James Holst

A Wider Road

2011-02-17T14:18:00.000-08:00

My 2010 travels are old news now, but I felt that some sort of wrap-up was in order because this trip was a bigger experience than just the individual stories I’ve managed to post on this blog. I usually do not do a very good job of articulating why I like traveling the way I do. Some people get it and some people don’t. Either way, I hope this entry is interesting for you to read. It’s always an evolving thought process.

Also, I went through my photos and picked out a few that were skipped over the first time around.

From Leftovers

A lot of people have asked me about my favorite country or favorite place. It’s a good, open-ended question. But every time someone asks me this, I find myself stammering about how each place has it’s good and bad aspects. I realize this is a boring answer. I know that most people just want to hear about a cool place or just want to give me a platform to share a quick experience. It’s not a trick question, but it always feels like one.

I’ve come to think of places as just extensions of people, and so inherent the all the complexities of people. Like people, I can easily evaluate my first impression of a place and pick one over the other, but first impressions can be misleading. It takes time to figure that out. To idealize a place is to misunderstand it. Traveling is more akin to interviewing a person that it is being best friends with them. They don’t have to be like-able in order to be interesting and I’m not convinced that one trait is better than the other. Virtues can be more charming because there are faults, not despite them.

So if picking a favorite place is too hard, what about a favorite experience? It’s also a difficult question. My favorite travel experiences are not the iconic events found in travel brochures. Visiting the Taj Mahal, Machu Picchu, or Angkor Wat have been very special experiences, and they are easy to talk about because everyone knows about them, but they are not my favorite. I suppose I’ve accumulated a fair number of travel stories over the years, stories of adversity, adventure or embarrassment. Typically, the more miserable the experience, the more fondly I remember it. Again, these experiences are special, but still not my favorite.

My favorite moments of travel are these brief moments, which are almost incidental to the journey itself, when I have the ability to really appreciate where I am in the world. They are usually so small that it’s almost a non-event.

I have this memory, for example, of being on the train in Mongolia. It was late into the night. The deep groaning of the wheels against the track kept me awake, but seemed to have lulled everyone else to sleep. Across from me, a 12 year old girl was slowly being inched off the bench she shared with her sleeping brother. I smiled when she hit him, but failed to rouse a response. Frustrated with her brother, she came over and sat next to me. I was pleasantly surprised to learn she spoke some English. She was disappointed that I did not speak Mongolian and so persistently quizzed me on a few basic phrases. Entertained with herself, she sang a dozen hits off the Top 40, keeping her voice below the dull roar of the train. I stuck my head out the window and tried focusing on the black nothingness, amazed at where I was.

I have many of these memories. In Morocco, I slept on a warm concrete roof as music and people crowded the street below. In Bolivia, I sat alone in the jungle, under a full moon. In the Philippines, I lost myself in the ocean. In Chile, fought the wind. In Korea, I drank Soju with strangers.

These moments of appreciation hardly seem worth mentioning without making the effort to explain that they are special not because of where I was, but because I was able to appreciate it. There are easily more places and experiences that I did not appreciate. These moments cannot be forced or planned, they are a by-product of making myself available to the world. They are the experiences that make me want to keep traveling.

From Leftovers

I may have evaded the questions about my favorite place and experience, but I do have an answer for why I like long-term travel, not that anyone is asking. I think the process of travel is the process of learning to live. It is the possibility that all things can be better.

There is a homogeny across America that enables you to travel 2000 miles and still eat at all the same restaurants that you enjoy at home, while talking to all of your same friends and keeping all of your same habits. We naturally establish precedents in our decision-making process, and then rely on those precedents to get us through the day. It gets us in and out of the grocery store in a reasonable amount of time. Traveling wipes out these precedents. What to eat, where to sleep, what to do, who to meet, all these answers need to be re-invented. And unlike reinventing these precedents at home, which tends to happen gradually and with much effort, traveling does me the favor of riping the band-aid off in one quick motion.

So why is re-inventing everything such a good thing? Because I, like most people, fall easily into habits and gradually stop making active decisions about life. I would guess that most people live in close proximity to a restaurant they’ve never tried. Not because it looks like a bad place, but because they’ve gotten in the habit of not going there. Traveling exercises the muscle of decision-making. Opinions are awoken. The process of re-invention, of living something new, creates some breathing room to reconsider our closely held precedents.

From Leftovers

Traveling also strips me of obligation. I’m sure this sounds painfully obvious. No job, no responsibility, no problem! However, even if traveling is just a vacation from “real” life, which dictates that I work and be responsible, it’s also a vacation from stuff.

Yes, all of my stuff. It’s true, we Americans spend an enormous amount of time and effort in the acquiring, caring for, and the disposing of stuff. Taking care of our houses, cars, computers and clothes is a never-ending job. And it seems to be an inevitable fact of life. But it’s not. And while we may be one of the wealthiest, stuff-laden societies in all of human history, this struggle is not new.

In 1845, Henry David Thoreau moved to Waldon pond, outside of Concord, Massachusetts, to live as simply as he possibly could. He lived this way for two years.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Although he lived in the most rudimentary way, he was comfortable enough, and for the most part, did very little work.

Many a forenoon have I stolen away, preferring to spend thus the most valued part of the day; for I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days, and spent them lavishly; nor do I regret that I did not waste more of them in the workshop or the teacher's desk.

Concerning housework, he had this to say:

I would observe, by the way, that it costs me nothing for curtains, for I have no gazers to shut out but the sun and moon, and I am willing that they should look in. The moon will not sour milk nor taint meat of mine, nor will the sun injure my furniture or fade my carpet; and if he is sometimes too warm a friend, I find it still better economy to retreat behind some curtain which nature has provided, than to add a single item to the details of housekeeping. A lady once offered me a mat, but as I had no room to spare within the house, nor time to spare within or without to shake it, I declined it, preferring to wipe my feet on the sod before my door. It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.

Of course, this was in 1845, back when people lived in simpler times. But that’s also not true. I’ve recently read Bill Bryson’s At Home: A Short History of Private Life, where he details, amongst other things, the average life of an English servant during the same time period Thoreau was living in the woods, soaking up sunshine.

…the lot of the servant was to spend seventeen hours a day “drudging in and out of the kitchen, running upstairs with coals and breakfasts and cans of hot water, or down on your knees before a grate....”

Furniture, fire grates, drapes, mirrors, windows, marble, brass, glass, and silver—all had to be cleaned and polished regularly, usually with their own particular brand of homemade polish. To keep steel knives and forks gleaming, it wasn’t enough to wash and polish them; they had to be vigorously stropped against a piece of leather on which had been smeared a paste of emery powder, chalk, brick dust, crocus, or hartshorn liberally mixed with lard. Before being put away, knives were greased with mutton fat (to defeat rusting) and wrapped in brown paper, and so had to be unwrapped, washed, and dried before they could be used again.

In this context it is a little easier to see why Thoreau thought a simple mat was the beginning of evil. Hyperbole aside, the point that we are in conflict with our possessions is a valid one.

Possessions tend to get in the way between our professed values and how we actually spend our time. There’s nothing wrong with owning a basketball if you love to play basketball. But it is a stretch to claim that our most time consuming possessions assist us in proportion to achieving our life-goals. The owners of large houses have probably not aspired to be prolific house-cleaners, but that what many of them end up being. We are happily distracted.

Traveling eliminates this conflict. Sitting in a bare, cramped hostel, with only my backpack to look at, forces me to get out and experience something other than the solitary walls staring back. It’s true that traveling this way forces me to give up certain comforts, but I get something more valuable in exchange. I get a single, focused obligation: make the most of the present situation. It feels like time is finally on my side.

Living this way reminds me that the choice between an experience and a possession is not even worth debating, tempting as it is. I found that being away from my stuff made me want it less, not more. Putting a few things into a bag and closing the door behind me is a good reminder that everything else could burn to the ground and I’d still be OK.

The backpack teaches another important lesson: the cost of ownership. It can be tempting to buy up locally produced goods. However, the value of such an item is seldom worth the effort of carrying it around. If hypothetically, someone offered me the job of carrying around extra stuff in my backpack, it would have to be an impracticably high rate. Outside of the most basic, utilitarian items, the cost of ownership is almost always non-trivial. I suspect that some people avoid moving, or traveling altogether because of the stress associated with managing their stuff. As Thoreau said, it is the beginning of evil.

Even travelers with very expensive gear tend to enjoy themselves a lot less than those of us who don’t. They obligate themselves to their stuff. And while I do carry some expensive electronics, I don’t carry anything that I’m not willing lose. Nice things should make our lives better, not complicate them.

From Leftovers

I’ve been talking about being stripped of precedent and obligation as way to recalibrate all those personal decisions that add up to a day’s worth of activity. It is empowering to make so many active decisions. However, I’ve come to realize that even these decisions are not my own. I guess you could say that my worldview has shifted. It’s interesting to me that this should happen now, as I can’t attribute it to the novelty of being in a new culture as I’m only slightly more “well-traveled” now than I was a year ago. Prior to this trip, I had been to 20-some countries on 5 continents.

Nonetheless, the more I learn, the more I’m convinced and humbled by the fact that most decisions, by most people are determined by a force of convenience. I don’t mean to say that given two choices, between the quick way and the right way, people will always choose the quick way. I mean, that given two choices, a hundred other choices go unacknowledged. These are the culturally-inconvenient possibilities.

From Leftovers

In western culture, a billion people have settled on the question of what a toilet should look like. It’s the same design across all classes of people. But in Asia, a billion people have decided that the toilet should be something different, that squatting is superior to sitting. Is it because each half of the world has weighed the pros and cons of each design and come to a unanimous agreement on which is better? Of course not. It’s because when it’s time to install a toilet, the selection at Home Depot is relegated to a single paradigm of what a toilet should be. What is interesting is not that one group of people might prefer one over the other, but for the 300 million people in the U.S., squat toilets don’t even exist. For a culture that thrives on making passionate arguments over the trivialities in technology or sports, it’s astonishing that we all agree on something as personal as a toilet. My point of course is that we don’t consciously agree, we simply don’t think about it.

So what’s the big deal? Failing to recognize the role that inertia, or convenience, plays in our decision-making process puts artificial limits on improving our place in the world. While I was thinking about this, I ran across this blurb from At Home: A Short History of Private Life:

People had been living with domesticated animals for 4,000 years before it occurred to anyone to put the bigger of them to work pulling plows; Westerners used a clumsy, heavy, exceedingly inefficient straight-bladed plow for a further 2,000 years before someone introduced them to the simple curved plow the Chinese had been using since time immemorial.

Two thousand years is a long time to be using an inferior plow. It’s a mistake to think that we humans are over this hump of ignorance that ignores the achievements of other cultures.

From Leftovers

I’ve come home with my own set of random cultural grievances. I’m all of sudden frustrated with the design of single family homes, which have barely changed in the last 150 years. I can’t understand why roofs are not made into patio space.

I’m also frustrated with how our communities are laid out and how being car-friendly has been made at the expense of pedestrian-friendly. I live in a relatively urbanized area, and still, everything seems so. far. apart. It’s not good for our health, our environment, or our economy. It got me wondering about automobile ownership. I was not surprised to learn that we lead the world in car ownership, by a lot. Per capita, we own almost twice as many cars as the English.

Of course it is difficult to imagine getting along in the U.S. without a car, unless you live in one of the few areas that have adequate public transportation. It’s important to recognize that this is a necessity put on us by cultural inertia. The vast majority of American residences are artificially separated from consumer facilities, which in turn are separated by giant parking lots. As an arbitrary comparison, per capita, we own 27 times more cars than the Filipinos. It’s an apples and oranges, I know, but it’s a fallacy to believe that our system is 27 times more convenient, 27 times better for our well-being.

So I may park in the front row and save 3 minutes of time, or deliberately park in the back row and get an extra 3 minutes of exercise. Either way, my choices are dominated by the cultural inertia that requires me to drive in the first place. It ignores the fact that most people in the world live in a community where walking is simply more practical than it is in the U.S.

In researching Korea, I noticed that Koreans work almost twice as many hours as the Dutch (top of the chart vs the bottom). In economic terms, it is not fair to directly compare these two countries. A better comparison are the people of Singapore, who work just as much as Koreans, and are more wealthy than the Dutch. It is cultural inertia, not the need for wealth, that determines how many hours are appropriate to work. Heck, the !Kung bushmen in the Kalahari (known for their “clicking” language) have a 6 hour work day and only work 2.5 days per week.

I’m not arguing that we would all be better off loafing around the Kalahari. Long working hours suit some people and short working hours suit other people. What is curious to me is that culture should play such a dominant role, squeezing populations of people into wildly different, but equally narrow distribution curves.

I guess the bigger point I’m trying to make is that it is easy to forget that everything that we consider to be normal, is mostly arbitrary. Traveling is the best way for me to be reminded of that. It is both empowering and frustrating. We are creatures of habit. We fall into the roles expected of the environment.

Again, from Waldon:

I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct. It is true, I fear, that others may have fallen into it, and so helped to keep it open. The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity! I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now.

From Leftovers

Louis C.K., a self-deprecating stand-up comic, has an interesting bit about his own inherent evilness. Here’s the clip and partial transcript:

There are people who just starve to death, that's all they ever did. there are people who are born and they're like "Oh I’'m hungry" and then they just die....and that's all they ever got to do.

…....It's totally my fault cause I could trade my Infinity in for a really good car, a nice Ford Focus with no miles on it and I'd get back like $20,000 and I could save hundreds of people from dying from starvation with that money. And every day I don’t do it. Every day I make them die with my car.

What I like about this clip is the acknowledgment that we live to an arbitrary set of standards. If you can afford an Infinity, you should drive an Infinity. Even though there is an infinite number of ways to allocate the money needed to buy his car, it’s easier to allow the force of cultural convenience to make that decision.

If you’ve followed my train of thought, you’ll notice that I’ve claimed that traveling illuminates a world of possibility while also claiming that culture deterministically drives our decisions down a very narrow avenue. I would like to think that travel makes that road just a little bit wider.

From Leftovers

I remember a conversation I had with my driver in the mountains of western Mongolia. He was a high school teacher in his 40’s, working as a driver for the summer. He has spent his whole life in that isolated corner of the world and dreams of visiting the pyramids in Egypt. He confessed that even if he saved every penny of his income, he would never be able to afford such a trip.

Neil Peart, musician, writer, traveler, and personal hero of mine wrote this in his blog a few months back. He will be 60 next year and has toured regularly for over 30 years.

Just before setting off on a concert tour, I am often perplexed when friends at home ask, “Are you

excited to be going on tour?” Of course a deeply ingrained fantasy is at work there, and to answer in the negative seems jaded, cynical, wrong. However, to put their question another way—should I be excited to be leaving my wife, my ten-month-old daughter, my home,my kitchen, my desk, my books, my pleasures and treasures, my toys and joys?

Another client that Michael works with, Elliot Mintz, is a veteran public relations man, going back

to the time of the Beatles, and these days he represents the surviving members of John Lennon’s family, Bob Dylan, and other celebrities. A diminutive, nattily-dressed man, he attended one of our shows at the Hollywood Bowl a few years back, and I spoke with him after. I was telling him that I didn’t really like touring, but somehow felt it was something I had to do—if you call yourself a musician, it is kind of your duty to play live.

He nodded, looked up at me with a serious expression, and said, “You have to do it—because you can.”

That simple phrase stayed with me for a long time after, as I wrestled with its implications. Recently I shared Elliot’s insight with Geddy, at dinner in the dressing room before a show, and he nodded and said that statement expressed the reality about as well as he’d ever heard.

I really love traveling, so it doesn’t say much that I would make some small sacrifices to do it. But I still feel a sense of obligation to travel - because I can. There are people in the world who will save for a lifetime, and never make it to the pyramids. I don’t want to be someone who drives an Infinity without giving it a second thought.

Since I’ve quoted from Waldon so much already, it would be a shame not to include this:

I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.

In many ways, traveling is one of the best things I can do for myself. I always learn valuable lessons, make wonderful memories and meet wonderful people. And while traveling can sometimes be difficult, stressful, tiring, lonely, it is also living the life of a lazy, narcissistic brat. It is a luxury. I get that.

From Blog holder

Easy Sell

2010-10-06T23:00:00.000-07:00

I was on the train to Fez, Morocco's iconic, time-machine of a city. I had been in transit for over 2 full days, including a 20 hour layover in Doha, Qatar. The train was overcrowded and could have used more ventilation. I was relegated to sitting in the aisle, but was relaxed and feeling happy to be on a train heading to a new city in a new country.

