kyax en sudamerica

coming home...

2006-09-25T17:33:00.000-05:00

Apologies for the incredible delay in updating of the blog – I guess that knowing that our days were running low made me want to take in every moment of the trip rather than spend time writing about it. Inspired by my sister Sally's new blog for her study abroad and internships in Brazil (which you can explore at dempsterandchurch.blogspot.com), I am now determined to at least partially bring our blog up to date.

So, currently, Kyla and I are living in lovely Oakland, California, in the wonderfully diverse and vibrant neighborhood of Fruitvale, in a collective house we just formed with two other new-to-the-area folks (one who works at habitat for humanity and the other is a social sciences school teacher at the local middle school). After a little bit of panic and a few side jobs cleaning a house filled with junk and dipping baked goods in chocolate at the only kosher jewish bakery in the east bay, Kyla has found two great part-time jobs working for Sustainable Agriculture Education (SAGE), which is working to connect urban communities with sustainable agricultural products, experiences, and education, and Oakland Youth Chorus, an after-school program for kids from low-income families near our neighborhood which creates opportunities for them to learn dance and music and do their school work. I have returned to the union and am working on some very exciting and interesting organizing campaigns. Zazu is back living with us and enjoying all the off-leash parks around us and spending time with our housemate’s dog Hans, although she tells us that she misses my parents and would love to spend more time with them and Stimpy whenever we head off on our next international adventures (which we can only hope that there are many more to come…).

Here is a semi-quick run down of some of our adventures from the last month on the trip and our return to the states (minus places that can’t be written about, but which were filled with great experiences that I would love to share with folks). As my mother would call it, a trip through the wayback machine…

Merida – Feeling a bit lonely in Coro, a town so quiet on Sundays that it is said that one can walk naked through the streets and no one would ever see you, I took an overnight bus to the city of Merida, which promised beautiful mountain landscapes and a hopping college kid scene. With my days on the trip becoming numbered, I settled into a comfortable life of hanging out at Patty’s hostal, whose owner delighted in calling everyone “mi amor,” and exploring the seemingly endless array of vegetarian restaurants (including the natural foods one, the hari krishna one, the gourmet one, and the greasy lunch special one). The highlight of any trip to Merida is supposed to be the teleferico – a ski lift of sorts – that is both the world’s tallest and longest, taking you up to nearly 5,000 meters, which is something like 17,000 feet. On a whim, I decided to start walking from the second highest teleferico stop to an old andino town, which I had heard from a fellow traveler was amazingly preserved and that you could walk to it and walk back in a loop to Merida in the same day. Well, after walking for four hours, finding myself lost twice, getting directions from various campesinos and their donkeys, developing silver dollar sized blisters all over my feet from my rapidly disinitigrating $5 Peruvian shoes, I finally arrived in the beautifully quaint, mountain-perched village of Los Nevados with no money in my pocket and no way to get home. It seemed like I was going to have to sleep on a bench in the tiny plaza and wake up at four in the morning to walk back the four hours to the teleferico, but then a local man with a jeep was kind enough to front me some money for food, lodging, and a ride back to Merida.

Los Llanos – While hanging out at Patty’s hostal, I met three nice young guys from Holland who were planning on going on an extreme safari to Los Llanos, an area of the country were rumored to be teeming with rare wildlife. While usually I try to avoid most things involving the word “extreme” or “safari,” let alone the two together, I decided to go along on the adventure in an effort to be open to all the different types of worlds around me and in hopes of seeing some amazing animals. Over the four days in the vast swampy grasslands, I held a 15 foot anaconda, kissed a cayman (a small crocodile), swam with pink river dolphins and piranhas, chased after a family of capybaras (the world’s largest rodent, which are the size of a medium dog), ran barefoot through a jungle following the distinct calls of a howler monkey, and rode on top of a jeep as the sunset and a flock of wild birds flew through the sky and melted in with the emerging stars. We passed the time at night, drinking beers and dancing to reggeton with the local young folks from neighboring farms, and smoking apple flavored, gummy tobacco out of a hookah with the second generation Syrian immigrants.

Caracas – After her three weeks in Los Angeles, Kyla returned to Venezuela and I went to Caracas to pick her up. We spent a few days in Caracas, enjoying each other’s presence, exploring the various worldclass and free museums (another compelling populist move by Chavez has been both reinvesting in the capital’s museums and eliminating entrance fees), and watching the World Cup with our friend Kenny who we met a month earlier climbing to the top of the ancient tabletop mountain Roirama.

San Francisco de Yare – We headed to the very small town of San Francisco de Yare, which explodes into life for a few days every year for the Diablos Danzantes – dancing devils – festival, which brings together Indigenous, African, and Spanish cultures practices in the form of hundreds of men and an young boys dressed in all red clothing and elaborate hand made devil masks, dancing through the streets at all hours to the hypnotic beat of a solo drum. At one point, we found ourselves in the main plaza surrounded by local middle school children – one of whom free-style rapped for us in exchange for us singing Otis Redding’s “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay.” Later, Kyla gave all the young girls bindi stickers that her sister had given to her, and they followed our lead, placing them below their eyes as tear drops. Although this festival is one of the most popular in all of Venezuela, the town is so small that there is no hostal, so we ended up staying in the only place even near town, which was called El Refugio – the refuge – and featured room rentals by the 12 hour period, a guard tower, concealed parking spaces for every room, mirrors on every wall, free pornos on the tv, a 10 person jacuzzi in the room, and piece of furniture shaped like a tiger that we believe was meant to aid in complex sexual positions.

Parque Morrocoy – We spent a day island hopping and scuba diving through the amazingly beautiful Parque Morrocoy with two very nice Jewish Canadians. At one point at the end of the day as we waited for the boat to come back and pick us up, these certain flies suddenly emerged and began to very painfully bite us all over and we were forced to hide under the water until the boat arrived.

Sierra San Luis – We found this amazing hostal in the mountains of Sierra San Luis, which was run by a super sweet Swiss couple who made us delicious vegetarian meals every night and who had recently bought a tv for the first time in fourteen years in order to watch the World Cup. We took hikes through amazingly beautiful landscapes of jungles grasslands, along old Spanish merchant paths.

Coro – In Coro, we went back out to the Medanos because I wanted to show Kyla how unique and awe inspiring they were. Kyla ended up talking with these two local guys, and as usual it resulted in an amazing adventure with us sand boarding down the dunes as the sun set and middle aged men in large dune buggies drove around us like maniacs.

Choroni & Chuao – We took an amzing drive through the hills of a cloud forest to reach the tiny coastal town of Choroni in order to attend the celebrations of San Juan Bautista – Saint John the Baptist – who was the most celebrated Saint in the area by the descendents of African slaves who had taken him on as their patron saint. Throughout the celebration people danced through the streets with a small boy representation of the saint and accompanied by rum-fueled young men banging away at enormous drums made out of nearly full tree trunks. We took a boat to another beach and walked to the town of Chuao, which is only accesible by foot and is surrounded by a collectively run plantation of organic cacao trees that are internationally known for producing the best chocolate in the world. Our last night in Choroni was fishermen’s day – the most important day of the year for this small town and our last real night in Venezuela and on our trip – and we ended up with a wild night that found me singing American folk songs with a group of guys from Argentina, Ireland, and Guyana before getting interrogated by the police for having a baggies of nutritional yeast in my pocket and Kyla winning a booty shaking/dancing contest over all the local young women and slapping a local man who was trying to beat up a few of our newly made Colombian friends.

Caracas to Miami – After some last minute schedule changes by our airlines, we ended up making it back to the states, but had to spend our first night back sleeping on the floor of the Miami airport to the constant noises of automated security advisories and the floor buffing machine.

Chicago to California – We spent a week in Chicago, visiting family and attempting to step back into American cultures in full stride with fourth of july, before we took a roadtrip across country, further treading back into the waters of Americana by hitting up some of the classic road trip spots we had never seen, such as the surreal landscapes of Badlands National Park, the ultimate pit stop that is Wall Drug, SD, the powerful geysers of Yellowstone, and the awe inspiring peaks of the Grand Tetons. After a little time catching up with friends and house hunting in the Bay Area, we headed down to Los Angeles to visit with Kyla’s family for a week, before heading back up to Oakland to try a settle into new lives, new jobs, and a new house, which all felt both strangely normal and completely different.

2006-05-29T14:10:00.000-05:00

In my attempt to leave the Caracas airport, drama ensued with batched passport stamps, lost backpack, and malfunctioning credit cards. As usual, everything worked out in the end and I was even treated to an impromptu tour of the sub-basement levels of the airport, which are currently being ripped to shreads and somewhat being rebuilt, in search of my backpack. Luckily a very nice Peruvian man escorted me through the complex city streets and public transport interchanges to reach the bus terminal. Along the way, we brainstormed on ways his children, who live in New Jersey with his ex-wife, could obtain their US citizenship. At the bus station, while waiting for the bus´s flat tire to be repaired, I ended up speaking with a young man who works for the Francisco Miranda Front, a government program which insures that the new social programs are being run fairly and the benefits are actually reaching the people. He shared with me both his sense of the growing socialist revolutionary movement that would unite Latin America as well as the major challenges of poverty and racism that continue to plague Venezuela (from his experiences, most Venezuelans of my color would not speak with a moreno or negro Venezuelan like him). As my bus was ready to leave he handed me a bracelet as a recuredo de un revolucionario.

I arrived at the Coro bus terminal before first light, and ended up falling asleep on a bench at the terminal in an attempt to catch up on some of the sleep I had missed while on the bus since I had forgotten to bring my sweetshirt and, as usual, the air conditiong was on full blast. Coro was a quaint little town with many narrow streets still lined with brightly colored colonial homes and mansions. I found a lovely little hostal called the Casa de los Pajaros which was an 18th century colonial home that had been painstakingly and eccentricly restored by the architect couple who lived there. They had a lovely back patio where I slept in a hammock amongst 3 dogs, 13 puppies, 3 parrots, and a turtle. The only down side was the morning routine of being woken up by a swarm of ferocious mosquitos, their daughter and her friend playing with my jumprope, and the parrots practicing some kind of elaborate primal scream ritual -- but i guess in hind sight, that also had its own charm.

I spent my days wandering through the beautiful streets and lush city parks, taking naps in my hammock to avoide the heat, devouring the not-very-traditional-but-very-tastey baked whole wheat empanadas filled with carne de soya at the rare and wonderful centro vegetariano, visiting a former secret prayer room where the small community of jews would sneak in and gather to celebrate the high holidays (more on this community below), going to the movie theater to see disapointing american movies, hanging out at the oldest bar in town and getting drinks bought for me by drunk old men who wanted to talk politics, and trudging through the Medanos de Coro enormous sand dunes just outside of town where the wind is so strong that it erases your footprints in seconds and throws sand against your skin at such a velocity that it actually causes great pain.

Definitely one of the highlights of Coro, though, was visiting the tiny jewish cemetary. Apparently, around 120 Jews came to Coro from the then Dutch island colony of Curaco in the 1820´s in order to develop informal (read: illegal) trade. After days of trying to contact the caretaker of the locked cemetary, I decided to walk by it and there just happen to a man sitting at the gate, he let me in and I walked amongst the tombstones baring what seemed to me to be very "non-Jewish" last names such as Henriquez, Maduro, and Curiel. On top of the graves were the usual jewish tradition of rocks left by visitors as well as the unusual presence of stone carved angels (apparently one of the assimilation/survival tactics of the small Jewish community in the hostile environment, where there were their own Venezuelan versions of progroms, was to adopt to certain Catholic burial customs). Suddenly, the gates to the cemetary opened and in walked nearly the entire staff of the US Embassy in Caracas on a mermorial day field trip, receiving a tour of the cemetary from Senor Henriquez, who along with his sister are the only living remnants of the once small but influential Jewish community in Coro. After the US Embassy folks left (reminding me that I should register with them in case my mother calls them looking for me), I got to drive around Coro with Senor Henriquez in his giant gas guzzler Lincoln. As he drove around, half watching the road and half looking for his cell phone, he told me the story of his Jewish ancestors who wove a complex history starting in Spain, fleeing to Protugal, receiving sanctuary in Holand, leaving for the isalnd of Curaco to develop businesses, expanding those businesses illegally to Coro, Venezuela, returning to Curaco because of persecution in Coro after Venezuelan independence, and finally returning once again to Coro after making international appeals and receiving protection from the Venezuelan government. I´ve been trying to figure out for my self what it means to be Jewish or have Jewish cultures and/or ancestry, since, like Senor Henriquez´s children, I am a non-practicing half-breed born of a Catholic mother, so I aksed him what being Jewish meant to him, and all he said was "very proud." I guess maybe it´s a silly question to ask him, since do he and I really have any kind of common identity as "Jewish" since we come from different "tribes" and our ancestors have traced very different paths. But, perhaps, our "Jewishness" doesn´t come from having the same story, but more so in the ways in which are families´ share parallel survivial stories of migration, altered last names, and adapted cultural/religious practices.

take care,

max

translation of mural in coro, venezuela: "i know there is an enemy, it´s imperialism, and i will defeat it"

Gypsy Cab Slideshow!

2006-04-23T19:49:00.000-05:00

A review of a the gypsy cabs from San Felix, Venezuela...

Max

Going down, down off the beaten path...

2006-04-23T14:44:00.000-05:00

Take ferry from Chaguramas, Trinidad, to Guiria, Venezuela. go to docks to look for boat. find merchandise trading boat. talk to naturist who broadcasts music from a loudspeaker above his store. meet boat the next day. boat loaded with beer, watermelon, plantains, cabbage, yucca, 2 guys, and us. start to leave, but we notice a huge hole in the front. hole is fixed with rope and hammer. leave again. sea is rough. we get completely wet. one engine dies. the other engine dies. no land in sight. emergency plans race through our minds. 2 guys yell at each other. engines start. kyla puts on poncho. max hides under tarp. max feels sick. max throws up. max falls asleep. thick mangrove forests. flame of petroleum processing plant at night. cold & tired we reach Pedernales. municipal security guard walks us around town looking for someone´s house where we can sleep. find hospedaje. no restaurants open. hot dog and hamburger vendors. buy tang. dinner of bread and olives. talk to man who recently formed municipal workers union and was then fired. wake up at 3am to catch on boat out of town. stop for cheese arepas and tinto at a jungle shack. arrive at a boat ramp in Tucupita. hop in a cab to Ciudad Guyana, a city know by its parts -- San Felix and Puerto Ordaz, where a black river and a white river meet and slightly mix. catch a bus to Callao. meet very nice people who are on their way home to the next town. they invite us to spend the night. we stay on the bus for a free ride to their town of Tumeremo. they make us dinner. we wash our smelly and salty clothes. we go out to a local bar. dance with everyone. buy them lots of beer. talk about local gold mining. leave town towards the Gran Sabana. see great film dramatizing El Salvador civil war on the bus. jump from seat to seat to see the amazing tepuis -- table top mountains -- in the setting sun. arrive in Santa Elena and eat surprisingly good chinese food.

max.

"Like T&T, It´s Dynamite!"

2006-04-23T08:25:00.000-05:00

Trinidad & Tobago stole my heart away with its... doubles, liming, c.l.r. james, ferries, maubi juice, red & black, punch, soca, ¨roll it down, roll it down¨, carnival, queen´s park savanah, channa, largest pitch lake in the world, temple, roti, rides from police, candidate for minister of national security, trinis, ¨a big man like you¨, hardline vegetarian, club 51 degrees, prayer flags, rastafarian, guiness, deepfried garbanzo bean balls with mango chutney sauce, u.s. marines, bohdi, st. james, soca warriors, mother nature, booby island, church, smokey & bunty´s, pier 1, ground provisions, independence square, mas camps, university of west indies press, veggie burgers on the street, ¨i´ve got the love of jah in me¨, ice cold coconuts, broken down rental cars, soca chutney, maxis, ground provisions, squeeze, sport fishing, politics is culture, the copper kettle, argyle waterfall cooldown, temple on the water, carib, pumpkin, brian, snorkelling, ex-pats, church´s chicken veggie burger meal for lent, cricket, roxbourgh, consious reggae, interfaith prayers, mackeson, driving through the oldest protected jungle, calypso, tunapuna, "a pretty boy", ganja, masque, homemade guiness ice cream, culture is politics, chef & bbqs, chaguramas, sea moss, fredrick street, pirated CDs, funeral parades, impossible is nothing, murder, KAI-SO-O-O-O!

Max

Across Venezuela in a Week!

2006-04-23T07:24:00.000-05:00

In our continued effort to be open to the world and people (and as Kyla would say the voices of the Universe) around us, we changed our minds at the Santa Marta, Colombia, bus station and bought a ticket for the Venezuelan capital of Caracas rather than the Colombian desert penninsula of La Guajira. Despite a large rock thrown at our bus that smashed the window directly behind our seats, the decision seems to have been a great one. Despite the facts that we wanted to move across Venezuela pretty quickly in order to get to the eastern edge where we could take a boat to Trinidad & Tobago and the bizzare rumor floating amongst international travelers in Colombia that Venezuelans were very cold and nasty, we we managed to have a few wonderful adventures a long the way...

- Kyla won her first victory against the powerful South American logic of keeping the temperature of buses at sub-freezing levels, and the bus driver actually turned off the blasting air conditioning for a few minutes.

- We went to see a sex musical in Caracas called "Oh, Caracas!", which turned out to be probably the worst piece of theater either of us had ever seen -- there was even a lip-synching, group strip dance to John Lennon´s "Imagine."

