SPF World

Barranquilla, Tayrona, Bogotá, Villa de Leyva, Florencia and back again

2008-10-19T09:20:00.001-07:00

I've not been keeping up with my blog at all lately... a lot of stuff has happened, and I can't possibly go back and fill it all in now. So this will be like if you missed a 2-part episode of a tv series before tivo: I'll just quickly recap what happened last time and you'll deal with it.

I finished my three weeks of language school in Cartagena. I had a lot of fun and made some good friends of other students - mostly europeans, teachers and other colombians. I was pretty sad when I left Cartagena. I wasn't sure I'd gotten what I'd hoped for out of the past few weeks. My last week of classes was a little tiring and we just weren't going nearly as quickly as I wanted to. I had stopped doing my homework or really enjoying the classes. I was ready for something different.

My friend Kim suggested I give a call to some people we'd met one night at this salsa club called Habana. They lived in Barranquilla which is a major port city without many tourist attractions about two hours from Cartagena. So I checked into a hotel in Barranquilla and gave them a ring. It was really good advice - I had a great time.... and I started the next phase of my traveling. The way they put it is that there's nothing to do in Barranquilla except drinking and dancing, and so that's what people do all the time.

We did make it out to a bull fight, one day. This was exactly nothing like the bullfight I went to in Mexico. The "bullfight" was chaos, with hundreds of people in the ring, people in the stands throwing bottles and stuff. It's still brutal, sure, but it's actually really dangerous for everyone, not just the bull.

These are the people I was hanging out with and some of their friends

This is the construction of the stadium (one of these collapsed recently)

And here's the bull loose chasing people in the field and in the stands. That bull below on the right is running and within about 2 tenths of a second those guys in the red and blue sitting in it's path will disappear behind the fence just like the others, closer to the bull, just did 2 tenths of a second ago.

There were some other antics going on too like an insulting clown and naked torreros

After hanging out in killa for a few days it felt like it was time to go so I headed off to the beaches near Santa Marta and to Tayrona park. I stayed in a town called Taganga at a place called Divanga, which I can fully recommend. Taganga is a pretty minimal town that gets a lot of backpackers.

I took a boat to Cabo San Juan in Tayrona. I'm not sure why I have just a picture of an empty boat, there were a lot of interesting characters in it. This was a very different scene then I'd been in before - it was the backpacker scene. About half of them were Israeli... the rest were from various european countries. (I've met like 2 american's in Colombia and about 50 europeans - when I was in mexico I met 50 americans an zero europeans). The boat ride is great because it's beautiful and because you meet people on the 2 hour ride, so when you show up at the beach you have some friends already.

I went for a hike with this just-retired professional volleyball player from Latvia to an indigenous town called Pueblito

I stayed up drinking with this Scottish dude Stefan and some really cool medical students from Bogotá, where I was headed next

My next stop was Bogotá, where I tried couchsurfing some more. I stayed with two different people, Isabel and Erika. They were both so amazingly hospitable... introducing me to their friends, taking me out, showing me around the city and everything. Couchsurfing is really cool... it's like having a friend-of-a-friend everywhere in the world.

I went to the national museum

we took photos from above the city with Erika (left), her son Nestor, and her friend Gloria

Erika also took me to Monserrate which has amazing views of Bogotá.

This is some platos tipicos from Bogota. Avocado, bean soup, rice, eggs, sausage and fried corn cakes

Next I headed off on my own for a while to visit some towns north of Bogota including Zipaquirá and the Catedral de Sal, Tunja, Villa de Leyva, Ráquira and the Monesterio of Candelaria. This was different... I was using my lonely planet guide for the first time, asking lots of people for help, and had everything with me in my backpack. I actually liked this a lot because the countryside and places were so beautiful, because everything was at a totally different pace than Bogotá, and because it was fun to be self-sufficient, asking directions and always being able to find help for how to get from one place to another. A lot of the travel was super random - for example, sit on this corner and wait, eventually someone drives by in a car and asks if I'm going to wherever, and hop in. It's not really that weird, I've just never seen normal people using their cars as tiny buses before as a kind of side-job.

So the first stop was Zipaquira and the Catedral de Sal, which is carved out of a huge salt mine hundreds of yards inside a mountain

Next I took a bus to Tunja, a relatively big city with some really nice churches with Islamic-based designs. I really liked the vibe on the street there... people seemed really warm and there were a lot of nice places to go out. I could see myself spending more time there. It's a little like Barranquilla - a place where normal people actually live, but it's close to the major beautiful tourist spots.

The next stop was Villa de Leyva, which was the nicest place I've been so far in my travels. It's set on this hillside with original buildings from the 1500's. The streets are so warm and alive and peaceful at the same time... I wandered around a lot and took a lot of side-shots with my camera, I was so enchanted.