From Morocco

I couldn't help but feel a little worn down. Besides missing 2 nights of solid sleep, I was hungry. I arrived on the tail end of Ramadan, the holy Islamic month of fasting. During Ramadan, Muslims refrain from allowing anything to pass between their lips during sunlight hours. While non-Muslims aren't necessarily required to fast, it's inconsiderate to eat or drink anything in public. My options were limited, so I picked up a package of fig newtons and stuffed my face in the privacy of the bathroom stall.

I hadn't bothered to book a hotel, but was scheduled to arrive at 4:30 in the afternoon, leaving me plenty of time to wander around. I would be arriving the day before the break of Ramadan, a period of feasting and celebration, which in terms of significance, could be compared to Christmas in the U.S. I wasn't sure how this would affect the availability of rooms. I was also unsure just how difficult it would be navigating the old city. Fez is divided into two sections, the modern half, and the old medina, a walled city whose footprint has remained largely unchanged for the past 700 years. The medina is a maze of 9000 streets and alleyways in an area of just 1.5 sq miles, and my guidebook guarantees that every visitor will get lost at some point.

From Morocco

A half hour before arriving in Fez, Amin, a well dressed and well spoken Moroccan, joined my compartment and chatted me up. Amin was a few years younger than me, living in Toronto, and visiting his family in Fez. He asked me where I was staying.

This is situation is familiar to me and it's one where I hate to mistake friendliness for poaching or poaching for friendliness. I had just read this blurb from my guidebook:

The touts who used to hang about Fez train station to pick up customers have now taken to boarding trains to Fez, often at Sidi Kacem junction. Be particularly aware of overly friendly young men approaching you claiming to be students or teachers returning to Fez - they'll often have "brothers" who have hotels, carpet shops or similar.

This type of ploy is not new to me, but I had no reason not to play along, or at least hear him out. His narrative was convincing. He first told me the name of a nice little place in the old medina where his girlfriend, from NYC, had stayed with her friends. And then as an afterthought, checked his phone to see if he had the phone number. Lucky for me, he did. And then, lucky for me again, he offered to call them to see if they had an available room. Lucky for me, they did. He quickly quoted me a room for $24, which was at the high end of the budget spectrum, but not outrageous. Before I knew it, he had arranged for someone to meet me at the train station. He also gave me his number and suggested that we meet up later in the evening. He promised to call the guesthouse.

There was a girl waiting for me at the train station, we took a taxi to the walled city and she led me down a narrow walkway into the medina. I was already disoriented. The room was nice, a little overpriced, but nice. Unsure about where I was and unsure about the practices of Ramadan (the fast is broken after sundown), I asked about finding a restaurant nearby. She recommend against eating at any nearby restaurants because I might get sick from the food, but conveniently, her mother would be happy to cook a meal for me. For a $12 dinner, the food was good, if a bit overpriced. But I had a full stomach and a bed to sleep in. I was happy.

The next morning I was having some bread for breakfast at the guesthouse. I got a phone call from Amin who informed me that I would be having lunch with him and his uncle and that they would be picking me up shortly, just outside the medina. I still hadn't made up my mind about Amin. On the one hand, I was pretty sure that his casual hotel recommendation was disingenuous. On the other hand, the rest of his story seemed entirely plausible and it's possible he was just helping out a friend or family member by sending them a little extra business. During our meeting on the train, I kept asking innocent questions about his time in NYC and about his travel plans. His responses were peppered with extraneous details that would have been incredibly difficult to fabricate. So off to lunch I went. Besides, "travel rule" #1 is never say "no" to an opportunity.

Amin and his uncle Hassan, a respectable looking man in his mid-30's, picked me up in an older, but well kept Mercedes. We stopped at a cafe to have some coffee and bread. Amin excused himself to go to the ATM. I made small talk with Hassan, who was living in Switzerland, working as an architect for UNESCO World Heritage. He was under the impression that Amin and I knew each other from Amin's time in NYC. He seemed surprised that we had just met on the train.

After coffee, Amin said he needed to make a run out to the family farm, and that I should go with his uncle. The two of us drove to another cafe so Hassan could say hello to a friend. We met two older, distinguished looking men. Hassan informed me that we were talking with the governor of Fez, a good friend of Hassan's father. While they talked in Arabic, I sat quietly and tried to keep a polite look on my face. Hassan informed me that we would be having lunch with the governor as I followed them around the corner into an apartment building.

The apartment was spacious and upscale by any standard. Hassan and the governor excused themselves for prayer and I was left to watch CNN headline news for the next hour.

Hassan and the governor returned from the mosque and we had a feast of a lunch, prepared by the house help. It was an enormous spread of roasted chicken, couscous, vegetables, and yogurt. We talked about travel, something Hassan seemed to know something about. We talked about the hospitality of the Moroccan people and how I was now family, after having shared a meal with him.

After lunch, Hassan took me to his apartment, which was in a new development of the city. He said that he likes to keep the apartment for when he visits and that he owned many properties. He also told me about Amin's entrepreneurial ventures of buying Moroccan crafts and selling them in the U.S. and Canada at art auctions. His apartment was filled with old lamps, tile fountains, and ornate wood furniture.

From Morocco

We killed a few hours smoking grape-apple shisha (hookah) in the midday heat, talking politics and more travel. Eventually the conversation veered toward the Ground-Zero Mosque controversy. He asked me if I believed in Osama Bin Laden.
"You mean, do I believe he was responsible for 9/11?" I asked for clarification.
"Yes."
"Yes, I think he was behind the attacks. You don't?"
"He wasn't. And I have proof!" Hassan said, getting more excited. "Tell me, do you know how many Jews worked in the World Trade Center?"
"No, but I assume there were a lot."
"Five thousand Jews worked in the World Trade Center."
"Ok, that sounds plausible." I skeptically replied.
"So tell me, how is that not a single Jew showed up for work that day?" he exclaimed triumphantly.
"Um......I don't know. That's a difficult fact for me to refute right now....." Especially because you're craaazy, I was thinking to myself. "So who was responsible for the attack if it wasn't Osama Bin Laden?" I was curious to find out.
"I don't know. The Jews, the media, the government, who knows?"
"But why then is there video tape of Osama claiming responsibility for it?" I innocently asked.
"How do you know that the person you saw in the tape was really Osama Bin Laden?"
Checkmate.
"Yep, I guess you are right. I don't know that it was actually Osama Bin Laden because I've never actually met Osama Bin Laden. You sir, have proven your case."

It was about this time that Amin showed back up. I asked him a few questions about his business of importing Moroccan goods to the U.S. He said that he made $30,000 at his last auction and that by getting a certificate indicating that all the goods were art pieces, he could avoid paying import duty on them. I asked more question and remained skeptical, he seemed to have everything figured out. Then he offered to get me in on the action. There was no reason why I couldn't turn the same sort of profit in DC. Not wanting to go down this road, I simply said that I had no extra money for this kind of venture. Then he said that he would be maxing out the amount of duty-free goods he could bring back, and that if I wanted to just transport some hand-stitched tapestries, I could take a 10% on the auction price. I told him I might be interested, but under no circumstance was I going to put up any money for this. I was sure that he was going to start backtracking his offer, but he did not. We left the matter unsettled.

Fez is renowned for it's high quality leather goods and for a production process which has remained unchanged since medieval times. The Fez tanneries are made of primitive limestone vats where pigeon shit and cow urine are still used as a key compounds in leather production. Amin wanted to buy a new leather jacket, because the one he got in NYC for $1200 was sub-standard quality. Amin had already sweet-talked Hassan into buying the jacket as a gift for him and suggested that Hassan get one for himself. Amin needed to do some shopping for his import business and so Hassan suggested we go to the leather shop. And, as long as we were going, I could also take a look to and maybe get a discount for a purchase of three jackets instead of two.

From Morocco

So off to the tanneries we went. When we walked in I was immediately handed off to an older gentlemen who gave me a quick tour of the place and then started on his aggressive sales pitch. The month I spent in India was good training for these situations as I politely held my ground and refused to show any preference for any of the products being showcased in front of me. Out of morbid curiosity, I asked for the price of a black leather jacket. The negotiation started at $750. I laughed. I told him I would give him $50 for it. Meanwhile I kept Hassan in the corner of my eye, who didn't seem to be doing any shopping at all, just talking to another store clerk.

After talking in circles for 20 minutes, it finally became clear to the salesman that I wasn't going to put up $700 for a jacket. So then he started in a sales pitch for leather handbags, perhaps for my mother, who surely deserved it. Hassan, who was supposed to be my bargaining ally, also pressed me to get something and seemed frustrated that I wasn't interested in buying a high-quality leather jacket. When we walked out of the store, there was definitely a chill in the air, like we just gotten into a fight. He asked again why I didn't want a jacket. I told him that I didn't have extra money, and that besides, picking up the jackets was his idea, not mine. "By the way," I asked, "Where are the two jackets we came here to get?" I was feeling a little angry and betrayed, despite all the warning signs. He quickly countered that they didn't have the sizes he needed, which was such an obvious lie. He re-composed himself and said happily that he only paid $500 for each jacket. "Good for you." I said with a little bit of snarl. He coldly pointed me in the direction of my hotel and muttered something about maybe seeing him the next day.

The next morning I changed guesthouses, effectively cutting off any means of Amin getting in contact with me. Even as I think about this experience now, I can't quite make sense of it. Throughout the day I had my guard up, but the more time I spent with them, Hassan especially, the most preposterous it seemed that he should dedicate so much time and effort to make a commission on something like a leather jacket. He showed me pictures of the house he was restoring in the old medina on a $2000 MacBook. Mixed in with those pictures were pictures of his home in Switzerland (so he said). There was absolutely nothing about him that indicated that he made his money by scamming tourists like me, or that it would even be worth his time. There are far too many details to mention, but after spending 6 hours to him about his life and never being evasive about answers, it's difficult to square the reality with the narrative.

The next day I walked into a random leather shop, picked up a similar looking jacket off the rack and asked how much it was. Negotiation started at $100, a far cry from $750. Out of curiosity, I also checked out the import laws on art goods to verify the claims Amin was making about importing. It turns out that fine-art over 100 years old is exempt from duty, but all other handcrafts are taxed like any other good. I'm still unsure of the angle Amin was going for when we supposedly agreed that he would entrust me to transport goods worth thousands of dollars.

All in all, the day didn't cost me a single cent and I had quite a nice lunch followed by a shisha session and interesting conversation.

From Morocco

I ran this episode by my brother, who has been to Morocco twice and has had the advantage of a home-stay while taking Arabic lessons. None of it surprised him. It's nothing for a middle-class Moroccan to work in Europe for a season and then come back, putting his European credibility to work while taking advantage of rich tourists. The Mercedes that Hassan drove may not have been his car and nice clothes are cheap to come by. I can never relate all the details of the day that made the days events seem incongruous. For me, trying to put all these facts together is kind of like Hassan trying to account for the 5,000 Jews who didn't show up for work on 9/11. Who can say what makes sense?

This episode, which happened within the first 36 hours of my arrival seemed to set the tone for the rest of my visit. Just watching Moroccans interacting with each other gave me the sense that they are a warm people, but everyone I interacted with was just trying to sell me something. The Moroccans that I would have been interested to talk with were probably the ones who respectfully left me alone.

From Morocco

There were two separate instances where boys, maybe 10 years old, started throwing rocks at me because I refused to give them money. With so many European tourists coming to Morocco to have an exotic Middle-Eastern experience, it's not a surprise to me that the balance is not holding. For me, it's hard to feel really good about visiting a place where touristic dollars have created a clear class division and along with it, a sense of contempt. The progress of the world seems to have skipped over Fez the way a single house has been skipped over by Santa Clause in a neighborhood full of good kids. Donkeys still do all the heavy lifting, as the streets are too narrow for any motor vehicles.

From Morocco

Marrakech is an assault on the senses. Snake charmers are playing their double-reed flutes (they sound like oboes, but with more of a buzz), all sorts of kabobs are being grilled in the main square, the buildings are pink and lit with ornate lanterns. It's all a really wonderful thing to experience.

From Morocco

Tough Crowd

2010-09-22T14:18:00.000-07:00

I had just arrived in Seoul and the girl working at my guesthouse was telling me about her recent 17-month journey across Asia and Africa. I asked her why I had met four Korean girls on my trip, all of them traveling alone, but hadn't met a single Korean guy. She said there is a joke to answer this question: Korean women love all sorts of things. They love art. They love travel. They love books. They love music. Korean men on the other hand? They love to drink.

I hadn't really planned on going to Korea, but it's a short flight from Mongolia, and besides, I now had friends there that I didn't have before starting this trip. I met Su Wol in Chile and then MinYoung and GaYoung in Bolivia. Su Wol and GaYoung are back in Seoul, while MinYoung is still traveling South America. MinYoung was kind enough to electronically introduce me to her best friend Sun.

From Korea

For me, Korea was a strange place. It's one of the most homogenous cultures in the modern world resulting from a historically unbroken national identity, geographic isolation, and the continuous threat of foreign invasion. Like every Asian country, there is a dichotomy of embracing western culture and holding on to traditional values, but Korea seems especially polemic. Koreans are inhaling western culture but remain leery of westerners. Good Ol' American Baseball caps and gangsta rap are all the rage with the college kids, yet a club bouncer, younger than me, screamed at me when I tried enter because it was for "Koreans only".

From Korea

In a city of 10 million people, there is a quiet efficiency to everything and a conspicuous absence of society's disenfranchised. But smiles and random interactions with people are hard to come by. The success of Korea's hard-working, older generation has paid off for a now successful younger generation who hardly has time to enjoy it, as they've also inherited the obligation of 60 hour work weeks. I spent three and half weeks wandering the streets, trying to make friends and trying to pin down the Korean psyche.

Finding random people to talk to on my travels has never been a big problem for me. But for some reason my time in Seoul started to make me feel uneasy. I kept looking for people who might be interested to talk with me, but kept coming up empty. It was the eye contact. I kept looking for eye contact and no one, and I mean no one, would give it to me. So what's the deal? It turns out there are a lot of web postings on this topic. From AskAKorean.blogspot.com:

When is it ok to Make Eye Contact?
Dear Korean,

In the U.S. I'm used to looking everyone I meet or speak to in the eyes
to show respect and that I'm listening. I was told that this is not
proper in Korea when in certain settings. What settings would this be?
Is it ever okay to look someone in the eyes for a prolonged amount of
time? Can you ever look superiors in the eyes or is it only family and
people younger than you? Can you not look the elderly in the eyes, even
if they are your family?

Confused, but willing to learn

Dear Confused,

Never, never, NEVER look into the eyes of someone who is in a superior
position than you are. This includes everyone who is older than you, even by one year,
family or not. This also includes people who are higher than you in a
workplace or social hierarchy, regardless of age. (For example, your
boss, a judge, etc.) In practical terms, this means that you are pretty
safe with not looking into anyone's eyes when you are in Korea.

It is ok to look into the eyes of someone who is your peer (and feel
close enough,) or someone who is younger or in an inferior position than
you are. But be mindful of how "peer" or "inferior position" are
defined. For example, a person who is younger than you but in a higher
grade in your school is not your peer -- she is your superior. A person
who is older than you but began working for your company in the same
year can be your peer.

Be also mindful about the message that you are sending when you do look
into people's eyes. For Americans in Korea, it is very easy to cross the
line between seeing and glaring when you look into someone's eyes. And
glaring in Korea means about the same thing as glaring in America --
anger, disappointment, rude curiosity, intense romantic interest, etc.,
depending on the situation. If you are unsure where the line is, just
don't look into anyone's eyes.

So basically, I spent a good deal of my time in Korea being rude to people. But at least I'm not alone here. One comment to this post:

The Chinese guy said... Interesting, no wonder everybody thought I was a psycho in Seoul.

As I adjusted to this new social norm, I still felt that Koreans were a tough crowd. It wasn't my imagination. Socially, it's considered a little strange to strike up a conversation with a person you don't know. This makes things a little difficult for someone like me, who is traveling alone and trying to make friends. Even the bars in Korea are not really conducive for meeting people. It's rare to find a bar that actually has bar stools, where you can sit next to, and maybe talk to strangers. The most popular places are table service only, which means if you show up by yourself, you get seated in the corner with no chance to talk to anyone. The usual advantage of a crowded bar is that there are people standing around, making it easy to talk to whoever you end up standing next to. These situations are virtually non-existent in Korea.