- We tried to go snorkelling at some islands off the coast of Santa Fe, but they didn´t have enough snorkelling masks, so we convinced them to drop us off at the hopping Playa Colorado, where a samba band was playing and a local family adopted us -- never letting our hands be without a beer, burying me in the sand, pairing Kyla up with dance partners, and sharing with us how their lives had persoally be impacted by the Socialist Revolution (two nearly-blind nephews had been flown to Cuba for free eye surgery and now could see, a niece was receiving free medical training and in five years would be the family´s first doctor, and illiterate elderly friends were learning to write their names for the first time)

- We ended up in the not too exciting town of Cumana for a night, and happened upon a serious karaoke competition next door to our hotel. After the competition ended in controversy and after much encouragement by a random guy who REALLY wanted us to sing, Fred Whalen Brainin made his frist apperance in South America and the small pizza joint came alive with people standing up, clapping, and even screaming as he danced around and belted Bon Jovi´s "Livin´on a Prayer" (which was dedicated to the immense hope for a better world that Venezuelans have)

- After a wide variety of rural transportation, we arrived at the Cueva de Guacheros, where thousands of Oil Birds live. We ended up staying at the house of a local guide, whose parents were anti-war activists who raised him on a macrobiotic diet. Their neighbors grew coffee and they shared with us the most amazing tasting cups of coffee I have ever tasted as we discussed the ways in which the Chavez government has been dramatically increasing the percentage of coffee profits that actually go to the grower in Venezuela. As an added treat, our guide-host took us to the Cueva after hours to see all the Oil Birds clacking like a million deranged typists and flying out into the lightning-filled night in search of berries.

- We came across amazing natural thermal baths with delightful mud pits. We almost got stranded in the middle of nowhere, as the gypsy cabs stopped running after dark and the buses seemed to follow their own schedule, but then we got picked up by a van, which was a free rural transporation program recently started by the Chavez government to help poor rural communities.

- We eventually made it to the eastern most Venezuelan city accessible by road, Guiria, and after a few nights of hanging out with the crew from a luxury charter yacht owned by Mr. Mars of Mars Candy Bars, we jumped aboard the yacht to Trinidad & Tobago, with hot Soca beats balsting out of the speakers on the upper deck and all the soft drinks you could drink in the lower inside cabin.

Max

Getting Dirty!

2006-04-23T00:39:00.000-05:00

Bring on the Mud....

While in route to Güiria, Venezuela, we stopped by some natural hot springs and mud pools. Here is our fashion shoot....

The Gran Sabana Part 2

2006-04-21T14:41:00.000-05:00

Read the previous entry first if you haven`t done so!

.... So we continued with hitch hiking since it had worked so well before and waited 45 mins or so to end up in the back of a dodge truck with a driver who had a foot of lead. The scenery was beautiful and the fresh air felt great until it began to rain. We scrambled to get out our water proof ponchos, and hundled under them until the skies cleared and rainbows filled in where grey clouds had just left. This ride brought us to the main highway, to a popular campsite behind one of the few gas stations, with not much daytime left and the realization that all the rooms were booked.

We tried our luck again and by a twist of fate, I met eyes with Giuermo, a Venezuelano in his late 20`s who spoke english and was packed in a land rover with 3 other friends riding along to the sounds of Bob Marley. We crammed in there amoungst guitar and rum bottles, and set off, listening to Dave Matthews and many other hits from my high school, early college years... it felt like heaven. We had decided to go with them to a less well-know site since everything was full along the way, and the sun was quickly setting to a full moon. They took us to see Salto Kama, a cascade that is said to be a two headed snake in indigenous folklore, brillantly falling into pools below. Buying a bit of food for the night, and hoping we could sleep in their car, we set off for ...... which was off the Semana Santa map and was pleasantly quiet, yet very chilly.

After a night of reggae songs on repeat, and sleeping comfortable in their car, we got to go swimming in a natural pool and got zapped by the sun (due to our malaria medicine, Max burnt his hand so bad it blistered). We also awoke to a hike to a nearby hill which looked over completely open land... a sight that would awe people in Holland or Japan.

We had another interesting run-in with machismo, except this time with people of our own age that seemed hip to social change. The driver of the group, as I guess many men here behind the wheel, had the say in what was going to happen and when.... making the plans with his other buddy drivers without asking his wife, and two other friends in the back. Of course we were just along for the ride (and decided to catch another one to the border for another go at Acai), and thus witnessed a slow, slow day of waiting, unrational decision making, and coordinating to meet up with others, which landed us in Brazil around 5pm. Of course the sweet taste of that fruit with it`s hints of chocolate and berry (have I been drinking wine?) were worth it in the end and we made the best of it.

We got back to Santa Elena that night to realize that there weren`t enough people to do the Roraima trek that we had hoped for. However talking to our new friend, and soon after tent mate, Yossi, we decided that we`d all pay a bit more to make it happen... ¨vale la pena¨ so they say.

Roraima is an amazing Tepuy, a flat mountain plain believed to exist before there was life on earth- due to it`s lack of fossils. The rock formations remind me of what coral reefs would look like if solidified and brought to surface, and with a twist of imagination you can make out faces and UFOs in them (apparently many sightings have been seen in this area and we heard many stories from people to prove it!) Once you reach the top it`s possible to see valleys of crystals, caves with oilbirds, ¨jacuzzis¨with quartz bottoms (although a bit chilly), and amazing of plant species, 50% of which have only been identified on this tepuy.

Here are just a few of all the memorable moments...

-Yossi, our other camping/hiking mate, made a witty speech on our way up declaring that this was his last hike and we must carry on the tradition. Below is Max sealing the deal...

- The first afternoon after reaching the top, Max and I convinced our guide to let us go for a little walk, as he didn`t have a rain coat and we didn`t want to just sit around such an amazing place in our tents (you are literally in the clouds here at an elevation of 2,700 meters or so). We followed a sand path into the mist, amoungst crystals, rocks, unusual plants and miniture waterfalls coming to life from the light rain. It is truly an extrodinary place. After a few hours of walking or so, not making the full circle back to the campsite as we had thought, we were stuck in pure fog with visibility of 20 feet or so. Yes, we were lost! The formations all looked so different and nothing was familiar... this tepuy is so large that you could take 2 full days just walking across it.) At first we kept walking, looking for something to lead us back. To make a long drawn out time a bit more concise, we eventually reached the point of running towards the setting sun, frantically screaming hoping our group would hear, running more through puddles and ancient plants (me apologizing all the way), and eventually üsing the force¨to guide us back. It apparently worked as, with 10 minutes of light to spare, we found a road of sand which led us to a familiar rock formation.... ahhh the relief of not having to sleep out in the freezing open winds, with nothing but our body heat to get us through the night. Here are pics of our soaking feet and the relief on our faces of finding our ¨hotel¨...

-The next day, hearts beating at a normal speed now, we explored Roraima with our guide and porter (who really knew much more about the mountain and took us on our own afternoon adventure). We layed in crystals- meditating awhile and taking in the good energy, jumped in freezing cold pools lined with crystals at the bottom, ventured 86m into a cave, spent time looking over the edge, and of course taking many pictures.

-After my last declared walk with my beloved Crocs, I found them another pair of feet to get cozy with.... an older woman in the first camp by the name of Trinida who was getting burnt by blazing embers of the fire she and another woman, Dolphina, kept going most of the night. They were making Kichiri...a four hour process of heating yucca, batata (a local root plant) and water together, nessecary to make the yucca juice not poisonous to drink. When I left the next morning, they gave me a gift of a handmade necklace to show their gratitude... I was very touched.

-Spent time taking in Nelzon´s, our porter, stories.... he had many good ones about the government and their treatment of indigenous people which I`ll be sharing more of when i return. Here he is with his extremely heavy pack, crossing the Kukenan river with Roraima in the background.....

-And this one goes out to Brian.....

The Gran Sabana Part 1

2006-04-21T13:37:00.008-05:00

Our adventures have continued in Venezuela, headed quickly south from Güiria to the Gran Sabana on river boats (some loaded with beer, bananas, and lettuce... Max might fill you all in on this!).

We evetually made it to Santa Elena, a town that has grown from diamonds, gold and tourists in the area, and had a few weeks of adventures starting with our bike ride to Brazil. Yes I never thought the words would come out of my mouth, but we rode a bike to Brazil...

Just a quick ride amoungst breaking ground for 5 star hotels, forest, grassland and police check points along the way, we ended up on the bordering town without having to buy the $130 or so visa required of american citizens to enter such a vibrant place. OUr day trip consisted of Acai/ Guarana smoothies (ohhhhhhhhhh so good), brazilian nuts, a little shopping along the way and ended up with confrontation with the fabulously organized laws of Venezuela....

Along the route we had noticed a sign for a waterfall just 5km off the carratera and decided, with more sunshine to spare and lots of energy from our drinks, to venture off to take it in. About a quarter km down the road we were stopped by a checkpoint and asked to show our passports. Happily to do so, we started chatting with the man in charge who told us that we had to go get a permit from the linea (border) to pass through there. Appartently the road leads to mining areas where foreigners are known to come look for illegal work and the road is highly supervised. Equipped with our waterbottle, and sweating we had a long discussion of why we couldn`t just go see the waterfall and return... I getting a bit worked up on the ridiculousness of the notion that on a Sunday afternoon we were off with nothing but our rented bikes to go find work amoungst miners! Trying to reason with a man spitting out his chewing tobacco and explaining his unlogical power trip with a huge wad in his cheek, was a bit frustrating. I wanted to see this through so convinced Max to ride back the 40 min round trip to the border for whatever slip they were willing to give.

Upon our return, no one seemed to know about this new law and were questioning why the guards didn`t just let us cross. After talking to many people and getting no slip, we returned with the name of Officer Vargas to call if we had any more disputes. Of course the story follows that we weren`t allowed across on principal of ¨following orders¨as well as an unwillingness to call the linea and work out permission... all of a sudden the location changed and we were suppose to get permission in Santa Elena instead. Puffing a bit (it`s been a long time since I last got on a bike), and in my broken spanish I pleaded, telling then how ridiculous the situation was to no avail.... defeated we rode back in the sunset, our ¨dairy eirs¨(as my gran gran says and I`m sure would correct my spelling!) killing from being in the saddle a bit too long.

The next day we decided to be official and take a tour of the Gran Sabana to waterfalls and a abyss where the amazon begins. Unknowingly we ended up on the same rode as the day before, confronted with some of the same policemen.... now it seemed a bit strange. Needless to say we were forced back to Santa Elena to get the permit ( a piece of paper with our names and an öfficial stamp¨) and were on our way, down a long dirt road the color of jasper.

After being disappointed with yet another overly expensive tour (Mystic Tours is not recommended!!!), we decided to have our own with nothing but our packs, spanish, and thumbs to help us along the way. Hitchhiking is easy with buses (of course you must pay!) and we found ourselves dropped off after a two hour ride facing a long road, 6 hours from our destination, hungry from fasting in the morning with hardly any water. Luckily we were welcomed into the back of a families pick up amoungst their cooler and camping gear, who were headed exactly where we wanted to go... Salto Apongauo... a 100 meter waterfall that has rainbows at it`s end if seen in the right light.

The week now was Semana Santa which is the Venezuelan version of Spring break where most people get the whole week off (and then some) to get out of the city with their family. The hip place was amoungst all this open land and waterfalls which was flooded with tourists for the week! When we arrived at the camp site, which was now covered with 4x4s, we were lucky to find a matrimonial hammock that was hand weaved by indigenous people in the far south of Venezuela... wanting to sell it at some point, we promised the family not to get it dirty and it made quite a comfortable spot to crash for the night. Finally breaking our semi-fasting mode (we were given beers by the group we caught the ride with) we sat down to rice, salad and platanoes... a bland meal that can always be spiced up with aji and salt. A moment that Max will always remember was when I poured the hot sauce all over my food and said ¨oh there is an ant in my food.... no wait, the food is ants!!) Apparently being out in this acidic soils made the local treat termites and fish heads in a hot sauce.... not quite vegetarian friendly but a learning experience none the less.... it had been the first time in awhile that I thought ¨wow, I`m really far from home! Scrapping the legs and thoraxes to the side, we didn`t offend anyone and ended up getting to know a local family, swimming and playing cards with the local children.

And the adventures continued on.......

Carribean dreams

2006-04-09T21:21:00.001-05:00

Soca-chutney music, white sand beaches, parrot fish, brain coral, vegetarian burgers on the streets, driving on the right side through a rainforest, speaking english and only a four hour tour from Venezuela. Where is this paradise for a beach going vegetarian? T&T (Trinidad and Tobago) where Max and I spent 2 weeks in a dream from our spanish filled days searching for food other than rice. Amazing Carribean islands that, although quite expensive, we managed to live the dream of wealthy British vacationers, in our humble budget thanks to the help of generous people and the most delicious vegetarian comida incredible in price (a garbanzo bean ¨double¨costs an equivalent of 33 cents). Did I say the food was amazing? As we try explaining to people that we don´t eat meat here in Venezuela, I dream of finding guiness ice cream on the street once more, or soul food vegetarian joints a block from our posadas..... ahhhhhhhhh (with Homer Simpson in mind).

Besides gorging ourselve on Rotis, cashew nuts, and punch (amazing smoothies with granola and other amazingly healthy items like sea moss, linseed or aloe vera) here are some of our other adventures...

-We met a man who is hoping to run for secretary of defense as a twist of fate stopped us from renting a car (seat belt didn´t work! and one was missing a side mirror critical especially in this former British Colony´s driving style). We shared politics over a beer, and agreed to attend a protest the next day against a smelter (aluminium) plant that was going to be put up in the south, destroying amazing forests and relocating people from their birthplaces. The protest was inspiring in a Trinidad manner... music blaring, live drums, and followed by a inter-faith ceremony (being Sunday and all). Much hope although the American company does have a lot of leverage with the government, and has been breaking lots of laws in a fashion that is seen from many foreign companies there. It was especially hard to be witness to all these people having to rally together to fight something that is illegal in the States (due to the pollution and other reasons, new smelter plants are no longer allowed to be built on our soil). For some reason a speech came on the loud speekers about GMO´s and the US and I nearly lost myself amoungst hundreds of people staring out to the virgin forest that may soon be ravished by bulldozers. In the spirit of the day, I held in my sorrow, stepped to the side and let the tears drip silently... are we really a part of a system that does such things? Has greed won out over such beauty? Of course I know the answer to these questions, but like to remind myself that I, like everyone, play a role in that no matter how small it is. Here are a few pics from that day....

-On that note we saw the movie ¨V for Vendetta¨ in an old run down theater in Port of Spain with no lights to even guide us down the aisles. Finding our way in pure dark, we sat down to watch a film we knew nothing about (except it´s by the directors of the Matrix, the Malowski bothers, and stars Natalie Portman). WOW, wow and WOw! See it if you haven´t and tell me what you think. We even walked out of Pink Panther to see half of it again (ah poor Steve Martin with his horrible and probably very offensive french accent).

- We ended up on another island- Tobago- after what we thought was only a 2 hour boat ride which turned into what we thought would be 5 hours but actually took 8 hours due to a Cruise ship that was in our port space... screaming and yelling from the passengers (Ï don´t care about no f%&""$!% tourists¨) found us in Scarborough at 11pm, me holding my head from pure sea sickness, without a place to stay. In the Trini style of hospitality we had three people calling around for an economic place for us to sleep including the police who excorted us to ¨Miss I´s¨lovely guest house where we slept for 2 nights.

-We rented a car in Tobago and set off to explore the whole island in the 24 hours we had of freedom... what an amazing thing to stop whenever we felt like it!! We headed east along windy roads and our first stop was because someone flagged us down (aka, stood in the street) and jumped in the back seat! Luckily no knives were pulled but I guess the scam is to get into foreigners cars, sporting an official tourist shirt, and get them to hire you as a guide by spilling out information. We didn´t reach this point as I refused to pull over and kept yelling for him to get out. With the urgency of a truck waiting behind us, he finally got out and we were on our merry way. Another man tried this moments later and I was quick with the gas before he could jump in front of us!

- We ended up sleeping in our hotel on wheels after a day of driving through the rain forest and running into a town hosting a international game fishing tournament! Fishermen and women filled this sleepy town of Charlottesville with talk of marlin, dolphin (maui-maui), and a ridiculous point system. We returned here with our new friend from Canada, Brian, who we had met on a bus and enjoyed the company of greatly only days later.

- In Charlottesville we did a bit of snorkeling and swam out to ¨Booby island¨with Brian, having an amazing time looking at coral and the world of fishes. But a more incredible find was at Bucco reef where I stayed an extra day to go out to the famous Bucco Reef while Max made his way back to Trinidad. I saw trumpet fish, angel fish, and many more I don´t know the name of... perhaps one day I´ll see these again in aquariums or books!

-Our last night in T&T was spent at Brian´s sharing amazing wine, conversations, and a homemade Italian dinner. It was really refreshing meeting someone on our trip who had the same taste in movies, music, and a great demeanor... we spent many a nights talking and sharing stories and listening to ¨Belle and Sebastian¨and ¨Magnetic Fields¨.

Ahhhhh how I miss that country......

Greetings from the land of the gypsy cab...

2006-03-17T15:17:00.000-05:00

Currently we are in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela. Only three days into our adventures in Venezuela, this country is already emerging as both the most different and the most similar to home. On one hand, at the border with Colombia, an armed Venezuelan solider with a beret announced to me "We are the revolutionaries" and all over Caracas there are banners proclaiming "Democracy, Participation, Christianity are Socialism." While on the other hand, rather than going wild over soccer, kids here are in love with baseball and rag tag games pop up in every little park or street and nearly every corner in Caracas had a sign advertising the distance to the nearest McDonanld's.

For the last 5 weeks, we have been weaving our way through the absolutely amazing country of Colombia. Before making it into Colombia from Ecuador, I was quite nervous, my head spinning with horror stories of kidnapings, cociane trafficers, thieves, guerrilas, paramilitaries, corrupt cops and governments. The only way I could describe my anxiety was that I had this feeling that somehow everything would be different in Colombia... people's heads would be on upside down and the hills would be burning red. We were so nervous that we actually left Quito at 10pm with the idea that we didn't want to travel at night by bus in Colombia. We ended up arrving in the border town of Tulcan, Ecuador, at 4am, at which point our bus turned into a hotel of sorts, letting anyone on to sleep and wait for the border to open. At 6am we were woken up by the bus driver and a barrage of vendors selling tinto (sweet black coffee), and shuffled our way into a cab which drove at break neck speed into the sunrise and the border. In the Ecuadorian immigration office, there was a large group of Colombians, who seemed to be drunk and having stayed up all night, playfully videotapping each other. Then with our exit stamp in place, we walked across the bride to Colombia, and everything was quite surprisingly normal... no strip searches, no gun wielding robbers or guerillas or paramilitaries, no one offering us cocaine.

