharones, or friend chicken skin. Below is jalea de guayaba con queso (guava jelly with cheese).

Fancy Dinner at Andres Carne de Res

Avid readers will remember the culmination of my last, charmed, day in Bogota at Andres Carne de Res--where a drunk man bought my friend Mafe and I dinner. Well, here´s what we ate.

I had--what else at a place called carne de res--steak. It came undercooked in the midde but on a sizzling pan so I could sear it to my taste (slightly less undercooked). Perfect.

Mafe is a vegetarian, so she this nice italian fried cheese dish. I can´t remember what it´s called, but it was delicous.

Dessert

Finally, it´s always important to leave room for dessert. I didn´t do that much searching for typical desserts, but Marcela´s parents introduced me to some when they took me out to lunch. After dining in Chia, we stopped at a dessert place in their hometown of Cota.

Clockwise from the top we have tiramisu de cafe, leche asada, and torta de tres leches (with a dulce de leche-type sauce). My favorite was the leche asada, which basically means grilled milk.

Blonde, Eh?

2007-07-28T16:49:00.001-05:00

So, astute observers of my Medellin post (including mother, brother and Caryn), and not-especially astute observers of more recent posts, have noticed/will notice that I´ve gone blonde.

What could explain such a strange phenomenon?

Well, I´d been thinking about it for a while and realized that this was my last chance to do something crazy like this before going home and back to work.

I went blonde once in college as part of my costume for a party I hosted called ¨Insanity,¨ for which guests were invited to ¨dress insane.¨ Interestingly, this party was only a few weeks before graduation (well, fake graduation for me--but I walked), so I was speckled in all my graduation photos.

I kind of liked it and so did some others, so I always thought perhaps one day I´d do it again. I´d thought about it in law school, but I was always working part time so never had a large stretch where I could be sure I wouldn´t be called to a meeting in DC, etc. So, here was my chance, and on a whim one day in Medellin I took it.

So, how do you feel about your decision, Adam?

To be honest, I have mixed feelings. I like the change of pace and still think it looks decent (for once in a blue moon).

But, it´s a lot different than the first time around.

First of all, when I did this at Duke, I was surrounded by people who knew me well. They knew that it was kind of a joke, or at least a whimsical change of pace. Now, I´m constantly meeting new people--and they don´t have the context to know this. So, it´s kind of strange meeting new people as someone other than your usual self. I sometimes wonder how people might react differently to me if they just met me as regular Adam.

But, more importantly, I´ve realized that by going blonde I´ve put more distance between myself and the local folks I meet, and made myself stand out that much more. This can be cool and fun, but it also has its downsides. To the extent I´m trying to blend in and absorb the culture, it´s not helpful to stick out like an even sorer thumb. And, when I complain about having a big G or target sign on my back for locals trying to make a buck off gringos, to a certain extent I have only myself to blame.

So, bottom line is I enjoy being blonde for the time being, but I wish I had done it earlier in my trip. It would have put less distance between me and locals, and made me less of a target, to be bleached in Argentina than in Colombia or Central America.

Parque Tayrona, Colombia

2007-07-16T16:14:00.000-05:00

On Thursday afternoon, I took a bus from Cartagena to Santa Marta, which borders Parque Tayrona, famous for its combination of jungle and beach. The bus company guy told me it was 3.5 hours direct. It took more than six hours and I had to change buses.

I´m getting sick of being straight up lied to. Sometimes it doesn´t matter how many precise questions you ask--they´ll just tell you what they think you want to hear (I imagine this applies double to gringos).

But, I arrived in Santa Marta in time to get a hostel, meet some folks, and head out for a fun night at the popular bar La Puerta. The experience simply reinforced the importance of my only hard and fast rule for traveling in Latin America: Thou shalt not be in a hurry. As long as you´re not trying to get to a particular place at a particular time, all is well. If you are, you´ll often find yourself fighting the tide and swimming hopelessly upstream.

The next day I stopped in for breakfast at the restaurant across the street. Over a ham, egg, and cheese sandwhich and a huge fresh juice blend ($1 for the juice), I met Jesus and David, the owner`s sons. Jesus is 12, very smart, and learning English and Hebrew from the toursists that patronize the restaurant. He grabbed my copy of From Beirut to Jerusalem (not exactly a beginner text), began reading, and wrote down every word he didn´t know in his notebook along with my explanation. After breakfast, the kids led me to the supermarket to shop for my Tayrona excursion. Here are Jesus and David:

An hour busride later, I was at the entrance to the park:

From there, you pay you entrance fee and hitch a $1 ride on a truck up into the park. The truck lets you off at a parking lot and you begin hiking through the jungle. It´s about 45 minutes to the first beach, where you can sleep but not swim because the current is too strong. So, I kept hiking along the beach to the final campground. Here´s a pic during the hike:

Cabo, where I spent my days and nights, is a small area filled with tents people have brought and hammocks you can rent for $6/night, along with a restaurant and kiosk. I was glad I learned from my Playa Blanca experience and brought food and whisky this time--saved me a lot of cash.

I met a cool group of Colombian students and ended up bunking up with them. The rest of the place was filled with Israelis, who are often cool but tend to stick together. Here´s our hammoc area:

Here´s some of the crew at the hammocks:

They also had this cool spot up on a hill where you could sleep mosquito free. I didn´t sleep there because I was warned it actually gets cold and windy at night and I hadn´t brought any blankets or warm clothes. Here´s what it looks like:

Some nice beach shots:

And, finally, the whole crew in a last photo before I left:

Tayrona was beautiful and a lot of fun. I really appreciated this group of Colombian students from Bogota (plus one guy from the U.S. visiting and one guy from Israel who had stayed on after his friends left) adopting me for the weekend. I got to practice a lot of Spanish (although most of them spoke great English) and have a fun, relaxed time. Entonces, muchas gracias a Samir, Jose, Geronimo, Lina, Laura, Maria, Henry, Gidi, Diana, and Lisa.

Cartagena, Colombia

2007-07-12T11:32:00.000-05:00

A Bit of Bad Luck

On my last day in Medellin, I faced a strategic question--fly or take a 13 hour bus to Cartagena? The plane would cost sigificantly more, but would allow me to get in with time to go out Saturday night--and I was supposed to meet up with some women I had met in Bogota. It would also allow me to avoid getting up super early or being on a bus at night, which in Colombia can present safety issues.

I ended up opting for the plane, figuring that at this point in my trip time was more precious than money. It was a mistake. I arrived in Cartagena on Saturday afternoon to discover that the whole town was shut down (no alcohol sold) because there were elections the next day for mayor. Ironically, I think this law makes sense and it´s much better that they have elections on Sundays than on Tuesdays like us--it just happened to suck for me right then.

The Walled City

Nevertheless, I met some cool folks at the hostel and set out to explore the city. Cartagena derives is particular charm from its colonial architecture and the barricades that surround the old city. In the 1500s, Cartagena was a frequent target for attacks by the British and pirates--that´s right real live pirates; one once held the entire city under seige for 100 days before leaving with a hefty ransom. The Spanish responded by building big, thick walls with cannons. They are surprisingly beautiful when lit up at night.

Here are Sebastian and Aurora, my exploring partners, in front of the main clocktower.

Here´s the same clocktower at night:

Here´s the Plaza de las Coches (where you can rent a carriage for a romantic evening stroll) by day and by night:

And here are some more day and night city shots.

Hanging out on the walls at night with Carlos and a bottle of Aguardiente, the national Colombian liquor, which tastes like licorice or Sambuca. As I´ve mentioned before, you can legally drink anywhere in Colombia, which is great for hanging out in parks and the street.

Here´s a shot of a great dance performance I caught on the street. I have some video of this that I´ll put up eventually:

This fortress is not inside the walled city, but it is especially beautiful when lit up at night:

The Surrounding Beach--Playa Blanca

On Monday morning, Aurora and I took a boat to Playa Blanca, an island about 45 minutes off the coast. Through some combination of misunderstanding and prevarication (it´s never quite clear), it took us all morning to get there as we were shuttled to various islands where we were given the opportunity to pay for all kinds of stuff.

The beach was beautiful and the only civilization was a string of places offering fried fish and/or a hammock for the night. I wish I had brought some supplies because food and drink were a bit pricey. I didn´t even have enough pesos to get me through the two nights I planned to stay (and there was no electricity let alone ATM on the beach--although there are three towns inland). Luckily I found a French hostel owner who accepted dollars (at a crappy exchange rate) and I started a tab with him.

The only problem was an endless stream of vendors on the beach peddling cheap trinkets and massages. A local woman told me that tourism is down significantly in the past few years because Colombians are sick of the constant harassment on the beach. Overall, I found this a minor annoyance.

Here´s a shot of my ¨room¨(a thin matress on the sand with a mosquito net) at Mamo Ruth´s on the beach:

The views out my front door:

And, a sunset over the Caribbean Sea:

There wasn´t much to do on the island except chill out--and read a lot. The first night, there was some singing and dancing around a campfire with about 20 people.

Cartagena II

After heading off to Playa Blanca and Parque Tayrona (next post), I returned to Cartagena for two nights. The first night I hung out on the walls with a few Colombians. Here I am getting a free fake tatoo from Alejandro (in exhange for taking pictures to post on his website):

On my last night, I signed up for a party busride. They take you through some of the sights and give you unlimited rum while playing traditional music. I ended up with a group of urban planners from all over Latin America who were attending a conference, but it was pretty fun. Latin American 40 year olds are much more fun than their contemporaries from the U.S.

After the party bus I met up with a group of folks to head to the clubs. Unfortunately it was Wednesday night and there wasn´t much partying going on. Nonetheless, I ended up staying up to see the sun rise on the beach in the Boca Grande section of town (the other major part of Cartagena outside the walled city), with more Aguadiente.

A Note on Where to Stay

There were plenty of affordable places to stay in the Getsemani neighborhood just outside the Walled City. This neighborhood is reputed to be dangerous and walking around alone at night is not a great idea, but I never felt threatened. Casa Viena is the central gringo hostel, but it was filled up every time I tried to stay there (three separate times). On the same street, Hotel Familiar and another one right across the street offer private rooms for around $7.50.

Overall Impressions

Cartagena was by far my least favorite place in Colombia. For a variety of reasons, it just wasn´t ¨tranquilo.¨

First of all, there were cops and military everywhere--which was nice from a a safety point of view, but definitely didn´t contribute to a chill vibe. Plus, I´d heard stories of cops planting coke on gringos in order to extort bribes--the general consensus in Colombia is that you can never be sure the police are on your side.

Second, I always felt like I had a big scarlet G (for gringo) on my back whenever I walked around. Everyone was trying to make a buck off of me--selling me this useless trinket, or getting me to come to their club so they could push drugs and prostitutes on me, etc., etc. I even felt as though some of the folks I was hanging out with were more interested in getting me to pay for the next round of drinks than in me as a person.

The reality is that I do have more money than folks who live here, and I understand the need to make a buck off of tourists. But, I really didn´t appreciate the style of a lot of folks here. One guy named Joseph (watch out for him if you come to town) even had the nerve to tell me how we were friends and I was letting him down by not buying expensive drinks and cocaine in his bar--I mean give me a fucking break.

Finally, I definitely didn´t have the best of luck. As I mentioned at the top, the town was closed down when I arrived. My last night in town I was all ready for a big night and met up with some folks after the drinking bus, but it was a Wed and all the clubs were empty (at least those that were reasonably priced enough for our group).

So, I know a lot of people love Cartagena, and I´m sure I could have had a completely different experience on a different trip. But, it didn´t work out that well for me.

Medellin, Colombia

2007-07-08T14:23:00.000-05:00

Medellin is a pretty big city northwest of Bogota famous for two natives: Fernando Botero and Pablo Escobar. Until recently it was the murder capital of the world as Escobar´s cocaine empire fought with rival gangs on the streets. Now, however, the city is emerging from this period as a vibrant center of commerce and culture. The people from the Antioquia Provence, called ¨paisas,¨ are known throughout Colombia for their industriousness and work ethic.