I had a handful of successful attempts at chatting up people which resulted in a nice conversation or dinner companion, but I also experienced far too many failed and awkward attempts to even mention. When I say Koreans are a tough crowd, I think it is best illustrated by this particular situation I encountered one weekday evening. I walked into a bar around 6:30pm, hoping there might be an after-work crowd. Despite being in a busy downtown district, the place was empty except for a single girl sitting at the bar. I took a seat a few stools down from her and ordered a beer. I glanced over and her body language was indifferent to my presence, but it was just the two of us so I figured I should try to make friends. She was finishing up a Scotch on the rocks and ordering another. Wondering if maybe she was drowning her sorrows, I asked her if she was having a bad day. She quickly replied that she was actually having a really good day. Then she turned her back to me. A little discouraged, but not defeated, I let ten more minutes go by and tried another conversation starter, but got the same indifferent response followed by more "leave me alone" body language. Ten more minutes passed and we were still the only people in the place. It still seemed silly to me that we should be sitting in silence, so I made one more effort and asked her about the Scotch she was drinking, and suggested that we share one together. All of sudden it was like we were old friends. She was giving me all kinds of advice on where to go and what to do during my stay in Seoul. We ended up talking for an hour.

So what did I learn? It turned out that she was friends with the bartender, hence drinking for free and killing time before meeting up with some friends later in the night. She made reference to the fact that she is a really friendly, outgoing person, interested in other cultures and wishing to go to Germany for grad school. What kills me about this experience is that I agree with her, she was a friendly person, but getting the conversation started felt like pulling teeth.

From Korea

Needing some insight, I turned to GaYoung, Sun and Garam for insight. GaYoung had just finished traveling South America by herself, Sun has lived in Canada and Denmark, and Garam, whom I met through couchsurfing has lived in Canada and traveled in the U.S. and U.K. This meant that I didn't have to spend too much time explaining my western mindset. I ran the story of the single-scotch-drinking-girl by each of them and they all had the same reaction: "Yep, that seems about right. It's kind of weird to just start talking to someone you don't know."
So I asked them all a follow up question, "Let's say you're out and about and you see a cute guy. How do you let him know that you want him to talk to you?"
Eye contact and a smile, surefire western cues, are pretty much out of the question. Sun actually said that if she looked at a guy and smiled, he would probably think that he had something on his face.
"Ok.....so, what do you do?" I asked. Again, I got the same answer across the board: Nothing. You do nothing.
At this point I'm not surprised, but there must be something I'm missing. I'm convinced that there is a secret signal, the way a baseball coach lets a runner know he should steal second base.
"Ok, let's say that you do nothing and that actually works. You've done nothing and for some reason the cute guy feels compelled to talk to you anyway. Do you act really interested, or do you play a little hard to get?"
"Play hard to get."
"How does anyone meet anyone???" I asked incredulously.
"Blind dates."
"Blind dates?" I guess most people just wait for a friend, co-worker, or family member to set you up with someone. I asked if they like this system.
"Not really."

From Korea

I was out one night with GaYoung and Stephane, a French guy, whom I met at a guesthouse. We stopped at a late-night food stand popular with the after-bar crowd so Stephane could get something to eat. I wasn't hungry and so sat down, occupying two small tables while they ordered food at the counter. At this point, two other girls were about to sit down at one of tables I was holding when they realized I had two friends coming back with food. As they excused themselves, I asked them to please join us. They said no, they could find another table. I had learned that an opportunity to make a new acquaintance was not to be squandered, so I begged them to please sit, and then eventually did. When GaYoung came back and saw our table taken over, she frantically said, "What's going on???" It was not the welcome I wanted our new friends to have. Having insisted that they eat with us, I tried to make some conversation about where they had been for night and what their plans were. GaYoung, still uncomfortable with the situation, scolded me for being rude. Afterwards GaYoung apologized to me but said that it just wasn't normal to invite people to your table and insist on talking to them. Tough crowd.

Garam, who studied in Canada and spent a month hanging out by herself in NYC was telling me about making friends while waiting in line in a NYC bagel shop. I asked for some advice on chatting up Koreans. She more or less told me I was out of luck. Then she said something which seems perfectly phrased: Koreans are very kind people, but not necessarily very friendly people.

Korean guys seemed less interested in talking to me than Korean girls and I was put off early into my visit when two guys, both older than me, had just come from the office, saw me sitting by myself, and offered me a shot of tequila. We talked a while and they ordered more tequila and then more tequila. Then they excused themselves, said something about Korean tradition and whether I would mind getting the bill, and then they were both gone. I couldn't believe they were trying to stick me with their tab. There was no chance I was going to pay their outrageous bar bill and the last thing I wanted to do was get into an argument with the bartender over who was responsible for this. I had no choice but to settle up my own tab and then leave immediately. I wandered down the street into an unremarkable basement bar where I was immediately pestered to order a drink. I was still letting the tequila settle, so I asked for a few minutes. The waiter was being really pushy with me, so I told him was just going to leave, at which point he grabbed my arm and gave me a bill for a beer that I didn't have. The night got worse after that. There were a few upscale nightclubs in the area with recruiters working the streets. I followed a few of them and then got into arguments when I wasn't willing to plop down a pile of money for the privilege of walking in.

The next day I was feeling a little bitter over the previous night. I found a park bench and was reading the latest news on my laptop. It started raining and the old man next to me shared his umbrella, gave me a tissue to wipe off my screen, and restored my faith in humanity.

I found that making plans with people was difficult because of their work schedule. Su Wol, the girl I met in Chile, was working 10 - 12 hours/day, 6 days a week. The more people I met and the more questions I asked revealed that long working hours, 10 - 14 hrs/day, was the norm. Out of curiousity, I checked Wikipedia to see if my observation could be backed up by some statistics. This is what I found:

By far, workers in South Korea have the longest work hours among OECD countries. The average South Korean works 2,390 hours each year, according to the OECD. This is over 400 hours longer than the next longest-working country and 34% more hours than the average in the United States. A typical workweek in South Korea is 44 hours or longer. Most people start their day at 8am and end at around 10pm or later, often having dinner before returning from work. Until legislation in 2004 virtually abolished the six-day workweek in large corporations known as chaebol, South Korea was the only country in the OECD that worked Saturdays. Despite the legal framework many office staff are regularly required to work on weekends or stay at their desks idle, waiting for their superiors to leave.

That last sentence eludes to the strict adherence to hierarchy in Korean culture. Sun gave me a few unexpected examples of how hierarchy plays itself out. She had to train herself to eat lunch very quickly because her boss was also a fast eater. His hectic schedule had him rushing off to meetings, allowing very little time for lunch. Whether Sun also had a hectic schedule was irrelevant; Eating with her boss meant starting and finishing with him, even if it was cut short. She also said that Korean students never ask questions in class, because it is considered rude to be interrupting (or contradicting) the teacher. She was always a little amazed with the ease that foreign exchange students asked questions and spoke their mind.

GaYoung, Stephan and I were having a little cultural exchange, asking what we liked and disliked about our own cultures. GaYoung was proud of the fact that Koreans are such hard workers. When asked what she disliked about Korean culture, she said that she wished Koreans had more fun. After spending the summer in South America and staying with friends in Brazil, it was easy for her to contrast the two cultures. To me, her statements were a little ironic. The hard work which she is most proud of, in my mind, is to blame for the cultural aspect she dislikes the most, not having much fun. But to keep things in perspective it's important to understand that for the first half of the 20th century, Korea was dominated by the Japanese and then suffered division after World War II, leaving most of the country starving. Now one of the most modern countries in the world, they have an economy to be proud of.

Another sentiment that I heard from Sun, GaYoung and Garam, who, unsurprisingly, are all couchsurfers, was that they wished Koreans were more keen on inviting people into their home. GaYoung loved how Brazilians would invite her to their home within hours of meeting. Sun wants to find a boyfriend who will let her have an additional room to host all of her international friends. Her friends tell her that no Korean guy will put up with that.

I feel like I spent all my time in Korea with a puzzled look on my face. For being such a huge city, everyone looks like they shop at The Gap and has the same quiet look of content on their face. Or maybe it's discontent, I can't say for sure. When I go to place like Mongolia,where people are living in tents and eating a steady diet of yak cheese, I'm looking in from the outside without the pretense of being able to understand their life. Life in Seoul however felt like it should be much more accessible, but it wasn't.

Now I feel like I've painted too gloomy of a picture, because there are many things I really enjoyed and admired. I don't feel qualified to talk about the Korean sense of aesthetic, but there are so many beautiful things in Korea. Beautiful buildings, art, decorations, restaurants, handicrafts, all wonderful marriages of form and function. Korean food is also completely unique and so delicious. And of course I think grilling your food at your dinner table is such a perfect idea. Petty theft, vandalism, and random street crimes are basically non-existent. It's a wonderful feeling to not have to clutch your belongings everywhere you go. The public can be trusted with nice things, like interactive touch-screen maps at the subway stations, those wouldn't last one day in New York City.

From Korea

I feel good about my time in Korea, and the friends I made are very special people. But I find myself wishing my western values on their culture. I wish Koreans didn't work as much, had more fun, and were more outgoing with each other. For a country that seems to have everything under control, they have the second highest suicide rate in the world (according to Wikipedia, just trailing alcoholic Belarus), which is nearly three times the U.S. rate. I keep thinking about something that Garam told me while explaining her struggle to balance work and her desire to travel. Being called "unique" in Korea is not considered a compliment, but that's what I liked about her, she was unique.

Blue Skies and Mutton

2010-08-20T00:44:00.000-07:00

About four years ago I watched a DVD series which followed the actors Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman on a motorcycle journey from London to New York. The footage from the Mongolian leg of the trip is what first put into my mind that I wanted to come here. It's a country of vast open spaces, nomadic culture, and a strong historical legacy. With a population under 3 million people and a land mass twice the size of Texas, Mongolia is the most sparsely populated country in the world. About 40% of Mongolia's population lives in the capital city, Ulaanbaatar, and 30% of the population live as nomads, raising livestock and living in gers, traditional tent houses.

From Mongolia pt 1

From Mongolia pt 2

Sandwiched between two superpowers, Russia and China, Mongolia has been shaped by a desire to preserve the Mongol empire, which was founded by Genghis Khan in 1206, and by the power disputes between Russia and China. Before coming here, I wrongly assumed that Mongolia would be similar to China. The people look more Chinese than Russian, but culturally, the Russians have had much more influence on the country. China's millennium-long history of wanting Mongolia's land has led to some very anti-Chinese sentiments, despite the fact that 70% of Mongolia's exported goods are bought by China. In the 1920's, Russia offered Mongolia a shot at real independence, but that was followed by more aggression. In 1937 Russian leadership executed 27,000 citizens (17,000 Buddhist monks) in an attempt to eradicate religious power.

Coming into Ulaanbaatar (UB), the block concrete buildings are reminiscent of any Communist city from the Soviet era, partially because the Mongolian language also uses the Russian Cyrillic alphabet. Store fronts are comparatively nondescript and the biggest shopping center, the State Department Store, looks like a 7-story office building. Commercial branding and advertising is completely understated by western standards. Once I adjusted, I found it to be a pleasant city. The streets and sidewalks are clean (especially for someone coming from Manila!), car horns are not used excessively and there are plenty of good restaurants and bars to patronize.

Ulaanbaatar is the central hub for any kind of tourism in Mongolia. Traveling outside the city into the country-side requires extensive planning and pure solo travel is mostly a bad idea. Roads deteriorate very quickly into meandering tracks of dirt, and road signs are non-existent. Without a knowledgeable driver, the chances of a breakdown or getting lost is high. Because the roads are so bad, bus service is limited. Informally organized shared vans is how most people get from point A to point B. Locating accommodation can also be difficult. In smaller towns there are no externally marked hotels or guest-houses. But there may be accommodation, which is likely to be a single room with 6 mats on the floor and an outdoor pit toilet. Without a translator, it would be difficult to locate these places. Traveling with tents is the norm, so that it's possible to just set up camp wherever you happen to be when the sun sets.

From Mongolia pt 1

Mongolians have a long history of nomadic lifestyles and hospitality. The ger tent is the accommodation of choice for the entire country. Families can easily break down the tents and transport them with horses when it's time to move on to greener pastures. Some families will live in ger tents during the summer season, when there is plenty of grass for the livestock, and then live in a city or town through winter. Since traveling overland can be difficult, there is an understanding that if you stop at a ger, you will be offered whatever they have, which usually includes milk/cheese/yogurt from horses/cows/yaks/camels, depending on where you are and what's available. Fermented mare's milk is a Mongolian favorite, I personally found it to be undrinkable.

From Mongolia pt 1

Most of guesthouses in UB also double as tour operators, providing vehicle, driver, guide, food and camping equipment. Travelers are expected to self-organize and then a trip can be planned to suit everyone's needs. Most tours last between 1 and 2 weeks, but 5 or 6 weeks is also possible. Nearly all of the travelers I've met are passing through Mongolia on the Trans-Siberian railway, which cuts down from Lake Baikal in Russia into Beijing. More than one person has given me a quizzical look when I've told them I've flown here from the Philippines.

The first traveler I met at my hostel was David, an American. He is a semi-professional photographer (www.fotosbydavid.com - worth looking at) and it doesn't take very long to get the impression that he has been everywhere. Now 49, he has been traveling the world and working odd jobs for the past 20 years, leaving behind a career in finance and letting the worth of his MBA slowly deteriorate. I mentioned that one of the reasons I wanted to come to Mongolia was because no one comes here. With a streak of cynicism, he role-played the scenario of me being at party, talking up my adventures: "Yeah, back when I was riding a camel in the Gobi........"
And then someone interjecting, "Oh, you got stuck on that tour too?"

The next few travelers I met: Franco, Harry and Joe, were also characters in their own right, and not the typical 20-something backpacker from Europe. I spent eight days locked up in van with these guys on a tour to Khovsgol Lake, Mongolia's second largest lake located on the Russian border and southern edge of Siberia. Franco, Italian born and 49 years old has been living in Japan for the past 10 years where he teaches English, Japanese, Italian, Spanish and also speaks some Russian. He doesn't know how many countries he as been to, he lost count after 100. We called him Marco Polo. Harry, a 47 year old Kiwi had just finished installing power lines in Iraq and was taking his savings to travel the world and find a place to set up a little hostel, probably somewhere in Southeast Asia. Joe, 38 from Boston, has been on the road for almost a year and has traveled to at least 120 countries at this point in his life. There was a point where Franco said, "So I was thinking about going to Sulawesi next year, what can you tell me about it?" And of course Joe had an answer.

I had been a little apprehentious about spending 8 long days in a van with 5 other guys who I had just met, but time passed quickly and with a lot of laughter as we swapped travel stories. Franco is the only European I know of who has crossed the U.S./Mexican border by floating across the Rio Grande on an inner-tube. He started the story and I had to interrupt. "Wait wait wait, you're an Italian citizen right?"
"Yep."
"So.......why wouldn't you just enter the U.S. legally?"

Back in the 80's it was difficult for an Italian without a permanent address to get a visa. Franco was traveling South/Central America and was getting low on cash. He had a friend in NYC who could get him a job as a waiter at an Italian restaurant, where he could make good money and then continue his travels. The only problem was getting to NYC. So he paid a Mexican guy to float him across the river, had a tense interaction with a police officer when he wandered into town, but eventually got to the airport.

The trip to the lake was not an easy ride. I spent a lot of energy just hanging on, trying not to get tossed across our Russian minivan. The landscape is beautiful though, just miles and miles of hills and grass. The first night was stayed near a monastery that was devastated by the Russians back in the 30's. A small community of monks live there now and I was happy when at dusk they broke out a soccer ball and motioned for me to join them. Once we got to the lake we had 2 days of horse riding and relaxing.

From Mongolia pt 1

Another reason for coming to Mongolia is that I would be here for the big national festival, Nadaam, where sporting competitions happen all over the country. The three events are wrestling, horse racing, and archery. The biggest events are naturally in UB, but the country-side festivals offer a more intimate look and were more enjoyable to be at. As part of our tour, we stopped at a few small towns and got to see a mix of the festivities.

From Mongolia pt 1

We stayed the night in one small town which could have been plucked from an old John Wayne western, complete with log cabins and everyone on horseback. I was wandering around at dusk, taking pictures, when I stumbled upon a small community center with what sounded like church music coming from the inside. It turned out to be a talent show for the Nadaam celebration. I was looking a little lost, not sure what to do, when a girl my age saw me and led me in to find a seat. She was from a bigger city a few hours away and was visiting family. She spoke some English and invited me to the dance that was to follow.

The dance held in building that resembled a junior-high gymnasium, with pale blue walls and lit with harsh florescent lights. A guy with an accordion-sounding synthesizer pounded out traditional melodies. The whole town was in attendance, from 13 year old girls to the crazy old drunk guy who made his rounds pestering everyone. Between each song, everyone cleared the dance floor and sat on a row of chairs which lined the walls. The men were then obligated to ask the women for a dance. Every 3 minutes, for an hour and a half, everyone sat down and then got back up, and then sat down and then got back up. I was getting a little tired of this, and a little tired of counting the steps in each the dance when my new friend told me that the "free dance" was coming soon. Once the free dance started, the everyone organized into a giant circle. Eventually the circle got too big and it broke down into two smaller circles, everyone dancing in place and just looking at each other. The weirdness of it all was compounded by the contrast between the women, who made quite an effort to get dressed up, and many of the men who looked like they just got down shoveling manure.

