They burned my barn and stole my horse

I saw the beard before I saw Greg. He was driving towards me and I had to stop and look twice to make sure my eyes weren't decieving me. But sure enough, it was my good pal. I had spent my last night in the US with Greg and Nicole, crashing on their futon in Chicago about 11 months ago. And now I was heading to their new place in San Diego to crash on their air-mattress. It's funny how the life takes you around full circle some times.

It was strange being back in the US. I cringed at the rows of cookie-cutter condos I scattered from Chula Vista up into downtown. When Greg and I went to the grocery store I marvelled at how one single store could have 30 different varieties of orange juice.

I had managed to make it into town 3 days before the Dylan show, earlier than I originally thought. But I was feeling ready to go home. The next few days were a blur of submitting resumes, arguing with the DMV, looking for an apartments, and trying not to let my spanish slip out at inopportune moments.

I talked to Bill and he told me of his idea to head to the northern beaches of Brazil. I talked to Sean and he told me he was heading back to Colombia for the holidays. Yanet was finally off to Mexico. And I started to wonder what the heck it was I was doing back in the US. I wanted to run, it was all just too much, too fast. And no matter how many times Greg and Nicole told me to just calm down and take it a little slowly, I just couldn't.

Nicole fed me with her excellent cooking and Greg did his part plying me with beer and his famous fried eggs. It was nice to be somewhere that felt a bit normal again. Greg was even generous enough to let me borrow his car while he was working, which happened to come complete with a copy of "Modern Times" my new favorite CD.

And soon enough the night of the big show was upon us. As Greg and I excitedly rushed off to the Cox arena to see the man in person. Before the show I told Greg, I need to hear "Working Man Blues #2" I wasn't a working man as of yet, far from it, truth be told, but when Bobby told me about the declining power of the proletariet or his inability to give away what he had, I felt it too. He played Watchtower, Like a Rolling Stone, Cold Irons Bounds and just about everything else I wanted to hear.

As we pulled away from the arena I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. And I knew without a doubt why I was here and what I was doing. It wasn't going to be easy, but there is just no price you can put on the company of a few good friends who get it.

Homeward Bound

I don´t know exactly when it happened, but at some point between shrimp tacos in Sayulita and ceviche in Mazatlan I decided it was just time to go home, wherever that was. Swimming up and down the Pacific Coast of Mexico had proven to be lots of fun, but it was getting a bit tiring. Sure the water was perfectly warm, the food was generally excellent, the people nice (except for whoever nicked my bag while I was swimming in Sayulita) and the scenery beautiful, but I was just kinda done.

I decided against exploring the Copper Canyon from Los Mochis or reliving the history of Hermosilla. Instead I hopped a plane to Tijuana, perhaps the crappiest city in the world unless you happen to enjoy street prostitutes or 18 year olds drinking and yelling ¨woo!¨ It made a lot of sense at the time, I figured as soon as I had enough I would just head up to San Diego and get started on this whole return to normalcy thing.

I knew íf I gave myself a couple days to get used to the idea I could probably get started with all the stuff I need to get done. And if nothing else I´ve managed to convince myself that things truly are going to be alright even though there are about a 1000 questions running through my mind of what´s what.

But I head to San Diego tomorrow, and amazingly enough I even have a place to crash for a few days (thanks Greg and Nicole!) until I get settled in a bit more. And Greg and I have got tickets to the Dylan show lined up already, in just a few short days. A plane ride to Seattle Oct 28th is already purchased and a road-trip back to San Diego with a good friend a few days later is in motion. Thanksgiving in Madison with my family rounds out the plans, although who knows, I might make it back to the Carribean some time in between.

Now if I can just find a job and a place to stay it´ll really start looking like I´ve returned to the real world. But for now, I´m going to be pretty content to go visit some friends and see what the rest of the world has been up to fo the last year while I´ve been vagabonding around. Yeah I´ll miss the amazingly magical sunsets in Mazatlan and the calm tranquil waters of Bucerias but I´m sure there are new, as of yet unimagined adventures to be had as I settle in.

I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends

The two Scotish boys, the Irish boys and I piled into a cab and headed off to the bus terminal. They were heading off to Mexico City, I was going in the opposite direction, to the coast. We all had a brilliant time in Guadalajara, which has the reputation of being the center of the real Mexico. The home of tequila and mariachi bands. We even managed to take in a futbol match, a super-clasico no less (Chivas vs. Club America) and some Lucha Libre. That along with the Orozco murals, street side tacos and variety of cervezas made me feel like I had indeed experienced Mexico at it´s authentic best.

But after spending my last night in Guadalajara playing drinking games with the aforementioned group, along with a few Mexicans and Aussies I´ve decided I´m just too old for this shit. I can´t hang and I don´t really care anymore. A nice relaxing beach sounded just up my alley and that´s exactly where I was heading. Five short hours later I was in Sayulita.

I spent the bus ride like I normally do, staring out the window and pondering all there is to ponder in my life. I watched the landscape change from the blue agave cacti fields set among the low valleys of the central Mexican hills to the drier, more desolate, more sparse jungles of the Pacific Coast.

I`d just recently gotten to the point where the growing anxiety about what my life would be like when I returned to the ¨real¨world was begining to subsist. Find a job, find a place to live, move my stuff to a different city and visit friends and family and start a new life. I was trying to figure out how I was going to manage the logistics of all these contrary needs. I´ve spent much of this trip relying on the kindness of strangers to get by, and while there have been some really rough times it´s all worked out. But as of late a few good friends have decided to go to extraordinary lenghts help me out, levels which have suprised and humbled me.

Somewhere deep inside I had a sense of calm. Things were going to be ok, I reminded myself. They always had been in the past. I remembered to breathe and thought to myself as long as I can make it to the next stop in the road, everything else will work itself out. I idly glanced out the window and wondered where I was. I asked the elderly Mexican gentlemen next to me and it turned out this was my stop. I could see the warm welcoming water´s of the Pacific right around the corner and the next thing on my agenda was to go for a swim. Everything else was going to be alright.

Back in North America

Mexico City gets a pretty bad rap from most travellers. Most people associate it with rampant over-population, shockingly polluted air and being quite literally one of the most dangerous cities in the world. Given all of this I wasn´t too excited about the prospects of coming here.

When Katie asked me if I was sure I needed to go to Mexico I replied with a less than confident "I think so..." And as I rode in the cab toward the airport in Cartegena I seriously pondered what would happen if I just turned back around and went to the hotel.

Katie and had met only 4 days earlier, but we hit it off right away. Maybe it was because our paths crossed on a boat heading to paradise. Well it was actually Cabo San Juan de Guia in Parque Nacional Tayarona, but within about 30 seconds of getting there we both agreed it was paradise.

Maybe I was just hoping that as a practicing psychologist she could provide some free psychotherapy. But if she managed to figure out any of my many pathologies she didn´t clue me in, which is probably for the best. She didn´t even bat an eye when I destroyed her camera, for which she has my eternal gratitude and admiration. In any case we spent the next 2 days with our hammocks strung up next to each other, enjoying the sun, water and fresh fish that came with paradise.

After a hop, skip and a jump we were in Cartegena and it was time for me to leave. Throughout my travels I´ve noticed that some goodbyes have taken far too long while others have come with such haste one cannot even process the surrealness of that one instant.

With all of this on my mind as my flight began it´s descent into Mexico City I cringed at the fact that I was now here. It all seemed like such a good idea when it came to me about a week ago. Mexico is close to the US. I need to go back to the US at some point, so why not just go to Mexico instead and somehow make my way north???

I knew nothing about Mexico City of course, except all of the things that were now turning me of to it. And I had no idea where I was going to spend the night as usual. But I found a pretty nice hostel fairly quickly without incident and spent the next day exploring the town.

And much to my suprise I´m finding I kinda like it. It´s full of beautiful colonial architecture, wide tree-lined streets and monuments to seemingly everything and anything even remotely related to the nation´s history. And after a few months of complaining about the difficulty of finding a good cheap meal in South America I´m absolutely in love with the culture of street food, although needless to say there are some drawbacks.

And there is something comforting about looking at a map of Mexico. It´s like Bob Dylan or the Grateful Dead laid out a song book right there in our neighbor to the south. Cities with names like Durango and Acapulco, Oaxaca and Ixtapa, Tabasco and Tequila just excite the imagination. I don´t know exactly what route I´ll take, but I already know the destination.

No later than Oct 22nd I will be in San Diego. The thoughts of how exactly to put the pieces of my life back together and what exactly this wonderful insightful "plan" that everyone assumes I have already figured out are bouncing around my skull. But for the time being I´m going to try to enjoy this, the last leg of what has been a wonderful journey, a long strange trip indeed.

PADI Certified

I´d finally figured out the secret to Scuba diving, which it turns out is the same as the secret to life. Just keep breathing. But things were getting a little more nuanced under the water and I was feeling like maybe these guys should be teaching me a thing or two about Scuba diving since I was taking a scuba diving course through them.