Interestingly, Medellin is also the plastic surgery capital of Colombia, with many women coming from other provinces and countries for ¨augmentation.¨

My Digs
Ana`s family´s generosity followed me to Medellin. It turns out there was an apartment available in a building owned by Luis´family and he offered me the chance to stay there. The building is in central Medellin, right across from the Plaza de Botero. It was somewhat shady at night--lots of prostitutes right outside--but a good base from which to operate. Here´s the building, called Edificio Aristizabal:

And here´s my apartment:

Central Medellin

Outdoor Shopping

Here are some shots of central Medellin. Right near my place there was an open-air market that would run from mid-day to around 10pm. There were fruits, vegetables, fish, and even meals served complete right outside:

Plaza Botero

Right across from my building is a big plaza with a couple of museums and a whole bunch of Botero sculptures (Botero was born in Medellin):

Plaza Bolivar

Around the corner is Plaza Bolivar:

My Trip to the Countryside

One of the cool parts about staying in Ana´s family´s building was that the staff there really took me in. Grace, who seemed to be the building manager, sent me out to the country on the back of Carlos´motorcycle to see some of the surrounding towns.

Here´s Carlos with his bike:

First, we stopped in the town of San Jeronimo to meet Carlos´family and see where he spends his weekends. Pretty much all the folks in this picture are Carlos´cousins and they all live together. Below is where his dad was hanging out. The property is beautiful and includes a river (in which I swam) and ripe mangos all over the place (which I ate).

Next, we headed to the towns Sopetran and Santa Fe de Antioquia. Here´s a picture of the main church in Santa Fe.

Along the way, we visited the historical Bridge of the West which connects Santa Fe with Medellin. It was built at the end of the 19th Century and declared a monument in 1987.

Nightlife--El Poblado

Again, I don´t have pictures of my nightlife in Medellin because I was being cautious. But, most of the nightlife for young people occurs in a somewhat posh suburb about 10 minutes south of central Medellin called El Poblado. There are two main parks, Parque Lleras and Parque Poblado, where people sit outside, drink beers, and generally hang out. Most of the bars and clubs surround these parks.

I met some cool folks from Casa Kiwi (the hostel I would have stayed at if I didn´t get the free apartment) and met up with some ¨amigos de amigos¨a couple of nights.

General Impressions

A few general thoughts on Medellin. First of all, the poverty was much more in my face than when I was in Bogota. This is probably a function of where I was staying. There were homeless and disabled folks all around, plenty of prostitutes, and--most disturbing--filthy kids sleeping in the streets.

Next, I was struck by how hard people seemed to be working for so little. One guy was on the street all day yelling every 5 seconds to sell little packets of gum. I don´t know how much he was charging, but it couldn´t have been more than five or so cents. Another guy was selling 12 tomates de arbol (type of fruit) for 1000 pesos, or 50 cents. Along with the guys who walk around with fists full of watches, these folks are busting their butts, but I just don´t understand how they can scrape together enough to make a living.

Finally, lots of travelers fall in love with Medellin and end up staying for weeks or months. [For one example, see my friend Robin´s travel blog at http://www.findrobin.blogspot.com/.] This didn´t happen to me, but I think it was at least in part because I didn´t have the time to get into the rhythm of the city. I only had three full days there and was only able to hang out with each of the people I met there once. I can see how with more time, it would be a cool place to hang for a while.

Bogota, Colombia

2007-07-01T17:07:00.001-05:00

Family and Friends of Friends

What made Bogota so special for me was that some good friends opened up their lives there for me and shared their family and friends with me. I want to especially thank Ana, Marcela, and Nelcy for welcoming me so warmly--often from thousands of miles away.

My Fabulous Host Family

I was hosted for my entire time in Bogota by Ana`s father Luis and stepmother Cathy, along with her sister Sophie and brother Emillion. They are a fantastic multicultural family. Cathy is French, and everyone speaks both French and Spanish so naturally that I actually asked them how they decide which language to use.

As I was leaving for Medellin, Cathy and Emillion were heading to the airport to go to France for 1.5 months to visit grandpa and other brother Julian (who hosted me the most by lending me his room), and Sophie will leave very soon for Boston to study English under Ana`s guidance.

More importantly, though, they made me feel completely at home. They fed me meals (with the gracious help of Graciela who cares for the house), took me around the city, invited me to play cards, and generally hang with the family. Cathy became like a second mom, always worried that I was safe and ate well. My own Jewish mom would be proud.

As the least I could do to return a small portion of their generocity, I cooked dinner for the family on my second-to-last night--chicken parmesan, my favorite. Everyone seemed to enjoy the meal (complete with a cheap bottle of wine I bought and a nice French bottle they opened), and we played cards until after midnight. Here´s a picture of us all after dinner:

Luis is an engineer by training but is currently starting a second career as a student of art and owner of a gallary. Here are Luis and Cathy at the gallary in front of a photo I thought was especially cool. It depicts four skyscrapers heading into the sky, but can be seen as nature X-ing out the buildings:

And here`s my (I mean Julian´s) room where I spent about 10 days:

Marcela´s Charming Parents

When I was heading to Bogota, both Ana and Marcela offered me the opportunity to stay with their parents. Since I bought my ticket from Quito the same day I wasn´t about to tell either of them when I´d arrive until the last minute--and hence wasn´t about to get in touch with Cathy until I arrived in Bogota at about 9pm.

Through an unfortunate mix-up, it turned out that Marcela´s parents were waiting for me at the airport with a sign with my name. Damn, I always wanted to be greeted at an airport like that and when it happened I never saw them and took a cab to Ana`s parents, who I´d been able to speak with.

But, all ended well. Luis and Cathy live inside Bogota, whereas Melinda and Alfonso live about 40 minutes outside the city in a suburb called Cota. And, they were incredibly nice about the mixup and picked me up and took me out to lunch on Sunday and showed me their charming home.
Melinda is a teacher and Alfonso is retired from the Siemans corporation. They´ve got chickens, a doll house, an outdoor BBQ area and a view of open farmland. Truly beautiful. They also took me to nearby Chia, a bigger suburb that´s home to the famous Andres´Carne de Res (more on that below).

Much is made of the hospitality of other regions of the world (other than the U.S. or NY, I guess), but this day really made it hit home. As much as I love my parents, I´m not sure I can imagine them driving into New York City to pick up a foreign friend of mine they´ve never met (or probably heard of before, and who speaks limited English), bringing her back out to Roslyn, taking her out to lunch and dessert, showing her our house, and then driving her back into the city--effectively spending most of their day entertaining a friend of their son´s.

This is exactly what Marcela´s parents did for me and it was really cool. I think we think of ourselves as way too busy for something like that in the States--or at least in bustling NY, not sure about a place like Montana where my friend Ian just sent an email about a significantly different style of life.

Downtown Bogota

I spent two days wandering downtown Bogota and the Candelaria area. The first day, Cathy took me to the central plaza.

Here´s the main court (site of a raid the killed a bunch of justices):

The congressional building:

And, of course, the cathedral:

A few days later, I hit the museums.

Donacion Botero

My favorite was the Donacion Botero. Although Botero is from Medellin (born 193 2), he donated a huge collection of his works, along with others from Picasso, Dali, and other masters to the city of Bogota (much to the consternation of the citizens of Medellin, although there is also a Botero museum in that city).

As many of you know, Botero has a distinctive style--portraying figures as fat. Here´s the giant hand at the entrance to the museum:

Statues of Adam and Eve:

This is a 1988 painting called Guerilia de Elisea Velasques that depicts the violance in B0tero´s native Colombia:

Casa de Moneda and Museo de Oro

Next I checked out the much-hyped Casa de Moneda and Museo de Oro (gold). Frankly, I was disappointed by both. It was kind of cool to see the different forms of money and learn a bit about the emergance of currency in Latin America, but I wasn´t blown away. Here´s the entrance:

As for the Museo de Oro, some of the displays were interesting, but I was hoping for more of an explanation as to WHY gold became some important in the pre-Columbian era and to the Spaniards. We know now that gold has useful properties such as conductivity, etc. But, back then, it was pure decoration. So, why gold? Others have told me since that it is because of its resemblance to the sun--but I couldn´t find any explanations in the museum

Also, I´ve always been particulary fascinated by the Catholic Church`s obsession with gold--especially in poor countries. While the lay population can barely put food on the table, the churches are literally coated with gold. What kind of god would sanction that scenario, would want that money to be spent guilding his castles instead of feeding his people?

Here are a couple of shots from the museum:

Aldeafeliz

My friend Ana is a member of an eco-village outside of Bogota called Aldeafeliz (www.aldeafeliz.org). She hooked me up with Carlos, who currently lives there. He and his girlfriend Tatiana took me out there for a few days.

It was a very relaxing few days of reading, going to bed early, and sharing in the communal work. I picked coffee, turned over the compost heap, and translated about half their website into English (with much help from Carlos and my Spanish dictionary).

Here are Carlos and Tatiana:

And here´s the rest of the crew in the kitchen and computer room:

Here are some shots of the beautiful grounds, including the lake where I took a dip:

Some freshly picked coffee drying in the sun:

On my last day there, a group of ninos came with a camp and had a fun day exploring the place. I hitched a ride back to Bogota on their bus.

It was a nice, relaxing experience. The folks who live there (10 of them ranging from 23 years old into their mid-fifties) were super nice and really welcomed me into their lives. They live outside in tents, do everything together (cooking, cleaning, sharing the work, etc.) and run all sorts of cool programs for kids and adults and sell sustainable products like soap, shampoo, and food.

Nightlife

I don´t have any pictures from my nights in Bogota because I´d been scared ¨responsible¨and have left my camera at home when venturing out after dark. But, I did have a couple of fun nights out dancing Afro-Colombian, salsa, and meeting lots of cool people.

I wish I had more time to explore the scene a bit more, but alas...

My Charmed Last Day in Bogota

Bogota has been very good to me, and my last day there brought it all together. Ever have one of those days where you just sort of know everything will work out--and it actually does? Well, this was that day.

Monday was a national holiday (some Catholic thing, I think but nobody seemed to know exactly what it was for) and the day before I got an email from Mafe (Maria Fernandez), who I´d been out dancing with on Saturday night. She wanted to see if I was free for a day trip to go to the famous Catedral de Sal, an underground church built by salt miners entirely of--you guessed it, salt.

Conveniently, Andres Carne de Res, a famous steakhouse/party spot was sort of on the way home, so I proposed adding that to our adventure. Mafe agreed and the next morning we were off...

The Tourist Train

The most fun way to get to the Catedral de Sal is a tourist train that runs on weekends and holiday. We showed up just a few minutes before the train was scheduled to depart and they were no longer selling tickets. Since the multiple stations are not linked by computer, they had to use an elaborate system featuring walkie-talkies to determine if we would be allowed on.

They were letting people on in groups--and four seemed to be a popular number. Our first piece of good luck came when we teamed up with a nice couple with a small baby to make a foursome, and snagged some of the last seats on the train.

Here´s the train from the outside. Mafe told me they had to sell ads all over it to keep in running because of funding problems. Nestle to the rescue...

Our luck continued when we were seated at first in the dining car--perfect for ordering a hot tamale breakfast. Here´s a picture of breakfast.

Various bands came around to play traditional music on the train. It was really cool. When I´m able to upload them, I´ll post some video on this.

Catedral de Sal

At the train station we took a short busride to the Catedral. Here´s the entrance:

We entered the tunnel into a different world. It reminded me of Superman´s home, or the moon.

Here´s Mafe in front of one of the many salt crosses...

...and in front of a salt nativity scene:

And here I am in front of the main cross in the main room. This cross is actually cut out of the salt (rather than made of it) and lit from behind.

Andres´Carne de Res

After the Catedral, I wanted to go to Andres, which I had heard a ton about. This required a bit of tricky maneuvering without a car. We had to get off the train and catch a bus to Chia, the suburb where Andres is located. But, our good fortune continued and within three minutes of hopping off the train, we were on a bus for the 20 min ride to Chia, where the bus left us off a five minute walk from Andres.

The main principle behind Andres is ¨sensory overload.¨ It is a huge restaurant/bar/party space (can accomodate 3,000 people at one time) with all kinds of shit going on at once--eating, drinking, dancing, actors playing chefs walking by, all kinds of junk hanging from the ceiling. Here´s what it looked like walking in:

And here are Mafe and I at our table complete with bibs and our feast:

The food was good, if a bit pricey. It turned out, though, that money was no object.