From Mongolia pt 1

Franco, Harry, Joe and I had all arrived in Mongolia at roughly the same time, and so we were experiencing the same first impressions of the people and personality of the country. After 2 days, Harry was ready to leave Mongolia, saying that he had never met such an unfriendly population of people in his entire life. Even Franco, whose stories exuded a certain optimism, was having trouble coming up with something positive to say. After being here for 6 weeks, I feel like I can say that Mongolians are friendly, but they're friendly in their own stone-face sort of way. Mongolians, especially in the country-side, aren't big on greetings and smiles. For Harry, who has been living in rural Queensland, Australia, it's unthinkable to pass a car on a lone stretch of highway and not give a wave. In Mongolia, the opposite seems to be true.

On our second day of driving we stopped for lunch in the rain. Rather than cook outside, we drove to the nearest ger and invited ourselves in. Lucky for us, the woman living there had been to school in Russia and could speak some English. She was really great. A little while later, a few Mongolian men came in and didn't seem to want to acknowledge our existence. I offered them cigarettes, which they seemed to like. This scene re-played itself in a number of different ways over the next week. In retrospect, I think the men were a little shy, and there just isn't a culture of making a big deal about visitors. It first felt like they were being rude, but of course that wasn't the case. A few days later, we were staying in a town for the Nadaam festival. Harry, venturing off on his own, opened the gate of the guest-house just as a guy was passing by on his motorcycle. The festival was a 20 minute walk away. The guy on the motorcycle just stopped and nodded for Harry to get on the back, and then drove him the festival, all with an expressionless face. After that, I told Harry that he had to stop calling Mongolians unfriendly.

I also met a Korean girl, just out of university at one of the guest-houses, who was doing some volunteer teaching in UB. I asked how things had been going and she said the first few months were really rough because she thought no one liked her. After adjusting to Mongolian personality she felt better about her experience. Another culture note is that it's not good to keep saying "thank you", especially for small gestures because it diminishes the worth of the statement. It makes a certain amount of sense, but you can imagine that it makes for more subdued interactions.

From my guidebook:

The empty steppes have also made hospitality a matter of sheer necessity rather than a social obligation. It would be difficult for anyone to travel across the steps without the hospitality that has developed, as each ger is able to server travelers as a hotel, restaurant, pub and repair shop. As a result, Mongolians are able to travel rapidly over long distances without the weight of provisions. This hospitality is readily extended to strangers and usually given without fanfare or expectation of payment; foreigners are often perplexed by the casual welcoming they receive at even the most remote gers.

We arrived back in UB on July 11th, which was both the official first day of Nadaam and the World Cup final. It was nice to be in the Philippines at the beginning of the World Cup and then catch a few more games in Mongolia. For two countries that have never had a horse in the race, the people in both countries were fervent fans. Despite 2:30am kick-off times, people were gathered in outdoor big beer tents equipped with large-screen projection sets and lots of cheering, regardless of who played. I think being abroad for the World Cup is a special experience. It's really nice to see something so universally loved. I was in Kenya during the 2002 World Cup, and the enthusiasm for any African team was religious. It's hard not to feel good about an event that crosses so many cultures.

As part of the Nadaam festival, there was a big outdoor concert in the city square. Walking down the street, I chatted up a Mongolian girl, Tsagii, to ask about the festivities. It turned out that she was a Japanese teacher at one of the language institutes in UB. We quickly became friends and she was happy to meet me for Nadaam the next day. Tsagii invited me to teach English at her school and also mentioned she would be visiting some family in her hometown in the Gobi. I was already thinking of heading in that direction for my next tour. When I mentioned this to Tsagii, she invited me to join her as an alternative. The chance to get away from an organized tour and visit a little town in the middle of nowhere is exactly the kind of thing I hope for when I travel, so I was very excited at the opportunity.

Just a quick geography lesson: The Gobi region refers to most of southern Mongolia and northern China. It is a desert region, but the iconic sand dunes account for less than 3% of the area, it's mostly hard dirt and rock.

Tsagii's home town, Zunbayaan, is accessible by train, just 13 hrs south of UB. The route follows the Trans-Siberian Express. Zunbayaan used to be a prominent military town, but went into a decline after they downsized their presence. Nowadays, a Chinese company drills and ships oil, but no money is going back into the local economy. The town is surrounded with hollowed-out, concrete apartment blocks. Through the hot afternoon hours, the town is nothing but a dusty ghost town. As the sun sets and weather becomes tolerable, people slowly emerge from their homes. There is not much to do there, but it was nice to get a little glimpse into this community.

We stayed with her aunt and uncle, who live a small, 3 room house. Her cousins, 2 girls in college, were also home for the summer. They were incredibly gracious hosts, giving me "the bedroom" while everyone else slept on the floor in the living room. Tsagii's uncle, Tau, quickly became a little overbearing, as he had the personality of that drunk guy at the bar who wants desperately to be your best friend. He knew two English words, "James" and "ok". Every 5 minutes he was checking to make sure that everything was "ok" and performing over-dramatic charades to show me how to perform simple tasks such as washing my hands, or to needlessly point to the television if I wished to watch it. Tsagii was apologetic and maybe blamed a bit of his behavior on his drinking.

The whole of Zunbayaan looks bombed out. Tsagii's uncle gave me a tour, which included an abandoned oil rig, and an overgrown swimming pool, which he was proud to point out as Mongolia's largest swimming pool, and an abandoned army tank. Tsagii hasn't lived there since she was a small child and has a good sense of humor about the appearance of the place. We also visited a ger just outside of town as the camels were coming in for the night. Tsagii and I took a quick ride around. Now I can tell everyone I rode a camel in the Gobi, and it wasn't a tour!

Surrounding the town are a number of historically-significant religious sites because of an influential 19th century Buddhist monk who lived in the area. The whole family and I spent a day driving around to visit each site. There is a sacred mountain shrine, where we threw vodka into the wind as an offering. There is also an "energy center" near a small temple that will give healing energy to anyone who lays on the ground there, and a few small caves where a monk meditated for 108 days straight. It all sounds more exciting than what is was. Throughout the day, Tsagii's uncle encouraged me to do shots of vodka with him, which we took from the plastic coin dish that came from the car's console. I'm not an expert on these matters, but I think when you're doing vodka shots out of used car parts, it could be a sign that it's time to cut back.

Back in UB I spent a few days teaching English at the institute where Tsagii worked. They offered me $8/hour, which I think is a pretty respectable wage. It was more difficult than I anticipated, mostly because I had no curriculum to follow, and the dozen students in each class were at all different levels. For the first 10 minutes, I asked a lot of questions and got nothing but blank stares in return. Eventually they warmed up to me and things got easier, but it was a rough start.

I was trying to figure out my next move when I met Baghi, a 27 year old girl, at a nightclub. She is a former tour guide, currently doing a bit of event organization and promotion. In the coming week, her friends from Italy, a couple, were coming to Mongolia for a special tour. Baghi had been their tour guide the year before and they had maintained the friendship. Now they were coming back and were hiring Baghi unofficially, by paying her way, to visit two remote regions in the north and west of the country. The first planned leg of the tour was to the corner of western Mongolia, high in the mountains, where the population is mostly Kazakh (the Kazakhstan border is 24 miles from Mongolia).

I had already read about the region, and was intrigued, but had not met any other travelers venturing off in that direction. Going there alone would have been cost prohibitive for me. Baghi invited me to join them and help me arrange my flight and the necessary border permit. For reasons that aren't important, I wasn't able to join Baghi's tour, but was able to fly out with them and to join an Austrian guy on a similiar tour.

Arriving in Olgii, the primary city in the region is a little surreal. This is the guidebook's intro:

Traveling to Mongolia's western most province gives one the distince feeling of reaching the end of the road, if not the end of the earth. High, dry, rugged and raw, the isolated, oddly shaped province follows the arc of the Mongol Altai Nuruu as it rolls out of Central Asia towards the barren wastes of the Dzungarian Basin.

From Mongolia pt 2

We spent our days driving, camping, and visiting gers. Sleeping at an elevation of 8000 ft, the temperature dropped to about 25 degrees the first night. I kept thinking about how this was August, the hottest month of the year, and there was ice on the tent. People live in the ger camps only in the summer, letting their yaks and goats graze while they can, and then move down to lower elevations in the winter. It's a hard life to live. Every ger could offer us the same basic food: yak-milk tea, yak cheese, yak yogurt, dried biscuits, and sometimes dried meat. It gets old quick. Our own food also got old pretty quickly. We had some variation of boiled potatoes, carrots, cabbage, rice and fried bits of fatty mutton 3 times a day. Back on my first tour to the lake, we were complaining about the food and made up joke:
Q: What does Mongolian food taste like?
A: Whatever supermarket-brand bbq sauce you've drowned it in.

Whatever. It was funny at the time.

From Mongolia pt 2

I spent a few days hanging out in with Baghi in UB and she did a good job of explaining some of Mongolia's history and culture to me. With such a long history, and such a small population, Mongolia has been fighting to preserve it's existence for a long time. There is an aspect in the mindset of Mongolians that distrusts foreigners, especially when it comes to preserving Mongol blood. At one point, the Chinese tried to breed out the Mongol race. Now it's taboo for Mongolian women to date Chinese men, and those that do risk having their heads shaved as a type of scarlet letter. I experienced a little of this animosity myself. Just walking down the street with Baghi or Tsagii elicited some very unfriendly stares.

Baghi's older sister married a Korean man, which the family is ok with. However, her sister is not allowed, by order of the family, to raise her son in Mongolia. When the son is 10 years old, he can come live in Mongolia. The reason for this is so that her son will never be mistaken as a pure Mongolian. Learning the language so late in life will guarantee that he talks with a Korean accent, which will effectively bar him from a career in politics. Last year, when the son was 5 years old, her sister requested to move back to Mongolia, but the family decided that she had to wait another 5 years. Baghi insists that family relations are good, and she has been to Korea to visit her sister. It's the responsibility of each Mongolian to protect the blood.

I also heard another story, from a German guy who has been living in UB for the past year. His friend (also white) was dating a Mongolian girl. One night they were walking down the street and someone spit at her feet and said something about polluting the blood.

For the most part, walking around UB was a pleasant experience for me and as far as I know, seriously violent crime is not a big problem. But Mongolian guys seem to be really aggressive. One night I was walking around and another guy, with friends, abruptly stepped in front of me and stared me down, like he was just waiting for an excuse to start a fight. On another night, 3 guys were walking towards me and out of nowhere one took a full swing at my face but pulled the punch at the last second.

There aren't really official taxi's in UB. Any car is potentially a taxi and if you stand on the side of the road with your hand out, someone will stop. There is an understanding that it's about $1/mile. One night I took a taxi home at 3am and got into an argument with the driver about how much the fare was. In my mind we had agreed on a price before I got in. He basically tried to keep my from opening the door, and when I finally got out, he started pushing me against the car. I should mention that like most men in Mongolia, he was also a lot bigger than me.

I have some big news to share as well.... I got married!!! Here is our wedding photo:

Unfortunately, my new wife has to stay in Mongolia to take care of the yaks....They don't milk themselves you know.

From Mongolia pt 2

More Island Life

2010-07-14T21:18:00.000-07:00

I spent five more quick weeks in the Philippines. Many of my days I spent wandering around by myself, but nearly every night I went out and found people to talk to. I traveled a good mix of small islands, big cities and rural country. No single place was exceptionally noteworthy, but I always found someone or something that kept my interest.

Of the major Filipino islands, Palawan is the least developed. Roads become unmanageable during the rainy season, ATMs exist in only one city, and electricity is rationed in smaller towns. While access to the island is not difficult, it is time consuming, which limits the number of visiting tourists. The primary attraction of Palawan is an archipelago of limestone-cliff islands set in vividly clear, blue water. I spent about a week here, island hopping and relaxing.

From Philippines - part 2

The snorkeling here is top-notch, made even better by the surreal color and clarity of the water. Every now and then, life gives you a really unexpected moment of wonder. Near a rocky outcropping, a massive school of mackerel were taking shelter from the open sea. Millions of fish, changing direction in unison, swam in figure-eight patterns around the underwater rock columns. I swam into the middle of the school and was completely surrounded by a wall of fish on all sides. Motionless, I floated just below the surface of the water, watching flashes of silver dart back and forth, feeling really lucky.

My friend took this picture, which sort of captures the moment:

At first glance, El Nido, the small town used as a base for island hopping, is nothing special to look at. It's lined with modest, beach-front restaurants and the entire town is small enough to be covered by foot in 15 minutes. The people of El Nido gave it a certain charm. While walking down the street, everyone made eye contact with me and smiled. I rented a motorbike without the need to hand over my passport or a credit card. The guy at the rental shop explained that it was a small place and if anything happened, he'd find me. Riding into the unpaved country-side, I was greeted enthusiastically by every child who happened to be out playing in the yard or walking down the street. It was hard to be comfortable in the midday heat and I got hit with a craving for ice cream. After poking my head into a few store fronts I stupidly realized that of course there was no ice cream, the electricity is cut every day from 6am - 2pm.

I met Mel, an outgoing 24 year old, waiting tables at a beachfront restaurant and was immediately impressed with his knowledge of world geography and American politics. We started talking about travel and he quickly listed off a number of places he'd like to go. His confidence had led me to believe that he had already done some traveling, and was thus a little shocked when I learned that he had never even left the island. I had a hard time believing that being as smart as we was, he couldn't manage to find a way to leave. El Nido is the type of place where it would be easy to ignore the rest of the world, but he's constantly keeping up on current events and and spends his free time taking the vocab quizzes in Reader's Digest. Not satisfied with his degree in finance, he was looking for a way to continue schooling. I felt really bad for him, ambitious but stuck. After the restaurant closed, we sat on the beach with his friends and drank beer.

With a population just shy of a million, Cebu City is described by my guidebook as an entree-sized version of Manila: noisy, crowded and dirty. The guidebook authors recommend against spending your vacation here. All this is true, but it's not fair to trash the city without mentioning the incredible BBQ found in the city center. There is a huge tent area, filled with dozens of vendors offering cheap, tasty bbq. The meat is raw and skewered, you pick what you want and it's grilled for you on demand. The collective smoke from each bbq is trapped under the giant tent, which has almost no ventilation, and it smells wonderful.

From Philippines - part 2

I had a reunion with Rowelyn, the girl who gave me a ride from the airport to my hotel on my first day in the Phillipines. She had been living in Taiwan for 3 years as a caretaker for elderly people. Her next gig is in Fort Nelson, British Columbia. It's not possible for her to make a decent wage in the Philippines, so she must work abroad. I had assumed that Fort Nelson was a suburb of Vancouver, but I looked it up and it's a town of 5,000 on the same latitude as Anchorage. A little worried for her, I asked if she knew exactly where Fort Nelson was. She had not bothered to look it up! I suggested that she do a little research, because come this January, she is going to be in a world of hurt. One night the weather dropped to a frigid 80 degrees and everyone was wearing jackets. She doesn't even know what minus 20 feels like. Her obligation is technically 2 years, but her friends in Toronto have promised a transfer after only a few months. I can't wait to see how this turns out.

The Philippines face a problem common to many third-world countries, which is that the most educated tend to work and live abroad. I just read that the United States receives more nurses from the Philippines than any other country. I met several nursing students in Cebu, all of whom were planning on working abroad. Staying home just doesn't seem to be an option. One girl, who was shy, short and really petite, was just finishing up her nursing degree and said that I was the first American she had ever talked to. She said Americans frightened her because American people are so big, which made me laugh. She is apprehensive about working in the U.S. because she heard Americans don't like immigrants. I wasn't sure what to say. On one hand, I can't imagine anyone being mean to this girl, on the other hand, I couldn't promise her that she won't face any discrimination. Not long after meeting her, I read an article about several Filipina nurses being fired from a Baltimore hospital for speaking Tagalog during their lunch break. Maybe she should be apprehensive about Americans.

I met Jill, a Couchsurfing Filipina who owns her own coffee shop and hosts Couchsurfing get-togethers. There I met a few other Filipinos, a French guy, a German girl and two Dutch guys. After a night of hanging out at the coffee shop, the 7 of us took a weekend trip to a nearby island. We stayed out on the beach all night and watched the sun rise.