Taganga is a little fishing village about 1/2 bus ride from Santa Marta, set inside a beautiful bay. It has about 1000 people, 1 paved street and 5 of the cheapest Scuba Diving schools in the world. I picked Oceano because they had the most expensive boat and the cheapest tractor. The first two course days had gone great. Moments after showing up the first day I was falling off of a boat backwards and marvelling at the wonderful world of Jacque Cousteau that lay before me.

The 6th dive was a little different. We descended to 70 feet inside the boundries of Parque Nacional Tayarona, the premier diving spot in mainland Colombia. It started out fine as we cruised along admiring the colorful reefs and fish all around us. Then the Spanish guy and I bumped into each other. I think it was his fault, but since he´s a certified dive master and I don´t know what the heck I´m doing, I´m probably wrong.

He was fine but I started to ascend. I never had managed to figure out how to stay nuetrally buoyant. As I fumbled with my gear I tried to release some of the air out of my BCD but mistakenly pumped it up instead, which speeded my ascent. I watched helplessly as the coral reef we had just been enjoying disappeared below me. I felt the current almost immediately. It was strong, too strong to swim against.

Faced with this situation I tried to think back to all the instruction I had recieved. But as I tried to form a mental picture of those 3 seperate 1/2 hour DVD sections which constituted the sum total of my training all I could see in my mind´s eye was Roberto, the proprietor of Oceano, saying ¨it´s all just a lot of blah, blah, blah. Let´s go diving!¨

I knew panicking wouldn´t help. I couldn´t see any evidence of my fellow divers below me. I´d finally managed to duck down below the current sweaping me away but had no clue where I was. The ocean can be a dark and lonely place when you´re alone. I knew I should never have rented that stupid move ¨Open Water.¨

The next section of the DVD was supposed to cover decompression. Up until now I had just followed the instructors and assumed they knew what they were doing. So I waited an agonizingly long time, which I assumed to be 5 minutes about 10 feet under water before surfacing. The current had pulled me out past the cove we were exploring and I was heading to open sea. I could see our boat in the distance skimming around. I knew I should have learned to whistle louder, but instead I just shouted ¨hey!¨ a couple of times. I had plenty of oxygen left so I wasn´t too worried, but I really didn´t want to swim all the way over there.

But soon enough they were over to pick me up. It turned out that when we seperated the other 3 divers had surfaced and started hunting for me. ¨Was it scary¨ asked José? ¨Yeah it actually was¨ I replied honestly. ¨Well at least now you´ll have a story to tell you´re kids¨ said the Yalel. ¨It´s ok¨ I told him ¨I´ve got better.¨

Just about ready

When I was in Quito and e-mailing back and forth with Bill trying to make plans to stay in Medellin he asked me how long I was going to be here for. I told him just two weeks, but if I´m having a good time I might extend it to three. Well one month after I got to town I´m finally ready to leave. The same thing happened to me when I started this trip 8 months ago. Two weeks turned into 35 days. Medellin is a great city, as addicting as it´s most famous export.

Marta and I continued our tradition of saying our goodbyes over a media botella de Ron Medellin. It certainly was a roller-coaster ride with her this time throught, but thankfully we managed to end on a high note. And seeing Bill again went swimmingly. I´ve got a feeling we´ll meet again soon, perhaps in Medellin again if one of these business ideas takes off, if not maybe in South Carolina once his new condo is done and the fish are biting again.

I spent the last two months hanging out with family and friends. And now I´m going to head to another city where I´ve never been before and don´t know anyone. Obstensibly I´m going to Santa Marta to take a scuba diving course. I was planning on doing that 8 months ago but I never left Medellin the first time and I realized I should probably learn how to swim before going scuba diving. So now that that´s taken care of there´s nothing to keep me out of the water. There´s also a rather famous archeological ruin 3 days away, which sounds tempting.

After that plans get thrown up in the air again. I´m actually basically ready to head back to the US and put the pieces of my life back together. I´m tempted to just be done with it and book a flight from Cartegena all the way back home. But actually I think I´ll try to find a boat heading to Colon, Panama and continue the rest of the journey by busses and trains eventually crossing the border from Tijuana to San Diego.

That also lets me hedge my bets just in case I´m wrong and that Cuban salsa band I´ve been dying to see does eventually get their visa situation straightened out and make it off the island for their Mexican tour. Actually most of them are there already, they´re just missing one of the singers. But I´m trying not to get my hopes up.

Either way this has been by far the best thing I´ve ever done in my life. When I reflect back on all the ridiculous experiences I´ve had and the hodgepodge band of hooligans I´ve met I can´t help but think how my life would be the same as it was before had I just stayed in Seattle working for Microsoft. My biggest concern now is that when I get back and try to acclimate myself to a ¨regular¨ lifestyle I´m just going to want to take off on another trip.

I hear Thailand and Vietnam are really fascinating, jungles, beaches and great food. But I never did get to the northern coast of Brazil and Portuguese is similar enough to Spanish I think I could pick it up pretty easily. Of course parts of Eastern Europe are still pretty cheap and it´s very accessible. And maybe I could just go work on my Hindi in India. Addicting indeed.

Just Another Day At the Office

Before I showed up to Medellin Bill had filled me in on the great business idea he had been playing with for the last several weeks. Saddles! “You mean like for horses?” I asked him at first? Yup, turns out Colombia is known for making high quality, hand-made leather saddles. “But I don’t know anything about horses or saddles” I told Bill. “That’s ok” he assured me, “neither do I.”

Bill is one of those guys you want to hang out with just so you can hear his stories. It’s been 5 years since he sold his commercial lighting business and he was ready to do something, anything again. It’s been at least 9 months since I put in an honest day of work, and I guess I was ready for the same. Bill had the entrepreneurial spirit, and I was all for playing apprentice. We’ve always had a great time hanging out together, probably because he reminds me so much of myself only 20 some years older, and I assume the same in the other direction. I was sure this would be no different.

So we spent the next two weeks visiting various saddlery shops to check out their stocks, learning about the shipping routes through the Carribean, discussing visa requirements with lawyers over three martini lunches and learning the right way, and the wrong way, to negotiate a contract in Medellin. We learned about the difference between fiber glass hulls versus wood, metal horns versus leather, and the thickness required to etch patterns on leather surfaces.

In our down time, which was fairly common, we argued about the usage of the subjunctive tense in Spanish, experimented with different footwork for performing the “Dile que no”, smoked dried out Cuban cigars, made several promises to quit drinking rum and comiserated in our tortured love lives.

With the recent news out about Fidel we decided we should try any get Bill’s half written travelogue about Cuba tidied up. Then we talked about how cheaply designer jeans could be made in Colombia and that somehow worked its way towards exporting and distributing a well known line of Colombian lingerie to the US.

Bill started to apologize at some point, “I don’t want to make it sound like we’re just throwing a bunch of shit at the wall and seeing what sticks, but…” Not to worry, I assured him. “Throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks is one of my favorite pastimes.”

We had both agreed early on that the whole point of this exercise wasn't just to make a bunch of money. Although, that would be nice of course. It was about financing a lifestyle. Well actually we went back and forth on it quite a bit. After about 45 minutes and half a cigar we agreed it was more like 50% about the lifestyle and maybe 30% about making money and a remaining 20% about just having something to do.

After three weeks we’ve gotten to the point where we have about 4 or 5 lines in the water. The plan now is to see which one, if any, of them gets a bite. I’m getting ready to continue my journey north, head to Santa Marta and find another beach to bask in. Maybe one of these projects will turn into something, maybe not, either way it certainly felt good to be something close to relatively productive again. I suppose that’s what you call hanging out with a good friend for 3 weeks.

Songs in the Key of Life

The apartment that Bill and I rented had an agonizingly slow cable modem. It was enough to drive a man to drink. But I had my laptop with me and plenty of free space on my iPod so I knew what was to be done. My sister had done a pretty good job filling the thing up with music before she gave it to me, but there were a million songs running through my head that I wanted to hear again.

After a few days, a new found appreciation for BitTorrent and 15 GBs I was feeling like my old self again. And just in time too. Next Monday was some national holiday, Colombians sure do love their national holidays. They have something like 30 days off a year, which makes for a lot of 3 day weekends and great excuses to travel. Marta and I decided to head to Armenia to check out the Parque Nacional de Café. And my goal was to get enough new music on my iPod to keep us occupied for the 7 hour bus ride each way.

Lately I’ve been hearing Crosy Stills Nash and Young in my head a lot. Just the one song, they keep telling me to love the one I’m with. It sounds like such good advice, but like most bits of good advice it’s much harder to put into practice.

The trip to Armenia started off most disastrously. A ½ hour into our journey the skies burst open and let out one of the torrential rains that Medellin is famous for. Traffic came to a standstill and we sat around and inhaled diesel fumes. Turns out some power lines were knocked down, combined with the long holiday weekend and that meant that the single road out of the valley in which Medellin was nestled in was packed from end to end.