Next up was Ráquira, which was kind of an odd town with lots of stores full of pottery... I guess some of it was local but the stuff I liked was from Peru. I decided to wait until I was in Peru.

And finally the Monesterio

After I returned to Bogotá, Erika took me to Florencia, a town in the south of Colombia near the Amazon.

She and her family took me to see their finca in the mountain

And then her dad took me up the mountain further on the back of his motorcycle to meet a monkey

The next day we went the fair with her cousin and her family

After this we returned to Bogotá on another 12 hour bus ride. I had had a ton of fun, but was ready for yet another change. I decided this time change was going to take the form of actually going back someplace. I made a last minute decision to head back to Barranquilla....

Cartagena Colombia

2008-09-20T16:24:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Colombia a little apprehensive. For one thing I was supposed to get a student visa through my school but I forgot to do so. I gave the address of the school but said that it was a hostel and I was just here as a tourist. No problem, of course.

When I got outside of the airport in Barranquilla, there was a very pretty girl giving information to travelers. She told me I needed to take a taxi the bus to Cartagena, which is about 2 hours away. But first I needed cash, because the taxis don't take US dollars. I headed toward the ATM that I had passed by before because of the punk kid that was hanging out next to it. Well, I figured, what's the chance that this kid is trouble at an airport? No trouble, of course.

Apparently the cities in Colombia typically have nice neighborhoods to the north and slums to the south. Also, the bus terminals are typically in the south. So my taxi took me to the slums of Barraquilla where I caught a bus to the slums of Cartagena.

The slums melted into forests after a few minutes. After about an hour we were boarded by soldiers who made us stand with our hands against the bus while they checked us for weapons. I figured that they were either government troops, in which case I was happy to see security measures, or they were paramilitary, in which case there wasn't much I could do. (They were, obviously, the former.) After that the forest became more populated by makeshift houses and children running around barefoot as we arrived at the bus terminal in Cartagena.

The taxi in Cartagena went into progressively more substantial housing, starting with scraps of metal and ending in an ancient, weathered neighborhood called Getsemaní, where my school is.

The school, where I'd be living and taking classes, is a converted house with some largish rooms in the front, and open ceiling over the center, and a half dozen smaller rooms in the back. There's also a family that lives here - a mother, father and a teenage girl and boy. (Plus a random short dude that sleeps in one of the classrooms some days.) They were the first people I met. They are super nice, but they're not really in charge or anything, so they just showed me my room, gave me a key to the padlock for the door, and then went about their business.

I put my stuff and asked where I could get some food. The father showed me a decent restaurant not far up the street. When I returned I checked and found no internet, and it was still early, so I figured I'd have to find some way to spend the next couple of hours. I was a little intimidated about going for a walk, but I wanted to see the walled city of Cartagena so I asked for some directions and headed out with a copy of my address in my pocket alongside a few tens of thousand of pesos. No problems getting there or back, of course.

The old city is about as beautiful as a city could be. It's in an exquisite state of decay, with ancient streets beneath open balconies and flowering vines. The walls are fully intact, including a few rusting canons, several open-air restaurants, and warm caribbean breezes.

The next morning classes started. They gave us a placement test which is unpleasant and not terribly helpful, just as they had done in Mexico. There are only a few classes being taught, anyway, and they don't have students of even levels anyway. Nevertheless, My teacher, Eliecer, is excellent. Unlike my classes in Mexico, the conversation and grammar are all mixed together, so you get to practice the things you just learned in conversation, which I like much better.

The first week I had just one classmate, a girl from Switzerland. The next week I had two more students, an Australian and an Israeli-American. Most of the other 5-10 students are European. The largest number are from Switzerland, for some reason. I made quick friends with the other guy living in the school - Kim from Norway, as well as many of the other students. Like Mexico, much of the socializing I've been doing is in english. I like hanging out with the other students a lot, but I am looking forward to practicing my spanish more in the future. I end up hanging out with the other students most afternoons and nights, only venturing out on my own occasionally.

I'm taking dancing classes here too, and going out typically means trying out the dance moves that we learned earlier in the day. This is a lot of fun despite the oppressive heat and humidity which leaves me soaked in sweat.

Back in the US

2008-09-13T15:53:00.001-07:00

I was back in the US for about a month. I visited my friends Christian and Tai in Virginia first. When I first arrived Christian showed me his new hobby - raising bees.

In the next couple of weeks we had a really nice time doing basically relaxing things. It was the end of their vacation before they had to start teaching classes. We spent a lot of evenings on their back porch, cooked some awesome meals, and mostly just chilled. Christian and I also worked on a project we've been thinking about together, and made a lot of progress with the ideas and even put together a rough prototype.

I also got to spend more time with Matthew, Jennifer and family. I even got to see Shirley, Matt's mom, who was visiting them at the same time. Francesca showed me her new baby chickens and I played with Bennett and his super soaker.