People were so incredibly nice, friendly, and open... whether it was the elderly couple who owned the hostal near the Tierradentro burial tombs who made us fresh orange juice from their very own tree or the folks at Teatro Experimental de Cali who although they didn't have a current show gave us a full backstage tour of the theater and invited us to celebrate the artistic director's birthday with cake and wine or all of the different people who made us part of their families at each of the Carnaval parades in Baranquilla or the workers at the cafe in Parque Tayrona who indulged us in an impromptu dance party and taught us how to shake it to the regional specialty of Champeta.

The beauty of the country took our breath away... from the first bus ride starting at the border to Popayan along green mountain cliff roads to the otherworldly landscapes created by the Palmas de Cera (Wax Palms), the tallest palm in the world, emerging from a cloud forest near Salento to the paradise like beaches of Parque Tayrona with crystal clear water, deep green coves, coconut trees, and enormous grey boulders to the deliciously dense rainforest with its mud filled, super steep steep paths leading to Ciudad Perdida (the Lost City).

And perhaps the greatest gift that Colombia shared with us was the presence of our amazing friend, Regan. Three weeks with her flew by in a whirl of delight, but the memories with her stick out in my mind perhaps stronger that any other part of our trip... zipping through Bogota in a crazy cab as Kyla and I sang along loudly to Bohemian Rhapsody and Regan clutched me and giggled in fear for her life, walking into a tiny gay and lesbian club in Bogota called The Hacienda and instantly finding ourselves in a whirlwind of partner swapping dance-mania to live afrocolombian carnival music, meeting up with her amazing friend Ramon in Medellin who walked us around the city and told us about his fascinating social psycological work with displaced afrocolombians from the pacific coast, the three of us grabbing each others' hands in fear as all the power and street lights went out at the gay parade on the first night of Carnaval after we had already been sprayed with foam numerous times in attempts to distract and pickpocket us (they only managed to steal Regan's toilet paper), Regan encouraging us to dance with a family in front of their house in Baranquilla which turned their relaxed gathering into a jumping party with free beers and many marriage proposals, and skinny dipping & talking about the meaning of love and in the unbelievably beautiful Carribean waters in Parque Tayrona.

Of course, the truth is that along side the natural beauty and their incredible spirits, the people of Colombia face many challenges in their daily lives as they navigate amongst the intense and embattled relationships between guerrilas, paramilitaries, military, Colombian government, and the US government. As of particular note for us as North Americans is of course the relationship that our government and US corporations have within these webs of power in Colombia. While I am not prepared to be able to tackle that monster of an issue at the moment, one thing I do think is important to share is just how sharp and sophisticated the overwhelming majority of Colombians are about how US foreign politics impact their lives in negative ways. But perhaps even more impressive is that in the same breath that Colombians would openly critique the US government, they would open up to us as North Americans and were eager to share with us their hopes for better worlds (and usually a few beers and a couple of shots of aguardiente while they were at it)

Much love,
Much hope,
Max

A bit more on Carnaval

2006-03-17T14:06:00.000-05:00

Greetings from Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela where Max and I had to trek back to in order to get money. We are staying in the sleepy beach town of Santa Fe where automaticos don´t exist, the fish are plentiful and dogs run rampant (yes, we are picking food up here too!) After stuffing ourselves with a veggie menu, I´m sitting here trying to recall what happened in the last month...

Back to Carnaval.... I don´t think I can recall all the details right now, but major memories stick out.

- Of course the foam, which was plentiful every parade we went to. We had to buy foam in our own defense and one time I actually had to use my chair as a shield against this man who got a bit agro. I don´t think anyone read the instructions or else they would know not to spray directly en mi boca....luckily we all had protective eye wear on!

- The foam got to the point that by parade 4 we were dodging people with it, kust trying to stay ¨foam free¨which was pretty impossible. Max and I went out dancing one night and literally left once the foam (espuma) started!

- After a parade one day, we were walking by a house/bar (as many things get converted for carnaval) where people were just sitting around in a huge circle listening to blasting music. As we walked by they started yelling to us and if it wasn´t for Regan´s little nug nug, there wouldn´t have been an hour long dance party! We were almost past the street when, as Max put it, it was the moment right before a bomb went off, as I turned around and ran into the circle. Needless to say we got our dance on and I must say that Max stole the show! He was getting down and many women were lining up! One mother seemed to have all her children lined up to marry the three of us, as she set up partners and dictated each song.... cumbia, reggaeton, vallanato... I must have been passed along to 5 different men because of this women´s commands! There were extremely generous with rum and beers, making sure if we weren´t dancing we had a drink in our hands! The couple running the house was so sweet and I got to do a bit of improve dance with the father...which has been unheard of here as women usually just follow the man´s lead.

The timing was amazing as right when we left (which was hard to get away from that grip!) we made it just in time for a theater performance on the street... an amazing act by a group from Cartagena, of the Mexican myth of the crying woman. One legged stilts, fire dancing and all... superb.

-Cumbia, cumbia, and more cumbia... the traditional dance of the region which brought dance grouops upon groups to perform this very simple movement in elaborant costumes. ABy the end, I could hardly stand the beat to tell you all the truth.

Yes, that´s most of it for now, although our adventures continued with Regan some more and there have been more dancing since. Great times.

Love,

Kyla

Parades, Parades, and more parades

2006-03-01T08:20:00.002-05:00

After amerging out of bed this Wednesday morning contemplating the last week, I still hear drum beats in my head and see the small steps to Cumbia. Carnaval is officially over, and we miracously made it through four days of parades- Batalla de Flores, Gran Parade de Tradicíon y Folclor, Gran Parada de Fantasía, and Joselito se va con las Cenizas- each with different yet entirely similar experiences.

Saturday

The start to Carnaval, we woke up at 8 pm, met up with our new-found friend Freddy (the owner of the only Rock school in Barranquilla who let Max and I sleep on his floor Thursday night due to bad directions) and headed to find seats for the parade. It, like most of them. started around 3pm, but the crowd was geared and full of energy by 10am.... and the seats were all nearly full. After half an hour of hassling and playing Goldilocks, we got seats next to a group from the most northern part of Colombia, an old man drunk passing out Rum, and kids spraying foam everywhere (more to come on that business.. I´m sticking to one topic!) We dodged the sun creeping through the cracks of tents which people had to set up three days in advance just to reserve their spots- sleeping throughout the nights in order to sell seats in their claimed space.

he foam really got going once the first float came by- one of many advertising different companies- Comcel, Movistar, Cumit, Maggie... phone companies, chip companies, sausage companies, and the oddest -a cement company. Girls dressed in tight decorated pants, shorts or thongs danced on floats and I wondered.... Is this what Carnaval has become? A commercialized event? Eventually the floats ended and some dancing ensued...

We found out later that there was a much larger police presense this year and corporate sponsers. The consequence? Many folkloric groups dropped out of the parade because they were told by the police that they wouldn{t start until 6pm rather than 3 because the businesses got to go first! There were many lulls in the parade ( 30 minutes between groups) and it dragged on for 5 hours... bringing us to a total of 10 hours on Vía 40. During that time a few eventful moments occured...

-Dancing in the street with an AfroCaribe man in his red sequin short shorts, busting out some african moves in front of a whole side of bleachers! The crowd soon after made a chant about me- Oh le oh le oh le oh le, la gringa se la llevo! Which I have gotten many translations for.... litterally it means, The gringa brought it, but an older fellow said they were telling me I was full of joy, and overqualified. Quite a moment...

- Dancing in the streets with teachers from Barranquilla

-I guess just dancing in general with many people giving me the thumbs up and asking me where I learned... many people told me I danced like a Colombian. ..

After the parade we headed to the Festival of Cerveza which actually is a Aquila event- the official beer of Carnaval which is advertised EVERWHERE.... people wearing shirts, hats you name it. When we got there we purchased our official first small bottle of rum for carnaval (one of two) and had to drink it incredibly quickly as we approached the police in line who would confiscate it. With no real effect on us, we stumbled into the festival which was a huge outside venue packed with people dancing! A highlight for many would be seeing the Aguila ladies strip down to their bikinis doing a show for all.... crazy to see live the woman that I see posted all over tiendas, men´s bedrooms, bathrooms, billboards etc.

Well, you´ve guessed it, my time has expired for now so I´ll leave it at that!

Much lvoe,

Kyla

Slide show!!!

2006-02-20T05:15:00.000-05:00

Here we are in Medellin, Colombia, after an 11 hour bus ride from Bogota, which should have been 8 hours except they regularly close the highway to have armed combat between the army and guerillas. Upon arriving we got in a taxi with a driver who seemed to be drunk and couldn't understand the hostal's address. So we went back to the bus terminal, where none of the taxi drivers knew where our hostal was, and eventually the national police had to assist us. Now, instead of sleeping, we've been on the computer for 4 hours to bring you...

PICTURES!!!

Here we are working away (although we must mention that Kyla did all... most of the work!)

A visual representation of where we've been and what we've seen...

But first.... a blast to the past-

Max beating local kids at foos-ball in Puno, Peru (early November)

Dance group in Nasca, Peru that we met on a bus and went to see perform (early November)

The infamous Macchupichu (late November)

Ecuador
The Days at Rio Muchacho...

The pigs, Kyla's art project, and the composting toilet I/she used.

Jefferson with cuys, a religious festival, and me pretending to teach!

Fun times in agriculture class

A banana flower, Dario (the director), and my favorite dog there, Perlita.

Reunited...

Mindo, Ecuador...

Making artistic food plates for each other

Jardin de Orquideas

Colombia

Into the Earth, Tierradentro

Climbing ancient stairs down into the only found underground burial tombs in all of the Americas (with paint from the 11th century still looking fresh).

Stencil Art in Cali, Colombia....

The "best" zoo in Colombia (Cali)

The World's Smallest Monkey (almost actual size)

What some may call more "historical" places...

Gothic church in Cali and Museo de Cana de Azucar

Along the walk to the museum, Max helps along the road...

... and Kyla gives a shout out to Zazu!

Coffee Amusement Park, Armenia

Valle de Caraco, cerca de Salento

The official national tree, the Wax Palms, are the tallest in the world

Did Max get transported to Santa Cruz?

Bogota....

Museo Botero

Reunited with Regan!!!!

Riding the Teleferico yesterday, eating arepas, and shoe shopping

Staying at Nicky's house....

And the award winning shot taken by Max....

Are you ready?...

Kyla launching off a water slide into a freezing waterfall in a cloud forest on day 101 of our trip!

Back to/from the Jungle...

2006-02-02T19:30:00.000-05:00

After a few weeks of being ¨el solito en Quito,¨ I took off back to the coast and had a wonderful weekend in the coastal town of Canoa, where I got to impress Kyla with my salsa dancing prowessness.

I headed up the coast to Borbon, which felt like what I imagine a small African fishing village to be, since nearly everyone was Afro-Ecuadorian and spoke with a strong, distinct accent that made Spanish nearly unrecognizable to me.
I met up with my German pals, Romy and Heiko, and we hopped aboard a 4 hour motorized canoe ride through the rain forest, which is dotted with small Afro-Ecuadorian and Cachi (the local indigenous group, of which only 5,000 people are left) communties. All of the Afros living in this rainforest are descendents of a jungle slave community that successfully rose up against the Spanish colonialists hundreds of years ago. Up until about 10 years ago, Afros and Chacis were battling politically for land, but after some international interventions have been able to live in relative harmony. We eventually reached the small Afro-Ecuadorian community of San Miguel, which sits on a hill at the juncture of the Cayapas and the San Miguel Rivers. In the few days in San Miguel, we ...

- Stayed at the community-run eco-lodge which had a desk in the hallway covered with test tubes and petrie dishes filled with fecal samples, ecoli, salmanela, and other lovely diseases found in the rivers (Apparently a UC Berkeley is doing a 10 year study on diseases in these small river communties)

- Took a guided hike through the rainforest, where we got to drink the sour milk of the plywood tree, touch a large whitemushroom that grows and dies in one day, and learned about how a tree that took 150 year to grow gets cut down and sold for only about 150 US Dollars.

- Bathed in the amazingly powerful and cristal clear waters of a waterfall along the river.

- Ate raw sugar cane (surprisingly very juicy) and a jungle fruit called Anona (soft spiky on the outside, and slimy delicious on the inside).

- Drank too much sugar cane alcohol the night before we needed to take the 4 hour motorized canoe return trip at 3am -- needless to say my survival genes (as my grandmother Mitzi calls them) kicked in and the ride was marked by vomiting off the side of the crusing canoe and curling up in a fetal position on the canoe´s cold, hard, wooden bench.

After San Miguel I headed back to Mompiche, the tiny surfing town with the black sand beaches, with Romy and Heiko. My days were filled with walks on the beach, surfing (actually standing up for the whole wave), watching DVDs, and eating delicious vegetarian dinners. Just as I was preparing to leave, there was a national bus strike, which closed all the roads, leaving me stranded in paradise.

Eventually the bus strike ended, I headed back down to Canoa to meet up with Kyla. After a night out with a German guy and a Dutch couple, in which I found myself being asked to give impromptu dance lessons on the street by strangers, Kyla and I both surprised each other by arriving early and had a wonderful reunion as the dynamic duo was reunited for more adventures.

Much love,
Max

A New Month, A New Country

2006-02-02T18:48:00.000-05:00

Well our time in Ecuador is coming to an end as we prepare to cross the Colombia border tomorrow morning. After being here for a month and a half we are both definitely ready to move on...

What, you may be thinking, have I done this whole time as updates have been few and far between? Well I thankfully ended my time at Rio Muchacho by riding out on top of a Land Rover watching Perla, one of my favorite dogs there, in tow running as hard as she could to see us off at the main road. I felt a weight lifted as I may say that the volunteer work wasn´t as fulfilling as I had hoped. The first two weeks were quite enough as I still hadn´t had a project yet and unfortunately my art skills were not useful without the paint needed to transform a concrete block into a tree. So instead I took my artistic abilities elsewhere and started the ¨Historia de las Camas¨- a map that laid out all the plants in the garden for tourists, volunteers and workers to reference. Yet again, due to lack of supplies, I couldn´t finish that and ran out of time... ah leaving empty handed (or rather leaving them empty handed) isn´t the best feeling but a good reminder that a month really isn´t a lot of time to make change.

Yet there are other reasons why I felt relieved to leave which had nothing to do with dodging frogs at night, dealing with bed bugs, or scraping poop out of the pigs pens at 6:45am... all that was quite alright yet the lack of community there really got to me. Also, I have yet to really figure out the situation, but in terms of money the farm wasn´t handling itself well. Many different days (and more I´ve heard from past volunteers) workers didn´t come to work in order to get their previous week´s pay. Quite unjust in my eyes as I know from the volunteers there alone (not to mention all the tourists visiting) they had well over $2,500! I do hope to hear more on the situation and will be sure to update you all. In fairness I must mention that I loved one of the owners- Dario (who not surprisingly didn´t handle the money). He has such a great energy to him and makes anyone feel welcome right off the start. We had many nights of laughing and I always saw a smile on his face.

The other volunteers there as well really made the time more enjoyable-Simone (from Germany), Ryan( from Canada), Sarah and Melissa (from Colorado) and Emily (from San Fransisco) were there for most of the time with me while other people came in right before we were leaving. My love goes out to all of you... thanks for helping to create our own community.

Reflecting on the month here are the things I´ve learned:

-I can now, very slowly, milk a cow and realize now the hard work that my grandfather did with his brother milking 100 cows each morning and afternoon by hand.

- I can create different types of composts and brews based on a housing situation- whether urban or rural.

- I learned how to make a double dig garden, collect seeds properly, and when to plant or harvest according to the moon

-Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate! If only I had a cacoa plant outside my door upon my return

-Practiced my spanish so I´m a bit more up to speed!

Wow, that´s all that is coming to mind right now but I think it´s because I´m sitting in front of a computer with noises of cars in the background rather than birds... which brings me to our next adventure upon reuniting. Max and I visited Mindo Ecuador which is reknowned for the best birdwatching in all of Ecuador... maybee South America although our experience wouldn´t prove so. We saw about 3 different types of birds (needless to say we didn´t get a tour like most people though) and amazing hummingbirds today... how quickly we returned to the city life!

Mindo is just 2 1/2 hours north or Quito where the city transforms into a New Zealand like backdrop.... beautiful hills filled with Cloud forests, where only the town reminds you there is more civilazation out there. We stayed at this amazing place called CEA (the acronym has left my mind) that is 4km, and an amazing hand built trolley across a river, out of town. We arrived 2 dyas ago in the early morning and luckily had townspeople hook us up with the owners as their office was closed. Two hours later we had the whole complex to ourselves... a huge lodge with different hiking trails right on Rio Mindo... ah I can still almost hear the roaring of the water. We got to hike around in our raincoats only and make amazing vegetarian food in our own fully equiped kitchen (leaky faucet, spiderwebs and all). Later that evening we were awoken from a nap to see that our friends Sarah and Melissa, other volunteers from the farm, had gotten our note at the bus station that read something like: Go with these people for an amazing place to stay and no we are not kidnapped. We got to hang out with them the whole night and following 2 days making amazing food, playing new card games, singing and laughing... really enjoyable.

Yesterday was day 100 on our sudamerica jouneys which we spent celebrating with waterfalls, waterslides, whitewater tubing, and a candlelight round of cards.... more on this as the pictures are definitely neccessary to describe it all!

Missing you all so much. I must admit that I had a moment at the farm when another volunteer from Santa Cruz (small world) let me borrow her Ipod for a moment. It was my first time with a personal collection and the first song I chose was the Iron and Wine version of ¨Such Great Heights¨from the Garden State soundtrack... ahhhh the tears flowed!!! Much thanks and love to you all for that moment of realizing that there are so many people out there that I love and miss! A great reminder of what I´m coming back to...