Eventually we did make it to Armenia. On the way there Marta found one of the few Spanish songs I had on my iPod, “Algo Mas”. Not the version by La 5ra Estacion, but the one from a relatively unknown Cuban vocalist I’d fallen in love with. In what will no doubt prove to be one of the most ironic twists of fate I’ve ever stumbled across, Marta decided she loved the song and it perfectly summed up our relationship. She must have played that song 100 times over the span of one weekend.

Armenia is gorgeous beyond compare. The rolling green hills you see everywhere in Colombia are full of coffee and banana plants and a nice cool breeze keeps the heat of the sun at bay. Marta and I spent the entire next day exploring Parque Nacional del Café, walking over bamboo bridges, riding pontoon boats out on the little man-made like and pretending to be Juan Valdez.

As I went through all the movements and said all the things that sounded so right and felt so wrong I couldn’t help but hearing Fiona Snapple in my head telling me about feeling like a criminal. I’ve come to the conclusion that doing the right thing is really hard. In fact, that’s how you know it’s the right thing to do, because you just really don’t want to. It’s far more easier to just do what will get you through the next moment without having to feel the pain and anguish that accompany the truth, only the pangs of guilt that eat you up inside.

As we found ourselves traveling back to the north on our ride back home I couldn’t keep my eyes open. As I laid my head down to sleep I put on Dylan’s “Idiot Wind” I glanced out the window and watched as the Colombian country side turned slowly into autumn. Things weren’t going as planned, they seldom ever do, but I though to myself I just can’t help it if I’m lucky.

I’m not dead yet

Turns out if you happen to travel to a country with a history of violence and bloodshed and a 40 year old civil war and not talk to anyone for a couple of weeks, people start to wonder what happened. “I wonder if he got kidnapped?” they say. “Maybe I should drop him a line” you hear. Well you need not worry, the times I have been living in indeed have been exciting but neither the Farc, the ELN nor the Colombian paramilitaries have succeeded in, or to the best of my knowledge, attempted to kidnap me.

And truly in a city like Medellin one should be far more aware of the desperation that rampant poverty produces than the dangerous mixture of revolutionary political ideology and the ungodly profits of narco-trafficers. Truth be told, the civil war that’s been raging in this country for as long as anyone can remember is no where near over, and shows no signs of ever ending. While Colombia’s President Alvaro Uribe has succeeded in securing the populated commercial centers and the highways connecting them, the war rages onward in the jungles.

These days it’s difficult to know exactly what’s going on. The Farc, the largest, best equipped and financed terrorist group in the world has been dealt a series of blows as of late. But the obscene profits that they make from the drug trade with the western world means they can afford to keep doing business. In addition to financing their operations through trafficking cocaine and heroin they make a pretty penny in the kidnapping business, which as I understand it, is a well organized and highly developed operation.

As of late though, mostly as a result of the Bush Administration’s Plan Colombia, Westerners enjoy a higher degree of security here than they ever have before, which honestly isn’t saying much. But various paramilitary groups, who most believe are inadvertently funded through the foreign aid received from the United States, have been somewhat successfully waging war with the Farc for the last several years. They’ve put the word out that if a Westerner is captured, they will go after the kidnappers fighting fire with fire, executing family members, burning down homes and destroying entire villages. And since these groups aren’t directly controlled by the government, Uribe and the military can turn a blind eye to these tactics and claim they didn’t order them.

The biggest problem with the Paramilitary groups is that after they have won a battle with the Farc or the ELN they often take over the narco-trafficing and kidnapping operations left behind. And this has left many wondering if the cure is worse than the disease. Hey it’s hard to say no to a pretty profit made from a hard days work.

In theory, the Farc uses the profits from these nefarious activities to fund their communist ideology, but few believe that this war has anything to do with economic theory. The biggest challenge that Uribe faces in dealing with the Farc is that he has nothing to offer them. They are fairly content being the most successful outlaws in the world. So instead Uribe is trying to make the cost of doing business so high for the Farc that they will have no choice but to find a peaceful solution. Unfortunately the gross margins in the market place of the Farc are quite excellent and they can afford to keep doing this for the foreseeable future.

The ELN, the other smaller Marxist group of guerillas, who have never manged to establish as large or successful an organization as the Farc, has been hit where it hurts, in the pocket-book. The war raged by the Paramilitary groups has left them trying to sue for peace with what seem like desperate attacks on civilians to establish some sort of presence in the legitimate government of Colombia. They’ve even managed to successfully enlist the help of Cuba and Venezuela and hold several rounds of meaningless negotiations with the Uribe government.

Given the billions of dollars poured into this project, it’s still amazing that no one really knows if any progress is actually being made. The number of kidnappings is down dramatically and bombs are no longer going off in the streets of Medellin and Bogota. 80% of the coca fields in the country have been eradicated, but the street price of coke in the US is the same as ever and the amount of cocaine exported from Colombia has stayed constant. It seems that the Farc, the ELN, and the Paramilitaries have all just learned to import the raw product from Bolivia and Ecuador before processing it and shipping it out themselves.

Throughout all of this the typical city-dwelling Colombian go about their daily lives, desperately trying to stay blissfully unaware of the war that continues to devastate this country. And only when the passing gringo pushes them on the latest news or a point of view will they grudgingly acquiesce and mumble of a short sound bite, before changing the subject back to more important matters like futbol or whether the girls from Medellin are more beautiful than the ones from Cali.

Heading Back Home

The hostel that Jose had found for me in Cali was all full by the time I finally made it into town. Maybe one of these days I’ll finally learn my lesson and decide to make reservations instead of just showing up places and hoping for the best, but I kinda doubt it. But they knew of another hotel pretty close by and that was that. Jose had offered to let me crash on his couch, but after the last couple weeks of hard traveling and the experience of losing my bag I was really looking forward to a place with a comfortable bed and a good shower. I found both without too much of a problem.

I was hoping to spend my next two days exploring Cali before heading out to Medellin. But instead I spent most of my free time aimlessly walking around like I like to do and buying clothes. I had forgotten how much I detested spending time in malls but since I only had the clothes on my back there really weren’t many other options.

After Jose got off work he and “La Duena de su Corazon” took me out and showed me around Cali. We spent a while getting caught up and I told him what I had been up to since we parted ways in Rio. I told him all my favorite stories of places I had been and things I had seen, I do love telling a good story after all. While we were out Bill, my crazy gringo role-model, called me and let me know he had everything under control in Medellin and would have a place for me to stay all lined up. This was actually an issue because I was planning on showing up in Medellin on the Friday of the Feria de Flores, the biggest party in all of Colombia, and hotel rooms were not easy to come by.

As I sat and reveled in this great news I marveled at how nice it was to have friends you can count on. It’s especially cool to have friends you can count on who live in really cool places in the world and are more than willing to lend you a hand and get you straightened out. I’ve managed to make it through the last 8 months or so by depending on the kindness of strangers and the folks I know and love alike, and I’ve only occasionally been disappointed.

I didn’t really know what I was going to be doing in Medellin or how long I was going to stay. The stop in Cali was really just an excuse to drop in a on a friend and break up the bus ride all they way from Quito. But I was looking forward to seeing Bill again and collecting the $200 he owed me. And well there were some loose ends that needed tying up there as well. I decided a while ago that Medellin is my favorite city in the entire world. All it lacks is a beach and good cheap food, although the availability of good fresh fruit is second only to Brazil.

Bill and I had been trading e-mail over the last several months about working together on some projects while we were together in Medellin. Bill seemed bored of just hanging out and was looking for something to challenge him and I was starting to suffer from not feeling productive. And Colombia seemed to provide the perfect opportunity to setup a business dealing with exporting goods into the United States, especially with the Free Trade agreement that was getting ready to be ratified by the two governments. Lots of ideas and no one to report to but ourselves, I wonder what kind of trouble the two of us can manage to get into.

Come on, how bad could it possibly be?

In the last several months I’ve had more than a handful of people warn me that I was being too lackadaisical, that I wasn’t being careful enough. I’d generally just wave those warnings away saying “well I’ve been doing the same thing for the last 6 months and nothing bad has happened yet.” Every time I said that I’d cringe a little bit inside. I’m not a superstitious person, but even I felt that I shouldn’t be laughing in the face of fate quite so openly.

Our alarm went of at 4:15 in the AM which and things kinda went downhill from there. Asma’s flight was leaving super early and I was going to the airport to see her off. It was fun having her around for 3 weeks. I don’t think we really got on each others nerves, which is pretty surprising knowing how annoying I am.

But it was cool seeing some things through her eyes. I heard a lot of “well I’ve never done that before” and it was a good feeling being able to show her some things I thought were cool and have her think they were cool too. Before she left we went over some of our adventures, hitching a ride for us and our bikes in the back of that families pickup outside of Banos, the little 10 year old girl whose mother happily let her go off with two crazy gringos she met 5 minutes earlier to cross rivers and dodge snakes on the way to that spectacular waterfall in their backyard, having our tour guide insist we hop the fence and take pictures with those 4000 year old relics.

But she was heading back to the US and I was going towards Cali for a couple of days before heading to Medellin. When I got to the bus terminal I found out most of the busses towards Tulcan, the border town on the Ecuadorean side were cancelled. Apparently there was a strike going on for some reason or another. I was told my best bet was to head to Ibarra and hope I could catch a bus from there. So off I went.