The French guy (29 yrs old) is on a "travel-around-the-world" trip similar to my own. He spent his first three months volunteering in Mali, which I was very interested to hear about. He had a classic storyof signing up for one thing and getting thrown into something completely different. Working without any other western counterparts, he secured quite of bit of funding on infrastructure projects. His contribution was significant enough that his village gave him a piece of land to call his own. So if nothing else works out for him, he will always be a land-owner in Mali, so he has that going for him, which is nice.

The two Dutch guys are both living in the Philippines for a one-year volunteer program with a Catholic organization. One teaches high school for underprivileged kids and the other works in an orphanage for boys. I asked if they were surprised by any aspect of the work they're doing. Garbage was their the answer. Filipinos definitely have a littering problem. It is really frustrating for them to see the adults of the organization just throwing trash out the window and letting it pile up outside. Filipino cities are full of litter, a problem that all classes of people seem to contribute to. I read that because of the country's long history of colonization and war, and disdain for a corrupt government, Filipinos lack a sense of ownership on public space. It seems to me to be a strange and unfortunate mentality.

Of course there are exceptions, but generally speaking, the cities here are completely lacking aesthetically. Broken and dirty concrete covers the streets and buildings. Grass is almost non-existent and sidewalks are poorly laid out. My hunch is that all this has contributed to the success of the shopping mall here. Shopping malls are incredibly successful, sometimes with their own mega-courtyards for outdoor shopping. For cities that have grown up without any city planning, the mall is refreshingly clean and organized.

Back in the city I met Kim, attractive with a combative personality, at one of the trendy night spots. Her friends showered me with attention, which made me a little suspicious given my daily run-ins with sex workers. But I saw them out again the next night and they were equally friendly without any hint that they were trying to drum up business. As we made small talk, I mentioned the hostel where I was staying. At $7 per night, it was probably the cheapest place in the city. I made a comment about how it was pretty bare-bones accommodation. Kim's responded by saying that I probably didn't understand how poor she was and that the place I was staying was much nicer than where she lived. This surprised me, as I definitely hadn't pegged her as being desperately poor.

Fast-forward a few days: While hanging out with Jill and our crew of couchsurfers on our weekend get-a-way, I got a text message from Kim saying that if I came back to the city, her landlord had an extra room for $30/month. To put things into perspective, a decent hotel room starts around $15/night, so $30/month is really, really cheap, even by Filipino standards. I texted back and said that I would probably just get a hotel room. She was oddly persistent that I should stay there.

At this point I should say something about my travel philosophy, which is to try to never say no to an opportunity. This has mostly worked out for the best, although it sometimes lands me in uncomfortable situations. Riding the bus back to the city, I was curious to see where Kim lived, if she was as poor as she said she was. When I got my hotel at 10:30pm, they were all booked up. With this news, I figured I might as well go and see what Kim was trying to sell.

The taxi dropped me off at the designated street corner, in a not-so-nice neighborhood. I stood there with my backpack on, trying to figure out where to go. A young couple came up to me, looking really concerned that I was standing there, and asked me where I was going. "Uh....just looking for my friend." Then they asked where I was staying. "Um, hopefully with my friend." They asked what I would do if I couldn't find my friend. "Yeah, I don't know." I eventually found her and her house. She was renting a room from her friend's family. The downstairs was damp concrete and cinder block, the walls crawling with cockroaches. Off the main room was a single water spigot, used for all kitchen and bathroom needs. Upstairs the walls and bedrooms where single sheets of plywood. Kim's room, which would become my room, was just big enough to have a twin-size wooden platform as a bed, with no mattress or pad. There was no ventilation and the air was stifling hot. Within two minutes of arriving, Kim was insisting that I fix her laptop, which wouldn't boot.

I carry a portable version of Linux on a USB drive, which is ideal for troubleshooting computers. As I sat there on the wooden bed, sweat pouring off my body, I had to look around and laugh. It was definitely not a situation I could have ever imagined being in. After determining that her hard drive had unfortunately died, I asked if I could take a shower. Kim and her friend led me back downstairs to the spigot, where I filled a bucket of water. I was a little confused, because I was essentially standing in a hallway, and there was no door to close me off from the main room. Her friend looked at me and said I should just turn off the light. Ok.

Still trying to figure out the bedroom situation, I asked Kim what the deal was. Since she originally told me that there was an extra room for rent, but clearly I was taking over her room. She said she would just sleep downstairs with her friend. The next morning I packed my stuff up and said I was just going to get a hotel room. She seemed disappointed. I couldn't really see a reason for my staying there, just to save a few dollars. I said goodbye and jumped in a taxi. Later that day I got a text from Kim asking for a HUGE favor, she needed to borrow some money. How much money, I asked. Big surprise, she needed $30, the exact amount she was going to rent her room to me.

Now things were starting to make sense. She promised to pay me back within two days, and that it was really important that she get the money. Of course this raises all sorts of questions, none of which have convincing answers.

Kim had gotten married when she was 21 to an English guy. After 7 months she discovered he was cheating on her. Her heart broken, she divorced him. She had been in a string of relationships with other Europeans, always ending the same way. Her last serious boyfriend was a German guy who was "separated" from his wife, but not really. Kim didn't have a job, but received some sort of regular alimony payment from her ex-husband. She was living with her friend because she wasn't getting along with her dad, but wouldn't tell me exactly why.

The money she needed was to get her identification papers in order so that she could get a job at a call center. Call centers (mostly for banks and credit cards) are a coveted job for unskilled Filipinos. I heard this from other people as well. I told Kim that I wasn't comfortable lending her money but I would still like to be friends with her. The next day she sent me another text saying that if I could lend her $16 dollars, it would really help her out. I'm not so naive that I believed I could lend her money and get paid back. But for $16 dollars, I could fund a little drama, see how it played out, and maybe, just maybe, help Kim get a job. I was pretty well convinced that she had absolutely no money and was waiting for her alimony to arrive. She promised to pay me back just as soon as she could. The upside is that she got her job at the call center. After two days of hearing that she was still waiting for her money, I stopped asking.

Getting the chance to scratch beneath the surface of Kim's life was interesting for me. Her life is a little bit of a mess, but I have hope for her. It's was interesting to because in many ways her story is not unique. I met a 20 yr old girl on the street. Not a prostitute, just someone who wanted to talk. She told me she was leaving in a few weeks to visit her friend in Thailand, where she was going to work. It turned out that her "friend" was a 60 yr old American guy, who needed someone to help "care" for him. She had been chatting with him online for two years and now he was paying to have to come to Thailand for 3 months. There are a number of troubling questions about this situation, and she was understandably nervous about going. She was a bright and articulate girl, and still, she saw Thailand as her best option for making some money. On another occasion, I met a young, nice-looking prostitute outside of a night club who offered to go home with me. After I declined her offer, she was more persistent and said that she didn't need any money, just some food to eat. I told I didn't have any food at home. Really desperate just to get some food, she offered to cook for me. Those kind of conversations never make you feel good.

Other run-ins with prostitutes were more light-hearted. At one bar I had a number of different girls come sit next to me and asked if I could buy them a drink. I think it's a quick, polite way to find out if you're interested in doing business with them. One girl sat down and asked me if I like "short time". This kind of broken English is common in Vietnam or Thailand, but not in the Philippines. I wasn't sure if I heard her correctly and asked her to repeat herself. "Do I like short time?" I replied back. "What's short time?"
"Boom boom short time."
"Ah, boom boom short time......no thanks."

Filipina girls are somewhat plagued by social-economic problems that lead to all these situations. But one thing I kept hearing over and over again was that they didn't like Filipino guys. So many of them are looking for a Western guy. At one restaurant, I made friends with the waitress and bartender. We went out after their shift and one of the girls, who was around 25 yrs old had just married a German guy who was 60. They had their first child together and were building a new house. She could not be happier about her situation. My impression is that Filipino guys have a reputation for not treating their women very well, and the Western influence and affluence is just more attractive to Filipinas, who don't seemed to be concerned about age gaps. I guess it's a win-win situation.

On from Cebu City I bounced around to a few smaller cities, rented motorbikes, and explored the country side. One afternoon I was passing through a forested area outside a small town and came upon an open-air arena filled with people, betting on the cock fights. I've never been to anything quite like it, so the the novelty factor was high. The fights only last a few minutes and it's rare that an injured bird will make a come-back. The appeal is lost on me, but those are the kinds of random things that you hope to find when you just pick a direction and ride.

From Philippines - part 2

On another day I was out riding around in a very rural area and stopped at a roadside bbq stand. The only other people there was a group of older guys who quickly invited me to sit with them. I ended up eating and drinking with them for a few hours, sharing stories and answering questions about our lives. One guy, an ex-policeman, was convinced that I was trained military or intelligence because I was out there, traveling alone, and feeling completely at home. Really funny stuff.

From Philippines - part 2

I spent my last days in the Philippines back in Boracay, the ultra-tourist beach town. Geographically, it was on the way back to Manila, but also I wanted to take it easy for a few days before heading to Mongolia, my next destination. I arrived in Ulaanbaaatar, Mongolia's capital city, on July 1st. It's definitely another place all together.

more shameless sunset pics:

From Philippines - part 2

A Little Bit of Everything

2010-06-04T05:24:00.000-07:00

My immigration officer, a girl around my age, was excited because we share the same birthday. It was the first time an immigration officer had ever made small with me that didn't feel like an interrogation. I waited in baggage claim and talked to the girl who had sat next to me on the plane. She insisted on giving me a ride to my hotel, saving me cab fare. It was a good entrance into the Philippines.

Manila was essentially destroyed in World War II and sporadically rebuilt resulting in a collection of 17 smaller cities that were not unified until 1976. Charming is not a word usually ascribed to Manila. Excluding the commercial district, which is quite modern and clean, the rest of the city are blocks of ugly concrete with garbage strewn everywhere. If there is one redeeming quality about the city, it's the music. Filipinos love music. Live bands are everywhere, and while most of time they are covering American pop and rock music, they are doing it better than the bar bands back home.

Manila is also full of prostitutes.....lots and lots of prostitutes. In addition to the girls who are either walking the street or working at one of the many "girlie bars", there is a surprisingly large number of completely innocuous women also looking to make a buck. An attractive woman wearing jeans and a t-shirt, walking out of the grocery store, stopped to ask me if I wanted a massage. In the less savory neighborhood where I spent my first night, I couldn't walked two blocks without a girl approaching me. In attempting to get away from the chaos (and stay out of trouble!), I went into Manila's nicer commercial district. The string of restaurants there had a decor to match the trendiest places in NYC or Vegas. I walked into a Cuban restaurant to check out the live salsa band. The only open seat at the bar was next to a group of four, well-dressed women. I made friends with them and spent the next 3 hours hanging out. At the end of the night, the girl who I spent the most time with told me she was a "working girl" and suggested I take her home........and that was just my first night.

Arriving not a moment too soon, Sabrina took a few weeks off of work to come meet me and visit her high-school friend who has been working at an international school in Manila for the past four years. We stayed with her and Adam, her British fiance, for a few nights. It was nice to get a few cultural notes from them. I was asking Adam about his cultural integration and the challenges he faces. Unfortunately, even after 5 years of living in Manila there is still an expected divide between "the rich white people" and everyone else. He summed it up for me with this story: He left something at the front desk of his condo building for his Filipino friend to pick up. When he tried to explain to the desk clerk who would be picking it up, he was met with the question, "Is he your friend, or is he Filipino?", as if the two were mutually exclusive. His close friends are other white teachers at the international school, a fact that seems inevitable.

From Manila, Sabrina and I went into the mountainous north to see the rice terraces. A guide took on a three-day hike to several villages only accessible by foot. Sabrina had a lot of "firsts" on this trip. First time hiking for more than a few hours (it was a hard 7-hour hike the first day). First time showering with only a bucket of water. First time using a bucket to flush the toilet. All important things. We were welcomed our first night by concert put on by the village children. About 20 kids sang 20 minutes worth of English songs. The only other tourists staying with us were a few French guys. When it was suggested that they entertain us with their own song, they picked the obvious Frere Jacques, at which point the children enthusiastically joined in. So much for teaching them a new song.

Rural village life comes with a few inconveniences. For Sabrina, the biggest one is living next to the roosters, who start their wake-up call around 3am. To put a point on this, Sabrina suggested we make a list of animals she likes: Pandas, penguins, puppies, turtles and fish. And then she made a list of animals she doesn't like: Roosters.

The terraces were beautiful and require an unfathomable amount of work to maintain.

From Philippines - part 1

Further up into the mountains is another town which is famous for it's hanging coffins. These coffins have been hung on the side of a cliff face (no easy feat) because of the belief that the soul does not like be buried underground, but wants to be free. Nearby, stacked in the mouth of a cave, are several hundred coffins which are there for same reason.

From Philippines - part 1

We took a guided cave tour, which was a big thrill for me. I've been in a lot of caves, but this one is the winner. No electricity has been piped into it, so the only light is from the guide's gas lantern. After slowly descending a few hundred feet over guano-covered rocks, the cave turns into a beautiful array of tiered pools, which cascade even further down, ending in a big waterfall and deep swimming hole.

From Philippines - part 1

Heading back towards Manila, we stopped in another big city, Baguio, which was also destroyed in the war. Outside the city is more beautiful, mountain scenery, but if the city itself possesses any charms, they are well hidden. To finish out Sabrina's leg of the trip, we went to Boracay, the Philippines most touristy beach town. Boracay is a small island with a mile-long stretch of fine, white, powdery sand. It has all the fixings of a fun, vacation destination. We took a snorkeling trip that was a little mediocre until we saw a large, black and silver-banded sea snake. Definitely one of the coolest things I've seen underwater. I followed it around for 5 minutes or so until it went too deep. The sea snake venom is deadly, but thankfully they are quite timid and their teeth are so small, they have a hard time releasing venom into humans.

From Philippines - part 1

I usually don't love ultra-touristy destinations, but we found a grungy bar at the end of the beach that was the local hangout, and for me, that was the place to be. I couldn't go in there without making friends, which is a nice sign that the balance between the transient tourist and the local economy is still on the right side.

From Philippines - part 1

And now, shameless sunset pictures:

From Philippines - part 1

Things I like

2010-05-17T05:59:00.000-07:00

I was recently asked why I like to travel so much. I don't have a concise answer to this question, but I was able to articulate that traveling gives you a chance to see the positive aspects of a different culture and time to think about your own lifestyle in comparison. Like any other activity in life, when you see someone doing something a little bit better than you, it's nice to take note and maybe incorporate it into your own life. Traveling highlights the humbling fact that our behavior and expectations are products of culture.

Obviously there are deep cultural differences between me and the people in Bolivia. I understand some of those differences, but not enough to be writing about them. Instead I have just a few observations of things I like and things I don't like.

Something I like: In Sucre, I settled into a nice daily rhythm of homework, Spanish class, going to the bar and then to a club until 3 or 4 in the morning. It was easy to make friends on any given night. Sucre is one place where I could show up to a club by myself on a Wednesday night and leave with six new friends to the next hot spot. I don't think this kind of openness really exists back home. Girls were happy to dance with me, guys were happy to pass me a beer. I'm sure my "whiteness" had something to do with it, but everyone seemed to have a really friendly vibe. Going out at home always feels like everyone is clustered with the 4 other people they came with and not interested in talking with anyone else.

Something I like: When phone/internet cafes don't have coins small enough to make the correct change, instead of rounding up the bill, they give you a piece of candy.

Something I don't like: Like any city, Sucre has its fair share of beggars. But for some reason, all the beggars in Sucre seem to be elderly women. For a city that is generally well off, it was really depressing coming across so many old, homeless women. I don't understand what happened along the way that they would have no one to take care of them.

From Sucre I took a nice 12hr bus ride back to La Paz and immediately got on a not-so-nice 19hr bus to Rurrenabaque, a town on the edge of the Amazon basin. Rurre is a small town with a tropical feel and dozens of tour operators that offer jungle excursions.

Something I like: I went to Rurrenabaque with Mimi, my couchsurfing friend from Korea. While walking down the street, Mimi made friends with a 16 year old girl and her mom, who were just sitting outside of their house. When I came walking down the street and saw them talking, they were really welcoming as well. Next thing you know, Mimi and I are having dinner with the whole family. It's a scenario that's hard to imagine back home. It was also encouraging to see a healthy co-existence between local people and tourists in a town dominated by the tourism industry.

Jungle pics!!

From Bolivia Pt III

Anaconda Hunting: Walking around in chest-high grass and 6 inches of water hoping that you're lucky enough to disturb one of these snakes.