Smiles,

Kyla

More on Montanita...

2006-01-12T14:48:00.000-05:00

So, I just realized that I forgot to mention two quite notable notes on our time in Montanita...

- Kyla injured her foot while surfing in Mompiche, and in Montanita she had extremely powerful acupuncture and energy work done by a man from Spain named Santiago, who studied to be a standard western doctor but then became disillusioned and found himself and his calling in alternative medicines. During one of the sessions I got to massage Kyla´s toes, and at another time I watched Santiago´s young son.

- I participated in my first sweat lodge, which was being done as an end of the year ceremony by Santiago and his friends. Kyla wasn´t allowed to go into the small dome because she was on her "luna" and as such was very connected with mother earth and it was believed that she could be in danger of taking in all of the negativity and illnesses that people would be releasing during the sweat. Sitting in the dirt amongst an international group of young, hip surfer-types with tattoos and dyed hair singing and chanting as water was poured over extremely hot rocks, I experienced an amazing sense of connecting to my self, my body, and everyone else.

Take care,
Max

Solito en Quito...

2006-01-10T15:07:00.000-05:00

As part of our continued effort to support and challenge each other to be the people we each want to be (or as our friend Amy Martin´s shirt says... to be the people that our dog thinks we are), Kyla and I are on seperate adventures for a month. You can read about the begininngs of Kyla´s adventures on the organic farm in her post below -- she also wanted everyone to know that she promises more posts and pictures at the end of the month since internet is hard to come by where she´s at.

As for myself, my days in Quito have been spent...

- volunteering a little at Oilwatch ("a network of resistance to the negative impacts of fossil fuels activities on peoples and their environment" www.oilwatch.org.ec/english) by building a database of international unions in order to attempt to create solidarity between workers, especially oil workers, and indigenous communities.

- taking salsa dance classes, and for the first time in my life, I´m actually able to shake and wiggle my body in formations that looks somewhat like actual dance moves.

- hanging out with new found friends at the lovely Casa Bambu hostal, two of which have been keeping a blog of their travels in Ecuador. So, if you´re itching for even more stories of (mis)adventures in South America, head on over to Romy and Heiko´s blog at http://romy.jkraemer.net/en, which actually includes pictures of the organic farm where Kyla as it since they just got back from a month there.

Max

Paper mache heads for sale at a market in the coastal town of Pedernales

Surrounded by life

2006-01-08T17:13:00.000-05:00

As I now live on a farm whose only communication with the world is a two way radio it has to communicate with its main office in Bahia, its quite hard to make it to a computer. So I´ll try to fill everyone in while I have this little time on a computer over my weekend break...

First off, yes the duo has split for a month as I got a great tip from a Dutch woman about Rio Muchacho (www.riomuchacho.com)... an organic farm just north of Canoa on the central coast of Ecuador. Seeing as this is the field in which I want to jump into when I return, I took the opportunity to volunteer on the farm for a month while also taking an educational segment on the theories of organic agriculture. A perfect balance of ¨learning while doing¨, the slogan of my university, Cal Poly, which they never quite lived up to.

So it´s been a week and I can still almost hear the cries of roosters that wake me up each morning at 6:30 for my morning routina- feeding the horses this week and perhaps moving on to chickens the next. I have deemed myself an artist at the farm after painting the wall of the pig pen ( a damn fine job I might add) and am now moving on to bigger projects such as transforming a cement pillar into a tree trunk... hopefully I haven´t built up my childhood skill too much as it has been a very long time holding a paintbrush (I even got blisters!). But I figure that you are what you pretend to be.

Since my arrival I have felt extremely at home and have been enjoying the taxing labor as much as the fresh organic meals. The day really is determined by the sound of a bell which calls everyone in from their projects to gorge themselves around a huge wooden table. ¨Buen Provecho¨as everyone says here, before scarfing down way too much food!

So far some of my experiences have included:

-Seeing a chancho (pig) give live birth to 2 chancitos... ten in total although she smushed 2 and I saw her step on another which I don´t think is doing well. It was amazing to see the piglets open their eyes for the first time and instantly (within seconds of entering the world) they open their tiny mouths in search of milk!
- Planting trees which requires so much more work than I imagined... no wonder people are so into deforestation these days!
- Creating my first compost and learning all about the chemical process of green and brown material... I have to say, Alexis, that you were doing a great job with yours and I might even have a few more pointers!
-Making chocolate for the first time from scatch... probably the best chocolate I´ve ever had in my life... and then staying up all night to the sounds of a dog party.
- Speaking more spanish than ever, understanding half of what everyone is saying, and actually making people laugh... amazing to joke around in another language!
-Holding three chickens from their legs and putting them in their house for the night (this happened the first night I arrived!).
- Using a compost toilet everyday... getting quite accustomed to sawdust and not hearing the flush that signifies completion.

The experiences have really awakened in me a love for farming and being amongst such life.... the essences of our very being. It´s amazing to think of how important food is and how much of our relationship to the earth could change for the better if we were all to awaken to what we are putting in our bodies and where that food is coming from! I´ve started learning alot about the history of conventional farming and the long lasting effects of chemicals in terms of the people and the earth. It takes 100 years for DDT to leave the soil after being sprayed.... 100!

Another fun fact.... if Japan was to turn off all of their soda vending machines they could close one of their energy plants!

I can see the direction of my future take shape as something inside keeps yelling ¨We can´t go on living this waÿ! Something needs to change and you have to be a part of that!¨ So, yes if I get on a ¨organics are the hope for our future¨ platform when I return please please let me say my peace and better yet, I hope you listen!

Well my time is up, yet I must add that yes, it has been extremely hard to not have Max with me here and I am looking forward to next weekend when I get to see him. It´s like having an embilical cord cut (that not we are THAT dependent on each other) after spending more than 2 months together 24/7 to not seeing him at all. It has definitely helped me improve my spanish, and find what is important to me as an individual, but nevertheless has been rough.

Well I hope that you all are living your dreams and working with what invokes passion deep inside.... my blessings.

Kyla

Unlike Steve Martin and John Candy... We Went to the Holidays by Buses, Camionetas, Botes, y Bicitaxis

2006-01-08T13:02:00.000-05:00

(Note: this picture will be explained at the end of the post)

From Quito, we set off for Muisne, a small island rumored to have wide, palm tree-lined beaches , good surf nearby, and a spanish school. We didn´t quite make it the first day, and ended up spending the night in Pedernales, where we got to relax on swings at an open-air bar on the beach and drink amazingly artistic cocktails, which was only temporarily interrupted by a major car accient right in front of us between a truck, two cars, and a bicitaxi (luckily no one was hurt).

In order to make the few hour trip to Muisne, we had to first take two different buses, then a camioneta, which is a large truck that has been equipped with wooden benches, followed by a quick ride in a bote to cross the ocean river to the island, where we were greeted by hordes of bicitaxis waiting to peddle us across the island to the beaches.

We eventually made it to the hostal that was supposed to have the Spanish classes, but in typical fashion, it no longer existed. We did manage to find a colorful hostal with a room that literally opened onto palm trees and ocean.

I got to play ecuavolley, a variation on volleyball which is 3-on-3 and you are allowed to hit underhand as well as almost hold the ball, on the beach with a group of local Muisenos including Elvis. When I asked him, "like the singer?" he amazed me by saying, "Yes, Elvis Costello." As I walked back to the hostal, a herd of cows cruised along the beach, and I thought to myself, "yeah, just my usual Christmas Eve"

The hostal owner, a large Mestiza matriach named Inez who had owned the hostal for 14 years, let us use the kitchen to make Christmas Eve dinner, and we got to share the kitchen with a few German women who were making special German noodles that one of their mothers had mailed them, as well as Inez and Daniel, the Afro-Ecuadorian "houseboy," who prepared fresh seafood for her family . Inez and her family were joined by three Swiss-German guys a large table for dinner, but Daniel, despite having done most of the work, sat alone in the kitchen eating at a small table. As we ate our dinner of veggie curry at another table next to the larger table and shared stories of Christmas past, we were reminded how racism and classism seeps into even the times when we are supposed to be the most focused on giving.

On Christmas day, we woke up and ran to open our present -- the ocean -- running, jumping, and swimming in the warm, salty waters. That afternoon, we played ecuavolley again with another group of local Musienos. During a break between games, one of the local guys pulled out a switchblade, which apparently he had on his belt the whole time we were playing , flipped it open and started snorting cocaine off the tip of it. It turns out that around 8 months ago, a large boat with thousands of kilos of cocaine in wax boxes crashed off the beach in Musine, and only a small amount of it was ever recovered. This guy told us that he, along with many others, still had their "reserve." It was then suggested that we play another game, but this time we should bet a beer on the game, and we could play Americans against Muisenos. As you might have guessed it, we lost miserablely, although we are still protesting the results based on performance enhancing doping charges. As I walked back to the hostal to get money to buy them a beer, Kyla went swimming in the ocean with her glasses, which promptly flew off her face as she dove under a wave. By that time it had become dark, and try as we did with our flashlights, the glasses could not be found, and it appeared that Kyla would be giving her galsses to the ocean as its Christmas present.

There were rumors that there was going to be a community Christmas program that night, but when we went in search of it, all we found were an empty club with pounding music and a stench of sweat, rundown shacks on stilts over garbarge-filled water, and a street dog who almost attacked us. Just as we were going to head back to the hostal to go to sleep, we ran into the knife-wielding coke head who we had played ecuavolley with, who was very insistant that we come with him to the club and that he could get us coke. While we are all for adventure, needless to say, we quickly got out of that disaster-waiting-to-happen, and started walking back to the hostal.

Once again, though, just before making it back, something caught our ears -- loud, polyrythmic drumming and call-and-response singing. We found that the noise was coming from a very small cinder block home with a large group of mainly Afro-Ecuadorians. We were invited in and sat on one of the many plastic chairs which were all facing the large drum that was hanging from the ceiling. As many alcholic drinks were passed around, including a coconut eggnog-like one and a sugar car liquor served hot, another song began and we did our best job at repeating the lyrics even when we couldn´t understand all the Spanish. A large sweating man played the big drum and one man was the primary singer, while everyone else sang, clapped, stomped, played smaller drums or shakers, or just ate the plates of fried rice that small children kept bringing into the room.

Since this was not only Christmas day, but also the first night of Hanukah, during a break in the action, I went up to Jose Mora, who was the lead singer and organzier of the event, and asked him if I could light two candles at the make-shift altar to baby jesus that they had created. He said I could, but told me that I had to put out the other candles that were already lit with my fingers. So, since he was being so open to my traditions, I decided to go along with his and proceeded to burn myself a bit in order to put out the candles. We talked for a while about the event, and he told me that he had learned all these songs by watching his grandfathers and that he started organzing these events so that his people wouldn´t lose their traditions from when they were slaves. I asked him what he felt when he was singing, and he told me that he felt god comng through him and bringing out the words. I realized that most of what he was saying was true for me in my life and in organzing if you could just replace the word "god" with something like "people/animals/environment." I told him this, and he seemed pleased.

As the next set of songs began, somehow I ended up being the one holding the drum in place for the man who was playing it. Maybe it was that I was holding the drum, or maybe it was that my Spanish was improving, or maybe it was the liquor, or maybe it was the connection we were experiencing with all the people in the room, but the next song I was really able to pick up the words and sang with all the energy I ususally bring to my karaoke performances. As Jose led us in the song, he kept moving his head close to me and we would sing together -- somehow, in spite of and because of our differences, we made sense to echother.

After Christmas and the first night of Hanukah, we headed over to the tiny beachtown of Mompiche. In the interest of advneture, we took a local guy up on his offer to take us from Muisne to Mompiche by boat, rather than the various buses and camionetas we would have needed to take. The boat ride turned out to be an amazing, but quick, tour of the mangroves that are rapidly being cut down as well as the massive shrimp farms, which are coming to replace them. The highlight of the ride, though, was the way in which once we got out into the ocean, the guy started to have the boat jump the waves, which resulted in the boat actually catching air and us being thrown about the boat in fits of nervous and excited laugter. The most dangerous part of the ride turned out to be getting out of the boat, at which point I was almost run over as I ran out of the way and the guy yelled frantically at Paul to "Sientate, Ahorra!"

In Mompiche, we found an amazing hostal, the DMCA Surf Hostal, which featured lovely rooms with a balcony, a vegetarian restaurant, surfboard and boogie board rentals, a rooftop terrace with hammocks, a room for yoga, tons of board games and movies, and a campground on the beach -- as my dad Josh put it when I told him about the hostal, "sounds like a place you could stay for 10 years." We passed our few days there surfing amongst the beautiful and ruggedly green surroundings (I actually stood up for the first time ever!), taking hikes where we found incredible black sand beaches with horses wandering about, and relishing in the delicious veggie food.

As hard as it was to leave the hippy paradise of Mompiche, we wanted to move on to bigger, louder, and crazier for New Years. We ended up in Montanita -- an overly hip surfer town with growing pains, where locals create vendor carts for what they believe foriegners want (apparently it is hamburgers, fruity mixed drinks, and gaudy jewlery) and foreigners open restuarants and stores with their own fantasy version of an Ecuadorian beach town (which ranges from Indian batiqued dresses to veggie reggae lunches for a dollar to tiki lounges). Amazingly, we actually ended up with a group of friends to pass the new year -- Paul, a college student from Virgina taking some time off, who became our traveling partner for a week; Angela, a photographer from the United States who has come to Ecuador in search of her biological mother; Judy, a boat worker from Florida training to become a captain who dreams of moving to Southeast Asia to build junkboats; Esther, a Dutch events planner who gave Kyla the tip about the organic farm; and Marcos, Esther´s boyfriend who had just arrived from Holland that day.

In the days leading up to New Years, Montanita was filled with people dressed in elaborate costumes and asking for money. Devils with bright red masks and jingling bottle caps on the black rubber boots would come up to you and ask you for the money that you had promised to give them in exchange for not taking your soul. An old man, Ano Viejo (Old Year), accompanied by his wife and a group of young scantaly clad women (who by rule had to be men in drag) went from house to house, dancing with the family. It was quite a sight to see the children, who were equally drawn to and frightened by these characters of the devil and women in drag, who in a culture dominated by Catholicism and machismo, are quite deliciously transgressive concepts.

On New Years Eve it self, the tradition throughout all of Ecuador is to burn the Anos Viejos, which are famous people (often times politicians) or popular children´s characters. Hence, my first memory of 2006 is a drunk man lighting Chicken Little´s crotch on fire as Mr. Incredible stood closely behind.

Max

In Search of the Middle of the World

2006-01-08T10:43:00.000-05:00

When we got back to Quito from the jungle, we wanted to get moving out to the coast as soon as possible in order to pass the winter holidays on the beach -- quite a novelty for a Midwest boy who grew up with wind chills and snow storms. But before leaving Quito we wanted to check out the famed La Mitad del Mundo (The Middle of the World), which of course is Ecuador´s namesake.

After a bit of a hustle with a variety of buses, Kyla and I, along with Paul and Angela, two fellow travelers that we met through the non-profit, arrived at La Mitad del Mundo, a completely fabricated town and self described "tourist village." This "town" was equipped with scale replicas of some of the major Ecuadorian cities, a few small museums celebrating various world cultures, a quaint fake "plaza," an enormous monument on the offical equator line, and a plethora of tourist shops selling every imaginable knick-knack. However, the biggest feature of this "town" is that it is actually all a MYTH.

It turns out that right next to this walled monster of a tourist trap is a small, eccentric museum, which, amongst its collection of shrunken heads, gigantic snake skins, models of indigenous homes, and reconstructions of archeolgical digs, was the real equatorial line. This was proved to us with a serious of amazing, although seeminly ridiculous experiments which showed that water really does spin in opposite directions in the northern and southern hemisphere. Also, at the museum, we got to shoot a blow gun and Kyla won an certificate for balancing an egg on the equator.

Of particular note is that the fake line where all the hoopla is was "discovered" by modern French scientists, but the real equator, which has since been verified with GPS, was in the exact place where the Indigenous peoples of Ecuador had calculated it was. Once again, we are reminded of the limitations of the belief that "modern" and "western" thinking has all the answers.

Max

It´s a Jungle Out There*

2006-01-04T20:30:00.000-05:00

*(Kyla really wanted to use this phrase while we were in the jungle, but never had a chance to)

We finally made it into the deep jungle by going on a trip with a non-profit organization working to try and develop community-based eco-tourism. Without much preparation or planning, we found ourselves in a small community along the Cuyabeno River near the Colombian border, an area that we later learned has been a hotbed of exiled Colombia guerillas. The community was only reachable by a three hour ride in a very large motorized canoe, which offered us amazing opportunties to be up close and personal with the thick jungle´s biodiversity, including a few monkey spottings.

We attended a very uncomfortable meeting with community leaders, where there was some gross misunderstandings, as the community leaders were under the impression that we were all there as semi-permanent volunteer english teachers, while we were there just for a few days to see about the possibility of sending volunteers there in the future. The awkwardness turned worse the next day when were told that we were to start teaching English, despite the fact that we had no curiculum nor experience teaching, we were leaving in a few days, and most of the kids couldn´t read or write in Spanish. It felt horrible to be part of something that was quite poorly planned by the non-profit organziation and thus seemed to be misleading the community. The organziation, and some of the community leaders, seemed to be under the hopeful, but diluted fantasy that learning English and having one of them become a tour guide would be the key to the community´s future, despite the fact that tour companies and petroleum multinationals were daily taking over more and more control of their land, which they might not ever be able to recover.

Despite, this rather disheartning and depressing scenario, there were quite a number of amazing experiences in the jungle...

- We got to swim in the river, which was an Amazon tributary, as the sun set over the surrounding jungle and colorful flocks of birds flew by.

- We attended a christmas program in a neighboring community with traditional dances performed by yound kids in grass skirts and grown men playing a highly competitive game of musical chairs.