One weekend Dave and Emily came up to visit and we ate pulled pork (yum!) The next weekend I went to Baltimore to spend some more time with Dave and Em. I saw their place, Dave's new lab space, played mario kart, met some of their friends, and even managed to find some material for a turban to wear at burning man. We ate crabs too.

I don't actually have much to say about Burning Man, where I went next. It was much like when I went 2 years ago, minus the novelty.

Lateef and I actually left a day early and spent the last night in Reno. We took showers, swam in the pool, ate hot food, and went out to some bars, talked to random people and then spent the rest of the night dancing at a hip-hop club. It was awesome after living in the dust for a couple of days.

From Reno I visited my mom in Santa Fe. I saw her new apartment, and we went for a quick walk in the a park near Tesuque. We also made plans to go to the Galapagos.

The next stop was Puerto Rico. I was staying with my cousin and her boyfriend, Arturo. They brought along a friend, Frank, who is a French guy living in New Jersey teaching French. We tried to surf a bit, but mostly we left that to Christine and Arturo.

Friday night we went to Old San Juan, which is really beautiful. We stayed at this hotel called "Da House" which I found on tripadvisor. It's a kind of old boutique hotel that's been nicely renovated with air conditioning and private baths right in the old part of town near the "party" - which means salsa music outside until 2 or 3 in the am.

On Saturday night I tried out couchsurfing for the first time. I stayed with this really nice girl named Estela in San Juan. I didn't have any real plans for that night other than to make it to the airport on Sunday am. However, Estela was very gracious and introduced me to some of her friends, took me to a barbaque, and even drove me to the airport in the morning! So at 6am I boarded a flight through Panama City to Colombia...

Aggi

2008-08-16T13:37:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Mexico City and took a taxi to Aggi's house. She was the best friend of my grandmother. I was very close to my grandmother who died in 1999, right before I moved to California.

My taxi passed through the poor neighborhoods near the airport, the skyscapers and plazas downtown, and finally into the tree-lined streets of Colonia Polanco where she lives. The nice neighborhoods in Mexico City are among the nicest I've seen in the world. They are lined with trees, and the streets are very wide. Often they are divided by walking paths. It's more elegant than Beverly Hills, to say nothing of the treacherous streets of Cuernavaca.

I arrived at the gate in front of her condominium and the doorman spoke to me before I had a chance to press the button. I walked up the stairs and Aggi had the door open for me. We later figured out that they only time we'd met I was 3 years old, yet her home felt familiar to me. She had the same sense of style as my grandmother and, as I looked around at the paintings, sculptures and furniture and listened to her Hungarian accent I felt transported to an earlier time in my life.

As I admired her elegant but small apartment she fixed me some breakfast from the same kind of smooth spreads and patés that my grandmother used to make. She asked about my family, particularly my aunt Georgie and my sister. She showed me a small Irish goat bell that my sister had given her when she visited New York over 30 years ago. My sister was too young to understand her situation, she told me, but could tell that she was sad and wanted to comfort her. She said she kept the bell in her kitchen where she looked at it every day.

I asked about the circumstances that lead her to stay in New York at my grandparents. Her Mexican boyfriend had been doing real estate development in partnership with the government, she explained. The business deal was going too well and the government decided they wanted him out of the deal and fabricated charges against him. He went to jail for a year and half and his lawyer said it would be better if Aggi disappeared so she would not be forced to testify against him. "I knew more than anyone about what was going on", she explained. So she stayed with my grandmother for 9 months. Since that visit, she spoke to my grandmother on the phone every Sunday.

I asked about her book and she brought me a copy to look at. "El espejo de Agui" means "Aggi's mirror".

She is making a movie from her book and was traveling to Cuernavaca to go to the birthday party of an important film maker there for the afternoon. I asked if she had a copy of her book -- I wanted to next practice my spanish by trying to read a book -- but she said she had a problem, that there not enough copies of her book for the film production so she couldn't give any away.

I told her that it was years after my sister produced documentation that showed that her maternal line was Jewish that it occurred to me that this meant I too was considered Jewish. I said I found it difficult to answer questions about that when people asked me from time to time. I told her I felt uncomfortable saying I was Jewish since I was not raised with that identity or culture, and that I felt uncomfortable saying I was not since to do so was to deny my ancestry. She said I should give whatever answer is most convenient given the situation. I wasn't sure how I felt about that response because it seemed to me that there was some truth that I should present consistently to everyone.

I asked about her first husband, who she was married to during her 20's, more or less. She said that he pushed her to have a different life than she would normally have had. He was older than her, and she told me some other details of his life. This idea of being pushed kept coming up so I asked her what she meant. She answered a little cagily the first time, telling me that she had a more exciting life because of her husband. But why? Well, she became much more frank and explained to me that her husband was not attracted to her (she said he preferred bustier women with dark hair...) and eventually suggested to her that she meet other men for fulfillment. I think I was expecting something different, like that he had pushed her to write her book or have a career or something.