We had originally been seated near one of the several dance floors, but it was a bit noisy, so we asked to be moved to the cozy table above. Seated next to us were two businessmen. The younger one was fairly reserved, from Spain. The older guy was drunk and talkative. Oscar is from Medellin and currently living in Miami. He proceeded to tell us about the businesses he owned, his gigs as professor at Harvard (Kennedy School and Law School), his son the graduate of UPenn Med, etc. He then told us he was a part of the Sindicato Antiogueno and the Groupo Santo Domingo, which Mafe told me are extremely powerful business associations in Colombia.

He was a bit overbearing and his friend was clearly a bit embarassed. And, I assumed he was making much of this stuff up. But, he liked us because when he mentioned Harvard I mentioned Yale (mostly to try to see if he was bullshitting and how he would react) and Mafe´s family is from Medellin, making them fellow ¨paisas.¨ So, he kept talking to us.

Sure enough, just when this was getting a bit too much, Oscar says to us, ¨I would like to invite you tonight...¨which in translation from Spanish means he was paying for our dinner (we were speaking English, but to ¨invite¨someone is a Spanish expression meaning you´re paying for him/her). So, what started as an entertaining, if slightly annoying, Colombian encounter ended up as another pleasant surprise in our charmed day--free dinner.

Here we are with Oscar. Oh, and he gave me his number in Miami and said he´s looking for lawyers--so I´m about to be rich, too.

After dinner, we danced for a bit at Andres, but they were shutting the place down. We headed back to Bogota, but we didn´t want our charmed day to end, so we kept hanging out until we had to get some sleep for work (Mafe) and travel (me--I was headed to Medellin the next day).

A great way to wrap up my time in Bogota. The next day I enjoyed a last lunch with the whole family before I headed to the bus station and Cathy and Emillion headed to the airport. I was touched that they invited me to join them for lunch even as the family was headed to different parts of the world for more than a month.

I hope to return to Bogota someday soon...

Some Reflections

2007-06-25T21:52:00.000-05:00

[No pictures in this post, so feel free to skip]

When I started this blog, I promised occasional reflections on life and travel as well as uninformed opinions about just about anything.

And, my original intention was to make the blog short and pithy--in other words interesting to potential readers. I was even writing myself emails with more detail on my trip so I could spare y´all the boring parts but still have a record for myself later on.

Those who have been following the blog may have noticed that it´s become less pithy and more of a plain old boring journal. This has been partly a result of entropy and partly by design.

Obviously, it's harder to be clever and interesting than just dump everything onto the page. But, I also realized that the primary audience for this blog (aside from mom, of course) is me--that is the me of five or ten years from now. In other words, this blog--with pictures and all--will be the best way for me to remember this trip, not some self-addressed emails. So, I've adopted more of a diary style and sacrificed ratings points for completeness.

This is all by way of apologizing and explaining to those of you who have been reading. Now, for some of those promised self-indulgent reflections...

Penalty Kicks

Let's start with the trivial. Being in Latin America, I've watched a lot of soccer lately. It's pretty much on at every bar with a TV and on ESPN 24-7. I understand why people love soccer. I'm amazed and enchanted by the skill of the players; and scoring is so difficult that when it happens the play is usually spectacular--hence the appellation "the beautiful game" (and hence the reason that soccer highlights are the best highlights around).

The other day I was relaxing in a bar in Quito watching the 21-and-under teams from England and Holland play. That game inspired this particular rant.

The one part of soccer I don't understand is penalty kicks. As most people know, when there is a tie game and a winner must be determined (not always the case), the game is decided by which team makes more shots from a mere 12 yards away--as was the England/Holland game.

But, the game is really decided by which team MISSES more shots. See, the penalty kick is so close that players score 90% of the time--it's kind of like the extra point in American football. This means that it's not really possible for any player except the goalie to do anything positive--they can only screw up. Score, and it's expected. Miss, and you may have just cost your team the game.

This seems like a cruel and terrible way to end a game--who will choke more under pressure. By simply moving the penalty line back a few yards, or using the existing 18-yard line, the soccer gods could flip this whole script.

From 18 yards, scoring is actually hard. The goalie has time to react and doesn't need to simply guess where the shooter will place the ball. Opportunities for greatness (rather than competence or humiliation) would abound--great shots, amazing saves.

It would also seem to better serve the ostensible purposes of any tie-breaker: increasing the chances that the "best" (rather than luckiest) team actually wins and being more exciting for the fans.

For example, since I didn't have a stake in the England/Holland game, I spent much of the penalty kick session feeling bad for the one guy on Holland's side who missed the goal in the first round (on his home field, no less) and then relieved when their goalie made a lucky guess, and hence save, so he wouldn't feel terrible for the rest of his life. I wanted to see heroism, not cringe at potential goat-ness.

So, I know that soccer has been the world's most popular sport for eons--but allow me to humbly suggest this small change: MOVE THE DAMN PENALTY KICKS BACK.

Novels

More trivia. Why doesn't anyone ever go to the bathroom in novels? It's something that all of us do every day, but I can't remember ever reading about it (whereas novelists will describe plenty of other intimate human acts in the name of realism). Right now I'm reading Rabbit, Run by John Updike. The book follows the main character, Rabbit, for long stretches but the only time it finds him in a bathroom it's to hide, not to...go. Just a random thought.

Traveling Con/Sin Amigos

For the first and only time this trip, I spent two weeks in Ecuador traveling with a good friend. This provides a good opportunity for reflecting on the pros and cons of traveling solo. Overall it was great to hang with Dave for 12 days--and it also confirmed that I made the right decision to do the vast majority of the trip solo.

My time with Dave was characterized chiefly by the significant gap between the level of our fortunes (low) and how much fun we had together (high). Dave, in particular, couldn't buy a break.

First, there were his materials loses. In the space of twelve days, Dave lost: his passport (before even leaving the states), his camera (at his first stop in Montanitas), his MP3 player and headphones, his flip flops (which became part of our Quichwa guide's tip--they were a nice pair), one shoe, his beloved "space pen,"and his equally beloved UVA hat. Damn, that's impressive.

But his bad luck didn't stop there. He also developed strep throat on his way to Ecuador, wrenched his back helping a casual anti-Semite lift his 4-wheeler out of the mud (see post on Banos), and felt too feverish to party on our last night together in Quito. Finally, on his flight home, the airline lost his bag filled with $170 in duty-free booze. He eventually got the bag back, but one of the bottles had broken, soaking his luggage in alcohol.

Then, there was our joint misfortune of spending an entire day trying (and failing) to raft because the river was dangerously high--which according to our guides happens only once or twice a year.

The bottom line, though, was that despite all of this we had a great time (at least I did, Dave will have to speak for himself when he guest blogs). We talked--a lot; and it was great to be able to discuss real issues of real consequence with someone who you know cares deeply about you. Plus, Dave is/was amazingly equananimous in the face of all of the above. Any one (or at most two) of them would have driven a more high strung person to distraction. I literally don't think I've ever seen another human less disturbed by losing a nice digital camera.

The positives and negatives of having a traveling companion were largely as I expected. The biggest positive was having a good friend around to talk to and never being lonely. It was also nice to have someone else take the lead on logistics for a while.

The most obvious negative was that much time spent hanging out with Dave was time spent not meeting new people and practicing Spanish. This was especially true because we chose to stay in double rooms rather than dorms. In terms of price, it's definitely worth the ability to nap and shower whenever you want; but you definitely don't meet as many people.

But, I also think there's something about traveling alone that builds character. You are forced to be creative, adaptive, decisive, and probable other -ives. And, perhaps most importantly, you must own all of your decisions and come to terms with the fact that your experience--for better or worse--is entirely of your own creation. It's kind of like life in that way. We have family, friends, etc., but at the end of the day we construct our own realities and those other folks are part of what we've created (we don't choose our family, but we choose how we relate to them, for example).

In traveling as in life our experience probably depends a lot more on the attitude we bring in than on our material surroundings. This reminds me of the reason for the name of this blog. Moving houses in Guatemala because of a rooster (gallo) caused me to reflect on the fact that the key to traveling (as in life) is to strike the right balance between seeking the best experience while at the same time being satisfied with (and living in) the experience one is currently having.

I've been happy, sad, lonely, introspective, hopeless, hopeful, dull, and enchanted on this trip--in other words quite human. I'm not sure I would have had the time or perspective to explore these emotions as fully if I was always traveling with a partner.

So, I'm thrilled to being doing this trip alone. That being said, I've seen a lot of happy couples on my travels and I'd love to have a similar adventure with a woman I love. I think that would be a completely differently fantastic experience. Applications available at the front desk...

Happiness

Spending time in a Quichwa community in the jungle with a smart, thoughtful friend provided a unique opportunity for reflection on the subject of happiness. I think this is a pretty important subject because (not being religious) I believe maximizing and fairly distributing happiness (human and ecological) is our ultimate goal.

The Quickwa are not wealthy people. Many live in the jungle without electricity. This leaves them without most of the standard gadgets that have become such a significant part of our modern lives, and with minimal contact with the outside world.

And, yet, they appeared to me genuinely happy...and well adjusted. More so than most communities I know. This struck me most in the children. They seemed carefree, and they seemed to respect their parents.

Now, granted, I only met young kids who have not yet hit adolescence. It occurred to me that many of the girls I met may later develop body image issues, eating disorders and other maladies of our modern sexist world. But, I think there's a good chance they won't develop these afflictions at anywhere the rate our female population does in the U.S.

So, is being poor and out of touch the answer to our problems? Probably not, but being rich and constantly connected may not be all it's cracked up to be.

This reminded me (and Dave) of two essential facts about happiness that we tend to forget.

First, happiness can often be defined as the ratio between reality and expectations. We may be living the high life, but if we expect to be billionaires, we'll be disappointed with our material status.

Second, happiness is relative. We feel rich or poor, strong or weak, secure or insecure, in relation to our peers. This is why human happiness has not increased measurably with great advances in material wealth. [Economist Robert Frank makes this point elegantly in his book Chosing the Right Pond.]

The Quichwa don't have much, but they also don't expect all that much either. They're not inundated with ads that tell them it's impossible to be happy without an iPod or a Blackberry. They don't have the option of being a corporate lawyer, fancy consultant, or having a column in the NY Times (my secret ambition for years). So, their reality compares well with their expectations--hence happiness. This, of course, is largely a factor of their relative isolation. Their "pond" is the village--or at most nearby Tena--where no one has much more than they do.

This likely works in non-material ways as well, and here's where it gets complicated. If we expect love, fulfillment, contentment, etc. through work and/or personal relations and don't achieve them, we're unhappy. If we try our best, we're likely to end up smaller fish in a bigger pond--and risk feeling relatively...less.

But can the answer really be to lower our expectations radically, to moderate our ambitions and give up on becoming "all that we can be" (as the old army commercial put it)?

At 30 years old, should I give up on love and settle for "looks good on paper, probably won't drive me crazy?" Perhaps arranged marriages weren't so bad--they remove the expectation of pure romantic love but hold out the chance for a happy accident. Should we all forget about finding fulfillment in our work and personal lives and settle for "just getting by?" Will this acceptance make us more happy?

As you can probably tell, I'm not quite ready for that. I'm not pretending to have found any answers here, but my conviction is that the answer lies, as always, in balance.

We should nurture expectations that are high, but realistic. The major problem we have in U.S. society, I think, is the creation of unrealistic expectations--from airbrushed models to sitcoms in which semi-employed "Friends" live in ridiculous NYC apartments.

For this reason, it's always infuriated me when we tell our kinds "you can do anything you put your mind to." Actually, no most people can't do anything they want. Even if I practiced all day every day, I'll never be an NBA basketball player--or, probably, a nuclear physicist. We need to find a way to be realistic with our kids without robbing them of their dreams. [To be honest, I've also never understood why pumping our kids full of falsehoods, I mean fantasies, like the tooth fairy or Santa Claus is good for their development either--but I don't have a degree in child psychology and that's a topic for another day.]

Of course, the trick is in the detail, and I'm not revealing anything new here. But, I think that with all the privilege we enjoy in the U.S., there are certain things we SHOULD shoot for (if not quite "expect"). These include, love in our personal lives and fulfillment in our work. They do not include a BMW or a perfect body--and here lies many of our problems.