- After the christmas program, music was blasting, but no one was dancing, so Kyla and I got up and danced. I used the very few moves I learned in the one slasa class we took in La Paz, Bolivia. A man from the community we were visiting came up to us, congratualted us on being great dancers, and crowned us with two of the grass crowns that the kids had used in their dances.

- There was to be a soccer match between the two communities, and myself and Paul, a fellow traveler on the trip with the non-profit organization, were invited to play on the community´s team -- with uniforms and all. The game proved quite difficult as our team´s uniforms were bluew socks, blue shorts, and a blue shirt with full yellow sleeves, while the opposing team´s uniforms were blue socks, blue shorts, and a blue shirt with half yellow sleeves. So, before you passed the ball you had to look whether the sleeve of the player was full or half yellow, a difficult task to perform while running and dribbling a soccer ball. There was a beautiful moment during the game when I looked up and seemingly for the first time realized that I was in the middle of the jungle, near a river, below a thundering sky, playing soccer -- a reality i never anticipated. Paul and I were told to play up front, and when we didn´t capitalize on the few chances we had, the formerly mild-mannered school teacher who was playing mid-field on our team got quite upset and began to complain about los colorados (what they call white people because our skin gets colored from the sun). Although we didn´t score any goals, at least we provided the valuable service to the community of giving them an excuse of why they lost the game.

- Amazing in not such a wonderful way, were the hundreds (yes, literarlly hunderds) of mosquito bites that Kyla received despite the fact that we slept under a mosquito net, she applied quite toxic insect repellent, and I only got a few bites. Why do mosquitos suddenly appear, everytime you are near, just like me, they long to be, closer to you.

Max

Quick to Quito

2006-01-04T19:26:00.000-05:00

On our rather quick race up to the capital of Ecuador, Quito, we stopped in Loja and Cuenca...

- Loja was our first re-introduction to the dollar, as Ecuador went through a processes of dollarization a few years ago, and it is quite a bizzare feeling to be using US dollars in another country -- it feels very much like being in a ¨conquered¨ territory, which has been forced to adopt the conquerer´s system. We went to a botanical garden with dream-like versions of plants we are used to in the US -- such as, tomatoes that grow on trees, trees almost too big for their own good, and large succulents growing on tiny trees. We also went to Jipiro Park with a bizarre mix of multi-purposed replicas of buildings from around the world -- the Maayan Pyramid housed a bathroom, the Muslim Temple was a planetarium, the Russian castle featured art exhibitions and a twisty slide, the Southeast Asian Temple was a stage, and the list goes on and on -- which the designers of the park hope will bring about mutual respect and understanding of all cultures and people´s of the world (they might want to take a cue from our friend Amy Weiss, and start by setting the bar low enough to walk over). The park also featured a pond with paddle boats, playing fields, and an eclectic mix of caged and free animals -- ostrich, goats, flamingoes, and monkies. While eating at a Mexican restaurant, which was quite a treat since the word burrito hasn´t quite reached Peru or Bolivia, we learned from the owner and a customer that along with dollars the concept of contracting out was imported to Ecuador. It turns out that since dollarization, most people don´t actually work for the company or place where they work, but rather our contracted out to a third-party agency, and as such have no job security, no health benefits, and recieve less pay. It´s quite disheartning to see the ¨American way¨ spreading to so much of the world at the expense of so many people´s lives.

- Cuenca, as it turns out, is the most expensive city in all of Ecuador. When we asked locals why this was so, they told us it was because of migracion, which we later found out was in reference to so many Ecuadorians who had worked in the US for a few years, saving all their money, and then moving to Cuenca. One day we wanted to go to Ingapirca, renkowned as the ¨most significant¨ ruins in all of Ecuador, but we woke up at 6am, so we took our time and putzed around the hostal. It wasn´t until we reached the bus terminal for our 9am bus that we found out that it was actually 12noon and that our clock had been 3 hours off all morning. Although, it was getting late to make the 2 hour each way trip, we decided to take the next bus at 1pm. While we waited, Kyla decided to break her run of 7 months without a haircut by getting her haircut at a beauty parlor in the bus station for $3, which according to her turned out to be the worst haircut she has ever received. On the ride to Ingapirca, the weather turned from sunny and warm to foggy and cold, which left us in a pickle as we had dropped off almost all of our clothes off at the laundrymat before leaving and Kyla was wearing shorts and I a t-shirt. By the time we got to Ingapirca, the fog was so thick that you couldn´t see 10 feet in front of you and it was so cold that Kyla almost bought a wool poncho at the souvenir stand just to stay warm. We decided to run through the ¨most significant¨ruins in all of Ecuador in orer to generate a little heat and also catch the last bus back into Cuenca, but for the first time in receorded history, a bus in South America actually left early, which literally left us out in the cold. The upside was that we got a tour of the museum, where we learned that the Canari people who lived there worshiped the moon and were ruled by princesses, as opposed to the sun worshiping, king-dominated Incas who eventually conquered the Canaris before themselves being conquered by the Spanish. After, finally making our way back to Cuenca on a series of local buses, we went to a dance performance, where the director of the dance department of the university that was putting on the show gave one of the most empassioned and meaningful introductions I have ever heard, as he announced that ¨Universities have a duty not just to provide acurate testimony of our times, but also critical testimony of our times, and this dance seeks to provide ethical and aesthic alternatives in these times of injustice and globalization.¨ The performance was quite modern with five video screens, 3 lazer projectors, fog machines, and dancing so abstract that I felt I was experiencing a barrier with the language of dance.

- In Quito, we went to the 15th anniversary of the famous jazz club El Pobre Diablo (The Poor Devil), for which they brought on stage their two oldest customers to share a few memories, including one about how when one of them got in a fight with the owner and didn´t go to the club for a year that it was the most boring year of his life. They also honored a woman who had worked in the kitchen for all 15 years of the club´s history with a plaque, a gushing speech, and the warmest round of applause. The highlight of the night though was Sofia Espana, currently the premier Afro-Ecuadorian singer, performed with accompanimet from a rocking band from Esmeraldes, the primarily African area of Ecuador on the northern coast, which featured a blind guitar player who would delight the crowd by playing the guitar backwards behind his head. While Kyla and I were dancing, Kyla saw someone pointing at my feet and laughing, so right before we left she went and told off the woman. As it turns out, the woman claims she was pointing at the stage and not at me, but either way, it felt so comforting to have a sweetheart who would defend me, two-left feet and all.

Max

Into Ecuador... (New Country, New Shoes)

2006-01-04T18:45:00.000-05:00

A few noteworthy events and thoughts a long the path into Ecuador...

- We stuck around Piura a few extra days in order to see the most loved Afro-Peruvian singer Eva Ayllon. If you haven´t heard of her yet, you should, because fantastic is much too light of a word for her. Check out http://rockpaperscissors.biz/index.cfm/fuseaction/current.press_release/project_id/181.cfm for a decent, short article with audio samples. The concert was in typical Peruvian disorderly style with all of the madness and beauty that it implies. The concert was supposed to start at 9pm, but they didn´t start letting people in until around 11pm when a mob of people started pushing up against the cops who were blocking the doors. Then, despite everyone having assigned seats at numbered tables, the first people in moved the numbers around in order to get better views, which meant that Kyla and I had a palm tree blocking part of our view of the stage. Throughout the show everyone sat quietly in awe and respect, as the reigning queen of musica criolla performed in her first concert in Peru since moving to New Jersey a few years ago. When she announced that, ¨With this Black music, we are representing Peru,¨the primarily mestizo crowd of 2,000 Peruvian burst into a roaring applause.

- From Piura we took an overnight trip to the coast. In Colan, a small beach town dominated by posh resorts and a surrounding shanty town, we noticed that the church was much different that any of the others we had seen in Peru, it was far more rustic and didn´t have a plaza attached to it. We later found out that Colan, in fact, had been the first place that the Spanish had arrived in Peru, and that this church was the first they built. It somehow seemed fitting that the birthplace of colonialism in Peru now catered almost exclusively to foreign tourists with money and was one of the cities with the most stark difference between wealth and poverty that we had seen. In Paita, we noticed that almost all of the mototaxis had these amazing hand-painted circular wooden signs to demonstrate which cooperative they were affiliated with. We asked a mototaxi driver if we could buy one of his signs, but he was resistant out of fear of what the owner of the mototaxi would say. We suggested that he just say it was stolen, which he seemed to like since he grabbed a screwdriver and started to pry one off as we were on look out to make sure that none of the other drivers would see him do it. Kyla quickly put the liberated sign under her shirt, we paid him, and then he and we went are seperate directions quickly. By this point in the trip, my shoes were in bad shape with duct-tape covering the backs, a major hole in one of the toes, and an odor which required that I put them outside in the evenings. So, I bought a pair of Peruvian made shoes, which look like suped-up converse chuck taylors, and gave my old shoes to a shirtless and shoeless man with an enormous tattoo of a cross on his chest sleeping on the streets.

Max

getting to Macchu Pichu

2005-12-13T19:57:00.000-05:00

Right now Max and I are sitting in an internet joint in Cuenca, Ecuador (the most expensive city in the whole country) and I hear the deep voice of Homer in ¨Los Simpson¨. We have gotten to watch a little television lately and it´s quite funny to see American shows dubbed in Spanish... they do quite a good job as well.

So as I´ve been quite ill lately and haven´t had it in me to write a blog in awhile, I have quite a lot to catch up on. Most importantly I have yet to share our experience at Machu Picchu...

We chose to get our tickets in Bolivia, in fear that the trail would be sold out as only 500 people a day are allowed to enter. During the high season this can be quite a problem, yet as we found out upon reaching Cusco, in November there are many openings and we could have spent a lot less. But all and all being said, we went with the tour company Flamenco who we made sure paid their porters more than the average company (this meaning only 20 soles ($6) a day for carrying some bags over 25kg when 20kg is the legal limit). Since there were such few tourists for this town, we ended up with a group of 5- our guide Armando, Marcus, a man from Brazil, and Mutkti, a woman from India who has been studying and working in Texas for the last 7 years.

When we got on the bus the fate of our four days was sealed, and we were quite excited to have the small group that we did. We spent the ride talking about politics as all of us spoke English, except our ënglish-speaking guide who had a bit of a block with the language. Max saved the day and just happened to look back at the road when a sleeping bag went flying from the rack above... needless to say he saved a porter from some cold nights.

When we reached km82, we began the gruling hike, one that the two of us were mentally prepared for as many other travelers, and the agency themselves, warned us of how hard it would be. Especially the feared ¨Day 2¨ which we were told was an incline the whole day. As I remember the time best, broken up in days, here is my synopsis of the experience...

Day 1:

We began the easy day hiking through beautiful scenery and learning about different plants we came about. One, a flower that we have is Santa Cruz, is supposedly a very potent drug in which people ¨see sounds and smells¨ according to our guide. When we eventually reached our site, hungery from having such an early lunch due to a rain threat, we all enjoyed the habas tostadas (toasted lima beans) that I had brought. We had no idea of the amount of food that was yet to come. Besides an enourmous dinner, prior to that we had afternoon tea time which consisted of way too much popcorn, cookies, and drinks. This was a daily reaccurance, which was slightly unnessecary and partly the reason that porters had to carry so much! Dinner was a total menu- with soup, a second, desert, and teas. But props go out to our chef, Percy, who was amazing at his job.

Over the tea we played the card game nervioso, which really did keep you on edge and we started a puzzle that Marcus knew of that got a bit out of hand. It goes like this: ¨A man walks into a restaurant and orders Alcatraz (Pelican) and sets a gun on the table. After he tries it he asks the waiter if it is Alcatraz, of which he replies yes, he kills himself. Why?¨ We got so into it and got so far that we could still hear Makti asking questions while we were in our tents. If you feel like taking a jab at it I´ll be happy to answer any questions, but beware it´s quite addicting!

Day 2:

We awoke (or I should say Max awoke as I couldn´t sleep at all) to the sounds of roosters and the gentle knocking of porters who had morning tea for us. We had no idea that we were going to live out this servant-like relationship with them, but so far that was exactly how it was. It was if you were watching a play and they were the prop technicians, setting up these scenes yet never being noticed for the hard work and like actors, the guide was the one who got paid more and got more attention.

After an enormous breakfast, Max and I, prepared for the worst, decided to just go for it. The advise we were given was not to stop for too long or else our bodies would freeze up a bit and Armando kept emphasizing ¨Keep your rythm¨. So we split up from the group as Makti was taking it quite slow due to altitude sickness and suffering from a cold, and Marcus was still on antibiotics from a stomach infection. Since we ended up so in far of the group this meant that we were walking most of the way side by side porters, getting to talk a bit with them and fully getting to take in the situation that they were in. When Max asked one porter what he thought about on the trail he said Ï just think about how I can get a better job¨. The sacks they were carrying were gigantic and anytime I started to lose steam I would just think about the porters and the load they were carrying. At one point I actually traded bags with one of them to get the full effect and I only lasted 10 minutes, as it was 20kg uphill the whole way. When I put my 8kg pack back on it felt so incredibly light that I couldn´t complain at all.

When we reached the first pass we were greeted by tourists cheering for others in their groups, so proud that they made it. I will admit it was quite a hard hike, but with porters sitting there, I wasn´t about to start cheering for those who made it with nothing more than walking sticks. We started the day at 3,300 meters (10,842 feet) and the pass was at 4,200 meters, uphill most of the way. We enjoyed the view and sat down to share our snacks with porters.

The rest of the day was only 2kg downhill, which was really hard on the knees, so I decided to frolic down the steps finding comfort in bouncing a bit more. With porters running past me, I decided to pick up the pace and made it to camp by noon just in time to help set up our tents (which is highly unusual, as most tourists arrive to find the camp all set up for them). We enjoyed the nearby stream, and got to get some rest in before everyone else showed up. And then the feasts began, with lunch, tea time, and another huge dinner. After fully stuffing ourselves we spent the night admiring stars.... which were more than I had seen in quite awhile. It was amazing to witness Marcus staring off into the starry sky as he had never seen anything like that before in his life. We just kept hearing Ämazing, amazing¨

Day 3:

The morning began, apart from the usual tea, with a 400 meter incline up to the second pass. With my body barely awake, it was quite gruling but worth it to see a deer and it´s father, walking beside a lake. This day was filled with different ruins dispersed along the hike. The first we came to was Sayaqmarka, a well perserved Inka town that was had a lot of history to it. Although we didn´t get too much information about it, we could figure out a lot of it. There were floating stairs and an amazing water system which irrigated the campos there and also brought sacred fountains which the Incans used in rituals. This was a look out point for the warriors to guard the route to their sacred city. Next to this was Chaquigocha which was a storage point in the shape of a shell (I couldn´t quite see it but that´s what they claim) and the begining of yet another incline to the third pass at 3,650 meters. This was also next to the start of the authentic Inka Trail, not the walk itself but the original stones that Incans used on the path. Walking onto these stones, I felt the steps of many before me. From centuries ago, when walking on these stones meant you were on your way to the sacred city.

Before we reached the third pass, we went through the first Inca Tunnel. Since the Incans were dedicated to the land, they didn´t destroy the way things naturally occured, but rather built along with it. This can be viewed in most of their ruins where a huge bolder will erupt alongside a wall. This tunnel was part of that architectural style, and the walk went right through rocks that were craddled along the mountain in perfect puzzle-like pieces. Getting in cue as everyone was taking pictures at this point, we joined in on the fun.

After another huge lunch we had reached a point where you could see the mountain Macchu Pichu, where the legendary ruins tucked behind. In less than 24 hours, we were going to be there, basking in the beauty of the city... I could feel tingles on my arms.

We had another half day ahead of us when accidents started occuring. To start it off, Max was giving Mukti the right away and with the weight of his pack setting him off balance, he fell off the side of the mountain... or at least that´s how it´ll be written in the ledgens of our fellow group members. I was starting to bounce ahead when I heard someone cry out Max´s name and saw Armando running to the scene. I ran up the hill to see Max stuck in a tree yelling Ï´m okay¨. He worked his way back on the trail, a little scrapped up from the fall, and the story will live on that he was lucky to have landed on two branches rather than falling through the tree down the mountain (In truth the ground was not far below, but in the spirit of the group he had brushed death!). Soon after this I was walking, twisted my ankle and fell on the trail. THis was the start of my rubber ankles, as I fell quite a few more times that day, twisting on both sides. Thank goodness we bought walking sticks for a dollar! If it was for that and the coca we had bought, I don´t think I could have made it. In the tradition of Incas, we chewed on the coca leaf which gave us energy and essential vitamins for the long hike (although banned when the Spanish arrived, they were soon used in the explotation of indigenous mine workers because they noticed that coca helped them be more productive- an interesting fact we learned at the coca museum in La Paz) .

In hopes of beer and dancing (that´s what was rumored the night before), we eagerly continued to our campsite, passing more ruins and another tunnel. The landscape at this point had turned into jungle-like terrain and was extremely beautiful to walk along. When we reached Winay Wayna, a ruin with many terraced campos (fields) where wildflowers now grew, we could here the cheers of someone scoring a goal in the distance. The porters, as always so far ahead of their groups, had set up their tents and we having a soccer match nearby. After the longest day yet, it was amazing to watch them come alive on the field, and burst into sprints. We watched for a bit and then arrived at our last camp. Before we got to our tents we stumbled upon a museum housing insects of the woods nearby. I have never before seen such huge butterflies in my life! (view below)

Although the night was not filled with beer and dancing, we did sing quite a bit... especially The Beatles. With Marcus as a fan, and the two of us loving to sing, we spent most of the night finding songs we all knew at which point we would break out in song, trying to remember all the lyrics. Amoung some of the songs were- Black bird, Norweigen wood, Help, Something, All the Lonely people, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Seargent Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Strawberry Fields. It made for a lovely night and counterbalanced the awkwardness yet to come.