Her hairdresser arrived and I heard her describe me as a "muchacho muy guapo", which was flattering. I had lost weight so far in Mexico and am more concerned about my appearance than in the past. I took photos of her apartment as she had her hair done in the other room. (I later asked her if I could have a photo of her and she said "no": it is enough that she has to look at herself in the mirror as an old woman and she doesn't want any photographs.)

Then I read a little of her book. I started the chapter about Aushwitz. With her family, she was being herded into a building. She went one direction and her aunt and uncle went another, directly to their death. She was lead to place where they shaved off her hair. She was behind a friend of her whose beautiful long hair she had always envied and the had the strange experience of watching it fall to the ground limply and then seeing how weird her friend looked without hair, like a worm. (She would later tell me that she learned not to be afraid there. If she was hungry she had two choices: become weak and probably die of starvation, or find a way to get some bread. She couldn't accept being passive in this situation nor in any situations thereafter.)

Aggi had to go and she suggested I take the Turibus around the city. She'd never taken it, but it went by her condo every 10 minutes, she explained. Her driver called and got the information and they dropped me off at one of the stops. I got off at the Bellas Artes, but decided not to go inside since I'd surely be able to go there another time. I went to the main square and stood at the base of the gigantic Mexican flag. I also went to the Aztec ruins that had been excavated next to the Cathedral.

Afterwards I walked around the market area which was uncomfortably crowded. I saw an American or European outside a youth hostel wearing a Mexican wrestling shirt with the masked wrestler face and name (Dr. ... something?) and realized how cool it was. I needed to get one of these for my friend Lateef, so I tried to find one but couldn't. In those markets those stores are all alike, each with the same shallow inventory.

I headed back to Aggi's. The tour bus had no audio this time, and there were these two American men sitting behind me with coiffed hair and waxed eyebrows looking like they were ready to go to a club having a retarded conversation about electric vehicles: "They should replace the gas engine in hybrid cars with another battery so that the first battery can recharge the second battery".

Aggi and I went to dinner together. She needs to take a taxi to go even short distances, I later learned, because she has emphysema from smoking her whole life.

She loved telling stories and, from what I gather, her stories were a key part of her relationship with both of my grandparents. I asked her to tell me one. She has a knowing look she gives as she describes each surprising situation. She told me about a business trip to Milan regarding a sweater factory she was running. She had some extra time and decided to get some ice cream near the hotel. As she walked toward the revolving door, two gentleman approached her. They explained that they had a mutual friend and they'd like to take her to see him for lunch. With one of those knowing looks, she recounted with indignation, if you'd like to have lunch with me say so, but don't make up a story about this mutual friend. They said ok, dropped the pretense, and invited her to a place for lunch that they insisted was much better than the ice cream place.

Next, they hailed a cab. She said she was surprised at this bold step, but that she'd get into a taxi with them because she knew that they could kill her, but otherwise no harm would come to her. She said this as a matter of fact, even though it seemed to contradict the reality of the situation. But, the thing is, it was not her judgment of the situation... it was her will.

They took her to a building which was clearly not a restaurant as they had promised. They asked her to go inside. She said, "I think you've made a mistake" but, again, she allowed herself to be persuaded. Then an elevator to the top, which she allowed herself to be persuaded to take. At the top floor a woman in an apron opened the door to an office with two strange men -- definitely not a restaurant, and definitely not a mutual friend. Again she protested but was persuaded to enter. The woman left so she was now alone with 4 men.

In a few minutes, the woman brought lunch. She had a pleasant lunch with all of them. She particularly liked the greek man who was one of the two who initially picked her up. When lunch was finished she said thank you and that she'd now like to go home. Again, she allowed herself to be persuaded to go to a movie with the first two men. It was an American Western and she hated it. She and the greek left the other man in the theatre and she wanted to hail a taxi outside. The greek insisted that this was not a safe place to hail a taxi, and that she should go to his apartment nearby and he'd call one.

In his apartment he made drinks and took out a photo album. She asked him to call a taxi but he insisted he already had and that she had forgotten. She gave me a look that made it clear that she knew he was not being honest.

I was a little confused following the story at this point. I couldn't imagine being like this to a woman, I could see she didn't buy any of it, yet she was telling one situation after another as if it were all normal. Weren't you upset, I asked, that he'd lie to you about calling a taxi? No, she responded, confused. I struggled for words and came up with "offended", and she was indignant at even the idea that this greek man "offended" her. I switched to asking her what she thought of this kind of man, this kind of situation. She said she understood what he was trying to do, but enjoyed the adventure and wanted to see what he would come up with next. She also told me that she seeks out situations that are "reto", which she asked me to look up. It means "challenge". I wondered how much of this was shaped by her childhood, and I began to ask myself whether this was a strength or a weakness.