From Bolivia Pt III

Something I don't like: Getting out of Rurrenabaque proved to be more difficult than I imagined. Road blocks had been set up by protesters, for reasons which are still unclear to me. After 4 days of no bus service I had to fly back to La Paz in order to catch a bus to Lima, where my flight to Taipei was booked. The upside to the situation was experiencing Rurrenabaque's airport: one room, no metal detectors, a grass runway, no service in the rain. Instead of a harrowing, 19 hr bus ride, the prop plane made the journey in 40 minutes. My bus to Lima (30 hrs) almost didn't happen because of more road blocks just outside of La Paz. Our bus driver took matters into his own hands and maneuvered an offroad detour. I remember looking out the window and thinking....yep, we are in a field right now, and the bus is driving through a stream. Sweet.

I had a quick two days in Lima and re-visited one of the cathedrals in the historical center. I had been there in 2001 and took a tour of the catacombs where the bones of some 25,000 people lay resting. I was really looking forward to properly photographing the catacombs because they had made such an impression on me the first time. But things change over time, and now photography is prohibited. Bummer. I managed to sneak in this blurry shot:

From Lima

My plan to head to the Philippines got slightly sidetracked after I booked my flight and happened to have a layover in Taipei. I met Emily, a couchsurfer from Taipei, a year ago when she was visiting DC. After booking my flight, I sent Emily an email to see if she'd be able to meet up. She suggested changing my flight so I could spend a few days in the city, which I did. Emily was a great host and her friends and family really went out of their way to make me feel welcome. So a big "Thank you" to Emily. I think it something special to be able to share "hometown" experiences with someone from another country. It's rare to be able to play both host and guest with the same person, so for that I've very grateful.

From Taipei

As is the case whenever I go somewhere new, I left Taipei feeling like I could spend a whole lot more time exploring the city, not to mention the rest of the country.

It was Emily's friend who asked my why I liked to travel. Emily asked the obvious follow-up question: What have I learned from Taiwan? At the moment, I didn't have an answer. But I've thought of two small things: While riding the crowded metro, I noticed two people who were quick to give up their seat for someone else who needed it more than them. There seemed to be a sense of conscientiousness that is different from home. The other example is food. Don't get me wrong, a lot of Taiwanese food is disgusting. Stinky tofu (that's what Emily calls it) smells like the zoo and tastes even worse.

From Taipei

However, the sheer variety of food and the creative preparation methods are really impressive. Walking down the street, I was completely overwhelmed by all the different foods available.

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind. Now I am in the northern Philippines........more to come.

Back to School

2010-04-21T19:22:00.000-07:00

At this point, I've traveled in 10 Spanish speaking countries and yet, have managed to squeak by with a barely rudimentary grasp of the language. In 9th grade, we learned to say, "I like to dance", but beyond that, I don't remember anything. I've cobbled together some essential conversation skills from the Lonely Planet phrasebook, but unless it's explicitly laid out, I'm pretty clueless. It was time to put in the effort to form complete, grammatically-correct sentences, all on my own.

Sucre, Bolivia's judicial capital and sight of independence, has become a popular place for learning Spanish. With a population over 200,000 people, Sucre is a "big" little city. There are no glass office buildings, only whitewashed colonial architecture. It's a beautiful city, home to striking churches and museums, a green central plaza, and it's a pleasant place to take classes. My biggest criticism of the city are the tight streets. Since the preserved city-center was constructed before cars were prevalent, nearly every street is forced to accommodate an unreasonable amount of foot and automobile traffic. The sidewalk are thin slices of concrete laid down between the street and building fronts. Oncoming pedestrians force you into the narrow street where cars are unlikely to slow down. I keep waiting to get clipped in the back of the head by a bus's extended side-mirror.

From Bolivia Pt II

I've been taking 4 hours of private lessons every day (Mon - Fri) for the past few weeks which brings feeling of a routine. Most days I have homework, which means I am content to do absolutely nothing for a few hours of the day. I've made friends with a few travelers who have since come and gone, as well as a few locals I met through couchsurfing. I also managed to pick up a local girl at the bar, who spoke absolutely no English, which I considered a linguistic victory. We hung out a few times, and she took me to the movies for my birthday, but I blew off our Saturday night plans and now she wants nothing to do with me. I guess that's par for the course.

So I had my second consecutive birthday in South America and I'm no longer in my twenties, although people are consistently surprised by my age. I don't know why, maybe because I still have acne. After seeing "Alice in Wonderland" in Spanish (it felt wrong to have Johnny Depp dubbed over), I met up with my couchsurfing friends at the bar. As closing time set in, we moved the party to an after-hours kareoke club, where I sang "La Bamba" and "Let it Be" with a Korean girl. The memories are unique if nothing else.

From a village near Sucre:

From Bolivia Pt II

Kjarkas, the MOST popular Bolivian band was in town last weekend and it was all anyone could talk about. Tickets were only $5. They play traditional Andean folk music. The evening was filled with not only music, but many regional dances, complete with costumes and story lines. What impressed me about the experience was the multi-generational appeal of the music. Young teenagers, old grandparents, it didn't matter, everyone loved it.

From Bolivia Pt II

I finally found an occasion to use the video feature on my new camera:

Before setting up camp in Sucre, I spend a few days in La Paz, a much bigger city. I caught the "Good Friday" parade, which was a nice little dose of South American Catholic culture.

From Bolivia Pt II

The street markets in La Paz are a big dose of color and people.

From Bolivia Pt II

Generally speaking, the indigenous people really do not like to have their picture taken. I try really hard to be respectful of this, but the temptation to get wonderful pictures is great. The shots I have of the markets are taken while carrying my camera at waist level, with a wide-angle lens and fast shutter speed. I click away indescriminately and as inconspicous as possible, and then try to crop down and rotate for an acceptable photo.

From Bolivia Pt II

The one time I brought my camera up to my eye, I thought I could possibly take a picture without offending anyone. This is that shot:

From Bolivia Pt II

The woman in the photo immediately covered her face with hat. I tried to tell her that I was only taking a picture of the bags, and not her - I know, I lied. I felt really rotten about it afterwords, and even now the photo makes me cringe. But here it is, for your viewing pleasure.

I also went to the "Coca Museum" which gives quite an interesting history of the coca leaf and paints the U.S. in quite an unfavorable light for transforming the relatively benign experience of chewing coca leaves into a physically, economically, and socially destructive drug. In the 1500's, the Spanish were quick to brand the coca leaf as a substance of the devil, until they realized that chewing the leaves increased the productivity of the indigenous slaves by staving off hunger and sleep. The slaves were quickly caught up in a vicious cycle of needing the leaves to fulfill their quota of work, and simultaneously indebted to the Spanish, who controlled the supply of the leaves.

Coca leaves continue to play an important role for manual laborers in Bolivia. This is especially true for the miners living in Potosi. For a really sobering look at mining life and really a sobering perspective on life in general -- Get out your pencils -- please please check out the documentary "The Devil's Miner". It's about a 14 year old boy working in the mines and the culture that surrounds it. I promise you won't be disappointed.

I've had one stressful moment since being here. The details are not so important but the general outline of the story involves my bag getting checked on to one bus, and me (accidentally) getting on a completely different bus. Then frantically trying to chase down the right bus in a taxi, which stalled out at a tollbooth. It's a little embarrassing because while my bag was headed for a city 12 hrs away, I was chatting up some American girls (just out of college), destroying a cork on a bottle of wine with my Leatherman tool, and feeling pretty good about myself. Everything turned out ok, but it's not a good feeling knowing that all of your earthly possessions are showing up at a bus station without you.

From Bolivia Pt II

Change of Plans

2010-04-13T10:43:00.000-07:00

Where are you from? How long have you been here? How long are you traveling? How far into your travels are you? Where are you headed to? Where did you come from? - These are the questions that come up over and over again when you're staying in low-budget hostals. It has all the charm of asking someone what they do for a living, but still, this is how valuable travel information gets passed along. Plus, they are questions that everyone has can answer.

So I was talking to this Dutch guy, and we were running over our travel itineraries. He seemed genuinely disappointed at how many places I would not be visiting in South America. Since I don't have a strict travel agenda, I was curious to hear what he thought were good places to visit. It was quickly clear that he thought I should spend my entire trip in South America. I told him I would also like to visit Africa and Asia. He sort of scoffed at the idea of visiting Africa and said that Africa didn't interest him at all. At that point, I stopped caring about what he had to say.

The questions still remain: Where to go and how long to stay?

There is no answer, only hunches formed by small tidbits of information. A destination "sounds" nice because of a blurb in an article or movie, or because of an offhanded comment overheard at a party. Doing the research to find out what a place is really like is only going to form expectations and eliminate the possibility of discovering the unexpected, so I try to avoid that. Also, I'm lazy.

My itinerary in Argentina began to feel stale. I felt immersed in the culture of the tourism industry and a sea of other travelers, all following the same route, all doing the same things. So I headed to Boliva to see the salt flats and to take Spanish lessons. I stopped off in Santiago to get a Bolivian visa and to replace my camera battery charger, which I left wedged between the mattress and the wall at my hostel in El Calafate. The visa was a 20 min stop at the Bolivian embassy. The charger ($15 on amazon) took an entire afternoon of shopping and cost $85.

As far as big cities go, Santiago is a really pleasant: relatively clean, friendly people, good metro system, modern retail stores. Just outside the city is one of Chile's largest wine producers, Concha y Toro. I took a tour of the vineyard, sampled, wine and ate Cabernet Savignion grapes right off the vine.

From Northern Chile

The 24 hour bus ride north into the desert of northern Chile was extended by 3 hours due to an ignited oil tanker in the middle of the highway. It was something right out of the 6 o'clock news. Fifty-foot flames,blacking billowing smoke, the whole bit. We sat 100 yards from the accident in the desert's midday heat, watching the tanker's metal frame disintegrate from the intense heat.

I did some hiking in northern Chile before crossing the border to Bolivia.

From Northern Chile

The Bolivian salt flats and extra-terrestrial mountain landscape has been on my "to-see" list for a long time. It's an area that is largely uninhabited and resembles nothing familiar to me. The altitude of the road climbs to 16,000 feet. A few tough species of grass are the only vegetation. Minerals and algae create foreign colors in the earth and lakes, sulfur smokes from open geysers.

The only way to see this region is to go on a guided tour with an outfit that is prepared to driving at high altitudes and on unforgiving terrain. I was promised that there would be mechanical failures, and there were. We had three Toyota Land Cruisers, with 5 or 6 people in each car. Two of our vehicles broke down over the course of the 3 days. The "roads" we traveled were just 2-tracks in the gravel, or sometimes we were just flying over wide plains of nothingness.

The Bolivian immigration office is the most remote border crossing I've ever done. It's probably 60 miles from the Chilean immigration office and at an altitude of 15,000 ft.

From Southern Bolivia

My body was not happy with the sudden elevation change. I've trekked at similar altitudes in India without problems, but also had the chance to acclimatize. By noon the first day, I was curled up in the back of the Land Cruiser, getting tossed back and forth, and quietly praying for death. I had the worst stomach ache, my head felt like it was being crushed in a vice, the sun seemed blindingly bright and I was entirely drained of energy. By evening I was feeling much better, and by the next morning I had just a slight headache. Most of the other people on the tour had headaches, but I seemed to have it the worst. I took some beautiful photographs that day, but when I look at them, I'm just reminded of how awful I felt.

From Southern Bolivia

Accommodations were sparse. The first night we stayed in a basic concrete shelter equipped with solar panels for electricity. The second night we stayed in a "salt hotel", where the floor, the walls, the tables, the chairs, are all made out of salt blocks. It's very strange. The next day, on the salt flats, we could see how they harvest the blocks.

From Southern Bolivia

The salt flats in Bolivia are the largest in the world and not surprisingly, really flat. Over the area of 4,000 sq miles, the elevation changes by less than one meter. They are used for calibration by NASA's altimeter satellites. Also, you have a lot of fun with photography because the perspective never changes!

From Southern Bolivia

At a village along the way:

From Southern Bolivia

Check out picasa for more photos.

Also, my knee is still hurting.....but I am getting along ok.

Argentinian Patagonia

2010-04-04T11:51:00.000-07:00

Lots to see in Argentina. First stop: Perito Moreno Glacier. It is one of South America's most accessible glaciers, and thus a huge tourist attraction. The visible field seen in the pictures is just the tip of glacier, which is 100 sq miles in size. The height of the visible ice wall is over 200 ft. I'm at a loss to say more about it.

From Argentinian Patagonia

The visitor center at Perito Moreno is quite nice, and they have built and extensive steel walkway system to view both faces of the glacier. I was overwhelmed by the number of people who were sporting heavy-duty hiking boots and extreme foul-weather gear for a walk that could have been done in a bathrobe and slippers. In 2001 I hiked the Inca Trail (Machu Picchu) in Peru. Before my trip, I invested in a $200 pair of hiking boots. As I struggled to haul my backpack up and down the Andes mountains, Peruvian porters wearing rubber sandals were flying past me and carrying twice as much weight. It was a good lesson. Proper gear is important, no doubt, but in most situations, expensive gear is really overkill. As for my $200 hiking boots? They are beautiful shoes which have stood the test of time, but I left them at home. The Torres Del Paine trek was at times quite difficult and my pack was heavy, but I managed to pull it off wearing Chaco sandals and a pair of wool socks, and my feet were never miserable.

Unfortunately, I did have an accident my last day of hiking. Spirits were high and I was moving quickly down the trail. I took an uncomfortably high step which resulted in a slight loss of balance and smashing my right knee into a rock. I initially thought that I had just bruised the area around my kneecap, but after several days it was clear the damage was more serious. My kneecap wasn't sliding up and down properly. Walking on flat ground was slightly painful, walking downhill was very painful. That made my next destination, El Chalten, a bit of a disappointment.

El Chalten is an outdoor enthusiast's Mecca. The town is fairly new, built up by granola-minded climbers and hikers. The end of main street is the trail head for the national park containing several mountain peaks, the most famous being Fitz Roy.

From Argentinian Patagonia

Good weather is notoriously hard to come by, so when my second morning offered a cloudless sky, my knee be damned, I hiked to the base of the peak. The base is an 8 mile hike from town, and the last bit climbs a half mile in elevation. The 16 mile round-trip hike is tough when you're feeling good, so with my knee it turned into a really painful ordeal on the return leg home. Still, I have to say that the weather over the next 4 days would have made the trip impossible for me had I waited. Cold wet wind dominated the skyline and snow prevented other hikers from reaching the top.

From Argentinian Patagonia

My hostel in El Chalten was actually a converted, single-family home. The upstairs bedrooms were crammed with either 4 or 5 bunk beds. Not ideal accommodations, but lying awake at night, listening to the howling, unrelenting wind outside, it was quite comforting knowing that we were all inside together. The owner of the hostel was a friendly guy, living next door with his wife and small children, who were happy to socialize with all the travelers. The main room downstairs was equipped with a picnic table and entertainment system, which played concert DVD's nearly all day long. The owner and I have some unique commonalities in our music taste and one night I walked in to see a concert of Joe Satriani playing on the tv. Joe Satriani is a hard rock guitarist who plays with a technical proficiency which is truly uncommon. You'd be hard pressed to find a serious guitarist who isn't familiar with Satriani's work. I've seen Joe in concert at least 10 times, so it's fair to say that I'm a big fan. I immediately planted myself in front of the tv while the owner and two of his friends had ceased conversation and were similarly drawn to the television. The four of us sat together, mesmerized by his moving fingers. In a place that felt a world away from home, it felt good sharing that experience with people who have been touched by the same (and somewhat obscure) music as me.

With the weather turning bitter and my knee upset with me, it was time to head north. Route 40 is to Argentina what Route 66 is to USA. It's over 3000 miles long. The southern section which gets you out of Patagonia is a lonely stretch of road. The 850 mile journey is largely on gravel road in an area that supports almost no vegetation. The bus ride down this stretch took 33 hours. Staring out into vast nothingness was another chance to feel small in the world.

From Argentinian Patagonia

(disclaimer: not actually route 40)

The Towers of Pain

2010-03-17T14:28:00.000-07:00

The name evokes a daunting image. Torres Del Paine - an iconic symbol of the fierce Patagonian winds that have carved away the faces of these Andean mountain peaks. This Chilean national park is a large reason why Patagonia has been on my to-do list for so long.

From Chile - Torres Del Paine

The experience of hiking in this region comes with its own set of memories that pictures cannot capture. I met my hiking companion, Michael (21 yrs old, England), in a hostel. He is in the middle of a 9 month journey which started in Nepal and has led him to here. We were both looking for a competent hiking partner and I feel we both lucked out in finding each other.

From Chile - Torres Del Paine

Gear shops outside the park offer tent rental and other camping equipment necessary to camp for the 6 days we'd be hiking. We picked up a load of angel hair pasta, tomato sauce and canned tuna at the local supermarket and hit the trail. The weather was cooperative, which is notoriously fickle. In lower altitudes it warmed up to 60 deg during the day and didn't drop much below 40 at night.