A stange tradition for all the travel agencies that we have heard about, comes on the third night with a forced ritual of ¨taking down the curtain¨ between the group and the porters. Making it more awkward was that this fell right when the porters were finally enjoying dinner. Taken from their plates, they came into our dining tent and were forced to rattle off their names and ages (the youngest being 17). Then we all clapped and gave them their well deserved tip. Why this came the night before they left is beyond me. If we had not asked earlier, we would not have know the names of those who carried our loads of food and tents until this moment. Max was picked to give them a speech in which he could hardly portray the gratefulness that we both felt as he was put on the spot in such an awkward way (did I mention that this was all incredibly awkward). We went to sleep that night thinking of all the things we would tell the porters if given another chance and not so rushed.

Day 4:

Since the porters had to catch a 5:30am train back to the start of the trail to clean all the gear and begin the cycle once more, we had to get up at 4am to pack up and have our last generous helping of food. But I was happy to do so, for I knew what awaited us along the trail...

We climbed some pretty intense stairs to reached Inti Punku, the Sun Gate of the Incas from which they could view Machu Picchu. These ruins were terraced with ornamental fields where they grew flowers in honor of the sun. The whole place in fact was dedicated to the sun god and was were sacred to pass through. When we got there, the whole mountain ahead of us was covered in fog. What was to be our first sight of the sacred city, was completely hidden and all we could do was wait... so we waited and waited and just when I was about to give up the most amazing thing happened. A little building peaked out of the fog, and then the rest of the city showed itself, as if the sun was kissing it gently. And just as quickly as the city came into view, it was devoured again by the fog. But those few minutes of seeing Macchu Pichu for the first time, after all the treking was such a magical moment that it brought tears to my eyes. We were witnessing one of the worlds new 7 wonders (if it gets voted for), a city that was built entirely to worship the sun in such splendor and so perserved that I felt we had entered a different time... a time when the earth mattered most and people treated it with such respect that to look onto its wonders was to experience love- the love between all beings.

We began the walk down from the viewpoint to experience the city under our feet..

(More to come about this photo)

A few days in the life of Kyla & Max on the road... (finally with some photos)

2005-12-12T20:22:00.000-05:00

I have never done any extensive or long-term traveling before, and now that I have been on the road for nearly 50 days (day 50 is actually tomorrow) I´ve been trying to think about how to describe the feeling of traveling. For me traveling has been like when you and a few of your close friends go out for breakfast on a sunday morning and then randomly decide to drive into the mountains and listen to a really great new album. And then you stop at a convenience store for snack and hear about a bizzare and fatal car accident involving a drunk police officer and an elderly woman who had just been cured of a terminal disease. Then you half stumble on a quaint little art gallery exhibiting all animal related art, and wrap up the afternoon sitting on the cliffs of an everexpanisive beach watching the waves roll in. It´s a feeling of everything coming together in a not so together way, a way you could have never planned even if you tried. Experiencing something special with the people you are with, and somehow the sense that you are both more connected and more estranged with the world around you. In short, adventure in the everyday.

This is what traveling has felt like to me, and here are a few days in the life of Kyla and Max on the road as examples...

- We went to the very rural communities of Lares near Cusco with a group of local youths who are working on a project to develop community-based sustainable tourism. Along the four hour windy mountain road drive, we stopped at a pass that was at 4,600 meters (the tallest point we both have ever been in our entire lives), and experienced the ritual of ¨paying¨pachamama (mother earth in the Peruvian indigneous communities) with coca leaves and wine that folks from these communities do every time they go through this pass in order to safeguard a safe journey and apologize to her in advance for any wrongs that they may commit against her. We then went to the communty´s thermal baths, which don´t have any lights, so we walked around from one steaming bath to the other with flashlights under a sky ripe with stars. In the baths, Hector, one of the young people in the project, told me amazing stories about his grandfather who was a shaman and how we had ¨paid¨pachamama well because he could tell from the stars that it wouldn´t rain tomorrow. The following day we walked through the mountains to abandoned ruins of what was an Inca town of 9,000 people (currently the total population of all 11 towns in the area is 3,000) and the young people in the project picked wild flowers and roots explaining to us how their communities use them for medicine and dyes. In addition, on both days they cooked us the tastiest and most flavorful vegetarian food we have had the whole trip.

- While at the Iglesia de San Blas in Cusco, where they have one of the most ornate hand-carved pulpits in all of the Americas along with the skull of the blind man who carved it, we were given a tour by Felipe, a tour-guide-in-training. The tour prved to be quite an excercise in communication as Felipe primarily spoke Castillian and knew a lot about the church, Kyla spoke primarily English and knew a lot about the Catholic religion, and I spoke both English and Castillian but knew very little about churches or Catholocism. As we were about to leave the church, Felipe introduced us to Cristal, another tour-guide-in-training, and the two of them taught us how to say ¨I love you¨ and ¨You are more beautiful than words can describe¨ in Quechua (the language of the majority of the Indigenous people in Peru). They also told us how hard it was becoming for locals to be able to make a living in Cusco, even in the ever present tourist agency, as many foreingers were moving there and taking tour guide jobs since they already spoke another language. We made plans to meet up later in the evening, and they took us to a mirador (a look out point), which was only a few blocks from our hostal but we would have never found it, with amazing nightime views of the whole city lit up like a birthday cake of a person thousands of years old. After a brief virtual tour of the city, we headed to the Coca Shop and practiced English as we sipped amazingly delicious and invigorating tea made of ground coca leaves, lemon, and a natural sugar. We ended up staying there until the owner was ready to close, but not before his two huge labrador dogs ran in and jumped all over us. As a treat for being his last customers of the night, the owner gave us each a tasty treat of a pecan covered in dark choclate made with coca leaves.

- Just as we got on a 23 hour bus ride from Cusco to Lima on a bus with seats that barely reclined on one of the windiest road in all of Peru, which cuts the Andes mountains, Kyla became very sick. To make matters worse, the woman sitting next to us had a sack at her feet with some kind of live animal that kept squealing in pain. As Kyla was trying to keep herself together from getting too sick one a particularly curvy section of the road, the woman next to started yelling ¨Espera, espera,¨ and as I turned my head, I saw her holding her hand over her son´s mouth and vomit begin to seep through her fingers and down her hand. Upon arriving in Lima, we almost immediately jumped on what was to be an 8 hour bus ride up the coast to Trujillo. However, when we stopped for dinner (which for us was a plate of rice and beans that we ate up graciously since we hadn´t been able to find beans since the last time we were on the coast which was nearly a month ago), the bus broke down, and the best solution anyone seemed to have was to pour water in various parts, which resulted in water shooting out of various other parts. Eventually they got the bus going, but we didn´t arrive in Trujillo until midnight, making it an 11 hour bus ride. We spent one day near Trujillo (story below) and then took a a 6 hour overnight bus further up the coast to Piura (another story below), followed almost immediately with a 9 hour bus ride steeply back up into the Andes to Huncabamba. In total, in a 74 hour period, we spent 49 hours on buses.

- In the beach-bumming surfer tourist town of Huanchacho, just north of Trujillo, we woke up with fantasies of a vegetarian breakfast, and within hours had our dreams realized and dashed as we found a hip vegetarian cafe, which also offered connections to local volunteer opportunties as well as massages, happened to be closed for the day. But then we stumbled upon Sr. Cholito´s natural bakery (Cholo in Peru means Indigenous or Indigenous loooking), where he sold various yumminesses such as pan integral (multi-grain bread) and galletas de camote (sweet potato cookies) along with hand made wines that he and his wife had produced with ¨with all fruits except grapes. He told us the story of revolucion caliente, bite-size cinnamon sugar cookies that he sold, which were traditionally sold by Afro-Peruvian street vendors after Peruvian independence and emancipation of the slaves, a time when many newly freed Afro-Peruvian worked as spies for the anti-colonial movement by inflitrating the Spanish armies. We then sat on the pristine beach and Kyla helped me stay in the moment as I found my self saying ridiculous things such as, ¨We should be on the look out for camote in resturants,¨rather than actually experiencing the wonder of the place and moment we were actually in. We then we to the nearby ruins of Chan Chan, which was the world´s largest city made of mud, and saw amazingly detailed designs, imposingly tall protection walls, attention demanding plazas, along with the famous Peruvian hairless dogs. Before heading out of town, we went into Trujillo´s downtown, and came across a vegetarian restaurant, where Kyla was able to get a macrobiotico dinner and I ate my first vegetarian ceviche.

- From Piura, we wanted to head to Huancabamba, where there are mystical lagunas and shamans who will take you there to perform ceremonies with various perfumes and halucanagenic drugs. At the bus station, this man came up to us and helped us find the appropriate bus company, and then told us that he was originally from Huncabamba and worked for the municipality´s tourism office and could help us got information about shamans and what we would need to bring. He told us that the perfumes were a lot more expensive in Huncabamba, but he could take us to a shaman´s house near the bus station to buy them for a lot cheaper. As we rode in the mototaxi with him down the gravel road, I figured either we were certain to either get mugged or have our bags, which he had told us we would leave at the bus station, stolen. We arrived ar an unmarked house, and I was strangely releaved to see display cases filled with various bottles and boxes in the front room. The shaman in the house collected 7 bottles that he claimed we would need for our ceremony, and proceeded to demonstrate how we would bath ourselves in them at the laguna and put them in our mouths and spit them out. As Kyla read the list of rather toxic and chemical-laden list of ingredients on the bottles, the shaman started talking to me about how hard it was for Peruvians to travel or immigrate to the United States (a topic many people have wanted to discuss, and which I gladly indulge them and myself in). We got out of there only buying a few of the bottles for 9 soles (under 3 US dollars), rather than all the bottles for 50 soles, and the man who took us there seemed dissapointed that his scam had not worked out and was silent the whle mototaxi ride back to the station. Just before arriving on the bus to Huncabamba, a woman also claiming to be from the municipal tourist office came aboard the bus and told us that we shouldn´t leave the bus terminal and come with her to the tourist office where they could help us because there were many people outside the terminal who wanted to trick toursits and take them to false shamans. So, we went with her to the tourist office, and the only help they could offer was to let us know that shamans charged 200 soles and up er person for their ceremonies (a price quite a bit above our daily budgets) and provided a list of over 100 shamans, with marks next to a few who had been expelled (from what I´m not sure) and a few who had ¨done something bad¨(again, I´m not sure exactly what). We ended the evening sitting at the kitchen table eating dinner, for which we had bought all the ingredients at the local market and then cooked, with the family that ran the hospedaje (a small family-run hostal), looking at their family photos, and discussing the Incan history of the Peruvian hairless dogs.

- We decided to head to the Huaringas, the mystical lakes of Huncabamba, on our own rather than with a shaman. The only time that cars left in to the laguna was between 2am and 3am, so we woke up at in the dark and stumbled over to the toursit office in the bus terminal. Inside we found a Brazilian young man of 20 years (who left his parents home and came to Peru after making a connection on-line, had somehow found a group of friends and freedom in the unremarkable city of Piura, and was headed towards Mexico City based on another chance internet connection) and a young Peruvian man of 17 years (who was orgianlly from Huancabamba, but now lives in Piura, and is planning on studying communications in university), whom we had met and shared some cheap wine with the previous day, so we decided to make the trip to the lagunas together. The tourist office told us we should only go with certain cars sicne they paid a tax to the city, but then as we went to leave, they told us to jsut go with any of the cars. As we exited the bus termianl we were assaulted with car drivers in a rush to take us, but as soon as we got into one of the cars we jsut sat there as the driver waited for an ¨envelope¨that was arriving on the next bus. We had heard that the car ride was 45 minutes and then the walk was only 30 minutes, so I wore my sandals. However, as it turned out the car ride was almost an hour and a half and then we were informed by a few women who wanted to rent us horses on the dirt road where the car dropped us off in the darkness that the walk to the laguans was 2 hours if you walked quickly. So, we started walking in the cold darnkess of the morning, only to arrive at the first laguna three hours later in the blazing sun. Along the way we were witness to the most amazing sunrise I had ever seen, as the sun peaked over the Andes revealing lush green mountains and pastures of grazing peaceful cows. At the lake we dipped our feet in the healing, but freezing, waters and fell asleep next to the bubbling noises of the water coming into the laguna from a mountain stream. When we awoke, we got to witness one of the ceremonies with a shaman, which involved lots of spitting of perfumes, bathing in the waters, and getting spit on by the shaman´s assistants after they inhaled an entire bottle of some kind of chemical through their nose. We walked back to where the car had dropped us off and promised to come back at a certain hour, but after an hour past that hour we decided to take the last ride out of town back to Huncambamba, which turned out to be in the back of a pickup truck filled with people, including a group of drunk men, a woman selling mangos along with all of her produce, and a man carrying a small pig in a sack. Along the 2 hour ride, we ran out of gas and a few of the people in the back of the pickup truck were forced to start pushing us so we could take an alternate route rolling down hill. So, we cruised down the hill like a roller coaster with the strong, sticky smell of ripe mangos rushing past our faces until we reached the end of the road since the entire street had been ripped up for construction. It wasn´t until we got back to our hospedaje that I realized that when I had fallen asleep, a small strip of my back had been exposed to the direct sun, and I now had the worst sunburn I´ve ever had in my life.

Sorry if this post was too much to digest in one sitting. I´ve been trying to follow the excellent advice of my friend Jaime whose first piece of advice after traveling the world for almost a year was to stay of internet cafes. I think of his advice often, and I must say that I totally agree with it, and would reccomend the same to anyoen else traveling. So, as a consequence I´ll continue with these mega-posts every few weeks rather rather than small daily ones. Also, big thanks to Marcus, a Brazilian man who quit his job as an IT projects manager to travel around South America and with whom we did the Inca Trail together, who gave us some key advice on how to put pictures on the blog without wasting your whole day.

Much love to you all,
Max

Zazu in Camouflage

2005-12-09T18:42:00.000-05:00

More pix for your and our Zazu fix!

(thanks again for the photo Josh)

"Celebrating" Thanksgiving

2005-12-01T09:40:00.000-05:00

Well, as you might have guessed it, Thanksgiving is not really "celebrated" in Peru. Although, in the toursit mecca of Cusco, where we are currently residing, there was a flyer for a Thanksgiving dinner at a local cafe, featuring turkey, mashed potatoes, and even a free call home. While I have never been a bigger pomoter of thanksgiving (probably going back to the age of 13 when my parents hosted my mother's entire side of the family for Thanksgiving and I hung up signs, which read "DON'T EAT TURKEY!" "MEAT IS MURDER!" and "HAPPY THANKSGIVING!"), part of me felt a desire to do something, and completely by accident the whole day turned out to be one of the most enjoyable and somehow meaningful Thanksgivings I have ever been a part of.

Kyla and I started the day by taking a hike from our hostal on what turned out to be one of the four original Inca paths that extended from the center of the former Inca Empire in Cusco (Qosqo as it was spelled in Quechua -- the Indigenous language, which is still the primary language of the majority of campesinos in Peru) towards the four provinces to the south of current Bolivia and Chile, to the north of current Ecuador, to the jungle of the east, and to the coast of the west. As we walked on this original Inca path, which would have led us to the jungle if we had walked far enough, we passed pre-Incan walls from thousands of years before the common era as well as campesinos renting their horse for toursits play "Indian" on. Within a half hour of walking, Cusco and its toursit-crowded streets with overpriced international food was a distant mystery, and we were walking amongst the lush green mountains of the sacred valley in search of a river and a remote watering hole that a fellow traveler had tipped us off to. Along the way we met an Indigenous man, his son, and their dog who were walking through the hills collecting garbage and recyclables that tourists had left along the path. Together we lamented the way in which visitors to these hills had not been treating them with respect, which is particularly insulting since amongst Indigenous communities in these areas the hills have names and have always been understood as gods.

Eventually, we stumbled upon Incan ruins called Puca Pucara, which were quite amazing in the exactness of their rock construction, until we learned later that the overhwelming majority of the sight had been destroyed by the Spanish, the weather, and looters, and then reconstructed by the Peruvian government, which meant that very little of the ruins were actually original. On the micro bus ride back from the site, the national police pulled us over in search of coca leaves, which although have been chewed and consumed by Indigenous communities for their health and spiritual benefits for centuries could soon become completely illegal in Peru. The bus driver yelled at the national police, angry because he was on a schedule and would be repremanded if he didn't arrive on time, and then proceeded to drive like a maniac down the hills into Cusco and running over a dog, who just before being sucked under the bus turned back and looked me directly in the eyes. I think I might have been the only person on the bus who saw this dog's last moment of life, which somehow made me feel responsible or at least obligated to carry on a part of his memory in my heart.

We got dropped off by the bus and took a cab to the main market in search of goods to make dinner. We got back to our hostal, and cooked for the fist time in a month of traveling, which flooded our minds with fond memories of Santa Cruz and the 121 House, where we had first fallen in love over home cooked meals. As usual, we cooked way too much food, but it worked out beautifully as we were able to share our dinner with Americo, the very kind-hearted but absent owner of the hostal, Lenin, the 18 year old boy who works at the hostal whose now deceased father named him after enjoying a book by Lenin, and Sam, a young man from Oregon who is studying Quechua in Cusco. Everyone devoured the meal, and Americo even asked for the recipe. It wasn't until nearly the end of the dinner that I realized that we had spent the whole night driking cheap beer and wine and discussing the politics of Indigenous communities in the United States, with whom Sam had spent the last years working with in Oregon to preserve and extend tribal lands and provide river rafting trips to Indigenous youth on rivers that used to be at the heart of their ancestors' fishing and spiritual lives.

I am learning ways to be able to be connected to communities and people as I travel and simply pass through towns and lives, and this day seemed to really represent these possibilities for me. Walking on paths thousands of years old which have felt the touch of thousands of feet of both Indigenous and Spanish conquistadores... American and European tourists littering as they live out their "native" fantasies... State sanctioned criminalization of traditional Indigenous practices with coca... Shockingly being reminded of the lack of respect for life as dogs turn into speed bumps... Remembering the continued injustices against Indigenous people in our "home" and how these communities and their allies are actively working to improve their lives and land... Sharing meals with strangers who becomes friends... Everything seemed to be appropriate and meaningful as both a live critique of the colonialist fantasy of Thanksgiving in the United States as well as a true manifestation of perhaps the spirit of being thankful for the people and experiences around you.