Getting to Ibarra was no problem but most of the busses from there to Tulcan were cancelled as well and the few that were still running were packed to the point that there was no chance that I was getting on their with my two loaded backpacks. After waiting on the side of the road for two hours I did what I do from time to time, I decided to throw money at the problem and make it go away. That meant turning a $2.50 bus ride into a $40 cab ride. I met a Colombian, an Ecuadorean and a baby that were also heading to Cali who were willing to help out with the cab ride.

The two hours in the cab went by fast, much better than those busses that stop ever 5 minutes for some reason or another. But as we got to Tulcan we realized what the fuss was all about. It turns out the transportation workers of Tulcan were trying to unionize and coordinate the fares to the city. And they were going about doing this by shutting down motorized traffic in and out of the city. That meant we were carrying our bags by hand around their blockade and then taking a camioneta to the next blockade where we would take a taxi to the border. This was no small task given all the luggage and the baby my two traveling mates had with them.

Everything went find until the last taxi ride. Somewhere between getting the exit stamp out of Ecuador and the entry stamp into Colombia my brand new backpack with all my clothes got lost, stolen or misplaced. My new friends were wonderful and jumped through all the various hoops to enlist the help of the Colombian DAS, the Ecuadorean border guard and the local police of Tulcan, who were all equally nice but unfortunately couldn´t really do much at this point. After four hours my bag was no where to be found.

It was cold and raining, the baby and somehow managed to stay calm through the whole ordeal but was starting to get a little cranky and we were already hours behind schedule with no hope of getting to Cali until early the next morning. Yohana, the Colombian, asked me what I wanted to do. Let´s go to Cali, I said, I can buy new clothes there.

As I sat in the bus trying to ignore the guy pitching ginseng I tried to make sense of what just happened and figure out what to do next. I was left with nothing but my electronics gear, my snorkeling equipment, 3 books and the clothes on my back. But I knew things were going to be ok. I always said that as long as I had my passport and my wallet I could get myself out of any trouble I found myself in, and now I was going to put that theory to the test.

Yohana told me recline the seat in the bus back into her lap and try to get some sleep. She gave me the blanket she had been using to keep her 8 month daughter dry. Before we pulled into Cali she gave me her brother’s phone number and told me to use it to get a hold of her if I needed anything.

I suppose if I had been more careful this wouldn´t have happened. If I had planned a little more thoroughly or thought things out more fully or been more aware of the crazy senile taxi driver tying my bag to the back of his car. But that hadn´t happened and I doubt they will happen in the future either. 28 hours after my alarm went off I got off the bus in Cali. Things had not gone at all according to plan, but my heart was not heavy. It was light and it was free. I have nothing but love and affection for all the people I´ve traveled with.

I dreamt I saw San Agustin

About the time the latch which held my seat back in a reclining position broke I asked myself what the heck we were doing. It was 3 in the morning and I hadn’t had a minute of sleep as our bus barreled down what can only generously be described as a dirt-road, bouncing over holes large enough to swallow a VW Bug.

After a week of going mountain biking, kayaking, hiking and swimming Asma was ready from a break from all the physical activity. The bruises were starting to show. That meant going rafting down the Amazon would have to wait. We thought of heading to Banos, which we heard is a lovely little town set among the most magnificent peaks of the Andes, known for it’s thermal baths. But then Mt. Tungurahua decided to start erupting, only 4 kms from the city center.

We had talked about taking a side-trip up to Colombia earlier to see the ruins of an unknown ancient civilization at San Agustin but decided against it because, well, it was a little complicated. But as we sat around trying to figure out where to head to next, knowing that our options had become limited, we decided to forget common sense and just get up and go to Colombia the next morning.

You see, on the map, San Agustin is only like 1 cm away from the Ecuadorean border. But getting there is way more difficult than one would believe. The most direct route through Mocoa is considered dangerous, something about being overrun by the anti-government guerillas and a center for narco trafficing. And the only other paved road to San Agustin comes from Bogota, nowhere near our intended route. That meant we’d have to head 7 hours north from the border to Popoyan and then backtrack another 7 hours over barely passable dirt-roads to get to San Agustin.

The ride started out well enough. I showed Asma my new favorite pastime on the long-distance busses of sampling all the foodwares the various vendors were hawking and staring out the window. I was somehow able to rip my eyes away from the Jean-Claude Van Damme marathon playing on the bus to marvel as the landscape changed from the dramatic peaks of Ecuador to the lush rolling hills of Colombia. We met a nice Colombian family at the immigration line who offered to give us a lift as far as Pasto and find us a hotel for the night. That left us only 12 hours short of San Agustin.

Colombians have a terrible reputation throughout the world and especially up and down Latin America. Everyone considers the men to be criminals and the women prostitutes. But I’ve found that the Colombians I’ve met are literally the nicest, friendliest people in the world. I don’t know how to reconcile what is common knowledge with what I have experienced first hand. Maybe I’m just naïve, but I think I prefer believing my own lying eyes to assuming the worst about people.

We finally did arrive at our destination, after missing our stop and being forced to backtrack another hour. We were tired from the journey, cranky form the lack of sleep and wanting for a good meal and a hot shower. Both of those things proved to be near impossible to find in small town Colombia. I tried to remember why I kept telling everyone Colombia was my favorite country in the world.

But regardless we went out to see these ruins we traveled a ridiculous distance for. And yes, they were quite impressive and the scenery was gorgeous beyond compare. No one seems to know any things about these artifacts or the civilization that created them. They can’t even seem to agree on in which millennium they were constructed. All they can agree on is that these are the only remnants of what must have once been a power civilization which fell as the Incan Empire expanded into present day Colombia.

After spending a day exploring the archeological sights, we prepared for the two day journey back to Quito. We both wondered aloud why decided to make this excursion, and agreed the expectations that we had setup for ourselves led to disappointment. I thought I had learned that lesson already but I suppose it takes more than one time for it to really stick.

The adventure was one unlike any other, and Asma seemed to have a lot of the same revelations that I did when I first started traveling in Latin America. Asma told me about her new found respect for all the simple pleasures in life that we seem to take for granted. And we both marveled at how people who have so little seem to enjoy life so much more than we do with all our flat-screen TVs and fast cars. How they relish in the strength that their friends and family seem to provide, in ways that would only annoy us.

Asma and I are alike in many more ways than I realized before. We both seem to be rather content on just seeing where life winds up taking us, rather than making our grand plans. Of course that causes problems from time to time. Every once in a while you get the silly idea of traveling 5 days to Colombia on a whim and wind up tired and exhausted from the journey. But even with that possibility I have faith that things will always work out, they always have so far. And I still think I would still deal with the chance of that happening rather than keeping lists and making itineraries.

More Boobies Than You Can Shake a Stick At

I was super excited to see my sister Asma again, she was bringing me an iPod loaded with music and a new camera. Our 3 weeks together started out by exploring a little bit of Quito, but we were both looking forward to heading out towards the coast. The hump-back whales started showing up in Ecuador about a week ago and we were going to head to Puerto Lopez to get a closer peak and enjoy the beaches while we were at it.

My Spanish teacher Zulema wanted to go too. She’s lived in Quito all her life and for some reason had never managed to get out to the coast to see them in person. So we made plans to catch a night bus from Quito to Puerto Lopez and spend the weekend there.

As normal things didn’t go quite so easily as we had planned. Turned out the bus we were planning on taking was completely sold out. We decided to head to the main bus terminal in Quito and see if we could find another way to get there that night. No such luck, but we decided to hop a bus to Manta which was two hours north instead and figure out how to get to Puerto Lopez after that.

The ride on the bus was nice. I got to listen to my new tunes on my iPod for the first time, since sleep was not to be found on the bumpy roads heading down the western slope of the Andes. As I scrolled through the list of artists that my sister shoved on there I couldn’t hide my excitement. Bob Dylan, Yes! Jurassic 5, Yes! Neko Case, Yes! Warren Zevon, Yes!

I don’t know how, but my sister Asma and I must share the same gene that leads great taste in music. Sure she didn’t have any Miles Davis and didn’t know who Townes van Zandt was, but she’s young yet. We’re alike in a lot of ways, I think it’s all about her being the second daughter and me being the second son. But that’s just a theory.

I stared out the window as the hours on the bus rolled by. And at some point while I was drifting in and out of sleep Zulema yelled down the corridor of the bus at us “chicos…vamos aca” We hadn’t quite reached Manta but it turned out we could catch a bus in this random terminal on the side of the road towards Jipijapa and one from there to Puerto Lopez. Good enough for me. We showed up in town only two hours later than anticipated and Maxima and her husband were happy to see the three lost travelers as they had taken to calling us.

Within a few short hours we had arranged a tour to head out and chase down some of the whales and explore La Isla De La Plata, also known as “the poor man’s Galapagos.” I managed to take several pictures of empty open see but almost caught a couple good shots of a whale showing off. I also kind of got to play tour guide in Puerto Lopez seeing as I knew the city somewhat well after being there for 3 days a couple weeks ago. Strange seeing as I had a native Ecuadorian by my side.