From Chile - Torres Del Paine

The wind is what made this hiking experience more unique than any I've been on. It's hard to describe how windy certain sections of the trail were, or how much wind the tent endured every night. I can only offer a few anecdotes: At times the wind was so strong that I couldn't walk, and without a trekking pole to lean on, probably would have been knocked over. Other times, leaning into the wind and walking sideways was the only way to travel in a straight path. An unfortunate couple setting up their tent were shocked when the wind picked up their tent, blew it 100 feet up in the air and 60 feet out to the middle of a lake. Greeting other hikers on the trail was sometimes futile as the sound of the wind drown out any other audible sounds.

From Chile - Torres Del Paine

One of the more interesting phenomenon was the way the wind whipped up mists of water on one of the lakes. In the afternoon sun, the surface of the lake erupted into random explosions of rainbow.

From Chile - Torres Del Paine

We had one day of really foul weather where the rain was coming in sideways all day long. After 6 hours of hiking I was soaked and freezing. My right arm was nearly numb from the cold. Lifting your head meant needles of water hitting your face. It was great.

From Chile - Torres Del Paine

That's it for now, something short and sweet to get started.

An Overview: Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina

2009-06-17T23:30:00.000-07:00

I met Nate four years ago, back when he had a job-type-job and lived nearby. Two years ago, Nate downsized his life, quit his job, and started traveling. He eventually ended up working in Mexico City, where he met Charlene, a recent Brazilian transplant. In January 2009, Charlene, (nicknamed Chu, which sounds like "shu"), moved back to Brazil to help take care of her sick father. Nate was already making plans to leave Mexico, and so he followed her. The timing was finally right for Nate and I to travel together, so I followed Nate to Brazil.

Nate and I traveled together for one month. I met Nate and Chu in Sao Paulo and the three of us headed south along the the Brazilian coast. Chu then returned to her family while Nate and I dipped into Uruguay and Beunos Aires before quickly looping back.

I hope you keep reading, but if you just want to check out my pictures, it's cool. They are here.

I decided against keeping a travel blog while I was there. Given the short length of the trip and the lack of downtime, I limited my time on the computer and tried to keep a short written journal. I like writing about my travels, but writing an account post-trip lacks the urgency I normally feel to capture the chronological details of where I've been and what I've been doing. The truth is, I don't have any great travel stories, or any special insight to the places I've been. I've given some thought to the process of travel and have recounted a few episodes, just for the hell of it. But first, an overview:

Brazil is a wonderful country. In addition to beautiful land and warm weather, the people are friendly, happy and patriotic. Feel-good music permeates daily life and grilled meat is a dietary staple, all good things. Economically, Brazil dominates South America and the quality of life is relatively high. Despite the characteristics and richness in culture that makes Brazil a pleasant place to be, it can be a tough nut to crack for the backpacker. It's a sentiment that I kept coming across as I talked with other travelers.

South America has a lot of well-worn backpacking routes and Brazil seems to interrupt this South American experience in a number of different ways. Portuguese, which is phonetically complex, is a difficult shift for travelers who have been relying on rudimentary Spanish. Also distinguishing Brazil from its South American neighbors are its size, economy, and ethnic background. Brazil is the largest and the most expensive Latin American country with a racially mixed, immigrant population.

Brazil is big, really big, bigger than the Continental United States, and everything feels like it's far apart. The large distance between one point of interest an another kept giving me the conflicting feeling that I was simultaneously missing a whole lot in between and legitimately skipping over a whole lot of nothing. Or perhaps it is just a psychological hurdle that makes me feel that no matter how much I see, I am missing an infinite amount more.

Brazil's long coastline and fertile ground made it a magnet for European settlers and their African slaves. The racial diversity is so great that virtually any North American could pass as Brazilian. It was the first time I've been to a country where people consistently assumed I was a native, which kept throwing me off. Skin color aside, it's usually pretty easy to pick out someone from another continent by the clothes they wear or the accessories they carry. Small things, like an unfamiliar logo, are adequate indicators. I've managed to put together a completely forgettable, non-descript wardrobe of black t-shirts, which perhaps contributed to the confusion. I was actually thinking about this while I waited to board my flight back home. I was sitting next to a friendly mom whose toddler kept reaching out to me in an effort to play. I was happy to entertain the little girl and the mother was all smiles. When boarding started, I pulled out my ticket, which was inside my passport. The mother saw it and said, "Ah, you're American, that's why you're not talking. My daughter is also American, her dad lives in Florida." I was a little surprised, even while waiting to board a flight to the U.S., I apparently gave this woman the impression that I might be Brazilian. I mention all of this because it has the combined effect of making Brazil a little less accessible to the outsider, at least in the immediate sort of way. Blending in has its advantages in certain situations, but sticking out like a sore thumb offers more of an invitation for help, advice, curiosity and hospitality.

Tourism is certainly a key component in the economy, but the bulk of tourism dollars are not coming from budget backpackers. As money gets dumped into resorts and travel packages, a separation between cultures starts to occur, and the backpacker is left in between. Like many emerging countries, there is great inequity between the upper and lower economic classes, but Brazil is experiencing a relative boom in the middle class. I think the backpacker notices this (again, compared to other South American countries) as there is more of a class divide between those who use public transportation and those who don't, those who are independent and those who are not.

As I write this, I realize that it sounds as if I'm complaining that Brazil isn't 3rd world enough to be good for backpacking. This isn't the case. I believe that this notion of showing up to a country and wanting to discover something about it is dependent on both the country and the traveler having a certain level of accessibility. My inability to speak Portuguese coupled with my apparent ease at looking Brazilian did not make me very accessible. This was also likely compounded by my travel companions, Chu and Nate, who consistently spoke Spanish and Portuguese unless they were talking to me. It would be easy for someone to hear Nate and Chu speaking and assume that I also spoke Portuguese. Traveling with Nate and Chu also shielded me from a lot of direct interaction with people, whether it be the guy selling bus tickets, the woman selling empanadas, or the taxi driver.

Traveling with people who have significantly better communication skills is a double-edged sword. Getting needed information, or good advice, is much easier than simply relying on the few natives who have bothered to learn my native English. In the past, this reliance has put me in uncomfortable positions and effectively limits the number of people I can converse with. On the the flip side, standing next to someone while they do all of the legwork in complete fluency put me on the outside of the experience. It's natural for a travel companion who speaks the native language to do most of the talking but I couldn't help feeling like I was missing something as Chu got directions from the bus terminal or a restaurant recommendation from a passerby. At one point, the three of us were at the bus station and I was standing with my pack waiting for Nate to finish a phone call so we could board the bus. The plans had been slightly altered and after some confusion we finally boarded. When Nate sat down he said, "You know, I just realized that there are large spans of time where you have no idea what's going on." Plans were being made and re-made in another language, and I was just tagging along.

One avenue of accessibility that is opening up not just in Brazil, but all over the world, is couch surfing. Nate turned me on to couch surfing (CS) last year. It's a community web site, kind of like Facebook for travelers. Its basic functionality is to coordinate people who need a place to sleep, and people who can offer a place to sleep. Its greater purpose is to bring people of different backgrounds together, open up the inside track for tourists and allow people on a tight budget to travel for longer periods of time.

Its formal mission statement: Participate in Creating a Better World, One Couch at a Time

"CouchSurfing seeks to internationally network people and places, create educational exchanges, raise collective consciousness, spread tolerance and facilitate cultural understanding. As a community we strive to do our individual and collective parts to create a better world, and we believe that the surfing of couches is a means to accomplish this goal. CouchSurfing is not about the furniture, not just about finding free accommodations around the world; it's about making connections worldwide. We make the world a better place by opening our homes, our hearts, and our lives. We open our minds and welcome the knowledge that cultural exchange makes available. We create deep and meaningful connections that cross oceans, continents and cultures. CouchSurfing wants to change not only the way we travel, but how we relate to the world!"

If Couch Surfing sounds implausible, consider the current statitics: 1.1 million members representing 232 countries, 800 thousand available couches, and 2.1 million positive experiences, which represents 99.809% of all member experiences.

In addition to hosting and being hosted, many cities have active CS groups who organize social events with open invitations. In Uruguay and Buenos Aires, CS communities have weekly meet-ups at local bars, which was a great avenue to meet some friendly locals. Our stay in Montevideo (Uruguay) was almost cut short because of shortage of hotels and hostels, which were booked up by conference attendees. Nate and I went to a CS meet-up, and when a fellow surfer heard our plight, he offered us a place to stay right on the spot. At the end of my trip, I arrived in Sao Paulo, alone, the day before my flight home. I had flown in from the Argentinian border and had contemplated getting a hotel near the airport, which was an expensive ride from the center of the city. Had it not been for CS, I probably would have had a uneventful night in a crummy hotel. Instead, I had an incredibly fun night of good conversation, friendly people, and a nice home to sleep in. In the morning my host took me to her favorite place for breakfast before seeing me off to the airport. CS has the power to really change the landscape of travel, and I'm excited to take advantage of it as a surfer and as a host.

When I think about what makes Couch Surfing a powerful organization, it is that people are optimistic about the unknown. It reminds me of something Paul Theroux wrote:

“A traveler has no power, no influence, and no identity. That is why a traveler needs optimism and heart, because without confidence travel is misery. Generally the traveler is anonymous, ignorant, easy to deceive, at the mercy of the people he or she travels among."

Couch Surfers seem to understand and embrace this idea. They also seem to understand the value in traveling alone and the affect that has on your interactions with other people, which is sometimes hard to explain. I like what Jonathan Raban had to say about traveling alone verses traveling with a companion:

"Whereas traveling alone, everything happens. And also traveling alone puts you in this position where you will do almost anything to make contact with other people. My experience of traveling with somebody else is that you just hang around with them. Half the point of traveling alone is that you get so lonely you need to talk to other people. And so you find yourself hanging around late at night in bars talking with strangers, which you'd never want to do. It would seem an insane thing to be doing."

Perhaps this sense of optimism is amplified by the cross-cultural aspect of CS. It's easier to be more forgiving, more open-minded, more grateful when you're reaching across a cultural divide. Pico Iyer said it well:

"When walking down the street in Damascus or Ascunsion, I would find everyone interesting, and I would want to hear every story around because I wouldn't be walled in by the illusion that I know them. In Santa Barbara, I tell myself that I know something about a stranger's circumstances and can read something of them - which is, I think, an illusion."

Nate is actually the person who introduced me to couch surfing. He surfed a fair amount during his travels, and hosted many, many people while living in Mexico City. I'm grateful for his insight into travel and we share many ideals. In preparing for the trip, Nate and I were talking over Skype and he was checking out my CS profile. He started laughing at what I had written:

"It seems people have either too much time and not enough money, or too much money and not enough time. It's a tragedy."

I asked why he thought that was funny. He directed me towards his own CS profile, which read:

"Current Mission: "Change the inequity of time vs money and gain wealth in life experiences"

So we are kindred spirits, but not without our disagreements. It's funny how our different travel experiences have shaped our philosophies. He has traveled mostly in Latin America, speaking the native language, and without the burden of a return ticket home. I've traveled mostly to countries where the native language is largely inaccessible and have always had a return date scheduled in advance.

Nate has a rule: When he feels like he's exhausted the value of staying in one place, he stays one more day. He swears by this and claims that certain towns have ways of redeeming themselves. I don't doubt that this has paid off for him, but I've always enjoyed the freedom of arriving at a place, sizing it up, and deciding to just keep moving. These decisions of whether to stay or go are a gamble on time, which has always been a commodity for me.

Nate and I were talking about these around-the-world-trip tickets, which are gaining popularity these days. It's basically a package of airline tickets where you pick a few points around the globe and make your way from continent to continent, all for one low price. To me, it sounds like a good way to gamble your time. Nate disagrees. Every time he meets a traveler on one of these trips, they sound miserable, just comparing one place to the next. The conversation inevitably turns to, "Oh country X had better monuments/ruins/museums than country Y, but country Y had better beaches/food/mountains." Of course the people telling Nate all of this don't see their experiences as negative, but Nate is never impressed. Nate wants to travel slow, and when he doesn't like a place, he wants to stay there and talk to everyone he meets. I love him for it.

The Value of Coke

2009-06-17T23:25:00.000-07:00

I have a distinct memory of walking around the dusty streets of Narok, a small Kenyan city, full of strewn garbage and crumbling concrete. The sky was clear, the air was hot and dry. People eyed me with suspicion. I was uncomfortable, physically and mentally. I bought a bottle of Coke from the corner store. The refrigerator rattled away, but barely managed to chill the stained bottles. I remember the Coke was delicious and it tasted like home.

I was thinking about that experience my first day in Brazil. Nate, Chu and I had been walking the hilly streets of Sao Paulo in the sweaty mid-day heat. My body felt a little out of sorts, partly from the new environment and partly from restless night I spent on the plane. I was hot, thirsty, and tired, so when Chu suggested that we stop for a Coke, I didn't waste time locating the nearest cafe. I shared my sentiments: "Coke is one of the most comforting drinks in the world. You can find it in any country."

Nate, always opinionated an unapologetic, incites arguments without hesitation. He tells people what they don't want to hear. I think most people really love this about him. It's a beautiful thing to watch him cut through the extraneous information of an argument and spell out the heart of an issue. I had been in Brazil for no less than four hours and he was already kicking off an argument that would continue for the rest of my trip.

Brazil has a kind of national soft drink called Guarana, which is named after the Amazonian berry that gives it its sweet, citrus flavor. It's loaded with caffeine and is very popular. Nate immediately pointed out that my nostalgia for Coke was preventing me from trying a more superior beverage, and I should be ashamed of myself for supporting a large multi-national conglomerate which not only exploits resources and people, but literally destroys every culture it touches. It was all a bit dramatic.

I was a little surprised at his tone. I was pretty sure that it was Chu, not me, who had suggested that we get a Coke. That was the word she used, "Coke", not "Guarana", not "something cold to drink", she said "Coke". We quibbled back and forth. I was said that it wasn't a big deal, and he held his position. I eventually lost patience him. "Look man, I'm going to try some Guarana just as soon as I feel like it. But right now I feel like having a Coke, and that what's I'm going to drink. Get off your pedestal, this nonsense about Coke being an evil company. Are you telling me that you've never bought gasoline supplied by an oil company that wasn't responsible for raping the land of a third world country with no regard for the rightful owners?"
"I just think you're making a big mistake, that's all."
That's how the conversation went every time we bought something to drink. I started buying Coke out of spite.

Later I learned what had spurred the argument. Coke is producing their own guarana-based drink and constricting business for the Brazilian-based soft drink through exclusivity contract agreements with vendors. Coke had also bought up a bottling facility in Chu's hometown, only to shut it down and send everyone home. Boo-hoo though. I didn't come to Brazil to defend the dynamics of the free market. Not to mention that Nate and Chu were hypocrites in the matter. In addition to occasional Coke consumption, they very frequently purchased bottled water produced by Coke-owned companies. There was no way I was going to concede this argument, especially when Coke is so wonderful and delicious.

A few days later we were returning from an all-day boat trip. We passed a convenience store and I noticed an ice cream freezer sitting near the door. I had a flashback accompanied by another nostalgic craving. When I was in China, I somehow got addicted to ice-cream-on-a-stick. I ate one everyday during that hot China summer, and seeing that freezer made me need one at that moment. We had spent all day in the sun and there nothing that was going to relieve my agony like a frozen vanilla ice cream bar with chocolate fudge in the middle. Nate protested. He assured me that I could find some homemade ice cream in one of the shops in town.
"Yeah, but I don't want homemade ice cream. I want an ice cream bar."
"You're telling me that you would rather have some inferior piece of garbage from Nestle Corporation than fresh homemade ice cream?!"
"Yes, that's what I'm telling you. "
Profound disappointment.

Days later the Coke conversation came up again. I asked Nate why it was ok for Chu to love the iconic Brazilian soft drink but it wasn't ok for me to love the iconic soft drink of America. He blew up. "If we were in the U.S., you could drink Coke until your eyes turned black! But we're in BRAZIL!"
I smiled. It was time for a peace offering.

When I travel, I like to bring at least one book related to travel or travel writing. There is something powerful in reading something that parallels your current existence, and it's a good way to frame and affirm your experiences. My travel book for this trip was: A Sense of Place - Great travel writers talk about their craft, lives and inspiration. If you like you the "travel writing" genre, this book is an amazing compilation of interviews with some of the truly great travel writers of our time. I couldn't recommend it enough.

I gave Nate the book and opened it to an interview with Frances Mayes (author of "Under the Tuscan Sun").