Not believing he would call a taxi this time, she headed out to the street to get one herself. He didn't persuade her to come back to his apartment, but he did persuade her to go to dinner. Before they could eat, however, he got a call (I asked and apparently people knew to call the restaurant to find him) saying he must go to Geneva immediately. He invited her to go along, she said that she too had business in Geneva, but couldn't go now because she still had to finish her business in Milan. He gave her his phone number and address on a napkin and asked that she look him up in Geneva.

When she later arrived at Geneva she indeed wanted to look him up, but had lost the napkin. She was disappointed (apparently she really did like this man, she claims, even more than he liked her) and went to her business meeting. Amazingly, he was a partner of one of her partners, and he appeared during the meeting and greeted her excitedly, asking why she had not called. She explained she'd lost the napkin. He invited her to a fancy party in Geneva where he introduced her to elegant people including the Argentine consulate. But that was it, she didn't see him again in Geneva.

Fifteen years later in Mexico City her phone rang. It was the greek, and he was visiting Mexico. She had forgotten even that she had given him her phone number. Again they got together and went to a fancy party, this time at the Hungarian consulate. This, finally, was the last time she saw him.

Later I asked her if she ever got into trouble with strangers and she said, no, but that she once got into trouble with a friend (she didn't elaborate). I asked if she was happy with her life (she asked me first!) and she said she had a life with much satisfaction but little happiness. I thought that needed more explanation. By "satisfaction" she meant self-satisfaction. She was proud of who she was and how she handled herself in situations. We also discussed the word "happy" in english for a while (she says she very much dislikes english and never learned it properly) and I think she meant "joy" in this case.

We talked about my family and my past relationships. I wish I could say that she shed some light on these things -- I told her some details because I wondered what wisdom she might impart. I asked her why her life had brought her satisfaction, so much of it being filled with these fleeting relationships and connections. I even asked her why she enjoyed being pleasing to men, why this even mattered. She said no one had ever asked her this before, but that it was simply enjoyable to her, not for any reason, it just was. That made sense to me, actually, because it was a kind of self-honesty that I could relate to. Rather than thinking she was shallow for pursuing these experiences, I felt that I was odd for, to some extent, pretending I was above them... for imagining I wasn't equally motivated by the desire to be pleasing to others. I resolved to be more true to my feelings and less concerned with how I thought I should be.

Early the next morning she made me an awesome breakfast with special mangos from panama, breads, cheeses, salmon lox, tuna paté, etc. We both said how much we liked each other and enjoyed getting together. I promised I'd talk to my sister and aunt about visiting her sometime soon.

Corrida de Toros

2008-08-15T09:40:00.000-07:00

We went to a bull fight one weekend at Plaza Mexico, the largest such stadium in the world. Actually, the term "bull fight" is very strange to Mexicans. It's not actually a fight where the outcome is in question. Furthermore, they describe it dismissively as "Spanish" - something foreign that was hoisted upon them. They say the stadium fills up more during the high season, which is in the winter, but it was mostly empty that day.

The first thing that happens is the toreros introduce themselves to the audience while recorded spanish trumpet music saturates the stadium. The outfits were very traditional, but for some reason there was a lot more hot pink than I was expecting, including socks and capes.

They then announce the bull using a sign that shows, presumably, his name (or the owner's name?), age, weight and other details.

Next, the first of six bulls appears. It runs at the toreros who slip, at the last moment, behind a wall.

The matadors test the bull by going out alone and having it run at their cape. This is a female matador!

Another matador had a lot of trouble with his bull. This is him losing his cape and turning tail to run away. As soon as this kind of thing happens, the other toreros step in to distact the bull with many pink capes, ensuring the safe retreat of the matador.

The next stage is when the picador comes out on his horse. Traditionally his horse was unprotected and the horse would frequently be killed by the bull. Not anymore. The horse is wrapped in a thick mattress. Notice that its eyes are completely covered as well.

The picador stabs the bull in the back a few times, bloodying his spear.

Next, the matador returns and taunts the now bleeding bull further, sometimes getting help from other toreros.

The next thing that happens is that colorful lances are stuck into the back of the bull. This step looks pretty challenging, actually, since the banderilleros don't have capes, yet must stick these lances into the still strong, charging bull's back.

These lances cause intense bleeding and the bulls become weaker and visibly struggle for air.

Next, the matador needs to insert a sword between the shoulder blades of the bull. For some reason, this does not kill the bull.

This particular matador had the most problems during this step as well. His sword popped out a number of times, his shoes also fell off, and he seemed exasperated...

but he did eventually plant his sword.

The next step is to remove the sword with another sword that has a small cross at the top. This is done by a team working the weakened bull.

Once this first sword is removed, the matador stabs the bull with the cross sword at the base of the neck, right behind its head. The limp bull falls to the floor and is dragged off by a team of horses.