Interestingly, there is a project under way to bring electricity to Rio Blanco, the Quichwa community I visited. This, of course, will bring TV, ads, and a splash of "kalifornication." Some enterprising grad student should do a thesis on how all this affects happiness in the village.

La Comida Tipica de Ecuador

2007-06-25T20:44:00.000-05:00

OK, I hope someone other than Adam Hollander enjoys this section--oh, what the hell, I don´t care; I like it. So, here goes, another edition of the only regular installment on El Gringo y El Gallo:

La Comida de la Selva

Here´s a rundown on the food we were served when Dave and I spent a few days in the jungle with the Quichwa community of Rio Blanco.

First of all, we got soup with every lunch and dinner. Here are a couple of types. The first is sopa de quinoa con yuca:

Next is masamora de verde, which is the most typical soup of the Quichwa:

For our first lunch, we were served a delicious fried talapia with fried yuca, beans, rice, and salad:

For dinner, we had palmita (heart of palm), which is one of the tastiest vegetables I´ve ever had:

This fish is called chuti in Quichwa. We tasted the babies fried. (That´s Pasquel, el profesor, holding it and Monica and Maxi in the background.)

Our last dinner was a delicious dish of leaves stuffed with hart of palm and chicken (ojas con palmito y pollo). This was truly fantastic--again, I never thought vegetables could have so much flavor.

And, for our last lunch, we had chicken with rice and--of course--more yuca.

Finally, last but certainly not least, is chicha, the beer of the jungle. To make chicha, the Quichwa boil yuca for 15 minutes, mash it, mix it with some old chicha, and then put it in a bucket to ferment overnight. Here is what it looks like in its traditional container:

And here I am partaking (not one to turn up my nose at local culture):

Interestingly, the Quichwa often drink weak chicha for breakfast. The stronger stuff is saved for fiestas.

I have to say that overall I was blown away by how good the food was. I wasn´t expecting all that much, but each meal was hearty and flavorful, complete with soup, a main course, and bananas for desert. I was always satisfied and never hungry after any meal.

La Comida de la Calle

As you all know by now, I love street food. Due to Dave`s reluctance to get sick on his short vacation, I didn´t indulge in as much of it in Ecuador as I would have liked. But here´s what I did get around to.

First, here is Edgar who runs a late night food stand (open ´till 4am) near the Tena bus station. He´s digging into a plate of cow intestines, which he let me try for free (Dave even had to try it against his better judgment b/c it would have been rude to turn down the offer):

Next we have a chicken skewer I bought on the bus. People are always coming onto the buses hawking every imaginable thing. So, I guess this is technically ¨motor vehicle food¨rather than street food...but I think the idea is the same.

Finally, this was technically sold out of a restuarant, but I think $1 shwarma qualifies as street food purely on principle. These were great and I think I ate 4-5 of them in two days while I was in Quito.

Food From Actual Restaurants

Every once in a while I break down and patronize an establishment with a roof and maybe even a health code certification.

Here is some shrimp ceviche I got my first night in Quayaquil:

Arroz con congrejo (rice with crab), also in Quayaquil:

And, this is Wilo´s (our Quichwa guide) favorite dish, ordered from a restaurant called Safari in Tena. It´s called chaulafun, a mix of chicken and shrimp with rice--and it´s quite delicious.

Dave thought the food in Ecuador overall was unremarkable. I´d tend to agree. There was all the usual fast food fare (pizza is as popular in Latin America as the States), and the stuff we got in restaurants was usually solid but not outstanding. The biggest pleasant surprise was the food we were served in the jungle.

Quito

2007-06-22T13:54:00.000-05:00

Some History

Quito got its start as a major trading center for indiginous cultures where sierra, coast, and Oriente (jungle) came together. The last great Inca emperors made Quito the political center of their northern empire; and the city was burnt to the ground by an Inca general five days before it was captured by the Spanish in 1534.

The Spanish made Quito the capital of their new territory, and the city was officially founded as San Francisco de Quito on 8/28/1534 by Sebastian de Benalcazar (12/6, when things got working, is celebrated as founding day). The major religious orders moved in quickly, building their own churches; and the main Cathedral was completed within 30 yrs.

The population grew very modestly until the 1800s when Quito became the capital of newly independent Ecuador (1830). Entering the 20th century, the city maintained its original geographic boundaries and its population remained 50,000. Then the banana boom in 1940s and oil boom in 1970s pushed population growth, and the city passed 1 million in 1990. Currently, the population is 1.4 million and growing.

View from Above

Dave and I decided to begin our exploration of Quito by heading up the big gondola, or teleferico, for some views of the city from the mountains. This was highly recommended by our guidebook, but was honestly a bit disappointing. It was pretty cold up at the top and there really wasn´t a great spot from which to see everything comfortably. Plus, there was a guady amusement park at the bottom clearly geared towards tourists or the wealthiest Ecuadorians (we decided not to go go-karting because it was $1/minute). Here´s a bird´s eye view of said amusement park:

But, there were some nice views. Here are some of the best shots we got:

Old Town

We met a couple of brothers from CO named Will and Rob on the teleferico and together we decided to explore Old Town in spite of the gloomy weather. We considered a guided walking tour from the city but it was a bit pricey so we ended up with a free lance walking tour from Jorge. He said we could pay him whatever we thought fair (but then ended up haggling for more cash after Dave was more than generous with him...oh, well).

We started at the Plaza Independencia. Here´s a shot of the Plaza...

...the main Catedral...

...and the presidential palace.

And, here´s something interesting. These are stores on the ground floor of the presidential palace. Can´t quite imagine picking up a slurpy under the White House.

Next, we saw a set of chuches. Here´s a shot of a statue of Jesus done in the ¨Quito school¨of highly realistic art (I think that´s real hair on the statue´s head).

From there we saw a statue of Sebastian de Benalcazar, the founder of Quito. That´s Will, Rob, Dave, and Jorge, our guide.

Next we were off to check out Benalcazar´s casa.

Then, the famous Theatro de Sucre...

...and the equally famous Plaza de San Francisco.

New Town

We decided to stay in Quito´s new town since it´s safer with more to do at night. It´s quite a funky little neighborhood with lots of bars and hostels--although it is pretty ¨gringo-ized.¨ Dave and I stayed at a place called Quito Viejo and then when he left I moved to a dorm room in Crossroads Hostel. On the right is a nice whisky bar owned by a true enthusiast. We talked with him for a while and tried such delicacies as Johnny Walker Green Label and Old Parr´s Superior (which is a blended scotch that receives the second highest possible ranking in his whisky bible). He said business has been slower than he hoped because people are intimidated by the price of whisky (his prices were good for the U.S. but definitely expensive for here given that you can get large beers for $1 most places).

Here are some general shots to give a feel for the neighborhood.

Centro del Mundo

Definitely Not the Ecuator...

On Dave´s last day we decided to head for the center of the world and straddle the equator. This is not as simple of a procedure as one might expect. We started out with a thirty-five minute cab ride to a tourist trap/¨town¨called Mitad del Mundo. There, one can find a whole fake town built around a line and some monuments supposedly dividing the earth between north and south.

But, our guidebook says, and everyone here acknowledges, that the equator is not actually here. New GPS technology has confirmed that--as accurately as we can determine--the actual equator is about 200 meters away. Here are some of the obligatory shots from this false idol.

Probably Not the Equator...
Not satisfied with fool´s gold, we left the cozy confines of Mitad del Mundo to search out the real thing. We were told it was on the property of a nearby museum. We came across museum a few hundred meters from the exit, wandered in, and found this equator-looking thing (you can´t really see it behind me, but it says N-S on that monument):

May Be the Equator...
But, we were then informed that the actual museum we were looking for was a few hundred more meters down the road. This is the museum that actually claims to hold the line. Here´s the entrance to said museum:

Here´s a shot of Dave and me supposedly straddling the real line:

They performed a set of experiments to ¨prove¨that this was actually the equator and to demonstrate the unique qualities of the center of it all. These included balancing an egg on a nail (which neither Dave nor I were able to do, but the other folks with us could), and watching water flush down a drain in opposite directions.

Our guide admitted that these experiments were somewhat enhanced with trickery, but I guess they illustrated the point.

The museum also featured indigenous culture (it almost seemed like the trick was to lure people in with the equator but then spend 75% of the time edifying us on other things). Some of it was pretty cool, though, and here are Dave and I shooting blow darts:

So, that was our Quito experience and the end of Dave´s adventure. He got in a cab to the airport and I turned my attention to figuring out how to get safely to Bogota. More reflections on our couple of weeks together, a ¨comida tipica¨section on Ecuador, and news from Colombia to come...

Tena--and the Jungle

2007-06-21T17:37:00.000-05:00

From Banos, Dave and I headed to the city of Tena, which our guidebook said was the best spot to book an eco-tourism trip into the Amazonian jungle, or ¨selva¨as well as boasting world-class rafting opportunities.

The City of Tena

In the 1500s, Tena was settled when the Quichwa population fled the Spanish. The Spanish soon found them, built a church, and named the town. It is now the capital of the Napo province, although it has lost regional power due to the oil boom farther northeast.

Tena is a legitimate city that while boasting lots of tourist opportunities is not mainly a tourist town. In fact, some folks we talked to expressed the idea that the city could do a lot more to generate tourist income (produce good maps, etc.).

Here´s the footbridge that spans the river that runs through Tena. Our hostel (Traveler´s Lodging) was right at its base and we crossed it many times.

A few nights we were there they were having concerts in the main square, apparently to celebrate Father´s Day.

Not Rafting

After spending all day Thursday sorting out our jungle adventure, we were finally able to book a rafting trip at 10pm for the next morning. So, Friday we got up early ready to tackle some of Tena´s famous Class IV rapids.

We piled into the cars with a group of six women from UC Berkeley, and then hiked about 40 minutes down an incredibly muddy slope to the river. Here we are at the beginning of our hike:

When we got down to the river, our guides told us it was too high and not safe to raft. At first we thought they were joking--we´d never considered the possibility. But, soon it became clear they were not and we were grateful they made a professional decision not to put our lives at risk.

So, we turned right back around and hiked back up. After grabbing some lunch, the guides suggested that we try another Class III river which they thought would be doable. We agreed, hopped in the cars and drove about 40 more minutes in the opposite direction.

But, no go. That river was too high as well. The guides were shocked--they´d never seen this happen before (both being undoable after the other rivers they´d checked in the morning were fine). Here we are looking confused:

We ended up making a pretty fun day of it. Our guides, Alex and Tim, were two very cool Irish brothers who´s family owns the business. They took us to a cool lagoon for swimming. I hope to have more pics of that when I connect with the Berkeley woman who had a waterproof camera. Here we are with Tim (left) and Alex at the end of our adventure:

La Selva

On Saturday morning we left Tena for the jungle. There are lots of places to go around Tena and we had spent most of Thursday exploring different options. We wanted to have a good time, but we also wanted to do some genuine eco-tourism, ensuring that we would have a real cultural experience and that our money was actually being used to help the indigenous community we´d be visiting. Some of the programs seemed either fake or parasitic or both.

So, while we looked at some corporate-seeming tours that were certainly well-organized and might have been more ¨fun,¨we ended up choosing to go with an organization called Ricancie (http://ricancie.nativeweb.org/). Ricancie is a network of ten Quichwa communities that have banded together to increase their eco-tourism revenue. The communities are equally represented in a general assembly of 50 members and at this point Ricancie generates about $30-40,000 per year for the collective. They charge $40/day for their excursions which is pretty standard around town.

Here´s Carlos, who helped us at the office. We chose to go to the community Rio Blanco because it it is near primary forest (bosque primero), has a shaman, and was about three hours away.

So, at about 11am we got on a bus that took us to a river where we hopped in a motor canoe. Once we reached the other side of the Rio Napo, we had a two hour hike through the jungle to reach ¨la communidad.¨

Jungle Hiking

Rio Blanco is in the middle of some pretty thick jungle. Wilo, an 18 year old community member, served as our guide throughout the weekend, hanging out with us and explaining the various plants and cultural activities. It´s a good thing Dave and I both speak serviceable Spanish because Wilo does not speak English (although he taught us some Quichwa).

Here´s Dave with Wilo on the hike in, looking very much like the Gentleman Explorer in his collared shirt, khakis, and jungle boots.

The rest of these photos are mixed from our hike in and our hike the next day to some waterfalls. He we are beneath a really big tree called ceibo.