The Blue-footed boobies were spotted in alarming numbers. Also a bunch of other crazy types of birds whose names I can’t remember which only seem to exist on the Galapagos and this island. But it most certainly was not the tropical island paradise I had come to except, a poor man’s Galapagos indeed. The snorkeling was good, but not great.

All in all, after this trip Asma and I found ourselves really motivated to get to the Galapagos Islands, if only it weren’t so damn expensive. We still had 2 and a half-weeks and no real plans, and I guess we both assumed we’d figure it all out in due time. I liked the fact that neither one of us was stressing about it, moreso just pondering the possibilities.

Hail to the Victors

Before the two lovely exchange students would sit with me they had to know, I wasn´t rooting for France was I? No I assured them, I don´t like the French, so by process of elimination I´ll root for Italy. They were happy to hear that, ¨we´re Italian¨ the first one said in perfect English with what seemed to be a US accent. ¨But you live in the US right?¨ I asked? No, it turned out they were from Toronto. Whatever, Canada is like the 51st state.

¨Where are you from¨ they wanted to know. This is actually a question that has always given me some difficulty. And these days I really don´t know what to answer. If you reply, ¨The US¨ to anyone from the US or Canada or anyone who has ever been there they will immediately ask where in the US. That´s when things start to get complicated.

The last place I lived was Seattle, but I was raised in Cleveland and right now I´m pretty sure I´m going to move to San Diego when I get back. The real answer is kinda nowhere, so I said Seattle, which generally makes my life easier. ¨But what´s your nationality?¨ they cuter one asked. Oh, I saw where this was heading. This is the other turn this topic of conversation always takes. ¨Well my nationality is I´m a citizen of the US, but my family is from India.¨

¨Oh, well then you´re Indian¨ the less cute, although still quite lovely one, said. I told them I thought it was strange that they called themselves Italian although they lived in Canada their entire lives as did their parents, they had never been to Italy to visit and didn´t speak a word of the language. ¨Oh but we´re still Italian, eh¨ they assured me. I guess everyone is Italian when the World Cup Finals roll around, well excpet for all the Frenchies.

But the truth is, I don´t really feel Indian. Not like these girls felt Italian for whatever reason. I spent a great amount of my childhood in denial about the fact that I was Indian, or not Indian as the case may be. And while I´ve come to accept that there are a great deal of things about me that are undeniably influenced by my parents homeland, I never really identified myself with that land. Unless of course it happens to be more convenient in any given instance.

At some point in the last few months I realized that my Spanish has become better than my Hindi ever was. I remember the last time I was in India and was talking to one of my Aunts and I felt proud that I somehow managed to find the Hindi words to thank her for the meal I just ate at her home. And she smiled and nodded at me and then turned to her sister and asked her what I just said. Sigh, I never realized quite how sad that is until just recently.

Of course I´ve never really felt quite at home in the US either. Lately I´ve been toying with the idea of moving to India at some point and actually learning the language. I don´t think it would be too hard, if I can learn Spanish in less than a year than Hindi should come faster, maybe. I used to jokingly tell people that I was a ¨citizen of the world¨ when they would ask me where I was from, but I don´t think most people read enough Greek philosophy to get the reference and no one really found it funny.

In between high-pitched shrieks at mostly inappropriate times the Italian / Canadian girls and I managed to share some travel stories and views on the world. Apparently these two college students were quite upset with the recent election of the Conservatives party to the Canadian parliment. Canada is becoming just like the US they complained. ¨And you know, people in the US are just kinda off¨ the cuter one told me.

Hmmm...funny I was under the impression it was the rest of the world that was kinda strange. Yes I suppose there are a great deal of things that are unique about us folks from the US. Everyone seems to thing we´re arrogant and yeah we have our moments. Everyonce in a while we decide to start bombing people but I like to think that´s just our ¨Can Do¨ attitude coming through. And yeah we´re kinda isolationists, except when we´re not, but hey we do have two big oceans on either coast and only two neighbors to deal with.

¨You´re just a young nation that doesn´t know any better¨ the less-cute one told me. Yeah I suppose we´re young, but we have the longest form of functioning government of any nation in the world, I replied. And sure one of these days maybe we´ll figure out the same lessons that the ¨mature¨ countries of Europe have, but I still can´t imagine any other country I´d like us to emulate. There are a lot of things that are wrong with the US, I´ve come to believe, but nothing that can´t be mediated by what´s right with the US.

¨Why don´t you like the French?¨ the cute one asked, ¨is it because of the Iraq thing?¨ No I told them the fact that if it wasn´t for the US, they would be speaking German from Paris down to the Riveriera and somehow the French have decided that they don´t like us in the last 50 years annoys me greatly. ¨Well if it wasn´t for the French the US Colonies would never have been able to win their independence from the British¨ the less cute one said. Touché.

As the second extra period came to an end the cute one asked me what happened now. I´d watched enough World Cup Futbol at this point to be able to explain the shoot-out. She started chewing her fingernails. As the Italians scored the fifth penality kick high-fives and hugs went all around. Before we parted ways they asked me to change my plans about moutain-biking on Cotopaxi, ¨it destroys the vegetation and it takes some plants 20 years to grow in the Andes¨ the cute one implored. ¨Well if those plants don´t want to get run over they should get out of my way¨ I told them as I went off to find a steak.

A few shots from Cuba

Meet the new boss, hey who is the new boss?

I rememeber Election night 2000 pretty vividly. Bush was announced the winner, then they all took it back, and then we waited around and they told us they had no idea. And months later we still didn´t know. I remember thinking ¨this is the United States of America and things like this don´t happen here. They happen in places like Mexico.¨

Well if it makes any of you feel better it turns out they still happen in places like Mexico. Although I suppose we´ll have to wait and see just exactly how ugly things get. As far as I know so far there hasn´t been much of any violence, which is the thing that suprises me the most.

The latest Google news articles tell me that the Conservative candidate, Felipe Calderon, holds something like a 0.5% lead in the popular vote over his Socialist rival Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. I´m sure that will change several times before this is all said and done.

I read another article linked from Google news, amazingly enough written by someone at the Seatlle PI, who thinks this means that the recent socialist trend in Latin America is coming to an end. I suppose if 0.5% of Mexicans had voted the other way he would have interpreted this as meaning that Socialism is an unstoppable force in Latin America.

But to be fair the populist socialist movement emboddied by the self-declared ¨Axis of Good¨ of Evo Morales in Bolivia, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and of course, Fidel Castro in Cuba have been dealt a series of set backs in recent weeks.

President Uribe of Colombia won a suprisingly strong re-election, making him the first Colombian President to be elected to a 2nd term since the 19th Century. This admist even more evidence that The Colombian DAS was involved in the failed 2001 coup against Chavez in Venezuela and increasing cooperation with the US and Bush Administration.

Peruvians chose to give former President Alan Garcia, who´s first term as President can only be described as disastrous, a second chance rather than electing the candidate that Chavez openly endorsed and campaigned for. This has led to a back and forth fury of insults between Lima and Caracas and now Chavez says he suspects electoral fraud.

Bolivians gave Morales´ party a solid victory in the recent Constituent Assembly but didn´t pass the Constitutional Referendum he was championing. This seems to point to ever growing split between the indigenous highlanders and the Lowlanders of European descent.

And to be fair one must really point out that Obrador, while definately a leftist and arguably a socialist, has done a fair amount to distance himself from the label of Populist Socialist. Obrador seems to like to portray himself more as a Roosevelt New-Dealer than a Che-esque revolutionary. And seems to have more in common with Chile´s Bachelet than Chavez.

But I find it fascinating that a socialist trend which essentially didn´t exist 5 years ago is now losing a series of nail-bitters across the Latin American map. Sure maybe it´ll just wither away and die, but that´s it´s far to early to put that nail in the coffin. And as the price of oil continues to go through the roof, the poster child of this movement gets stronger and stronger.

Who knew it could be so nice

My back was starting to peel for only the 2nd time in my life and that meant it was time to take a break from the beach. I had found some stuff I wanted to get done in Quito anyways so I figured I might as well head there a little early and wait for my sister. Samira decided she wasn´t going to be able to make it to Ecuador after all, something about work and school. It all sounded very responsible, I couldn´t really relate. But Asma was still coming down.

There´s a 10 year age difference between me and my sister Asma. But now that she´s 18 and I´m 28 (at least for a few more weeks) it doesn´t seem quite as great as when I was graduating college and heading off to Microsoft and she was listening to the Spice Girls. But I still have no idea what we´re going to do together for 3 weeks.

I actually kind of pity her. I don´t know too many people that can stand seeing me every day for 3 weeks. I think I drove Ellick crazy being constantly around him in Rio for two weeks. But we´re family and we´ll manage, I suppose. Plus I think its cool that my little sister and I will be hanging out by ourselves together for what might be the first time ever.