We watched three bulls. The second one survived because the same matador who had so much trouble failed to kill him before the ending trumpets sounded. They say that surviving bulls are a rare event and that they are put out to stud and live happily ever after. However, he had successfully planted the first sword, so I suspect they had to euthanize it.

Many of the characters around us were quite seedy. One guy in particular tried to taunt the toreros screaming, for example, "vive la france" at a matador who was either french or looked french. He also got very drunk and made it difficult for us to leave after, having seen three of six bulls, we'd had enough. There was also a family next to us, including a small girl. The girl cried every time the bull was hurt. Brittni, one of my friends, left after the first bull saying, "I think I get the idea".

I'd never been to an event like this before, and I can hardly say it was enjoyable or something I would support. I don't think it's the same experience that Hemingway wrote about, either. Once it was dangerous for everyone involved, a vivid battle for survival. But now it is only dangerous for the bull.

Xochimilco

2008-08-14T09:26:00.001-07:00

Xochimilco is a neighborhood in Mexico City that resembles the way the city was before the conquistadors arrived. Mexico city is built on a lake. The Aztecs carved this lake into canals separated by "floating" gardens. The spanish later filled the lake, leaving only Xochimilco in more or less original condition. Now the canals are a common destination for tourists and Mexicans seeking leisure. There are still many gardens on the banks of the canals, and the way to get around is still by boat.

People rent boats and float down the river with family and friends. Mariachis are very popular. You can hire a Mariachi boat to float along next to you and play music.

There are also boats with drinks and others with food.

This is me and my friends enjoying the scenery.

Lucha Libre

2008-08-01T15:03:00.000-07:00

Last night we went to see Lucha Libre. This is the Mexican version of WWF wrestling. The lighting in the stadium is really bad so I had to make some adjustments to make my camera work in lower light that make the pics grainier and darker. Actually, some of the best photos were coincidentally taken just as someone else's flash was going off.

The arena was decrepit. It was also filled beyond capacity, with hundreds of people standing. It was hot as hell. That's a friend Carl doing his homework.

It's basically like the US version, but a lot wackier. Fans through chicken feet at the wrestlers. Also the wrestlers wear wacky masks which, in turn, are sold to fans. Kids play before the match starts in the ring.

Eventually the luchadores appear to a limited light show.

The action starts, often involving the fans on the lower levels.

There were three or four different groups of wrestlers, including some women.

The wrestlers kept getting more famous and better. I guess the famous guy was Mistico (with the silver mask below).

America vs. Santos

2008-08-01T14:48:00.000-07:00

I went to a soccer game in Mexico city with some friends from school. It was America vs. Santos. Those are two teams in Mexico City. I guess it works a little differently in the US because the cities have multiple teams that compete to represent the city in the finals.

Before the game we had tortas and bought some jerseys.

There was some wackiness during the halftime show, and the fans of the opposing team needed a police escort to leave the stadium.

I found a lot of the graffiti outside the stadium pretty interesting too.

Xochicalco

2008-08-01T14:42:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I went on a school excursion to Xochicalco. This is a site of an ancient indigenous city which has been largely reconstructed from its ruins. There's a really nice museum that has tons of artifacts excavated from the city like these:

This was a society that practiced human sacrifice. Famously, they had a game which was a cross between basketball, hacky-sack, and russian roulette. The way it worked was that two teams competed to get a rock-hard ball through those rings you can see below. Players could use any part of their body except their hands. The captain of the winning team was sacrificed, naturally. I guess the center part of the playing field has filled over the years.

The city was on top of a mountain with astounding views. This city was a center for astronomy. Apparently people from nearby cities would visit to calibrate their calendars.

There were several pyramids. They had surfaces of ornately carved rocks.

Tepoztlan

2008-08-01T14:21:00.000-07:00

A couple of weekends ago I went to Tepoztlan with some friends from School, Brian and Hope. It's a small city only about 30 mins away from Cuernavaca.

There is a pyramid on top of a mountain there. None of us had gotten more than 2-3 hours of sleep so it was quite a haul to the top. It's supposed to take 90 mins but it probably took us 3 hours.

There was also a great view of the valley, and some wacky rat-monkeys (click for video).

We went back down, explored the town market a little, and had some lunch before going home.

Peace

2008-07-30T18:35:00.001-07:00

Sunday I took a bus home from Mexico city and sat next to this woman. She was petite with dark, short hair and and her eyes twinkled from the streetlights outside the dark bus. I started talking to her and found out she was an art history graduate student in the university in Cuernavaca and that she spoke English perfectly. I told her that my mother had also been an art history major and I started asking her about what I should see, what she had studied, and so on. I learned that the Robert Brady museum, which I'd already been to, was the best in Cuernavaca, but that I should definitely go back to Mexico City to see the museums there.