This is called sangre del drago (blood of the dragon) and is used for fighting mosquitoes, brushing teeth, and soothing irritations:

Here we are sampling canagria, which is used for bath vapors and to fight diabetes:

Finally, this phallic-looking thing I´m holding is appropriately called the ¨penis of the devil:¨

La Communidad

Here are some shots of Rio Blanco. The view as we entered:

This is the kitchen of the house where Wilo lives with his parents, two brothers and sister (when he´s not in Tena for school).

Here´s the center square slash futbol pitch:

And the church (yes, the Quichwa have shamans and are Catholic as well):

Cultural Exchange

When we arrived at the village, there was a group from an all-girls Catholic high school from California staying with the community--about 18 girls, two teachers and two interpreters/liasons. Hanging out with them sure made me feel old--did y´all know there´s a new dance out there called thizzing that involves making a face like you´re smelling pee?

Anyway, our first night we all participated in a ¨cultural exchange¨with the residents of Rio Blanco. They showed us aspects of their culture--mostly music and dance; and then we presented something from ours. The girls sang their alma mater. Dave and I bored them with a short lesson in U.S. politics and the upcoming presidential election (hey, at least it was in Spanish and y´all know we can´t sing).

The coolest part of their presentation was the ¨dance of peace¨which commemorates the end of fighting between the Quichwa and Warani tribes. The crossing of the spears represents peace. Here´s a photo and some video:

The next day, Wilo and his family showed us how to make chicha, or ¨jungle beer¨made from fermented yuca. This used to be made by chewing the yuca, mixing it with saliva, and spitting it into a bucket. No longer. Now the yuca is simply boiled, mashed, and placed in a bucket to ferment.

Here´s Dave crushing the yuca...

...and Wilo drinking chicha out of the traditional bowl.

To the Waterfalls...

On our first morning, we took a hike through the jungle to some waterfalls with Wilo and his younger brother Maximillian who is 11 (at right).

Here I am with Maxi on a bridge on the way:

Here´s me in the water...

...and Dave conquering the falls.

Finally, here´s a shot of us returning to Rio Blanco via canoe:

Shamanism

After dinner on Sunday night we took part in a shamanistic ritual. Wilo´s father Clemente is the village shaman. He drinks the potion on the right, called ayawaska, which causes him to have visions. After he drank and before the potion took effect Dave and I each asked the Shaman for what we wanted from the spirits. I requested good health for my family friends and self; contentment with my life; and good luck for the rest of my travels.

When the potion took effect, Dave and I took turns sitting beneath the Shaman while he whisked away bad spirits with plants, seemed to suck some out with his mouth, and spit a cinnamon-smelling plant on us.

Although I´m not one to believe in evil spirits--or good ones for that matter--I actually had a fairly reflective experience. As the Shaman was brushing the plants over my head, I thought about my relationship to the world and the kind of spirits within me. I quickly concluded that I´m pretty well-situated and that the only negative spirit plaguing me in any significant way right now is self-doubt.

I used to be pretty confident, but also cocky and not very self-aware. As I became more self-aware, experienced up and downs at law school, and had a very tough experience working on the 2004 election, I entered the cruciable of self-doubt for the first time in my life.

Now, perhaps, I was ready to have this doubt whisked away and enter a period of synthesis--emerging less cocky, more self-aware, but confident enough to pursue my dreams aggressively and not be crippled by my self-perceived shortcomings.

So, for the rest of the ritual, I imagined that this self-doubt is what the Shaman was removing. It wasn´t what I asked for in the beginning--but I don´t think that´s too critical. It remains to be seen if I was transformed, but one can hope...

The next morning, I asked Wilo about the relationship between Shamanism and Catholicism in Quichwa culture. He basically said that they are separate but equal beliefs held simultaneously. This doesn´t really make sense to me--it seems that belief in evil spirits is pretty anti-Christian. But, I didn´t get the sense that I was going to be able to explore this fruitfully with our 18 year old guide.

La Escuala

On our final morning in Rio Blanco we visited the community´s school. One room with one teacher houses seven levels of students. Here´s what the school looks like from the outside and the inside:

Here are the students outside with Pasquel, el profesor:

We thought we´d just sit quietly in the back and observe, but the teacher brought us up in front of the class to interact with the students. They sang for us, demonstrated their skills (adding, counting in English) and even taught us some Quichwa. Here´s Professor Dave teaching the kids how to draw a rose.

School starts at 7:30am and goes until 12:00 pm. At about 10am there´s a snack break:

And afterwards, sports. Here´s Dave and me playing futbol with los ninos:

Finally, here are some of the more adorable shots from in the classroom. Kati (last photo) is very smart and will break some hearts in ten years.

Overall, I´d say Dave and I had a very good experience in Rio Blanco. We didn´t get to see any exotic animals, but we got a genuine cultural experience and I think our money ($40/day) went to the right place. I would definitely recommend the experience--but I also hope to get back into the jungle to see some monkeys and anacondas and shit.

Banos

2007-06-21T15:43:00.000-05:00

Although sad to leave our new friends in Montanitas, Dave and I piled into a bus on Sunday, bound for Banos--a resort town in central Ecuador known for its thermal baths, spas, and surrounding scenery.

But, first we had to go through Guayaquil, so after about 9 hours on the bus we ended up spending the night in Riobamba, a small, nondescript city. After a good night´s sleep, exploring the town for about two hours, and grabbing some lunch, we were off to Banos, arriving in time to find a good hostel and get some dinner.

Background on Banos

Banos is a small city wedged between mountains. It sits 1820 meters above sea level and directly below the 5023 meter, active Tungurahua Volcano.

In 1999 the town was evacuated because of an eruption alert (orange), but no eruption came and the villagers fought their way back in, fearing that soldiers were looting their property.

Following the local protests, the state downgraded to the alert level to yellow and allowed folks back in¨against official advice.¨ The town now stands on yellow alert, but the rest of the region remains on orange--meaning an eruption can take place within days or weeks.

The Town

Banos is very touristy (dominated by hotels, hostels, spas, and restaurants), but fairly charming as well. Here are some shots depicting how nicely the town sits within the surrounding mountains.

When the church is lit up at night it looks just like the castle in Disney World. I wish I got a night shot, but here it is during the day.

Our Hostel

We found a great hostel called Plantas y Blanco, which strangely translates as ¨Plants and White.¨

Upstairs was a great cafe and a special sauna treatment. They put you in a steam box with only your head sticking out and roast you, and then take you out and splash you with cold water. This procedue is repeated 5 times. It feels sort of good, and I guess it´s supposed to open your pores.

Here Dave and I are in our steam boxes:

And here I am getting hosed down with cold water.

Finally, here I am with the dude who was in charge of the torture, I mean procedure. Notice the cool view out the back window.

Cuadrones

Our first full day in Banos was quite an adventure. We started off by renting four-wheelers to head down the road out of town towards Puyo. These suckers were fun to ride, although probably terrible for the environment. Dave and I both had twinges of guilt as we realized how loud and fuel-guzzling they were. Nonetheless, we sucked it up, forced ourselves to have fun, and repented later on.

Along the way, we saw some spectacular scenery, including some very cool waterfalls.

Getting ¨Jewed¨in the Mud--Helping a Casual Anti-semite

Eventually, we came to a point we couldn´t pass on the cuadrones. Here´s some video Dave took of me trying to drive over and then deciding it was not a good idea.

VIDEO

A few meters behind this point was a cuadrone stuck in some deep mud with no driver in site (you can see it on the right in the video). As we were turning ourselves around, a twenty-something guy emerged from around the corner and asked if we´d help him get his 4x4 out.

We were on the clock with our own rentals and not excited about getting covered in mud, but travel´s code requires helping another in need, so we set to work. Unfortunately I had camera problems here, so no pictures. But, after about 20 minutes and Dave wrenching his back we were able to pull his vehicle out by tying it to the back of mine.

In the meantime, we had learned our new friend was from Texas and spoke excellent Spanish. As we were parting ways, he thanked us, saying it was a good thing we got the vehicle out of the mud because he was afraid they would have really ¨jewed¨him at the rental place if they had to come out and get it themselves.

Shocked and speechless (yes, it´s possible for me), Dave and I just walked away. Of course only after another minute did I realize that I should have told him that he should be careful what he says since a Jew just helped him out of the mud.

Later, we were talking about how he could possible think it was OK to say that to two strangers he met in Ecuador. My leading theory is that he probably wouldn´t think he was being malicious--it was likely just an expression he was brought up with which means ¨being ripped off or treated overly aggressively in relation to money.¨ Plenty of folks still use the expression to get ¨gypped¨in a similar way without even realizing that it clearly originates from a stereotype about Gypsies. I even find myself saying it very occasionally even though I know better.

Oh, well...a missed opportunity to educate a wayward Texan. Good thing we´ll soon be rid of the most wayward Texan of them all...

Getting Pampered

After our 4x4 adventure, we headed to a beautiful spa called Samari to get thoroughly pampered in a spectacular setting. For $72 (plus taxes and tip which made it closer to $100, but oh, well) we got 3.5 hours of treatments including a 70 minute massage, getting painted by mud followed by a hot floral bath, my first ever facial, and some time in a sauna and steam room. This would probably cost $300-400 in the U.S.

Here´s a shot of Samari´s grounds, nestled under a mountain:

Thermal Baths

The next day we got another massage (just one hour this time) and then headed for the famous thermal baths that give Banos its name. We chose the bath of the Virgen because it was recommended in the guidebook and sits right beneath a waterfall.

It was pretty nice--and supposedly good for one´s health.

Feasting on the Way Out

Before hopping on a bus to Tena, where we planned to head into the jungle, we decided to have a last feast at Cafe Hood--a cool, homey joint with surprisingly good food. By this point, Dave--who was enamoured of the low prices on food throughout Ecuador--had developed a habit of significantly over-ordering at nearly every meal.

This may have been the peak. Notice the not one, but two sides of guacamole (ordered without my knowledge).

Our two days and nights in Banos were fun and relaxing. Dave was starting to wind down from the stress of work and losing his passport (and camera, but that actually didn´t seem to stress him out at all) and was recovered from the strep throat he had developed during the passport fiasco. We were ready for the jungle...

Montanitas

2007-06-21T14:59:00.000-05:00

Since Dave wasn´t due to arrive for a couple of days, I decided to head to the beach rather than cool my heals in Guayaquil. When he finally worked out his passport issues (after a day and a half of stress and anguish), Dave met me there.

Montanitas is a cool laid back beach town with a hippy/rasta vibe, known for its surfing and partying (just 4 hours from Guayaquil, it´s a popular weekend destination for locals). Dave commented that it felt like what Cancun must have been like 30-40 years ago, before it was overdeveloped. Montanitas is certainly developing quickly. Almost every hostel is building up, adding 1 or two new floors to accommodate an anticipated rush of business.

It was low season and rainy, so the town was far from packed. Nonetheless, we met some cool people--mostly by hanging out at a hostel called Juancho´s which has an awesome bar that serves fantastic $1 daquaris made strong with fresh fruit.

Here´s Jorge, the bartender:

Here´s some of the Juancho´s crowd. They guy in the back with dreads is an Israeli named Amichay. He is traveling throughout America taking naked pictures of himself and posting them on his site www.mynakedtrip.com. On our left is Elizabeth from Sweden, and Jules and Jess are an Australian couple.

And, here´s Peter, a crazy and fun Danish guy I hung out with the whole time. He found me my hostel (Centro del Mundo) and introduced me to the folks at Juancho´s. Here, he´s posing in front of the rare Danish birdlion. We spent an entire day (along with Elizabeth and Amichay) at this bar and Peter kept insisting the picture of the wave looked like a lion, whereas I think it´s clearly a bird.

And, to prove he arrived in one piece, here´s Dave hanging´at Juancho´s.

After drinking daquaris, we would all head out to the same bar each night to hear the same live band and dance in the sand (unfortunately no pictures of this). Dancing went on all night--I don´t think Peter went to sleep before sunrise any night I was there.

Overall, we had a great time in Montanitas despite the weather. We met cool people and would have stuck around for another few days had Dave not been on such a tight 12-day schedule. I would recommend checking this place out if you´re in Ecuador--but check the weather first. I think the whole experience would have been better with some SUN.