I bid farewell to Maxima and her husband, who might actually be the nicest people in the world, and hopped on the bus to Quito. By the way, if you ever find yourself in Puerto Lopez and need a good hostel to stay in look them up at http://www.hotelmaxima.net. They provided great information, and managed to perfectly walk the line between providing too much motherly nurturing and geniune friendship. The mosquito nets worked good enough and they´ll even let you borrow their boogy boards or bike for they day, no worries.

I´m still working on buying a new cell phone and USB flash card. I´m torn between being my normal cheap bastardly self or getting the uber-cool new Motorola Razor I think I´ve fallen in love with. But I have managed to find a Spanish school and a some salsa classes. Neither of this was very hard as Quito is apparently the number one gringo capital of the world. And La Mariscol, where I´m staying, is literally crawling with all sorts of stuff catering to all sorts of tourists.

And while I normally hate the idea of being around so many damn foriegners I must admit it´s nice to be able to go to a restaurant and order Phad Thai and have it be pretty damn good. And I haven´t had to walk over a single passed out bum on the street, shoo-away any street kids or hop over any open sewers. And I must admit, while there are obviously a ton of travellers here I haven´t seen a single heckler refering to me as ¨my friend¨ and after being in Havana, Lima and Cusco this seems absolutely unbelievable. I know, I know, I just need to venture out a bit and I´m sure I´ll find it.

But so far Quito seems quite lovely. I suppose the world is always wonderful when you refuse to step out of your little bubble. I´ve spent a lot of time in the last few months intentionally popping my bubbles for no other reason than because it seemed like the right thing to do. Right now I think I´ll just stay blissfully naive about Quito and assume life is full of nice restaurants and clean hotels. At least for a little while longer.

Salt Water and Electronics don´t mix

The notion that the free market can provide the most efficient mechanism distribute good and services falls apart as soon as externalities are introduced. And this global world we live in where goods and information can be sent around the world at negligable costs the major externality we continue to live with is government regulations. Such as import taxes. Especially on electronics. Especially in South America where electronics from the US and Europe are generally charged a 100% duty. Do you have any idea how much a new digital camera costs in Latin America. I do, all to well unfortunately.

You see I lost my first digital camera in a cab in Buenos Aires. It was my own fault, I had it just sitting in my pants pocket and when I got out of the cab the camera stayed. I went about two months without a new camera because I just couldn´t bring myself to pay the outrageous prices for the 2 generation old cameras I could find in Argentina. I went to Mount Aconcagua and Machu Piccu and Solar de Uyuni and don´t have a single photo to show for it. Such is life when you´re a cheap bastard.

But while flying through Panama I decided to pay the outrageous prices they were charging for a brand new super nifty Canon SD camera at the duty free shops. It was still better than what I could get in any retail store in Latin America, but about 50% higher than it should have been. And it was a great camera, only 3 weeks old, sharp pictures, great night shots, tons of settings, some of which I even learned to use. I took a bunch of pictures in Cuba and one of these days when I buy a new USB keydrive I´ll upload some of them.

This morning I decided to go snorkeling at La Isla de Solanga. Well it wasn´t actually morning, I came up with this plan the night before, before I realized how the evening would unfold. You see I met these three Ecuadorean guys last night and, well I´ve come to realize that no matter where you are in the world if you decide to start partying with a group of people, some of who have dreadlocks, an affinity for boxed-wine and the only english they speak comes from lyrics to Bob Marley songs you can kiss your plans in the morning goodbye.

No I didn´t make it up at 6:00 AM like I was planning to in order to bum a ride on one of the fishing boats that would be passing the island. Instead it was about 1:00 PM when I finally made it down to the beach. And they best price I could come up with to get to La Isla de Solanga was US $15, an outrageous sum. But lack of perfect information and rationale players are also market extranalities.

So instead I bummed a ride on the back of somebodies motorcycle to Playa de Solanga hoping I could find a better price to the island. No such luck, as almost all the boats were already out at sea and no one would go below US $20. Instead I decided to just hike around the edge of the beach towards the coves and playita I heard about and hope I could find some corals there worth exploring and work on the island the next day.

The trek started out easily enough, crossing a couple of coves and working my way around the bay. And I came upon the playita I heard about and it was spectacular. You could have called it paradise. Beautiful beach and the only marks in the sand were from my feet and a couple of sand crabs. But I wasn´t quite satisified and I needed to know how far I could keep going and what I would find.

I crossed the next cove fairly easily, but the one afterwards was a little more daunting. The cliff on the side I was on was sheer. But I saw a path I could take by climbing over the rock face that surrounded the cove. My feet slipped a couple times and I cursed the slipperly Cuban soles of my newly bought sandals as I peered down over the edge at the waves crashing upon the jagged rocks below. ¨This would be a crappy way to die¨ I couldn´t help but thinking.

But I made it without too much problem to a spot above a rock embancment. The only thing left to do was gently toss my backpack down on the rocks below and climb down. My throw was true and the bag hit exactly where I wanted it to, but I put a little spin on my bag, which was top heavy from the snorkeling gear. The bag tumbled once, twice and fell to the embancment directly below it, where it tumbled once, twice more before falling to the next ledge and hanging ever so agonizingly close to stopping before turning one more time and falling into the waters below. I just nodded my head suprised I didn´t see this outcome well in advance.

I jumped down off the rocks and my mind immediately went through what I would lose if the bag was pulled out to sea. My juggling balls, that would be a bummer, I just got those and it was an awesome gift. A pair of clothes, no biggie. Wallet, oh crap. Camera, shit. Cell phone, dammit. Snorkeling gear, bummer but replacable. My cool Brazilian flag beach towel, well they lost already and I´m just a fair weather fan so whatever. My half-read copy of Kafka in the non-original Spanish. Replacable but damn it was painful marking it up with all those study notes.

I looked around frantically as I planned my dive into the cove to try and retrieve my belongings. As luck would have it a wave washed my now soaking back up on a rock. And it only took a minute or two to get it and climb back to my sandals and sunglasses. I opened it to see the damage and everything was drenched.

I haven´t had much luck with electronics in this trip. When I was climbing Pucamarca in Argentina I was listening to my mp3 player and smoking a cigarette. My feet slipped and I needed to make a split-second decision about which hand I was going to put down to brace myself. My cigarette was fine but the Creative Nomad bounced off a couple of rocks and I´ve been without tunes ever since.

My sister is bringing me a brand new shinny iPod when she comes, the one that does video and photos. She even said she´d fill it up with good music, but seems to ignore all my questions about how much Dylan she is going to put on there. I almost broke down and bought one at the same duty free store in Panama but I figured I could go another couple weeks without music. And now I think I´ve got to add another item to the shopping list.

Those off you concerned about my health should know that I haven´t had a cigarette since Argentina. Ok, ok, I had one in Peru but that was a congradultory you just hiked Machu Piccu smoke and the crazy gringo I met from Seattle practically forced me to inhale. And yeah there were those 2 (only 2!) cigars in Cuba, but come on how often do you get to smoke Cuban cigars in Cuba? But I´ve been feeling pretty good these last two months or so without smoking and I think I´m finally done with that disgusting habit. Now if I could just stop breaking my toys I´d be all set.

How the mighty fall

I put off heading for my daily swim because Brazil was playing France. And like I´ve been telling anyone and everyone, Brazil was my team this year and they were going to win it all. It´s not so much that I had any basis for that viewpoint, before I started this trip I never actually watched an entire futbol match from start to end. And I don´t really know anything about any of these teams other than that Brazil has the most names I recognize from my few months of being a fan. But I really dug how crazy the Brazilians were for futbol when I was down there, even moreso than the Argentineans, although it was close.

And the thing is, if you happened to be in Latin America in the last two months and you started talking with just about any male and maybe something like 25% of the females, the World Cup would undoubtedly be one of the first 3 topics of conversation. And I came to learn that the secret to this conversation was having an opinion in which you had unwavering confidence and could state loudly and repeatedly with bare a minimum of words so as not to confuse yourself after several cervezas.

As I watched the match with the 4 other fanatics crowded around the TV set in our hostel our grunts and sighs became lounder and more anguished as the minutes ticked away. Argentina had lost to Germany the day before (I bet you´re still gloating aren´t you Patrick?) and we were now watching the unthinkable. Brazil, who was everyones favorites, including aparently the referees, was minutes away from sucumbing to the Frenchies.

In my travels I´ve met enough cool Germans to change my previously uneducated opinion of them. Sure they might all wear socks with their sandals but they´re generally good at giving directions and can do currency conversions like nobodies business. And overall they´ve been a swell bunch as far as I´m concerned, except for that one dude and the incident with Jonathan´s laptop and iPod in Buenos Aires, but never mind that. The French on the otherhand, well, I still refuse to be anything but sophmorically annoyed by those baguette swinging weenies.

But vanquish the Brazilians they did. And it seemed like everyone in the entire continent of South America let out a collective sigh at precisely the same time. We were all going to be forced to endure watching 4 European teams compete in the final rounds for the World Cup. As if being unable to watch their national heroes play for four years because they are all in European leagues anyways wasn´t insult enough, now it turns out when they did get a chance to play and represent their countries, they didn´t come through.