You are all in my thoughts,
Max

In answer to your questions...

2005-11-20T17:21:00.000-05:00

- Doug was curious to hear an on the ground report from Bolivia about the hotly contested and internationally watched presidential election... Like, Doug, I was excited to arrive in Bolivia to see what the political scene was like as from everything I had read, Bolivia was on the verge of electing a radical president Evo Morales who was setting the stage for a progressive Latin American coalition with Hugo Chavez and Venezuela. So, as it turns out, things are both more and less exciting than I had anticipated. On the surface of things, there is very little buzz about the election beyond the countless partisan posters and murals, which have been graffittied and reposted or repainted. I have started to ask random strangers, their opinion and most people I talk to either don't have an opinion on the topic that they would like to share with me or are very open with their support of Evo and his critiques of US-led neo-liberal global politics. Today, sunday, was actually the first action we saw in regards to the presidential election, as groups from Evo's party Movmiento al Socialismo (Movement to Socialism) dressed in their blue and supporters of the conservative right-wing candidate Tuto and his party Podemos (We Can) clad in their red marched around one of the main plaza's in La Paz. One of the difficult things to understand is how both parties are claiming that they are for nationalizing the natural gas, which would be a major step towards having poor Bolivians benefit from their own natural resources rather than wealthy transnational corporations, exactly whar it would mean to "nationalize" is still a highly contested question. The good news seems to be that Evo and his party which opens claims socialism and features the image of Che Guevara on their literature are actually going to take power in Bolivia, while the more sobering question is whether what what consitutes "movement towards socialism" in Bolivia will actually be much different that what is going on already. I'll write more about this after the election on December 18 with some thoughts on the local responses, coverage, and news, but for now perhaps Eric could chime in about his experiences in Bolivia and the Miners' analysis of Evo.

- Lorna requested continued insight into the history and current situtations of people of African descent in Latin America... Throughtout our experiences in Peru, we found that, unfortuantely unsurprisingly, the absolutely poorest neighborhoods were primarily populated by people of African and Indigenous descents. In addition, many local Mestizo people that we spoke to (including a priest) expressed a great deal of stereotypical fears of Afro-Peruvians, and more specifically and once again unfortuantely unsurprisingly believed that Afro-Peruvian men were extremely violent. In Bolivia, we have not come across any Afro-Bolivian communities, although certainly many people must have raices negras, but are just not as open about. Although, we have been told that in Ururo (which unfortunately, we won't have the chance to visit since we are leaving Bolivia tomorrow), there is the only large community of people of African descent in all of Bolivia, most people there apparently identify as Zambo -- a mix of African and Indigenous. We'll keep the reports coming, Lorna, thanks for your interest and ideas.

- Greg wanted to know what happened to my priorities and why there has been no mention thus far on the blog of our much beloved karaoke... I'm very sorry to report that as of this writing, the people of South America have not had the pleasure of seeing Fred or Angie perform. However, this is not for a lack of desire, we have tried a few times to venture into the local karaoke cultures, but have only found restaurants were people sheepishly sing from their dinner table and countless clubs advertised as "karaoke & discoteque" but where no one sings. But don't fear, Greg, even lame South American karaoke clubs can't keep Fred and Angie down, "Jack & Diane" will sing again and we'll be "Burning Down the House" with our "A,B,C's" "At Last."

Groundhog Day aka Kyla's birthday

2005-11-20T17:00:00.000-05:00

Well, I turned a quarter of a century a few days ago (thanks for all your warm wishes) and besides for many hiccups along the way, the time has been extremely helpful for my growth here in sudamerica. I have taken my first official español classes (14 hours thus far) and despite knowing only a small portion of this beautiful language I had my first solely invoked interaction with an Aymara woman on a carro today. We talked about the dance festival we were both in transit to and I asked her about the presidential elections approaching to which that she responded she believed in god rather than those running. I{ll admit that I got about 30% of what she was saying once she got going, but somehow I managed to keep the conversation flowing... something that has given me hope as a couple days ago I was feeling quite down that I wasn{t having many amazing interactions with others due to the language barrier.

For those curious about my birthday, I{ll say that my faux birthday the following day went much smoother! Missing many of you (especially Michael as we{ve only spent a couple of our birthdays apart), I kept myself occupied in the morning by the amazing teaching skills of William, my spanish professor. Coming out of class I was excited for the birthday surprise that Max had spent most of the morning arranging. Sitting outside of my class, looking as cute as ever, he greeted me with food, gifts and kisses... a great start to my day. Yet, after wandering around for over an hour awaiting the suprise, we both had no idea what was in store.

Sitting on a corner, next to a man passed out from drinking too much, Max walked up with mountain bikes and helmets in hand, a truly non- touristic jesture as no one (and I mean NO one) rides bikes within the city of La Paz. He had to convince this tour agency, who normally rents the bikes for "the most dangerous road in the world" to bring them from the south for our riding pleasure. Needless to say, the 2 hour "ride" was in no way pleasurable at all! Despite being in the world{s highest capital (thus the lack of oxygen would make anyone feel like there heart was coming out of their chest), dodging the crazy traffic of cars and people, and breathing in the miserable fumes caused by a city with no smog laws, we were "gringos on parade". On a day that has a very high risk of missing home, I felt extemely isolated and lonely as we tooled around with many disdained looks from people on the streets. After climbing a huge hill in search of a park that didnt exist (or at least not in our minds of what a park constitutes), we stumbled into the grounds of a hospital. The looks of the people there made me feel as if we were flaunting our wealth, as obviously a bike was a quite a luxury item in this neighborhood. I broke down in tears about the conditions people were living in, about Max{s amazing effort for such a horrible surprise, and about my physical pain from the cuts I got from the sharp pedals and my aching hands from holding on for dear life. Yes... it was a gift with the best of intentions yet in reality had the worst results.

After returning the bikes thankfully as at one point I thought Max was going to be mugged by these 7 kids asking to try it out, we went out to eat and both relived the misery, laughing over the thought that it was suppose to be so adventurous- imagine the only two people to ride bikes in La Paz!- and realizing that it was much better in Max{s dreams!

Since Max had a different surprise for my birthday that we were both in no mood to go for, like groundhog day, we tried to do the whole thing over. I went to class in the morning once again and at 2 o'clock Max was there same clothes and all! We rushed off to this amazing vegetarian buffet and in-route we ran into the Aussie couple who we met in Copacabana ! Small world! We made plans to meet them later that evening and just made it in time to enjoy soy dishes galore. After that we took a nice walk to the cinema where we sat in the wrong theater through many commercials and previews, rushed to the right one and made it just in time to see the "Corpse Bride" dubbed in Spanish. I got the gist but missed Johhny Depp's voice.

That evening we went to this interesting feminist cafe (which I will write more about latter) and saw this one woman show about the experiences of woman in La Paz. It was quite interesting to watch although I daydreamed a bit and Max filled me in between monolouges. She just changed right there on stage and you could see her transform into the next character! Pretty amazing. Following that we spent the rest of my faux-birthday with Marnie and Dave, the aussie couple we spent our time on Isle del Sol with. Although completely enjoyable to share stories with them, the night didn't end so hot as I was constantly running to the bathroom and the drinking-gene that Max inherited (his grandmother has quoted as the survivor gene) kicked in and he got quite dizzy. We took a taxi to our hotel and celebrated the final end of the birthday adventures by both running some more to the bathroom from some food we had eaten...... oh what a memorable birthday!

Signing off for now,

the 25 year old

finding "home" on "the road"

2005-11-20T16:40:00.000-05:00

Ever since we reached Bolivia about 10 days ago, "the road" has felt a lot more like "home." It could be that we have just been traveling for a good bit now, so sleeping in hostals, moving towns every few days, living in Spanish, and bargaining for every little purchase actually feels pretty comfortable. Or it could be the fact that Copacabana was eerily similar to Santa Cruz, California, USA, with a town on the edge of a great & beautiful body of water (Lake Titicaca), every restaurant advertising vegetarian food, hippies selling hand-made jewlery on the street, internet cafes blasting Coldplay, and hip coffee shops featuring live Colombian-Cuban music. These "comforts" were quite a drastic change from all of our previous expereinces while traveling in Peru, where the coast was dry & dusty, local restaurant owners gave us puzzled looks when we asked if they had anything vegeteriano, internet shops were cramped store fronts filled with local young kids and blasting regeton, and the only coffee was instantaneo. Bolivia might also feel more like "home," as while we have been in La Paz (the tallest capital in the world, despite the fact that it is situated in a canyon) we have gone to see two movies (including a Spanish dubbed version of Tim Burton's "Corpse Birde" and the current Bolivian smash hit "American Visa," which is absolutely terrible, but no one wants to admit it because it would be anti-patriotic to do so), attended a one-woman theater piece at a small feminist cafe-bookstore called Mujeres Creando (this great place has a great name, which I believe means both Women Creating and Creating Women, and at the play I understood about 80% of it and Kyla took in about 15%, so theoretically between the two of us we were at about 95% comprehension), went to three different dance performances (including one cleverly titled "Sin...Con...Fusion," which literally means in English "Without...With...Fusion," but also could mean "Without Confusion"), and hung out with Eric (a friend from Santa Cruz who is living here and working with Miners for a more just Bolivia). Tomorrow, we hed back to Peru, up to Cusco to do the famed 4-day Inca Trail to the even more famed Machu Picchu, and then pretty quickly up towards Ecuador in hopes of staying in one place for a month and volunteering with an indigenous community.

More picture coming soon (the process of uploading them has turned out to be quite a time consuming headache, but I promise that I will put in the time very shortly so that you can all enjoy a slightly more visual blog)

Take care,
Max

On traveling and travelers...

2005-11-20T15:59:00.000-05:00

As we approach nearly a month on the road, I've had some time to reflect on the idea of traveling and what it means to be a traveler. One of the most amazing and bizarre things that has been happening while traveling is the way in which short, intense, and highly international connections seem to randomly develop between fellow travelers. A sampling of these special and surreal moments:
- hiking in search of a waterfall with three Peruvian women, their Swiss and Candian boyfriends, and a Dutch woman
- having dinner at a vegetarian restaurant with a Canadian man who has been teaching English in Japan, a German cellosit who has been living in Switzerland, and a Dutch woman
- sharing a midnight taxi with a Colombian and German couple in desperate search for a dirt cheap hostal
- nearly getting stranded on a row boat in Lake Titicaca with an Australian couple who just spent the last three years in London

In fact, I have met more people from other countries in the last month than ever before in my entire life. We have met people from (in no particular order): Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Brasil, United States, Canada, Korea, Japan, Australia, Malaysia, Ireland, England, Germany, Wales, France, and Israel. While being very exciting to meet people from so many different lands, one of the scarriest realizations that I have had is how little I know about most countries in the world. For example, I didn't know where Osaka was in Japan despite the fact that it is the second largest city in the country, or when I met a woman from France the first thing I referenced was a sculpture by MT Liggit (the wonderfully eccentric scrap metal artist we met in Kansas) of a three-breasted prostitute from Marsille, or the fact that I still can't remember the name of the Canadain prime minister. I guess the old saying is as true as ever, the more you know, the more you know you don't know -- or in other words, the more I travel and learn about the world, the more I know I don't know about the world.

One thing that has been tugging on my mind, though, throughout these travels is why am I traveling? I have tried asking fellow travelers why they are traveling to try and getting a better handle on this type of adventure, which is very new for me. Some people have told me, "life is too easy at home, everyday things are more of a challenge in a different country with a different language and custom," or "i just like seeing other cultures," or, "i wanted to get away from my job." Somehow, I'm not quite staisfied with any of these answers for myself or for my own travels. The best answer to the question of why I am traveling that I have been able to come up with so far is actually another question -- everyday, despite so much resistance and injustice, the overwhelming majority of people in the world decide to get up and keep doing whatever it is they do, whether it is work, study, scam, beg, chill, or whatever, but why do people (including myself) keep going on, and more than just go on, also find beauty and happiness in their lives. I thought it was pretty life-affirming and thought-provoking, but all of the fellow travelers that I have shared this with have just stared back at me blankly.

Oh well, I shall return to these questions later, once I have had more experiences as a traveler and with travleres.

What do you all think?
Max

For those of you missing the Zazu...

2005-11-17T09:51:00.000-05:00

Zazu and her monkey on the couch in Evanston, IL
(Photo sent by Josh -- thanks!!!)

Crossing borders literally and figuratively

2005-11-15T08:50:00.000-05:00

I{m in Cafe Torino, right off of our hotel, in the center of La Paz, the unofficial capital of Bolivia. I have no idea why I grew up seeing a star on this city holding barely a million people, but my notions of geography have now been shifted. I found out yesterday that the "official" capital is Sucre, yet the working capital is La Paz, which houses the government buildings. So, all in all, my books were more politically exact than I had thought.

Max and I have an expense book in which we make daily logs to keep ourselves on track during these 8 months. Yesterday marked "Day 21"; three weeks have gone by so quickly! Without being redundant to what Max has mentioned, I{ll mentions what has happened just recently.

We crossed borders into Bolivia, and spent our last minutes in Peru on an impressive bike altered into a carriage. Max and I both took turns trying to ride it as we felt bad for the driver, who we soon found out had quite the workout. When I took the pedals we were swarmed by school girls who were yelling "money" while making the universal sign with their fingers, and I was hit on the arm by one. As the diver said, they didn{t like gringos in this area. Nearly unscathed, we reached the fronterra and were on our way to more relaxing times.

OUr time in Copacabana, was marked with a long trek to the Isle del Sol, the place where the Incas believed their sun and moon gods (feminine and masculine created equally) rose from. Quoting from my bible- the"Let{s Go" Guide of Peru (I have avoided Lonely Planet in hopes to have a more authentic experience although any guide book can quite alter that- a subject I{d like to write about later)- "Few would guess from the currently humble lifestyle on Isla del Sol that both Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo, who together founded the Inca Empire, were born on these rocky shores."(p. 210) And we would have hardly noticed except for the loads of tourists visiting the site where an altar and ruins of what housed 700 priests lay in amazing condition.

As pictured here, the altar, which was created a thousand years ago, was used before the Incas by Aymara to sacrafice llamas and alpacas on. When the Incas discovered the site they sacraficed young virgins in the animals place. Pretty odd to touch a spot, as everything here is hands on, where the lives of so many beings were consciously taken in the name of gods. The ruins were also impressive especially the tetris moves of huge rocks, which held the walls in place.

We met an Aussie couple on our 17k hike who we shared a boat ride with to the isle. An Aymara woman impressively rowed us the whole way, hardly working up a sweat despite here layers of skirts, sweaters and beanie. Although I felt bad that her hands hurt after all that hard work, it didn{t help the fact that she changed the negotiated price as soon as we reached the shores. Within 3 yards of the rocks, I felt we would have to jump if we didn{t pay the extra 20 bolivianos. Another instance where I and our new Aussie traveling mates were extremely thankful for Max{s spanish and negotiating skills.

After a night marked with thunder storms and another dispute with my stomach, we visited the ruins and then were on yet another boat listening to the sounds of capoeria musicians and feeling the incredibly cold wind on the lake. It{s amazing how the temperature drops when the sun hides behind clouds for only a few moments. A good 15 degrees or so I{d guess.... although it feels like 25, farenheight that is.

We spent Saturday night in Copacabana again, staying in the oldest hostal there which dated back to the late 1960{s. It had quite a view of the lake from our 6-bed room that we got all to ourselves. That night after watching a long futbol match (Italy beat Holland, sorry Niels) we sat in a lush video room and watched "Motorcycle Diaries", of which is extremely different from the book that I am 20 pages away from finishing. I can remember watching it in the states long before we started this trip and thinking to myself it{d be amazing to take a trip like that and really delve into the history of people long forgotten by any history books I have read. And, although the world is quite different 50 years later, and we are seeing Che{s face at newspaper kiosks and on shirts, rather than on the road, I feel as if we are learning some of the same things that he experienced about the injustices in the world and the different ways that make the human race so complimentary yet unfortunately so corrupted at the same time. Examples that I have yet to write....

My love to all,

Kyla

Sharing stories...

2005-11-04T14:10:00.000-05:00

Ok, here we go, a few stories of note from the past week or so (Although I'm sure my brain, which is experiencing some pain these days as we are at 2,500 meters elevaion in Arequipa, Peru, will undoubtedly forget a few wonderful tidbits, hopefully Kyla can fill in some of the gaps with future posts)...

- Left Lima and tried to head to Chincha, but as it turned out there was a special referendum election happening in the Provinces and so people were leaving Lima by the droves in order to vote in their home town, which meant that every bus being full or more than triple the usual price. We finally managed to buy some bus tickets towards Chincha, but it was quite an ordeal as in Lima there exisits both formal and informal ways of getting on your bus of choice. So, before arriving at the station where we were waiting, the bus would stop on the street and let people in for a reduced fee that would go straight to the bus driver and his assistant's pocket. But after much confusion and waiting, we finally got on the bus and arrived in Chincha. (a few quick notes on Peruvian politics: 1) I was so delighted to see every Peruvian taking the time and money to go all the way back to their home province to vote and feeling such a strong desire to participate in a democratic process. However, I later learned that people who do not vote, are actually fined 150 Soles, which I understand to be roughly the monthly minimum wage in Lima. I'm not sure what to think of mandatory elections, whether it in some ways forces all of us to engage with major national and international questions or if it further degrades and deligitamizes the whole process' I'd be curious about your thoughts... 2) The special resolution would have grouped provinces into states, which would have worked to equalize power between the government in Lima and the governments in the provinces. Interestingly, vote failed in every province except in Arequipa where we know are and the people joke with the tourists and tell them that they need to get their passports stamped before entering Arequipa as they are their own republic.