Guayaquil, Ecuador

2007-06-07T20:23:00.001-05:00

Fresh from a week and a half in the States, I arrived in Guayaquil on Tuesday afternoon, found a hostel (Dreamkapture), ate some shrimp ceviche--what I missed in Peru-- and took a nap.

Some History

The city was founded on 7/25/1537 as Santiago de Guayaquil by Francisco de Orellana. The name honored local chieftan Guayas and his wife Quail who killed themselves rather than be captured by the Spanish. It soon became an important port, but was held back by pillaging, and outbreaks of typhoid, yellow fever, and smallpox.

On 10/9/1820, Guayaquil was the first city in Ecuador to declare independence, and General Sucre (Bolivar´s right hand man) based his liberation campaign from here. Later, it was the site of an historic meeting between Bolivar and San Martin when their forces converged from north and south, effectively signifying the liberation of the continent.

In 1896 a fire destroyed 70% of city, but the banana boom in 40s helped bring it back.

Malecon 2000

Since my friend Dave was due to arrive on Wednesday night, I took the day to explore the city. I took a taxi to the development along the Rio Guayas known as Malecon 2000. The city put a lot of money into making this a clean, safe, and attractive place and it shows (much of the rest of Guayquil is dirty and crime-plagued).

My first stop was La Plaza Civica, and the first major attraction is La Rotunda. This is a statue commemorating the July 1822 meeting in Guayaquil of the two major ¨Liberadores¨of South America, Simon Bolivar (on the left) and General San Martin (on our right).

Next was a series of monuments to the four elements. This shot gives a nice view of the development with the rotunda in the background and one of the wooden monuments in the foreground:

Next was a Moorish clock tower and Plaza de Olmeda:

Then, some beautiful botanic gardens:

La Pena

Next, I walked through the La Pena neighborhood at the northern end of Malecon. This used to be a slum, but was revitalized by government funding. As you can see the 400-something steps up the neighborhood and to the Cerro de Santa Anna at the top are numbered. I thought that was kind of cool.

The Cerra de Santa Ana is a hill with a church, a lighthouse, a small outdoor museam with pirates and cannons prominently featured, and some great views of the city. Here are some shots I took there:

As I was descending and getting ready to catch a cab back to the hostel to go for a run, get some food, and wait for Dave, I heard a commotion coming from a bar. It was only 6pm, but it sounded like people were really partying. I walked upstairs, opened the door and spilled in to a birthday party for a 20 year old woman named Lizzett. Everyone immediately beckoned me in, pushed me onto the dance floor and offered me beer.

Not one to disappoint my hosts, I drank ¨some¨beer and stayed until the end of the party. Here´s the birthday girl (in white) with her friend Soledad:

The party broke up around 10pm and I grabbed some food and headed back to my hostel to wait for Dave. I waited up until 2am, but he didn´t show. The next morning I checked my email and saw that he´d had some difficulties with his passport (otherwise known as losing it) and wasn´t able to board his flight to Ecuador. Oh, well. He should be here tomorrow...

My Trip Home

2007-06-04T22:59:00.000-05:00

From May 24 to June 5 I took a brief trip home to hit two major events--a surprise 60th birthday party for my mom and the first post-graduation retreat of the Social Change Network. Since I'm in the travel habit, I figured I might as well treat this week as just another part of my adventure and blog about it too.

Mom's Party

My wonderful mom Carol turned 60 on May 16th. My dad put forth a herculean effort to surprise her--including a whole diversion dinner on her birthday. As a result, she was totally shocked when we held a surprise party for her on Saturday night, May 26th at Stresa East on Long Island. She was especially shocked to see me in from Latin America and my brother who flew in from Detroit.

It was a great night, with most of my Mom's close family and best friends in attendence. No one could deserve it more than my mom, who is truly the best, most giving person I know. Here are some pics:

Day of Leisure

I needed to head to south Jersey for the SCN retreat, so I was able to catch up with some friends in Philly. Wednesday night I caught up with Dan and Teri.

Thursday, I fit in a "day of leisure" with my good friends Dave, Erin, and Annie. We did some good Philly eating (Moriarity's wings are the best for anyone in the area), hit a Camden Riversharks baseball game, and saw transvestite karaoke night at Bob and Barbara's, home of the $3 Papbst and Jim Beam "special."

Social Change Network Retreat

From Friday to Sunday, more than 20 members of the Yale Law '06 SCN got together to reflect, reconnect, and talk about how we can continue to work together to affect positive, progressive social change. It was an inspiring weekend, with everyone focused and excited to see each other.

Those who planned the retreat did a fantastic job with everything from the facilities to the programming.

There was good work done...

...and plenty of playing too.

La Comida Tipica de Peru

2007-06-04T20:40:00.000-05:00

My friend Alvaro, who is from Lima, sent me an email with advice on what to do in Peru. In it he says, "eat, eat, and eat" because Peruvians are especially proud of their cuisine. Well, I certainly took his advice to heart. I spent 1.5 days in Lima and probably gained 5 pounds there--mostly thanks to Alvaro's friend Cesar. Thanks, Cesar, for the culinary tour.

Cuy

One of the most interesting traditional Peruvian dishes I tried was guinea pig, called cuy (I tried this in Cusco). I didn't like it all that much (wouldn't order it again), but it was certainly an experience.

My Home-Cooked Traditional Lunch

Here I am eating lunch at Cesar's house. He served me a wonderful meal of traditional fare.

We started out with "papa rellano con salsa huancaina," a fried potato stuffed with meat served with a traditional sauce.

The main course was called "aji de gallina," or spice of chicken, served with rice and a hard boiled egg. This was extremely tasty--and I ate too much of it.

After lunch, Cesar took me to try deserts made from the Peruvian fruit "lucuma." We had lucuma cheesecake and lucuma brownie. I liked this as well. The flavor was a bit similar to key lime, but more subtle.

My Restaurant Traditional Lunch

The next day, on Fernando's recomendation, Sara, Zooey and I headed to Jose Antonio's for more traditional fare.

I started out with an appetizer of "anticuchos de corazon," or cow heart. This was surprisingly not-gross. It pretty much tasted like regular beef.

Next, I moved on to "lomo saltado," which was an unremarkable beef and vegetable stir fry.

For desert I sampled "picarones," which are basically doughnuts served with molases.

Dinner

My second (and last) night, Cesar and I headed to a famous restaurant called La Bodegita de Hugo Plevesiane. We shared a burger and salmon dish for dinner.

But, the real treat was the desert. Again, we shared.

Boncanera de chocolate (basically a chocolate lava cake with ice cream on the side)

Crocatente de almendras (almond brownie with ice cream)

Cesar and I closed out our night with Passion Fruit Sours at Huaringas (another famous joint). Many people think that pisco is from Chile (I did when I was in Chile), but in fact it comes from Peru.

Finally, here is some "choclo con queso," or corn served with a block of cheese and some spicy salsa that I got on my tour of the Sacred Valley.

The one thing that Lima is famous for and that I didn't get to try is ceviche. Oh, well...next time.

Lima

2007-06-04T19:47:00.000-05:00

I flew from Cusco to Lima for just two days before heading home for a short break in my trip (more on this later). Here's what my whirlwind tour of the city looked like.

From the airport, went for a traditional Peruvian lunch at Cesar's house (Cesar is a good friend of Alvaro, a Peruvian friend of mine from law school). Here's Cesar in his lovely backyard. Lunch was great, and afterwards he took me out for desert. More on the food in the "comida tipica" section.

Later that night, I met up with Fernando, a lawyer and friend of Lourdes (another friend from YLS). We had a great conversation about liberal democracy and corporate law. He says he's going to read my paper on campaign finance--I'll add him to the list.

I started out the next day with trip to the Museo de la Nacion, where I saw exhibits on indigenous art and Peru's modern brush with terrorism.

For lunch, I met up with Sara and Zooey who work at Innovations for Poverty Action (www.poverty-action.org), an NGO that works to conduct statistically sound studies of micro-lending programs. Sara happens to be the daughter of the lawyer I used to sell my apartment in New Haven.

We had a great lunch of traditional food and conversation about their work and lives as ex-pats in Lima--ranging from the joys and challenges of working with indigenous communities to their experiences dating Peruvian guys (they can be a bit controlling as it turns out). Here's the IPA crew in their office (Zooey is at far left):

After lunch, I headed to Lima's main plaza. First, I saw the cathedral, which features Francisco Pizarro's tomb.

Next, I ducked around the corner to see San Francisco Monestary and the famous catacombs underneath. Pictures are not permitted inside, but here's what the outside looks like:

Then I circled back to the main plaza (called, shockingly enough, the Plaza de Armas) and got these shots as the sun was setting.

Palacio de

Gubierno

City Hall

I closed out the evening with dinner and drinks with Cesar, and got up at 3:30am to catch my flight to New York (with a full day layover in Panama) the next day.

I liked Lima and wished I had more time to spend there. Cesar, Fernando, Sarah, and Zooey were all great. I think I could have had a lot of fun there if I had another week.

Machu Picchu

2007-06-04T17:20:00.000-05:00

Machu Picchu was discovered in 1911 by the U.S. explorer Hiram Bingham. It is the only Inca city never to be found (and hence destroyed) by the Spanish conquistadors--and a result remains startingly intact. It's altitude ranges up to 3,800 meters above sea level. Set in the Andes mountain range, it is nothing short of spectacular.

Dennis and I started our big day at 5am. Here were are leaving the hostel before sunrise:

From Aguas Calientes one may take a short bus ride to Machu Picchu's entrance, or hike uphill for an hour and a half. Since we hadn't done the Inca trail or any other hikes (and being macho and stupid) Dennis and I decided to hike. It was hard. We basically climbed steep stairs for an hour and fifteen minutes straight. The blurry picture on the right will give you some sense of how steep the hike was.

In this picture you can see the road the bus takes. We walked straight up through the center.

Here's what I looked like by the time we got to the entrance (sweaty but happy):

We met our guide at the entrance at 6:30am and started our tour.

Here are some general shots of the city:

Here are some shots of the particular features of the site. The first two are of the Holy Plaza and the Temple of Three Windows (attached to the Holy Plaza).

You can see the condor wings in the photo below. As I mentioned in a previous post, the condor was a sacred animal for the Incas and the city of Machu Picchu is laid out in the shape of a condor.

The large mountain behind the city in the picture to the right is called Wanu Picchu. After our tour, we climbed the mountain and got some spectacular views of the site.

Then, we climbed down the other side of the mountain to see the Temple of the Moon.

We decided to cap off our day by hiking back down to Aguas Calientes rather than taking the bus. By that time we were so exhausted that it took us longer to get down than it had to get up. Overall, it was one of the toughest days of hiking I've ever had.

But, of course it was all worth it. These pictures can give you a glimpse of what it's like to be there, but can't really do justice to how amazing the whole scene is. The idea that the Incas managed to build this whole city high up in the mountains 500 years ago; and the fact that it is so intact is mind boggling.

The Sacred Valley (of the Incas)

2007-06-04T15:55:00.000-05:00

The day after our Cusco city tour, Dennis and I took off on our three day, two night Inca ruin adventure. Here we are at the train station buying our ticket to Machu Picchu with Max from Puma Trek tours. The whole tour (two nights hostel in Machu Picchu Pueblo, train to Machu Picchu, entrance to Machu Picchu, tour of Sacred Valley) cost $130.

We started the tour on Saturday morning with a full day in the "sacred valley." Here are some images of the valley:

Pisac

After snapping pics of the valley, we stopped at Pisac to view temples of the sun and moon.

Ollantaytambo

Next we went to see Montange Pincuyana with its angry face and the town of Ollantaytambo.

At about 3pm, we arrived in Urubamba with about 4-5 hours to kill before our 8:15 train to Aguas Calientes, know officially known as Machu Picchu Pueblo. We drank several beers with a contingent of French folks on our tour and then got on the train, arriving in Aguas Calientes a bit after 10pm.

Dennis and I put our stuff down at the hostel, grabbed some quick street food, and hit the sack. We would be waking up at 4:30am to hit the trail to Machu Picchu.

Cusco, Peru--The Inca Capital

2007-06-04T13:20:00.000-05:00

From Copacabana, Dennis and I headed to Cusco, Peru. Below, I am at the border between Bolivia and Peru; and Dennis is looking sad because our bus was delayed and we weren't going to get to Cusco until 2 or 3 am (as opposed to 9pm).