That sense of discovery is why I travel. I don't want anything pre-digested to guide me through a place. Remain open, I think, as much as you can. Of course, we always carry our prejudice with us to some extent, but I hate it when people come here and they want Coca-Cola all the time, they bring their candy bars. It's just so bad not to leave everything you can behind and see what's out there that you don't know.

It was too perfect not to share. Me and my Coca-Cola and my ice cream bars. And I call myself a traveler. I'm a disgrace.

As it turns out, Guarana is quite delicious, but would I forsake Coke? No chance.

Paraty

2009-06-17T23:20:00.000-07:00

The weathered wooden door was propped open allowing the night air to cool the gently pulsing dance floor. Samba played over the speakers and red-orange lights made everyone glow. An evening of wine swirled in my head, making my body feel light and happy. Keeping my feet inside I tilted my head through the doorway to catch the breeze coming down the street. My eyes followed the cobblestone street one block down where stray dogs roamed the grassy plaza. Inside the girls with cotton dresses danced with themselves, maintaining just enough disinterest with the boys surrounding them. A young man sat perched in the window frame, one arm outside and the other holding a cigarette. His hair was tightly combed back and his face was tilted towards the ceiling. He gazed over the crowd with indifference. A couple sitting at a table kissed. I felt like I was away, and I felt like this exact scene was being played out at a million different bars all over the world. It felt timeless and without constraint.

We had arrived that evening. Nate had taken the initiative of booking a room for us, but his ADD took over before he had the chance to copy down the Hostel name or address. I learned that this kind of thing is pretty normal for Nate. We were in Paraty (pronounced: Para-chi), a small beach town halfway between Sao Paulo and Rio. It's a small enough town to be covered on foot, so we just started walking. I wouldn't have been annoyed had I not been so hungry. A young guy, maybe 19 approached us and began talking to Nate in Portuguese. Nate turned to me and said, "This guy is from our hostel, the one I booked." Amused, I commented on our luck. Nate, who has no job, no home and no place he needs to be, offered a classic response, "It seems that no matter how easy I take it, it's not easy enough." It's the kind of thing that someone says when they know that the worst case scenario is still a pretty good time.

The historic district of Paraty has a clearly defined rectangular perimeter. Inside, cobblestone streets, tight alleyways and colorful, uniform row shops give you feeling that you've landed in the middle of a toy set where everything is connected and built from the same set of blocks. We followed our our guide through the maze of streets to the hostel door. As we turned the corner I made a mental note of a prominent restaurant sign hanging at eye level. In the anxious dark I missed the small wooden plaque marking the hostel door.

It was nearly 3am when Nate and Chu decided that they needed to go to the beach. Chu offered to walk me back to the hostel, but I assured her it it wasn't necessary.

I finished my drink and decided I was ready for bed. I stepped out of the bar and turned right. All of the life and color that I had used to mentally map my location was now dark and absent. Warm light and interior scenes had been replaced by opaque wooden shutters. Clothing stores and restaurants were identical without their large wooden signs, now retired for the night behind bolted doors. The streets were silent and empty. The only sound came from the a thin layer of wet sand scraping between the stone and my sandals.

I paused at each intersection, making a mental note of which direction I had come from. It all looked the same. Twenty minutes had passed and my confidence was dwindling. I needed the restaurant sign and it wasn't there. A certain window looked familiar, but where was it in relation to the hostel? I couldn't say for sure. Forty five minutes passed. In the absence of people, unseen dogs emerged from the night and began taking over the town. Every time I turned a corner, five or six dogs would quickly disperse, sometimes running past me. I was clearly walking down the same streets, walking past the same buildings, over and over again. The brisk walking had completely sobered me up. I methodically started at the edge of the town and work my way down each street. An hour had passed. I began to contemplate the fact that I might be sleeping outside. There was a church on the edge of town surrounded by a patch of grass. The air was damp, but warm. It wouldn't be too uncomfortable, at least until the sun came up. I hoped that I might see Nate and Chu on their way back from the beach.

Then I was angry, angry at how stupid it was that I didn't know where to go. My anger cemented my resolve. I began inspecting each and every door, which what I should have done from the start. I had been looking for all the wrong signs. Ten minutes later I was crawling into bed. I must have walked past the hostel door six times.

When I was 8th grade we used to play a modified game of hide and go seek in my friend's basement. It was full of furniture and junk. The person who was "it" would go to the top of the stairs and wait for everyone to hide. Then, before coming down, they would turn off the lights and enter the pitch black, relying only on touch and sound to find a hiding person. It was a game of patience and stillness, your heart pounding when approached by groping hands. If someone were to turn on the lights in the middle of a game, they would see me quietly standing in the middle of the ping pong table. My friend would be hugging an exposed beam in the ceiling, and the other would be barricaded behind a filing cabinet. Light has funny way of changing our experience. In the light of day, while people are going about their business, it's clear that getting lost in Paraty is a bit like getting lost at the mall. But in the dark, late hours of the night, the streets turn into a hallway of mirrors, and the characters on the dance floor reflect the same joy and yearning felt all over the world.

Trying To Say Thanks

2009-06-17T23:15:00.000-07:00

The girl in this picture is miserable, and I am smiling like a jackass. This picture could be my epitaph.

Nate had a lot of fun coming up with different captions for this photo. My favorite: Delivery day from www.asianbrides.com.

For once though, I really don't feel like this one is my fault.

We were on the island of Florianópolis, a huge tourist destination in Brazil. The island is about 30 miles long and boasts 42 beaches. It was easy making friends with the few other guests in the empty hostel situated at the southern tip of the island. All of the big hotels were in the northern half of the island.

Adam the Englishman was in his third year of travel, with the express goal of crossing the globe by motorcycle. Hostel stays were mostly a luxury item for him. Most nights he camped. I've got a soft spot for people like him, so I bought him dinner and a beer, with the hope of extending his budget for perhaps one more day.

Kaori, the Japanese girl seen in the picture, was sitting in the hostel's common area trying to get her Macbook to connect to the wireless signal. I introduced myself and asked about her day. She gave me a very animated account of going to the beach and being chased down by a dog. She had trouble putting her finger on the right English words need to tell the story, so she acted it out, including growling sound effects and clawing hands. The dog grabbed a hold of her dress, tearing a large hole in it. It sounded like a frightening ordeal, but I had a hard time reconciling the dogI heard in the the story with the dogs I had encountered earlier that day. These dogs were stray, a little desperate for attention, and eager to play fetch. Kaori was describing Kujo. But then again, she seemed a little skittish. When a cockroach appeared on the other side of the room, Kaori jumped up on the couch until it disappeared.

The next morning I invited Adam, Kaori and Andre to join us for what promised to be a nice hike to a waterfall and swimming hole. Andre was a 26 year old Brazilian living in Sao Paulo who came down to Florianópolis for a long weekend. Nate and Chu made us a group of six. At 10am we started our hike towards the beach. Already the sun was hot. Adam ducked into a small grocery store for water, but came out empty handed. Only carbonated water was in stock and he was sure we would have another opportunity to find water. We did not. Everyone was in high spirits as we walked down a quarter mile stretch of sand and then another. The plan was to follow a trail up into the mountainside where we would find the waterfall.

We quickly left the open vistas and made our way into the forest. An hour later we scratching our heads trying to figure out whether we should continue straight, or take a side trail further up the mountain. We took the side trail, passing a lone house with an angry dog chained to the porch. The trail was getting hard to decipher, but plastic tubing running down the mountain side was leaking water, which gave us hope. We crawled over fallen trees and thorny branches. Adam and Andre were doubtful about trail and turned back. They agreed to meet the rest of us near the main trail. We pressed on for another 15 minutes. No dice.

After the climb up the mountainside, dirt clung to my sweaty skin and my head felt hot. We re-traced our steps back to the main trail and scrambled down the rocks to the coastline 50 yards below. Adam and Andre were sunning themselves on the rocks, glad of their decision to give up when they did. I carefully traversed the boulders and let the pounding waves wash over me. It was 12:30 and I started to think about lunch.

On our way down the trail, Chu had talked to some Brazilians who said that if we continued on the main trail, we would find a beautiful beach and could catch a bus back from there. It was supposed to be a two hour hike. Everyone was a little hot, and little hungry and a little thirsty, but still in good spirits. I mentally took inventory of our water. My water bottle was 3/4 full, Nate and Chu had started the day with 1.5 liters between the two of them. Adam and Andre were empty handed, Kaori had a shoulder bag, but I hadn't seen her drinking anything. I was already contemplating the fact that I didn't have enough water for myself and was wishing Adam had just bought the carbonated water.

The trail become more difficult, more rocks, more brush, steep ups and downs. The brush enveloped our bodies, the trail was barely visible. It started to become unpleasant. Nate, leading the pack, pissed off an ant colony. When the rest of us caught up, the ants were in a frenzy. Their bites were like bee stings lasting a painful 5 minutes. Kaori got it the worst. She was wearing flip flops, ill suited for the hike to begin with. She was having trouble pushing her way through the brush. Too many burrs, too many unknown insects. More than once I accidentally let a branch snap back into her face.

I took my turn at the front of the line and managed to walk right into several large spider webs which draped the trail every 20 yards or so. Spiders don't really bother me, but nobody likes a face full of spider web. Despite the fact that some of these spider were the size of my palm, you didn't always see them until your face was planted into the middle of their web. I adopted the "wave-a-big-stick" technique to clear them out before my body did.

Every 30 minutes I stopped for a drink and passed my bottle to Adam and Kaori, both gracious and thankful. My shirt was soaked with sweat and my controlled sips felt inadequate. I started to ponder the possibility that there was no beach. The trail was not opening up, the steep hillside was not flattening out.

At 3pm we broke out of the tree line and onto a grassy knoll. The trail dissipated. What we saw was not encouraging. A long rocky coastline ending in a rocky hillside.

Nate, Chu, Adam and Andre thought it was worth taking a look around the bend. I was not so optimistic. Kaori was done. She had stopped having fun 2 hours ago, but was trying to be a good team player. She sat down, not wanting to go further, not wanting to go back. There was 3 hours of daylight left, if pushing on didn't pay off, re-tracing our steps in the dark was going to be difficult and dangerous. The group had reached an impasse. Unless the beach was literally right around the corner, I couldn't see going any further. Nate, Adam and Andre were ready to press on, or at least have a look.

If you look real close you can see Nate, Chu, Andre, and Adam,

I sat down next to Kaori and considered the options. Without food, water, a map or a flashlight, the only reasonable choice was to suck it up and return the way we came. I monitored Nate's progress, his body barely visible against the distant rocks. I decided it was best to just wait it out. If the beach wasn't around the corner, they would all come back. If it was, they would all disappear and wait for us to follow. I was feeling better now that I had plan. I tried to cheer up Kaori but she wasn't having any of it. She wasn't just tired and disappointed, she was genuinely worried. Worried about being able to find our way back, worried about the sun setting, worried that she might actually never get back. I thought I could put the day in perspective.
"Look, we're going to have a long walk back, but in 2 days you're going to be back home in Tokyo and the whole thing is going to be a funny story."
And that is when I decided to snap our picture.

I really thought that she was going to muster up the energy for a smile. I was wrong. But then again, I am an ass. I tried to recover the ship and told her I was going email the picture to her in exactly one month, and that it would make her smile. I was doing my best to be optimistic, but I must not have been very convincing, because 5 minutes later she was crying.

Meanwhile, I was trying to figure out what the rest of the crew was up to. I could make out a few bodies in the distance, but they weren't pushing forward and they weren't coming back. Forty-five minutes had passed and finally Adam was walking back. That's when the drama started. As he approached us, he was visibly upset.

Adam had been the first to make it to the end of the coastline. He climbed the rocks and viewed the next stretch of coast. It was more of the same, as far as the eye could see. He climbed down and told Andre that there was no way we were going to be able to continue. Even if the beach was around the next rocky point, it was too far for Kaori and her flip flops to make it. Andre remained unconvinced. Adam invited him to have a look for himself. Andre disappeared around the rocks. Ten minutes passed and Andre had not returned. Adam climbed back up only to see Andre a few hundred yards out. Adam waved for him to come back, but he kept going.

This left everyone in a very uncomfortable position. Adam was furious. Chasing after Andre was no longer an option, he was too far ahead. And with 2 hours of daylight left, waiting for him to come back wasn't an option either. Nate and Chu, still off in the distance, were going to wait a few more minutes and then turn back. Adam suggested that Kaori and I get a head start, the three of them would catch up.

I put my water bottle back into my backpack so that it was out of sight. I mentally divided what was left and reasoned I could take one small sip every 15 minutes. Kaori was feeling a little better but was still quite anxious. She was not confident that I would remember the way back. I kept turning around to reassure her.
"In a few hours we were going to be sitting in a nice restaurant with a big plate of food, a few bottles of beer, feeling fat and happy."
Every time I turned around to talk, she became more anxious.
"Take care. Take care." she kept repeating. "If you get hurt, I will never make it back!"
I tried lightening the mood.
"I have idea! You can teach me Japanese. Help me remember how to count to 10."
She didn't like that idea.
"No talking! Just walking!"

Kaori's pace quickened with the promise of a destination. It was dusk when the trail finally emptied out onto the beach. Adam, Nate and Chu had caught up and everyone breathed a little easier. Nate, Adam and I ran into the ocean to rinse our sweaty bodies and to take the weight off of our tired feet. I felt happy and marveled at how much more enjoyable the beach was after working so hard to get to it.

We discussed Andre. Nobody like the idea of him being out there all alone, but he made a really selfish decision and it was hard to feel guilty about it. Still, he was a nice guy. Hopefully he would be smart, find a rock to spend the night on, and then turn around in the morning. We returned to the hostel and recounted the day to the manager. The police arrived and we gave them as much information as we could. There wasn't much they could do at the moment, but they did say something about a call to the fire dept from someone who was lost. The five of us went to dinner and tipped a glass for him.

The story doesn't end badly. Around the same time we were running into the ocean, Andre was rounding the corner to the fabled beach that was our original destination. He caught a boat taxi and then a bus back to the hostel, arriving around 10pm. He's a lucky sunnava bitch if you ask me. The final story I heard from Nate a few days later was that he called the Fire Dept to report five lost hikers that got left behind! When I heard that, I wasn't sure if I hated him more or less.

The next morning Adam got on his motorcycle and bid farewell, Andre got on the bus back to Sao Paulo, Nate and Chu made a day of going to the bank, and Kaori had one more afternoon to burn before catching a night bus back to Sao Paulo for her flight home.

I accompanied Kaori to the opposite end of the island. The bus system was a little tricky, and neither one of us were sure about where to get off. We showed the bus attendant where we wanted to go on the map, who then motioned to us when we reached the correct stop. I followed Kaori out the back door, pausing to say thank you to the attendant. As I stood in the doorway of the bus, Kaori stepped forward and immediately froze at the sound of tearing fabric. I looked down and saw my foot trapping her ankle-length dress, which was now dragging on the pavement.

I tried to make amends. I bought her a new dress and apologized profusely. She was very gracious the way Japanese people always are.

Kaori and I had dinner before she needed to get on her night bus back to Sao Paulo. I apologized again for the previous day. Watching her think about it made me laugh. She said she was glad she went on the hike because it was.....
I tried filling in the blank. "A good experience?"
"No. Not a good experience." She quickly corrected me.
I tried again. "A unique experience??"
"Yes! A unique experience."

You know how a quotable phrase from a favorite movie or song can embody certain situations? As Kaori and I said our goodbyes, all I could think of was a line from a story which was aired on This American Life. It's funny story (check it out here) involving an affluent couple enjoying a romantic evening, which was interrupted by a squirrel in the attic. A veteran cop recounts the story from his rookie days, who responded to the call with his rookie partner. They managed to botch their response at every turn. The story ends with a broken nose for the husband, fire damage to the living room, and the wife in tears. As the the husband is escorting the cops out of his house he says, "You know, I can't point to any single thing that you did wrong......I did call you and ask you to come over.....But I just can't thank you for this."

I imagined those words running through her mind as we said goodbye.

Update:
As promised, I emailed Kaori one month later. She wrote back:

hi james!
how are you?

thank you for beautiful pictures.
it's verrry beautiful, so i became happy.

my job is very good and i have fun every day.
i had memories not bad, but not good. haha
but , i think now i was lucky to experience that.

me,, i separeted from him after back to japan,, (referring to her boyfriend, who she was missing in Brazil)
he couldn't wait me.
so, i regretted to go my trip,,very.
but i look at your picture, and i remember a lots of
memories.
thank you.
now, i don't regret. it was so fun!

nice to meet you,
and i hope we see again someday somewhere.

then, how is your trip?
where did you go?
did you say to your friends to your hope?

kaori