I also learned a little about the artist she is writing her thesis on. His last work was to sail off in a boat which was never found again (I think she's talking about Bas Jan Ader). She said that his works of art were acts of living, things he did. This reminded me of Thoreau, and also a little of myself and what I was doing this year. Maybe meaning in life comes, in part, from aesthetics. It's not why we do things, but what we do that has meaning.

Next she said something that startled me because it crystalized something I'd been starting to feel. We were talking about traveling, and she was telling me about the time she spent in Prague. She said that traveling was very comforting. I had been thinking, so far, that traveling was very stressful because I was constantly asking myself who I was and why I was where I am. But more recently I'd been relaxing more, because I was noticing that if I was unhappy I need only wait because things will change as my journey continues. This is different than normal life where difficult or troubling things accumulate. It makes sense that this year off should feel liberating, but that moment was the first time I actually felt it, experienced it.

After an hour and a half of talking to her, I started to wonder if I should get her email or connect on Facebook or try to hang out with her some more, but before I did she said she had to go, got up, and the bus driver let her off. Just like that. I didn't mind. Instead, I was reminded of something I read about Tibetan buddhists who visited Berkeley a few years ago. They spent days creating intricate art from pieces of colored sand on the floor. On the day they were revealing it to the public and everyone was standing around admiring and photographing it some kids were playing nearby. One of the kids fell onto the work, scattering the individually placed pieces of sand. The crowd gasped in shock, but the monks just smiled and laughed. Later, they swept the floor with brooms, completely erasing all of their work.

Spanish classes in Cuernavaca

2008-07-26T18:32:00.001-07:00

I've been here for two weeks taking spanish classes at Chac Mool. The school itself is beautiful. The "classrooms" are actually those thatched roof areas you can see on the web site. The classes run in the morning and there are activities in the afternoon. I'm also staying with a host family that makes my meals and with whom I practice spanish.

A dog lives outside my window who wakes me up every morning at 7am barking. Click to watch a video of him eating a brick.

I have a 20 minute walk up and down hills to go to school. These are some things from my walk: a little ad hoc restaurant on my street and a typical rusty gate:

Every house has a gated lawn or parking area for the cars. There's an element of exclusiveness to this city which, I think, dates back to its colonial past. Sometimes you can peak through gates like these to see manicured yards with tropical flora.

It's been in some ways very hard and in some ways very easy to live here. It's hard because almost every detail of my life is unfamiliar. It's also a struggle for me to understand and speak spanish, so much of the time I feel unable to be myself and unable to follow what's going on around me. On the other hand it's easy because my days are, to a large extent, structured. I don't have to worry about what to do or how to get by because I need only go to school and do what my teachers and my mexican "mom" tell me to do, or follow the other students around in the evening.

I thought I'd have free time to work on some projects, study spanish, photograph, and explore music and art in the city. So far I really haven't had any time or energy for these kinds of things. (That's possibly due, in part, to the fact that I've got a group of friends that go out drinking until ridiculous hours of the morning so when I'm not at school I'm sleeping.... but they are leaving this weekend, so my next weeks might be different.)

I've taken some photos in the city center which includes a palace built by Hernán Cortés:

The Cortés has a beautiful photography exhibit now

as well as Diego Rivera murals depicting the history of Mexico from the battle between the Aztecs and the conquistadors to the integration of spanish and indigenous culture:

One day I went to the Robert Brady Museum. It's his house, converted into a museum since his death. It includes works by the two Mexican superstars, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, among others.

The place is stacked floor to ceiling with his art collection

His house has the most beautiful bathroom I've ever seen - not that I think about bathrooms much, but this is really incredible. The toilet is behind a wall on the right, and the bathtub is below floor level in the back under the buddha. It also has a sky light.

I went on a few excursions which I'll write about some other time. I'm also pretty excited about checking out Mexican wrestling next week:

Snorkling in Cabo Pulmo

2008-07-11T19:54:00.000-07:00

I wanted to get away from my resort to see more of Baja. I rented a car and headed east to Cabo Pulmo to go snorkling. Cabo Pulmo, on the gulf of California, has the only coral reef on the west coast. It also turns out to be the Baja California you'd picture Baja California to be, not the disneyland-on-crack that is Cabo San Lucas.

The first hour or so was on paved roads, but eventually you're riding on washboard dirt roads. Yeah, the beach in CSL was amazing, but the open space and quiet of the east cape made it feel like a different place altogether.

The landscape was fantastic. Harsh brush and cactuses, all thorny and crooked, withered under the relentless sun.

Cows, goats, horses and dogs wander the roads freely. Vultures and hawks circle above, or rest on cactuses. The only thing that scared me was the dogs because I had my windows open and they were in a pack chasing my car.

I finally reached the dive shop, rented some snorkeling gear, and drove up to the beach. The dark spots in the water are coral reef.