The City

Cusco is a beautiful city, and a tourist hub given its prominent role in Inca history and proximity to Machu Picchu. Here are some images from Plaza de Armas, its central plaza:

As a tourist hub, Cusco is also a party city. Here are some pictures from a couple of nights out at the bars/clubs. You know Dennis by now, and the woman is Jackie, who works at The Point hostel where we were staying.

The Incas

Cusco was the capital of Inca civilization, and the word means "naval of the world." The Incas consolidated their power over much of northwestern South America (Peru, parts of Ecuador, Chile, Bolivia, etc.) around the 11th century and reigned for about 450 years until the Spanish came.

The word "Inca" originally referred to the ruler of the society, but eventually came to mean the entire civilization. Incas appear to have lived under a system of "benevolent dictatorship" in which the Inca's power was absolute (because he was thought to be descendant from the sun) but generally used for the good of the people.

They were conquered easily by Francisco Pizarro and an extremely small force despite their defendable mountain positioning largely because the Inca ruler chose to trust the strange new men and because of Spanish access to horses and guns.

Temple of the Sun

Our second day in town, Dennis and I went on a city tour of Cusco. Our guide Leo was awesome. Here were are together.

Our first stop was the Temple of the Sun, located in the heart of Cusco. The Inca nation was divided into four parts, with Cusco at the center (hence "naval"). The Temple of the Sun is located at the center of the center.

At the height of Inca power, there were 4000 priests in residence at this Temple. These priests spent much of their time studying astronomy, from which the Incas derived the bulk of their religion and iconography. For example, the three sacred Inca animals--the puma, serpent, and condor--are images derived from the Milky Way. This modern painting in the Temple shows some of the imagery in the star pattern:

As a result, the city of Cusco is shaped like a puma and the city of Machu Picchu was laid out in the form of a condor. The serpent is represented by the river that runs through the "sacred valley" surrounding Cusco.

Sagsaywaman

From the Temple of the Sun, we headed to Sagsaywaman, a ruin that forms the head of the puma of Cusco and was the site of the first battle with the Spaniards. Here, Leo explained the three types of Inca architecture. The least refined is domestic architecture:

The finest is religious architecture. This uses no cement, just interlocking stone (this picture is actually from the Temple of the Sun):

And, the most imposing (using the largest stones) is military architecture:

This pic will give you an idea of just how large some of the rocks were:

All types made extensive use of the trapezoid to provide structural strength. As a result, Inca cities survived earthquakes that (in a delicious bit of irony) felled many later Spanish structures.

Next, we went to Qungo where we saw a sun dial that displays the face of a puma at the winter solstice, and an alter for sacrificing llamas and other animals to Mother Earth.

Overall, I loved Cusco and would recommend spending at least 3-4 days there (not including Machu Picchu).

La Comida Tipica de Bolivia

2007-05-30T00:18:00.000-05:00

I hesitate to claim that this section accurately represents the typical food of Bolivia because unlike in other countries I didn't have much advice from locals. I also didn't eat many sit-down meals, preferring to try my luck on the streets. So, this is really just what I encountered along the way.

Seafood

The only real sit-down meal that I had in Bolivia that qualifies as "comida tipica" is fresh trout from Lake Titikaka. I've never really had trout before and I can say that when fresh it's incredible. I had some later on in Cuzco that was not as fresh and not nearly as good (I want to describe it as "fishy" although that strikes me as an exceedingly strange way to disparage fish).

Here's a pic of my trucha de ajo, or trout fried with garlic. It was absolutely delicious--one of the best meals I've head on my trip.

Street Food

Pretty much the rest of what I ate in Bolivia came from the street. The street food in La Paz in particular was plentiful and cheap--and luckily I had a willing partner in crime in Dennis (Natalie and Lexi were less enthusiastic).

Here's some pinapple and chorizo bought on the street and at a stand respectively.

Here's "arroz con leche," rice with milk served sweet and hot.

This was probably my most adventurous piece of street eating to date in Latin America. I know it's pork, but that's about it. There appear to be ears in there:

Here's the bowl it came from:

I ate several times at these identical stands all serving exactly the same thing. Here's the dude cookin' up the shit:

Here's a close-up of what's on offer, basically burgers or carne with or without fried egg, french fries, onions, and peppers--you know, health food:

Here's the dude serving me up a sandwich:

And, here's what my meal actually looks like (you gotta buy the cold Coke from a different stand, but it's worth the 10 step trip):

Lago Titikaka and Copacabana

2007-05-29T23:49:00.000-05:00

From La Paz, I took a short bus ride to Copacabana, which is not in Brazil, but a small town on the Bolivian side of Lake Titikaka. At this point I was still traveling with Dennis and we were joined by Natalie (from the 4x4 trip) and her friend Lexi. Here's a picture of the four of us:

We arrived on Sunday afternoon. We couldn´t get a room at the hostel we´d heard a lot about, so we checked into Hotel Utami for one night, bought some booze and started drinking for Lexi´s birthday. We tried to go out around 11:30, but the whole town was closed down. It was Sunday night and not prime tourist season.

The next day, we checked into a truly awesome hostel/hotel called La Cupula. For $32/night we got a 4 person room. The hostel was beautiful with great views, hammocks, and even a nice restaurant upstairs. Here's the view from the front of the hostel.

Then, we got a good lunch--I had trucha al ajo, fresh trout from the lake and it was great. It was still Lexi´s birthday, so we started drinking at lunch just before noon. Then, we rented a peddle boat and went out onto the lake for a couple of hours with a bottle of rum. Here are some pics from that little adventure:

We drank for a while more in the hostel, climbed a big hill to see sunset, showered up, went upstairs to the hostel restaurant for a few beers, and then tried to go out for dinner. Here's a pic from sunset:

We went to 4-5 restaurants at about 9pm and they were all closed or not serving food (or one had only one person doing all the cooking and serving and it would have taken hours). Mercifully, we were able to order a pizza to go, ate it on the street and headed to the popular bar, Waykay´s. It was pretty mellow, and after a shot of tequila and a few beers we headed back to the hostel.

Copacabana is not so much a party town--and operates on a slightly different schedule then, say, Buenos Aires.

La Isla del Sol

The next day, we went to La Isla del Sol, in the middle of Lago de Titikaka. This is the place the Incas say is the birthplace of the sun. We woke up early, took a 3 hour boat ride to the north side of the island, got a guided tour of some inca ruins, hiked 3 hours to the south side and then caught a boat back. Here are some pics from that adventure:

This pretty much wiped everyone out, so we had a nice dinner (trucha al diablo--spicy and good, with two suprisingly good pina coladas) and then had a mellow night back at the hostel.

The next day Dennis and I caught a bus to Cuzco, Peru.

The World's Most Dangerous Road

2007-05-29T22:16:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I had one of the best experiences of my life--mountain biking down the "world's most dangerous road" in Bolivia.

The road tracks the side of the mountain and on the left there is a sheer drop of hundreds of meters. Because the cars need to hug the mountain (they can't see how much space they have), we ride our bicycles on the left, right on the edge. Thankfully, they opened a new road for cars, trucks, and buses a mere 5 months ago. This meant that there wasn't much traffic on our road. Before they opened this new road, 300 people would die every year from trucks and buses going off the edge.

Here's what the edge looks like:

And, here's the spot where many of those trucks/buses have gone over:

We started out with breakfast at 7am and by 7:40 we were on the road in a microbus to the start. We drove out of La Paz in the chaotic rush hour and into the mountains. The first two hours or so were on asphalt, mostly down hill, but with one somewhat difficult uphill section. It was also pretty cold high up and early in the morning. Here are some pics of our team at the start:

And here's a nice shot of the asphalt part of the road:

Then, we got to some gravel and finally the starting point of La Calle de Muerte, or The Road of Death:

Here's a video of us trucking down the gravel road:

Our guides were Israel and Gonzalo, who were great. Israel was the guide earlier this year when an Israeli guy went off the edge and died. Apparently he was racing a friend and they crashed. His friend fell right and he fell left, off the cliff. Israel also finished second in the last race they had down the road, two years ago. His time was about 1 hour and 15 minutes, 5 seconds behind the winner. We took 3-4 hours to do the whole trip. They don't do the race anymore because there were too many accidents (although no deaths).

Riding down at near full speed was exhilirating. You don't really need to peddle at all, just brake--so your hands actually get sore and there's a lot of pressure on your upper body. We spent the first part riding through a cloud, getting wet. Looking off the cliff to the left, all I could see was mist. Then, as we got lower we came out of the clouds and the sun came out. The scenery was spectacular and I was torn between barrelling down full speed and slowing down to look at the mountains to my left (doing both at once seemed like a bad idea).

Here's some video of us riding through a waterfall:

Towards the end we got to ride through a small river. Here's a still shot of me going through:

And here's video of us all. I'm first:

Luckily, the only time I fell during the whole ride was when I was standing still--reminds me of skiing.

At the end of the road, we pulled into a small village and had a few beers. Here's our team at the end:

We then took a bus to Hotel Esmerelda in the town of Coroico where we enjoyed a dip in the pool, more beers, a shower, and a buffet lunch. The hotel was beautiful and costs only $7/night.

Finally, there was a 3.5 hour busride back to La Paz. Overall, a great day. And, the whole trip cost $35 which included breakfast, all equipment, two snacks, lunch with time at the hotel, a t-shirt, and a CD with pictures from the trip--a real steal.

La Paz, Bolivia--The World's Highest Capital

2007-05-29T15:45:00.000-05:00

The Bus Ride

From Uyuni, I caught a bus northwest to La Paz, the capital city, with my new friend Dennis from the 4x4 tour (on the right).

We had heard all kinds of scary things about Bolivian buses--mainly that they are freezing cold and don't have bathrooms, so bring a blanket and a piss bottle--so we were sure to ask lots of questions at the bus station before we began our 12+ overnight journey.

We were told that we would be changing buses in a town called Oruru, 15 MINUTES away and that our new bus would have a bathroom and comfortable seats.

We boarded the bus armed with whisky, water, snacks, and (of course) a piss bottle. As we got underway, we quickly realized that given the incredible bumpiness of the unpaved Bolivian roads, pissing in a small bottle was not a realistic option. We had to hope our next bus would truly have a bathroom as advertised.

As we rolled passed the twenty-minute mark without stopping, we began to wonder. Then 30 minutes; 45 minutes. There were two gringo women sitting behind us, so I turned and asked them if they were going to La Paz. Yes. Did they know anything about changing buses after 15 mintutes in Oruru? No. They hadn't been told anything about changing buses.

OK, well I guess we're going straight to La Paz.

Well, not really. Sure enough, 8 HOURS after leaving Uyuni, we arrived in Oruru and had to change buses. The women behind us were sleeping and had no idea. Had we not woken them up, it's not clear if they would have made the switch.

LESSON: Even when you ask all the right questions, you MUST be on your guard when traveling in Bolivia. You can never be sure you're being told the truth and it is usually fellow passengers, not official bus employees, that will give you the best info about changes, etc.

The Markets, I Mean Streets

La Paz is the most frenetic, chaotic city I've ever seen. The streets constantly sound of honking horns and people yelling out of the side of microbuses advertising their route and price.

Half of the economy seems to consist of people selling every manner of thing in stands or simply sitting on the street. Old women dressed in traditional clothing (a bowler hat and dress) are hawking everything imaginable and cooking full meals on the street.

They are all dressed alike and almost universally fairly large. I think this is because they spend pretty much all day sitting in the street surrounded by their wares and eating. I swear, it's almost impossible to catch these women NOT eating.

These women really do not like having their picture taken, so I stuck to subtle, far-away shots of street life:

The city is a shopper's paradise with everything available cheap--and a great spot for street eating. Walk around at 10pm on any weeknight and the open market is in full swing. I got lots of gifts for family there--mostly alpaca goods that are costly in the states but cheaper than I'd like to admit in La Paz.

Here are some more images of the street:

One thing I've found curious about Bolivia is that there are about 15 of the stands pictured above right next to each other--and they all sell EXACTLY the same food. No variety. Weird. This was similar in other places. The city nearest Machu Picchu, for example, has dozens of restaurants and as far as I could tell, 90% of them were bar/pizzarias offering the same drink specials and lousy pizza.