- We stayed a few days in a small district in Chincha called El Carmen. As a city, Chincha is known as the capital of Afro-Peruvian cultures, but it is actually in El Carmen where the overwhelming majority of Afro-Peruvians live and the cultures are maintained and futher developed. We happen to be there on the October 31st, the day in which all of Peru celebrates Musica Criolla (creole music), which is a mixture of African, Indigenous, and Spanish musics that have become sort of a national music of sorts. In addition to this celebration, Haloween, which has just recently begun beign celebrated in Peru, was taking place, although the here the kids seemed to prefer to march down the streets in groups of around 50 wearign masks and chanting. In celebration of El Dia de La Musica Criolla there were two Penas (a show of dance and music) and concert with Afro-Salsa-Hip-Hop orchestra from Lima. We went to one of the Penas that was supposed to start at 10pm, but barely anyone was there, so we went over to see the Lime񯠯rchestra, but the machismo in leather and bump n' grind choreographed wore thin. We ended up at the other Pena around 12midnight and people were finally starting to show up and music with pockets of dance began to happen. Kyla and headed for the dance floor, and nearly instantly people began to complement us (in reality, mainly Kyla) on our dancing. Around 2am the party finally started happening and people would not stop giving us free drinks and wanting to talk and dance with us (once again, in reality, mainly wanting to dance with Kyla). At one point, they were getting women up on stage to dance with the singer, and me and a young woman from Lima convinced Kyla to go up on stage. The woman who dacned with the singer right before Kyla, was actually picked up in the air by the singer as he danced with her high above his head. For better or worse, Kyla did not receive such an honor. We ended up at around 7am hanging out with a group of young Afro-Peruvian men sharing drinks and ideas on what constitutes an "American" and what can be done to fight racism in the Americas. This was quickly followed by me puking in front of the whole group, and Kyla helping me shuffle back to the hostal as the sun was coming up. Once again, I was reminded of how lucky I am to be travelign with such an amazing person. Although, I may speak some Spanish (or Castellano as the call it here), Kyla speaks the language of dance, which has opened the doors to so many amazing and meaningful connections with people during our travels. Also, when I was sick with diarreah the day before the Pena, she was sweet enough to kiss my belly and read to me as I cudled up beside her on the bed.

- On one of our days in Chincha, we took a Combi (which is a minivan that operates sort of as a for-profit-informal-community vehicle, picking up people along the road and giving them rides for a small fee) to the district of Chincha Baja, whcih featured the oldest church in the area. We decided to try and walk to the coast, which was in another district called Tumba de Mora) Tomb of the Berry. Along the way, we saw what looked like pre-incan ruins, so we decided to walk to the top of them where we found a huge old decorated cross and could see an even more well preserved set of pree-Incan ruins across some agricultral fields. So, we headed in the direction of the ruins along an irrigation canal through fields of artichokes as far as our eyes could see. Along the way, we were warned by a local farm worker that we shouldn{t go there because we would probably be robbed by knife wielding thieves. It seemed like a wise decision to head such threats and we returned to the road back in the direction of the coast and Tumba de Mora. As we walked towards the beach, a man peaked his head out of a restuarant and warned us not to godown to the beach as we would most certainly be robbed as this was mid week and the beach in this small district of this small town would certainly be nearly empty. Once again, we decided to take this as a sign and after eating lunch returned to Chincha Baja. Both of these decisions turned out to be rather wise as while on a combi from Chincha Baja to Chincha Alta we met a young priest who had just been robbed by the police in Tumba de Mora while he was delivering donated clothes to prisoners. The priest, who was still a bit shaken up, took a likeing to us and took us on a tour of the local market, where we discussed his love for local grown foods, his rather negative views on his fellow Peruvians, and the injustices of US immigration policies. Kyla wanted some picarones (a sweet donutish fried desert bread covered in honey-like sugar) and the young priest said he could take us to the plaza where they make the best picarones. Along the way, he asked if we had a camera, and I started to wonder if this "priest," his sob story, and our free tour where actually an elaborate scam to rip us off. My suspicions where further hightened when we reached the plaza, and no one was sellign picarones and he was leadign us to an alley behind the church. Just as we were reaching the point where we were going to have to speak up and possibly run, we saw a group of old women sitting on wooden benches on a street corner making fresh picarones. As it turned out, we had a wonderful time learning about the whole process of making picarones, and eating what turned out to actually be the best ones we have had thus far. So, much for fear of strangers, and another reminder of the corrupting nature of so many institutions (such as police) which are meant to protect us.

- Since we are not planning on hitting up the Galapagos islands on this trip because of the very high cost, we decided to head to the Islas Ballestas, otherwise know as "Peru's Poorman's Galapagos." Hard to describe waht we saw, amazingly close looks at penguins, sea lions, and a whole variety of birds -- hopefully we will figure out how to upload some photos soon, and then you'll all be able to see the sights. On an intersting note, in addition to generating money through tourism, the islands are also one of the primary sources of guano AKA bird shit fertilizer in Peru. Ever 5 to 7 years, very low paid workers are brought from Lima to collect all the shit, which is brought to the fields thoughout Peru in order to grow crops mainly for export to the US. In fact the government owns the islands and keeps them seperate from the nearby Paracas National Reserve in order to keep extracting the guano. There are other workers who live in small cement huts on these bird shit islands for months straight at a time to ensure that no one comes to illegaly steal the bird shit.

- Well, it only took us a little over a week to finally get scammed by a "tourist hunter." As we waited in the Ica bus station to catch a bus to Nasca to see the famed and awe-inspiring Nasca Lines, two women approced us and ofered to take us to their family's hostal in Nasca, which they said was reccomeded in all the guide books. They even offered us a ride from the Nasca bus stations as the said we would be harrassed by locals trying to scam tourists if we walked. We figured it was at least worth a look, and went along with them. As it turned out they actually took us to a different hostal, at which they promised hot showers and a full breakfast, that turned out to be some of the most uncomfortable beds you have ever felt, freezing cold water, and instant coffee & dry, hard bread rolls to eat. We had scheduled to take a flight with them to the Lines and experience them in their full glory, but just as we were to get moeny from the ATM and get in a cab with them to the airport, we decided we couldn't trust them (a decicion I know my father and his fears of small planes would be very quite please with with). So, I went to find a reputable tour agency, while Kyla and Xen Hee, a Korean architect who was staying at the hostal ate their "full breakfast." I returned with info from a great guide to find Kyla and Xen Hee dacing with a large group of school children from Cincha who were in Nasca for a dance competition. We told our scma artist friends that we were leaving, and madness insued, with the final scene with them was me standing in front of their car, yelling at them as I translated the complaints of a distraught Xen Hee who had her hand over her ears, and them threatening to call the police. We told them they were welcome to call the police, and we left to find a reputable tour agency. As a final note, despite the frustration of these scam artists and a small degree of motion sickenss durign the flight, the lines were absolutely amazing, otherworldly, and completely worth all the drama.

- The worst lie that these scammers told us turned out to be that we should mistrust the people of Nasca, who turned out to be some of the friendliest people that we have met. On our bus from Ica to Nasca was a group of school children from Pisco who were set to compete in a dance festival over the next two days. We went to the dance festival held in the small cement local colesium, and folks there, who despite having seen their whole small town competely reworked to offer services to tourists wanting to take a look at the Nasca Lines, opened their event and themselves to us -- as they engaged us in meaningful and curious conversation about dance and life. We even got to join the Chincha group's Barra, which is a cheering section, as we yelled "Bravo" and "Eso" & clapped loudly for the young kids dancing barefoot on the hot cement below a scorching sun. One of the most amazing parts of the dance festival were the dances from the Coast section (there are three sections total: Coast, Mountains, and Jungle), almost all of which featured heavily African influenced music and moves, dance titles such as "Black Liberation," and stories of Afro-Peruvian slaves rising up and overcoming the Capataz (a fellow African slave who the slave owner had hired to watch and whip them int he fields). We spoke with mothers, who to us with our lack of knowledge on Peruvian history and racial politics seemed to be Mestizos of Inidigeous and Spanish ancestry, speak of their pride in their Raices Negras (Black Roots), and to young kids who excitedly told us how they were going to rebel against mistreatment and attack the Capataz during their dance. For the people we met, the history of slavery in Peru appears to be far from a distant memory or story, but rather plays an important role in their current realities, struggles, identities, and cultural expressions.

Please feel encouraged to comment on my thoughts,
Take care everyone,
Max

A few more thoughts on Lima...

2005-11-03T20:55:00.000-05:00

Lima was a rude, but welcome, awakening to Peru and South America. A few interestign tid bits to add to Kyla's wonderful last post...

- One day a week, the school chilrdren have physical education class, and so rather than wearing their standard school uniforms, they dress in the hippest birght faux-addidas running suits. So, as you walk through Lima Centro you see these huge groups of kids wearing their matching running suits, each school with their own set of colors -- Run DMC would certainly be happy to know such style abounds in this capital.

- We went to the old colonial Palace (which now houses the president) and saw an extremely elaborate 45 minute changing of the guard, which included a full band, four different groups of soliders dressed in striking red and blue, highstepping guards (a la John Cleese's 'German walk' in Fawlty Towers), but actually resulted in none of the guards staying to guard the castle. The most amazing part was the song that the band played -- it sounded amazing familiar, until we realized that it was a Simon & Garfunkel tune that goes something like, 'I'd rather be a sparrow, than a ____, yes I would, if I only could.' So, either Simon & Garfunkel ripped off a tradiation Peruvian song, or the Peruvian people are huge Simon & Garfunkel fans. Although, I know I should root for the former, deep down there is a part of me that fantasizes of the latter.

- After eating dinner in a Chifa, which is a type of Chinese food restaurant in Peru that strangely enough has become a staple in peru despite the fact that there are not many Chinese people living here, we went dancing in a district of Lima called Baranco. At 1:30am we ended up in a small club, which featured an 11 piece Cuban orchestra made up of men all 65 years or older. When we entered, we got a few strange looks, but then when we hit the small dance floor, Kyla's moves wowed everyone and people began to applaug and give us thumbs up. After talkign to one of the musicians on the street after the show, it turned out that he was one of the founders of Peru Negro, a weel known (and definitely worth checking out) Afro-Peruvian band that has toured the world preserving and developing Afro-peruvian song and dance.

Ok, must leave to catch a bus from Nasca to Arequipa.

Abrazos,
Max

5 days and walking in a not so foreign place

2005-10-31T16:04:00.000-05:00

It´s amazing how time moves so slowly here and how much we´ve seen despite acquiring this new pace. Let me start from the beginning...

Leaving Miami felt momentous in itself for the hurricane torn land left us and 9 million homes without elecricity. We hadn´t fully grasped Wilma´s strength until we found ourselves being price gauged for a hotel without power and had to scavenge for food as refrigerators were on strike and ice was a luxery item. We drove 3 hours from Orlando and as we got closer to the southern tip, the more broken palm trees, torn billboards and debris on the road was noticeable. The line for gas created traffic jams on the highway, and took many hours upon hours for people to move a few feet. After we were grateful enough to fill our stomachs at a Criolla corner cafe, the lines had not lessened and people would have soon be turned away by an 8pm curfew. A police officer ¨politely¨ warned us that we would be arrested if we weren´t indoors by then.

After a night cozy with our flashlights, we found ourselves in a whole new land- Caracas- where the realization that I don´t know Spanish hit me very hard. Asking for change for a vending machine was even challenging! A few deep breaths and the help of my sweetheart, and translator, has led us into some fabulous situations.

We didn´t reach Lima till 12am, and were instantly bombarded by taxi drivers. There were hundreds of people waiting at the terminal, as if some celebrity was about to be greeted. Yet it once again showed us the importance of familia, as I´m sure each person had their own entourage. We lucky had a frined (Thanks to Amy Weiss!!!) to pick us up and were shown a type of hospitality I haven´t felt in years!

In the home of Greta and George Caceres we were given our own private room overlooking the district of San Luis- a ¨gated¨community housing 1 million people within Lima´s city limits. We were greeted each morning with an assortment of local treats and warm conversations over breakfast with Virgin Mary looking over us. As any book will tell you- South America is extremely religious and curiously enough the people are all very devoted to Catholicism although the history of how it arrived is a bit disturbing. It amazed me to see a beautiful Iglesia down the street from the Museo de la Inquisicion where it demonstrated how people were tortured if they did not believe in the ¨Öne True God¨. Slowly people were forced to demonstrate their devotion to Catholicism in the 1600´s, or else they were publically tortured as a demonstation to those non-believers. Those who were either pulled limb to limb, driven insane by hot water down their throats, or lashed, first prossessed down the streets in white robes with a red X on both sides and wore a tall dunce hat painted with images of the devil. A thing I had heard about but had never quite witnessed first hand- as you can see by a picture we will post how alarming it was!

On a happier and more ironic note, we did get to engage in the yearly Catholic tradition of Señor de Los Milagros ( Man of Miracles) later that day and the following evening. October is the purple month of the year that started because of a painting of the black Chirst at Las Nazarenes, a church on the outskirts of Limo Centro. We surrounded ourselves with the crowds of people at the church and shared in buying and lighting a candle while the beautiful sound of an organ filled our ears. Today over a million people fill the street for processions (three in the month) of a painting of Christ (that surprising to our eyes, was not black!), lighting inncense, singing songs and holding their hands up to praise the picture when it draws near. Although I was raised Catholic, it was all so new to me in that the processors would walk five feet with the effigy, then set it down and everyone would clap. Also there were miniture hot air balloons that would float as high as they could before they caught fire and created a spectacle in the sky. We tried turron, a sweet bread made especially for the festival (although sold all year),and we laughed at a show of a man performing in a dress to robotic music. Even though we were warned that there would be pickpocketers and that the crowds were ¨hostile¨ (mostly coming from middle-class individuals who were afraid of their own people) we were greeted with nothing but kindness and experienced an amazing energy from the crowd... an experience I will never forget and that will hopefully remind me to partake in such celebrations at home. Stereotypes and false assumptions will get you nowhere.

I will leave with a quote from the enjoying and endearing author , Paulo Coelho- ¨When you travel you experience, in a very practical way, the act of rebirth. You confront completely new situations, the day passes more slowly, on on most journeys you don´t even understand the language the people speak. ... You begin to be more accessible to others, because they may be able to help you in difficult situations.¨

Already I have felt blessed by having others help us along the way.... and especially by having Max by my side.

Love and laughter,

Kyla

Getting to know ¨Here¨ before heading ¨There.¨

2005-10-31T15:27:00.000-05:00

Well, as I sit in the Internet Las Chicas Center in the Tambo de Mora district of Chincha (the center of Afro-Peruvian folklore, dance, and music) our cross country trip feels like memories from years gone by, rather than only the few weeks that it actually has been.

The cross country trip, which brought us a long a very windy 3,200 miles from Santa Cruz, CA, to Evanston, IL, proved to be a wonderful journey of unexpected treasures and a small taste of what was to come in our months of traveling together.

Rather than go into painstaking details, which our quickly fading from memory and might prove a tad boring for those of you wanting to hear of our times in south america, I´ll provide a list of some of the highlights from the trip:

- Seeing a statue of ¨Mike the Headless Chicken,¨who went on to live for two years after a farmer chopped off the overwhelming majority of his head, in Furita, CO, where he is now the most famous resident of this smal town, followed by Tater, a young mentally disabled man who greets everyone very enthusiastically.

- Exploring the three story tall Bishops Castle in Pueblo, CO, which was handbuilt by a man, his son, and their strong devotion to God. They have plans to open a state of the art infant heart surgery center on the second floor of the castle.

- Hanging out with MT Liggit, an artist in the small town of Mullinville, KS, who builds kinetic sculptures of politicans and his friends out of scrap metal and old street signs. He drove us aroudn in the back of his pick up truck to his multiple properties which are lined with his art, and then took us out to dinner at the local cafe. He showed us his best piece -- a sculpture of a three breasted prostitute that he knew in France -- and told us that ¨The art is there already, you just got to do it,¨and that, ¨when you meet people like this that you like, don´t let it fade away.¨ He mailed us some photos of his art, and we owe him a postcard.

- Waking up on what turned out to be our one year anniversary in our tent in front of a foggy lake with a thousand white pelicans flying and floating above the water.

- Staying a few nights in West Plains, MO, in Kyla´s mother´s childhood home and getting a chance to visit with her extended family which all live in homes along the same rural road (including a three hour discussion of the merits and problems of the global capitalist system with Kyla´s fist cousin´s husband who runs a business extracting hardwood from the Brazilian Amazon and Kyla´s cousin who wrote his undergraduate thesis on a philosophical defense of capitalism -- needless to say, we had some ¨minor¨differences of opinion, but a good debate was had by all.

- Visiting Voorhies Castle, outside of Bement, IL, where I grew up. The current owners are remodeling the whole thing in an effort to bring it to its former glory, but unfortuantely they were not home so we could only peek in from the outside. We did get to walk through the small church next door to the Castle, which apparently is extremely conservative as it had many wonderful quotes from Bush, Bush Jr, and Regan about how a nation without prayer is a failing one, and provided many graphs to show how child abuse, rape, violent crime, and drug abuse had all risen dramatically since the abolishment of school prayer.

More happened a long the way, but as my time alloted on this computer comes to an end, this is what sticks out in my mind. If more comes back to me later, or perhaps to Kyla, we´ll add it.

Tonight we hed to a Pena Negra (a show of Afro-Peruvian dance and music) followed by a fiesta with an orchestra from Lima. We´ll see how folks here remeber/celebrate their heritages and part/celebrate their lives.

Much Love,
Max

And so begins, begins our odyessy

2005-10-25T00:15:00.000-05:00

A few hours ago, we learned that our first flight -- the flight to Miami, so we can leave for Peru Wednesday -- was cancelled. Now, after hours on hold with various companies, we find ourselves at a little after midnight with an extra early morning flight to Orlando and a rental car to Miami. So, as we embark on our journey which will lead us through the destruction of Hurricane Wilma, we once again learn that what you could have never imagained, can and will come true -- for better or for repetitive faux-caribbean on-hold music. Max. (Zazu, with her new coach mate Stimpy in Evanston, IL)