We had already watched the Japanese beat the Cubans in the World Baseball Classic a couple months earlier and this just seemed to ice the cake. No Latin America still can´t seem to catch a break. Just when you think somethings going to work out for them, it´s all ¨tout de suite¨ and eclairs. Oh well, at least they´re down to only one active Civil War, granted it´s been going on for something like 40 years, but it´s only a tiny little skirmish up in the corner of the South America.

It´s good see the next stop on the road is

After spending a couple days hanging out in Salinas I decided to start making my way up the Ruta del Sol. I still had over a week before I needed to meet my sisters in Quito and figured I should see what kind of trouble I could get myself into in the meantime. I was originally thinking about heading to the surf center of Montañita but then I remembered that Charlie don´t surf, and neither did Kashif. Sure it´s on my list of things to get around to one of these days, but I was enjoying swimming up and down the Ecuadorean coast-line and saw no reason to stop.

So I hopped on the first bus I found heading north and got off at Puerto Lopez. I heard it was a beautiful city set on a nice horseshoe shaped bay. I figured that meant I could escape the waves all the surfers came to Ecuador to find. The bus terminal didn´t look like anything too special but after spending a day swimming down the beach and walking around the Malecon I´ve decided I love this little pueblito.

It´s touristy but not too touristy. It´s peaceful but not too peaceful. It´s clean and friendly and cheap. There is a wonderful ratio of inhabitants to hammocks. And it´s got a line of fruit juice stands that goes half-way down the beach. Mangoes are out of season but the pineapples are fantastic and the strawberries are to die for.

When I was in Salinas I met a guy working on the beach named Patricio. He told me he used to finanace car loans in Guayaquil but about 6 years ago he decided to move to Salinas and has been giving tours and rides on his boat ever since. He told me that he hated working in an office and would never go back again. He said that when he´s on his boat he feels free, he´s his own boss and now he finally is motivated to get up and go to work every morning.

I thought back to the answer I kept giving everyone when they asked me what I was going to do when I was ready to return to the real world, ¨I don´t know, maybe open a juice stand on the side of the beach.¨ Like most jokes there is a kernel of truth in there somewhere. It still does sound like a cool idea. I think I first came up with it on my trip to the Bahamas, but it´s evolved over time. My juice stand would have kick-ass sammiches and a shot of rum to go with your smoothie would only cost $1 extra. And there´d be free Wi-Fi and salsa dancing.

But the truth is I don´t think I´ll ever get around to opening that juice bar (it´s called Zak´s Juice Shack, btw). I miss the software industry. I miss conjuring up a straight-forward solution to a really hard problem. I miss the elegance of a finely crafted design, the beauty of layered complexity composed of individual simplicity. I´m actually almost 100% convinced I´ll go back to software when I´m back in the States, the only question is where.

I´ve had about 1000 people tell me that they think I should find a start-up to go work at, and that doesn´t sound like such a bad idea. And I´ve even got my resume pretty much all written. So if you know anyone that needs a highly-skilled and newly re-motivated software engineer let me know, you just gotta wait like 2 (uh, better make that 3) months.

Back to wandering around

After spending two days in Guayaquil I knew it was time to move on. Guayaquil is nice but it just really held no attraction for me. The problem wasn´t in making that decision, the problem was move on to where. It´s strange I´ve noticed my last few months of travelling oscilate back and forth between hanging out with great friends who I feel will be around for a lifetime and just wandering around aimlessly on my own.

My friend Robert who started this whole mess by convincing me to go to Colombia the first time sent me an e-mail. He was heading to Lima and wanted to meet up. I thought about it. 20 hour bus ride from Guayaquil to Lima and another 28 hours to get to Quito. It would have been fun to see Robert again but I was going to have to pass, schedule is a little tight and even I couldn´t imagine flying from Lima to Havana to Guayaquil back to Lima in the span of 3 weeks.

Then I thought about heading to Cali, Colombia to meet up with José the guy I met in Rio. He offered me a place to stay and I know he´d show me around. Plus maybe I could finally actually learn some salsa in one of the dance capitals of the world. And I came close to hoping on a bus and crossing the border, but for some reason I decided not to. I felt like I´d be running away from Ecuador and I wasn´t quite ready to do that.

Instead I caught a bus to Salinas. I heard Salinas described as Ecuador´s answer to Miami Beach. And apparently for 6 months out of the year that´s exactly what it is. June is not one of those six months. The Ecuadorean coast right now is a little chilly, kinda overcast, and pretty deserted. It´s still nice, quite nice in fact, but a far shot from the Cuban beaches I was lavishing in only a few days ago.

But Salinas has a beautiful calm bay perfect for swimming, the people are a little reserved but friendly, and there´s lots of time to relax and do nothing. I hear the hump-back whales can be seen not too far off-shore these days and the sea-lions are hanging out on a rock only a bike ride away. In 3 days here I´ve met exactly two foriegners and that doesn´t seem too bad.

In the hotel I´m staying at they have a map of the Ecuadorean coast line. The Ruta del Sol runs parallel to the coast passing little fishing towns, quite beaches and major surfing hubs like Montañita and Puerto Lopez. This seems like a fine path to take towards Quito, I still have almost two weeks before I need to be there and not a damn thing to do. Somehow I´m convinced this won´t be a problem.

I´m famous!

Ok not really, but my Dutch friend Joost wrote about some of our Cuban adventures together on his blog (http://juice.zinloosverteld.nl/) and now all the Dutchenese, Hollandens and Netherlandeans will be aware of me. It´s kind of cool to see someone perspective on the same events. But he doesn´t really write about me, it´s actually about my other personality.

It´s strange, right as I started this trip someone gave me the advice of ¨it seems like you´re trying to find yourself, you might want to start by pronouncing your name the right way.¨ And that made a lot of sense. So Ka-sheef went back to KAH-shif.

But the problem was the rest of the world wasn´t so accomodating. See I met Bill in Colombia long before I made this decision. And Bill always knew me as Zak. Don´t ask me where Zak comes from, it´s a long story that I can´t even begin to explain but I think it´s better than my last made up name of George.

And when I went to Cuba to meet up with Bill the first time everyone all the new people I met were introduced to me ask Zak. Which at some point became more like ¨San¨ because you can´t actually pronounce Zak in spanish.

So here I am, trying to go back to the name my parents gave me and I´ve found it´s harder than I thought. At some point in Argentina I became just ¨Cash¨, and then I realized that was a bad idea because everyone took the name way too literally.

Regardless on Joost´s blog I´m Zak and there´s a post about Zakisms which I think is really funny. I do love a great one-liner after all. And I guess that really isn´t too bad, although one of these days I really do think I should become KAH-shif.

I´m here, now what?

As the last leg of my travels, the flight from Panama City to Guayaquil began it´s descent, I looked over the customs declaration form I was just handed. One box confused me. Address in Ecuador? The truth of the mater was I had no idea where I was staying that night or what I was going to do in Ecuador.

My sisters are going to meet me in Quito in two weeks and I was flying to Guayaquil. I don´t actually remember why I told them to meet me in Ecuador anymore. Originally just my sister Asma was going to come to Buenos Aires but with her school and all she wasn´t free until July and I wasn´t going to stay there that long. So I looked at a map and somehow came up with Ecuador. I think it might have had something to do with that crazy guy from Quito I met on Mt. Aconcagua who planted the idea in my head. But I heard about great beaches and islands and the Amazon river and active volcanos and it all sounded like fun.

The truth is I´ve actually kind of gotten to the point where I´m getting really really close to being done with this adventure. If it weren´t for the fact that my sisters are meeting me in Ecuador in a couple of weeks I might just have gone home. Well technically I don´t have a home, but back to the US. But as things are I´ll spend two weeks here waiting for my sisters and then another three weeks with my sister Asma. Samira will only be here for a week and after that...well actually I need to go to Medellin to collect the $200 that my buddy Bill owes me. And then I gotta see how somethings unfold, well just one things really. I might have one more stop to make before heading back to the states.

In my months of travelling I´ve learned just a couple of things. One is that it´s a really bad idea to show up to a new country late at night with no idea of where you´re going to stay. Last time this happen Joost and I came about 2 kms from sleeping on the beach. I was planning on doing a little research before I left Cuba but somehow that just didn´t work out.

Yanet and I spent the day before hanging out at the Playas del Este and it´s so hard to leave the beach even when you know you´ve got to go pack your bags. Everyone was waiting for us back at the casa for dinner since we were extremely late. But like always no one worried too much or if they did they didn´t complain.

Queque grilled me up some lobster, he knows it´s my favorite. The goodbyes were hard and take so long. Joost was awesome and presented me with his set of juggling balls he had just bought, I guess that answered my question of whether I was going to keep practicing. He gave me the 4th ball too and told me he wants to see evidence that I get that down. Be patient Joost, this might take a bit.