Another fixture on the streets of La Paz are the shoeshiners. These are often young men, but sometimes older as well. They all wear masks. This is not because it's cold. Unfortunately, it's because their job is considered shameful. Don't worry, I had permission to take a picture of this guy (it cost me just as much as getting my shoes shined--about 14 cents).

The View

As mentioned in the title of this post, La Paz is the capital city at the highest elevation in the world--3,600 meters. Interestingly, the capital in Bolivia is actually split, with the legislative and executive functions based in La Paz but the Supreme Court based in Sucre to the east. Anyway, here are some images of the city, situated within a snow-capped mountain range:

Our Hostels

For anyone planning to go to La Paz (and if you're in Latin America, you shouldn't miss it), we stayed in two hostels. The first was called Arthy's. It was very clean, has a great TV room and DVD library, and the staff was great (thanks again to Olivia for the rec.). The only problem was that it has a midnight curfew--not a place to be if you want to party.

After chilling for a couple of days we decided we'd want to experience La Paz's night life so we switched to the Adventure Brew hostel which advertises a free mug of their home-brewed beer each night. The beer wasn't that good (the dark is decent, the light nearly undrinkable) but it's a fun enough place to stay. Folks would gather at the upstairs bar each night and head out from there. Dennis and I had a couple of memorable nights out which y'all are free to ask me about offline.

Bolivian Desert by 4x4

2007-05-06T15:43:00.000-05:00

At 8am Friday morning (after partying with locals the night before) I left the relative comfort of San Pedro for a three day tour through the Bolivian desert in a Toyota Land Cruiser with a company called Pamela Tours (one of 5-10 companies who run exactly the same route).

Inauspicious Beginnings

The trip did not start out well. Our group gathered and headed straight for the Bolivian border, where, in order to exit Chile, we were instructed to procure a small slip of paper we were given when we entered. Said piece of paper was, of course, in the bag that was stolen in Valpo.

Having passed that hurdle, we headed to the Bolivian entrance point to change cars. That´s when it became clear that it would be quite cold for the rest of the trip due to the altitude. I changed out of the shorts I had worn (thinking: desert + daytime = hot).

Here´s a picture of the border checkpoint. It reminded me of that scene in Blazing Saddles where they put toll boths in the middle of the desert to stop the bad guys from coming into town.

We then began our ascent, eventually reaching 4000 meters above sea level. Not having realized we´d be going so high, I was ill prepared. I drank too much alcohol the night before and hadn´t popped any altitude pills. I began to feel downright shitty.

At our first scenic stop, it became disheartenly clear that the picture above would be the last I would take on this trip. When I turned on my brand new camera, it said "lens error, restart camera," and promptly shut off. Of course, the manual featured no instructions on how to ¨restart¨the camera (powering it down and removing the battery did not do the trick).

This combination of events constituted a first-rate assault on my will. I was not excited to be "roughing it" in the Bolivian desert at this point. My mood was not lightened when I found out that our refugio for the night had electricity for only two hours, no hot water and no heat. In late afternoon I was freezing under three blankets. This did not portend well for ¨la noche.¨

Team T-Bone´s Frogos and A Turn for the Good

Things began looking up later that day. I laid down and felt a bit better. And, the more I hung out with my car-mates, the more fun I started having.

Our crew consisted of four Americans (really United States-ers because everyone who lives down here is also an American; but we don´t really have that term, so I reluctantly use American even though it´s not the ¨prefered nomenclature¨as Walter would say in the Big Lebowski) and two French guys. This combination was later described by a British guy we were beating at drinking games as ¨the two worst nationalities.¨ We were all between 23 and 30--with me, of course, dragging up the average age a bit. Along with yours truly, the Americans were:

Chris--a collegiate cycler and triathelete who studied vitaculture and plans to open a vineyard on his family´s farm in northern California.

Dennis--a UMass-Amherst grad from Boston who loves the Socks and the Dead.

Natalie--a Californian who went to school in Seattle, has a boyfriend in London, and handled her role as ¨la unica chica¨in the car admirably (she may have even enjoyed it, but you´d have to ask her).

The two French guys were a hilarious tandem of business students. Thibault (pronouced Tibo, but which I quickly changed to T-Bone) is a virtual encylopedia of knowledge about subjects ranging from European history to the Tour de France and the NBA. Francois exudes an obvious and contagious lust for life, has thought deeply about subjects ranging from philosophy to World War II, and has only two speeds--full speed and sleeping.

Everyone was really looking out for each other. From pooling resources (Cocao leaves for helping with the altitude, water, etc.) to letting me switch my chip into folks' cameras so I could have at least a few pictures, we really became a team.

The night wasn't even that cold.

Second day was fun. When we left the refugio, we were joined by a woman and her (as you can see to the right) adorable young son. He started out extremely entertaining, but sometime around the 8th hour he became quite annoying.

But the night was even better. We stayed in a hotel made of salt, had a nice dinner of llama meat and ended up playing flip cup against a bunch of British folks for the rest of the night. Everyone played. We even came up with a team name, T-Bone's Frogos (frogo is a combination of frogs and gringos).

Unfortunately, I don't have very many pictures of any of this yet, but will have to update this section when everyone sends their pictures around.

Sunrise at Inca Island

The next morning, after we all drank a fair bit the night before, we got up at 5am to catch sunrise at Inca Island. We almost missed it because at the appointed hour, our guide was nowhere to be found. I wanted to go back to sleep, but Francois would have none of it; and Dennis wandered the halls of the hotel yelling our guide's name and generally waking up the whole place.

It was well worth it. Inca Island is an island of cactus and other vegetation in the middle of a lake of salt. It is beautiful, and sunrise was a great time to be there. And, you can take cool perspective shots on the salt flats. Here are some of the pics I took with other folks' cameras:

We finished up our trip in Uyuni, a small desert town in Bolivia without much going on. We kept the team together for one last night--well, almost. Chris had to turn around and head back to San Pedro after lunch to ultimately catch a flight back to CA. Tibo and Francois left at 3am to continue their journey. Dennis and I got a bus to La Paz the next evening. And, Natalie stuck around waiting for a friend who was stuck in La Paz without her luggage.

When we arrived in Uyuni, Chris and I had quite an adventure trying to pay for the trip. Chris had paid half in San Pedro. The guy there had told me I could pay in Uyuni by credit card, no problem. Well, the problem was it was Sunday. They weren't able to accept a credit card payment and the ATMs were literally closed. After refusing to leave my passport (I had it stolen once, I wasn't going to part with it again) and driving around town for a while, we finally found a place that would accept our credit card. Ironically, the ATMs opened a few hours later.

Because of this last glitch (clearly poor planning on the operators part, yet they acted as if it was our fault) and the fact that our drivers were simply that--they didn't offer much in terms of guidance--I wouldn't give Pamela Tours a glowing recommendation. The trip, however, was well worth the $80 I paid for two nights, three days, and transport to Bolivia. There were some amazing sights along the way, but I feel incredibly lucky because the people on this trip and the team dynamic that emerged made it a highlight of my adventure.

Northern Chile

2007-05-03T13:02:00.000-05:00

On Sunday I gathered my wits and headed out of Valparaiso to the Northern Chilean desert, the driest in the world. Since there is no direct bus from Valpo to my destination, I spent one night in a random town called Calama, which is apparently notable for its mall and ¨hooker bars,¨as a local told me. The latter I cannot confirm, although the bus dropped me off at the mall and it is nice. In fact, it was torture because I needed a bunch of stuff and could have used an hour or two to shop, but I got there with just enough time to grab some food after a 20+ hour bus ride.

San Pedro de Atacama

The next morning I took a 1.5 hour bus ride to San Pedro de Atacama which is a small (pop. 5000) dusty village that has become a tourist hotspot due to its proximity to several natural wonders.

My Hostel

The Belgian woman who sat next to me on the bus, Mariepierre, lives here now and was full of helpful advice (remember this later). She took me to a rustic and cheap hostel/camping ground called Camping del Sol Naciente. There, I immediately met a great French guy named Bertrand who is camping here and working as a guide. He kindly served as my free guide, telling me all about what I should do and which places to book with.

Here are some pics of the hostel/campsite. It is a cool, laid back place with lost of people hangin' around the fire playing music at night:

And, here´s Bertrand, my trusty guide (he even lent me his alarm clock so I could wake up super-early to see the geysers):

La Valle de la Luna

My first day, I rented a bike and headed about 30km out to La Valle de la Luna (valley of the moon), which features some minor attractions and the opportunity to watch the sun set over a set of sanddunes. Here are the some sunset pics:

Hangin´With Chileans

I wanted to go visit the Tatio Geysers the next day (Wed), but all of the trips were full. So I ended up spending a very relaxing day in town. At around 2pm, I wondered into a restaurant that Mariepierre had recommended and she was there eating with her husband and some friends.

They invited me to join them and I ate lunch with them (sampling some traditional cuisine) and ended up hanging out with a couple of her friends for the rest of the day. One of the guys I met at lunch even hooked me up with about 250 Chilean songs for my new MP3 player. I finished off my night watching the Chilean national team play (and lose to) Mexico in the Copa de Liberdores at a pub. I turned in early because I had to head out to the geysers at 4am the next morning.

This is the afternoon crowd: Mirtha (from Santiago), Christian (from Arica), Nathieu (from France), and me. Below, I'm drinking mate con huesillos, a traditional juice drink.

Tatio Geysers

One of the coolest sites surrounding San Pedro is the Tatio Geysers. Tatio means "tears of grandfather," and in Atacama culture, mountains are grandfathers. The mountain/volcano behind these geysers forms a "face" in profile, and when the snow melts it descends from the "eyes." Here's a lousy picture of the mountain:

The geysers are formed when the lava from the volcano mixes with and boils underground water. The pressure from the resulting steam bursts through the ground, with water following. The geysers spout highest at sunrise when the difference between the air temperature high up and at ground level is greatest. Hence we were out there very early in the morning when it was freezing cold. Here are some geyser pics:

And here's a video of the geysers bubbling:

Nightlife

While signing up for a 4x4 trip to Bolivia, I met a Bolivian guy named Ronald who had just moved here to work for his uncle as a guide. This is Ronald:

We met up at a bar called Adobe later on. It was a bit pricey--Chile is the most expensive country in Latin America and San Pedro is a particularly ¨caro¨tourist spot--but great. As you can see from the pics below, there was a fire in the middle of the uncovered main room of the bar--a perfect touch in the desert where it gets quite cold at night but never rains.

Plus, there's this local driver who shows up at the bars every night in costume and gets everyone dancing:

The bar scene in San Pedro is relatively tame because by law the bars close at 1am., but can still be fun. Here's a pic with the Chileans I hung out with on my last night in town at a bar called Grado Seis:

The City

Overall, I found San Pedro to be a charming little town. It felt like most of the folks that work at the bars and restaurants know each other and that if you stayed for a few months you could know almost everyone as well. If the food and drinks were half the price I would recommend staying for a month. As it is, it´s definitely worth a 4 day visit both to take advantage of the surrounding natural attractions and to hang out in town. Here are some pics of the town:

Valparaiso, Chile

2007-04-29T18:57:00.000-05:00

Valparaiso is a small port city 1.5 hours west of Santiago. The entire city is a UNESCO historical site and it´s famous for its mad array of colorful houses arranged atop various ¨cerros¨or hills. To reach these homes and the narrow streets/alleys that surround them, the city provides ¨ascensors,¨romantic lifts from a bygone era. The city down below is nothing special--it´s the hills that bring the tourists and the romance.

I stayed here three days, but don´t have much to show or report because of the ¨incident¨discussed in my last entry--which caused me to be hungover and camera-less (or shopping for replacement items) for much of my time here.

I did manage to explore a bit though and take one of the ascensors up to view the city. Here are some pics. The first one is from inside the ascensor.

I happened to be riding up with a lovely gentleman leading a group of schoolchildren on a historical tour of the city and he invited me and two Canadian students to join the tour. We spent most of the time in a museum where our kindly guide tried valiantly to make Chilean naval history interesting...and succeeded very occasionally.

New camera and MP3 player in hand, I now hop on a bus for twenty hours to get to the northern Chilean desert. I´m excited to put ¨the incident¨behind me and excited to get north where it will be warmer.