I didn't have any underwater photo equipment so you'll have to use your imagination. The first thing I saw was absolutely nothing. It was late in the day and the waves had dragged a lot of sand out, clouding the waters. I swam around a little bit further and started seeing small minnows. They were in schools organized by size from pencil-tip to pinky-finger in length. The school moved as one organism, the boundaries shockingly distinct, almost like a giant amoeba moving around with the currents. Before long I was in a place where my entire field of vision was minnows. 10's or 100's of thousands of them. It was like being out at night in a rain storm with a flashlight.

Further out were all kinds of huge, bright tropical fish. There were intense blue fish that swam alone on the floor, big fat black fish with yellow dots, razor fish with noses as long as the rest of their body, giant yellow angel fish, skates, and huge blue fish with lips at the end of a long pencil-thin mouth, sucking on the coral. Maybe the goggles magnified, but most of these fish seemed at least as big as my head. I tried to follow a pelican around for a while as it scooped up buckets of fish, but I could never quite get a good view.

Next I returned my gear and got back on the road. Everything seems to be in a slow state of eternal decay.

I found this place called Crossroads Country Club that was excellent. They had a library, satellite Internet, and the best fish tacos I had in Baja.

As I got closer to civilization, I found more modern houses which were also interesting.

The last hour or two were the diciest. I'm pretty sure I made a wrong turn following some bozos going 15 in their 4wd SUVs and spent an extra hour on the dirt roads. I didn't get home until way past dark.

First international stop: Cabo San Lucas

2008-07-08T11:27:00.000-07:00

I arrived in Cabo yesterday after a pretty rough day of travel. So far I haven't done much besides sleep and look out the window from my room at Pueblo Bonito Blanco. So far so good!

Looks like there's some fun stuff going on outside:

4th in Nebraska

2008-07-08T11:11:00.001-07:00

People were kinda surprised when I said that Nebraska was my first stop of my world travels...

but the truth is that I've got some awesome friends there and made some new ones this visit. Plus my travels are not just about scenery or exotic places. Seeing Jen and Lateef's life, including their young kids Ivy and Scout, and their extended family which they moved back to Nebraska to be around, meant a lot to me.

Nebraska is also a place where they know how to do the 4th of July right. Jen's niece Faithe's husband Ryan lives in a neighborhood where they have BBQ, a mega water balloon fight and fireworks. Everyone decks out their yards with red, white and blue. Someone even pulled off patriotic jello.

The water balloon preparation starts early in the morning with several filling operations like this one:

In the late afternoon, with dozens of people on each side of a cul-de-sac and a thousands of water balloons, the battle begins. Here's Jen firing one round:

Last was Ryan's fireworks. He spent since Christmas prepping for his show which included a few thousand artillery shells.

They used 6 blow torches to set them off on the same street where we'd had the water balloon fight.

I also got a tour of Jen's dad Spike's apartment, flush with Nebraska Corn Huskers paraphernalia and pictures of his family.

We spent evenings at the fire pit drinking some beers and talkin' shit. They threw in an Arkansas fire log. I guess their neighbor learned how to make this from some guy camping in South Dakota. Basically you take a copper pipe, drill some holes in it, and fill it with garden hose (the cheaper ones are better). Probably not something you'd want to do around the kids, or when sitting down-wind.

Vegas!

2008-07-02T14:17:00.001-07:00

I went to Vegas over the weekend with Al and his brother for Al's 35th birthday.

They are all about blackjack and I'd never played before. We went to see "21" in preparation, which was actually a lot more entertaining then we'd heard. I memorized the basic strategy tables the night before and on the flight over. When we arrived Al scanned the blackjack area for single deck games (not "super fun" which has some extra rules and pays less on blackjack) and found one. After about an hour of the pit boss hovering over the table, he went and talked on the phone to someone and came back and said, "you guys can play other games, but no more blackjack". We moved on to the next casino.

Eventually I kinda got the hang of it. The gist is that 10's and A's benefit the player since blackjack pays 3 to 2. The more of those in the deck, the better. So you keep an eye out for how many show up in the first hand of a newly shuffled deck. In the end, after putting down $100 about 5 times, I was down only $10. I was happy.

We also did the usual Vegas things: hung out at the pool, went to dinner, played a poker tournament (don't ask), and went to a hypnotism show.

Nevada

2008-06-26T18:00:00.000-07:00

My last morning in San Francisco was hellish... I got up at 7, finished cleaning my apartment, packed the car, dropped off a remaining load of stuff at my dad's, logged onto IBM network one last time to change my address, dropped off a movie rental, cable box, house keys, said bye to a friend, Noah, and picked up malaria medication. I had to double park, make u-turns, drive around delivery trucks, etc. It wasn't until noon that I was finally crossing the bay bridge with a 12 hour drive ahead of me.

There was this haze, almost smoke in San Francisco. It continued through the whole state of California. It wasn't until the Nevada line that I started to feel myself decompress as the sky began to open up.

As I passed through Nevada the air became clear and all I was left to focus on was the open road ahead of me.