Somehow between all of this I never managed to get to the internet and find a hostel in Guayaquil. After I claimed by bags and made it through customs I looked around to see if there was a tourist booth open at the airport that could help me out. No such luck, especially not at 11 PM. So I did what I try to avoid doing as much as possible, I turned to my Footprints guide book and found a place to stay, flagged down a cab, negotiated a price and we took off. Luckily they had availability and it turned out to be clean and seemed relatively decent.

As I settled into Guayaquil I wondered again what I was doing here. I didn´t know a soul in this country, had no real idea of what to do and was already missing Cuba and everything it held. I suppose this is as good a time as any to figure out what the hell I´m doing. Oh yeah, that´s what I was supposed to be doing for the last 5 months.

Dropping Balls

Joost, the crazy Dutch guy, and I were hanging out on Playa Santa Maria, the closest beach to Havana. It was a wonderfully relaxing day, we finally got outside our comfort zone of Havana Centro and explored a little more of what Cuba had to offer. Joost has become famous around the casa for trying to teach everyone and anyone to juggle.

Last time we were in Cuba Alicia was complaining about how all of her oranges wound up crushed and Yanet said she didn’t want to smell like onions anymore. But this time Joost brought his own balls with him.

So while we were lying on the beach Joost asked me if I’d like to learn. Learning to juggle has been on my list of things to do for quite some time now, sure it’s something like number 35 at the moment, but what the heck I had an eager teacher, time to kill on the beach and a set of juggling balls nearby.

I’ve noticed myself kinda of getting antsy in the last couple two months or so. I haven’t done an honest days work since December and truth be told for several weeks (ok months) before that I had basically stopped being reasonably productive.

But I do think I’ve channeled some of that into a desire to do some other stuff that I’ve never found time for before. My Spanish has gotten pretty damn decent if I do say so myself, I learned to swim which was a big deal for me, I climbed a couple of mountains and done some trekking, met some fascinatingly wonderful people, sure my salsa skills are still barely existent but that’s next. And I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and pondering and imagining what could be and what shouldn’t be.

As we hung out on the beach Joost took about 10 minutes to explain the basic concept. I struggled dropping the balls for a while and a couple people looked on. A Cuban guy walked up, asked for the balls and took off without a hitch. A Mexican guy picked out three oddly shaped rocks out of the sand and started throwing them up with frustrating ease.

The more I watched everyone succeed at something that I just couldn’t seem to grasp the more obsessed with the idea of juggling I became. I spent another hour or two that night throwing balls on the floor and picking them up. At some point Joost just looked at me and said “dude, you’re just trying too hard.” I don’t think he used the word “dude” because that doesn’t sound very Dutch, but the point was the same.

And that made sense. And I’ve noticed that sometimes when I really want something the OCD part of my personality kicks in. I just can’t let some things go, I obsess over them, even when there’s something else I’m focusing the majority of my attention on my mind is working on the background handling this latest preoccupation.

And it’s true. Sometimes when you try too hard you just set yourself up for failure. You forget about the patience you need to let something just click. You try to fast forward through the rough, awkward phase where everything is a little strange and not quite comfortable because you already know the end result you’re shooting for. The second time to Cuba has been like that for me.

There’s some middle ground, I’m sure, between persistence and obsession. I doubt you can achieve and thing that’s difficult and worthwhile unless you’re willing to invest the time and effort required to pursue it. But if you obsess about it, if you don’t let yourself relax and take some space, if you refuse to wait for whatever will happen to happen it seems you’ve also got a pretty good chance of failing.

At this point I can kinda sorta juggle. Well enough to fake it at least. I don’t know if I’ll stick with it or not, it seems like a reasonable way to kill time but I don’t think it really impresses chicks and thus it’s coolness factor drops. And I didn’t really come to Cuba to learn to juggle, I’m still working on number one on my list.

You gotta be tough if you’re gonna be dumb

I had been in Havana for 12 days straight. This was extremely disappointing because Havana is officially one of my least favorite cities in the world. It’s dirty, it’s smelly, everything is broken and as a tourist you’re constantly being hounded. There are nice things in Havana but they are mostly off-limits to Cubans, strictly for tourists only. And I find that lack of freedom and liberty amazingly sad. Of course there are some things about Havana that I'm really enjoying, and that explains why I hadn’t as of yet managed to escape the city.

Before I came here Joost and I traded e-mails with the idea of doing a little traveling in Cuba and exploring this island. Everyone needs a plan B you know. My priority, like always was finding a beach and doing some snorkeling. Joost is from Holland or the Netherlands, I forget which but I think they might be the same place, go figure. And apparently they bike a lot in Holland or the Netherlands or where ever.

So as we were talking about heading to Varadero, the most touristy resort in all of Cuba, Joost suggested biking there. Varadero didn’t really appeal that much too me, mostly because I’ve decided I hate tourist and hate acknowledging that I am one, but Joost is a ceritified dive master and assured me that Varardero is world famous for it’s diving and I would love it. Varadero is also something like a 140 kilometers from Havana and the mid-day sun in Cuba during June is deadly hot.

As we started telling our plan to people around the house they looked at us with the same look I’ve come to know and love over my 5 months of traveling…”silly gringo, what are you thinking?” After the 10th Cuban we told this lovely idea to told us we were nuts I decided I really really liked this plan and I think Joost started having second thoughts.

We changed things up a bit and decided instead of taking two days to head to Varadero we’d only go half the distance (about 65 kms) to Playa Jibacoa and wait an extra day. Sunday night we got a group together and closed down a salsa club. Fun was had by all. Monday night the Irish girls wanted to go out again, and I said I was going to bed early. Joost decided he would go out for just a little bit and we were meeting up bright and early in the morning to head out on our journey. I understood, it's awfully hard to say no to Irish girls.

Before I took off Yanet asked me if I was sure I was going to do this. I’ve noticed that every time in my life that I’ve done something stupid that’s gotten me into trouble there was always a moment where a little voice inside of my head said “are you sure?” It’s usually not external but I wondered if this was an exception. Regardless I headed to the casa for breakfast and found out that Joost hadn’t woken up yet. Then I ran into Xiomara who told me they were out till 6 in the morning partying the night before. I warned him was going to happen.

I woke Joost up and waited for him to tell me the words I was expecting, “dude, I’m sorry but I’m gonna bail” I know if I was in the same situation that’s what I would be saying. But I must say, Joost is a trooper. He looked like death and wasn’t anywhere close to being ready, but he said give him 5 minutes and he’d be game. 5 minutes turned into almost an hour but Joost was not going to drop. He let me know that if I wanted to cancel plans he wouldn’t be offended. But I had no sympathy for the devil and we were heading to Playa Jibacoa today.

We eventually managed to rent our bikes which turned out to be in a woeful state of disrepair. Such is life in Cuba. As we headed to our first destination, the ciclobus stop which we needed to take to get around Havana Bay we saw our bus pull out. Joost and I looked at each other and decided we could still catch it and we took off, fast. I don’t know exactly what happened next but I saw Joost go down, hard, in the middle of Havana traffic. I will say this for him, he got up real fast but the bailing wire and duct tape that was holding together his bike needed some attention so we forgot about taking the bus. Instead we headed for the ferry terminal.

After getting off the ferry we learned why everyone told us to take the bus. It turned out our journey was going to start by climbing a series of hills for the next 5 kms go get ourselves up to Via Blanca, and the bus avoids all of this. Such is life and we troopered on gallantly, every Cuban we talked to pointed us in a different direction but somehow we found our path.

The ride to Jibacoa was damned hard. Harder than Mount Aconcagua, harder than Machu Piccu. It the middle of the day and ridiculously hot. Something was obviously lost in the translation that told me the trip was “mostly flat” because we just saw slopping hills the entire way. We stopped plenty of times to re-hydrate and ask ourselves who came up with this brilliant idea. We tossed the idea of stopping around but neither one of us was going to be the guy that bowed out first.

I started out feeling great but ran out of gas as the day wore on. Joost started out really slow recovering from his hang-over but by the end of the day I could barely keep up with him. I guess he was right about the Dutch and their biking skills, although I always caught up to him on the hills. I guess you never go up much when you’re country is mostly under water.

Both are bikes were barely holding together but we actually had to make 3 seperate repair stops for Joost's winner of a bike. The bolt that held the baggage carrier in place got lost along the journey somewhere and we almost decided to quit right there and then. But we decided to stop by a nearby farm and ask for help and it's true, Cubans are lovely people. Not only did they find us a bolt that fit but they gave us cold water and refused any offer of payment.

As we passed by a beautiful beach with corals right off the shore. Joost looked at me and said how about a dip? I said let’s wait for the next one. We spent the next 30 kms riding past ugly refineries spewing out smoke. And then at about 8:30 PM we pulled into Jibocoa Playa. I thought about the nice lady at the bike store and how she told us not to ride our bikes on the sand and I sailed on off the road and dumped my bike on the beach as we watched the sun dip down.

I still have no idea why we went on this ridiculous trip, the bus takes an hour and costs $0.40. But sometimes it’s about the journey and not the destination. And it felt damned good to be able to say we were able to do this, when everyone told us it was a crazy idea. Go ahead, tell me what else I can’t do and watch as I prove you wrong.