Cartagena de Indias

Boarding the bus in Santa Marta I asked out loud in English and Spanish and to nobody in particular "Is this the bus to Cartagena?" My 'Romancing the Stone' reference fell on deaf ears. Whatever, at least the bus was air-conditioned.

There is no respite from the heat in Cartagnea. Despite it's sea-side status there are no forgiving breezes to steal. The relative humidity regularly hangs about in the 90% bracket as well. The byproduct of all this is a city with many people sitting around doing nothing. Understandably as well since clothes that cloy like second skin and sweat beaded brows are not known to be motivational forces. The upside is that you couldn't ask for a more colorful place to idle away the daylight hours. Calli is known for its beautiful women, Quindio its Arabica beans and Cartagena for the finest colonial architecture in the country. Salt air weathered facades, cobble stone streets and bougainvillea wrapped balconies lend it a fairy tale quality. Sitting on the city walls at night listening to the sonic booms of fireworks its easy to close your eyes and imagine Sirs Francis Drake and Henry Morgan have arrived to sack the city once more.

This being the Caribbean, Salsa is king. In fact the Salsatecas outnumber the churches - a bold statement in any Latin American locale. I am somehow reminded of the movie The Mambo Kings when Armand Assante traces the sign of the cross on his chest and intones "In the name of the Mambo, the Salsa, and the Cha cha cha." I think he might have actually said Rumba instead of Salsa but I digress. So yes dance, the costeños appear to be imbued with some extra dance chromosome which allow their hips to completely unhinge and move independently of everything else. Pigmentation notwithstanding it's easy to pick out the costeños as they are the patrons at the Salsatecas that know every word to every song. Lips in addition to hips are never not moving in time. Take that gringo.

There is a debate as to the geographical origins of Salsa. I have heard it was invented in New York City and took hold in Cuba and vice versa. I think it really depends on what country's passport the person speaking is holding. At any rate it is not Colombia. What is distinctly Caribbean Colombia in origin however is Vallenato music. This upbeat folk music is delivered by accordion player who usually does vocal duty as well while the beat comes from the guacharaca which is similar to the African djembe drum and the guacharaca. The guacharaca is basically a palm stalk with notches that is scraped by a fork with metal tines, producing an almost insect sound(think the intro to The Stones "Gimme Shelter.") A nice way to take in Vallenato is on a local Chiva. The chiva is the old wooden bus that was once the workhorse of rural Colombian transportation. Open-sided, wildly painted and with extra wide bench seats, the chiva is the ultimate party vehicle. For a meager sum you can jump on the bus where upon you are handed a hand percussion instrument and a bottle of dark rum. The band sits in the middle and proceeds with a seemingly bottomless repertoire. At the front the "ayudante" who stands next to the driver, is armed with a microphone and serves as the master of ceremonies. No subject is off limits to the ayudante, if you are from Venezuela the bus gets to vote "Chavez or no Chavez", if you are from the US you will be called on to state your home city and be summarily dismissed as "the rich guy over there", he will lambaste the drivers skills and call out groups of people to stand up and dance. Its a participatory activity at its finest. As the bus idles at a stop light the locals on the street dance and cheer in agreement with the chiva. If you couldn't be happy here ... well then you probably couldn't be happy anywhere. Good times Colombia style.

It doesn't take long to get your head around Cartagena. The people are friendly and forthcoming. If you can't walk to it, it's accessible via a short cab ride, the old walled city, the new city neighborhood of Bocagrande and the marina lie in close proximity. Its not all Salsa and sunsets though, Cartagena is a port down that has a high degree of poverty and the darker seedier element that usually accompanies that. For most folks its the gateway to Central America. Because of the of the risk involved crossing the Darien Gap by land (FARC guerillas, paramilitaries, narco-trafficantes etc.) a healthy cottage industry has sprung up in order to ferry people to Panama via boat. This reinforces the transient feeling of the place, you are either coming or going north or south or simply sitting around. Either way it got Michale Douglas off "The Streets of San Francisco" and on to the big screen. Bromeando por sepuesto ja ja ja.

Ciao

Clifford

There are snaps in, around and about HERE

The Blue Lagoon

Along the two hour trek from the Tayrona Park entrance to my destination, Cabo San Juan , I passed untold legions of leaf-cutter ants, a lone burro and four capuchin monkeys who were well ... monkeying around. Litteraly. The completely unpeopled trail I was on had lead to wildy-woven fantasy that when I reached Cabo I would have the place to myself. My fantasy found a still birth when I came upon two Europeans pitching a tent. Had the beach not been something just short of Eden I might have taken offence. This was a national park after all and so I quickly disposed of the false sense of entitlement my fantasy had spun.

My first sensation I had in Cabo San Juan was one of deja-vu. It took me a minute to put my finger on it but this was how I had pictured the island in The Lord of the Flies back in high school. It was not an island of course but rather the unspoilt Carribean Coast of Columbia, rain forrest jungle ends where the sandline begins. There is little transition. They bays are failry deep and well dilenated by large granite rocks. The granite looks as if it could have possibly been hurled down from the top of the mountain by some ancient Kogi Indian god in some myth creating act of violence. The water itself is warm without being bath water and there is nobody trafficking the beach trying to sell you hippy bracelets. If it weren´t for the breaking of the waves on the shore I believe you could actually hear yourself think in a place like this.

There is one restaurant on the beach that is run jointly by a couple of families. Thier operation is a primitive one as there is no power in the park. From 7-9 PM they fire up a gas powered generator that allows them enough power to light a couple of fluorescent lights and offer a dinner service. Aside from the fish the food is not much to speak of but who orders pasta when the red snapper was swimming within the last 30 minutes?

The night was arguably as enjoyable as the day light. After dinner and dominoes it was a flashlight trek back up to the Gazebo where the hammocks were strung up. Perched up on the Granite overlooking the Carribean was about as much of an accomodation as one actually needed out here. The breeze the flowed into the open-walled structure defrayed the onset of mosquitos. The only thing better than sleeping outside is sleeping outside without being slathered in nauseating scent of insect repellent containing high levels of DEET. Sleeping in a hammock for the entire night sounds like an enticing proposition until you realize that shifting positions requires waking yourself up to so. Being of the mind set that there is no worse sleep than that which comes in fits and starts I discovered another use for my small red raft the next night. The second night I realized that the raft would in fact fit into the width of my hammock. The sight of this of course was much laughter on the part of my neighbors. This laughter quickly subsided when they realized that I had in indeed created the ultimate hanging luxury bed. Ha, my MacGyver moment!

When the heat stroke and 1st degree burns began to set in I turned my attention to the jungle and rain forrest behind me. The park is named after the Tairona Indians. The Tairona are believed to be the oldest "indigenos" on the continent. It was these folks who were first greeted by the Spanish n 1493. A two hour hike from the beach will lead you up a series of primitive rock steps to Pueblito, the ruins of thier former settlement. It´s all very Indiana Jones type stuff when you leave the beach.

There are some pics of the park HERE

Teganga, El Mar Caribe

Medellin is tops. The citys lattitude and altitude conspire together to ensure that everyday in Meddelin is beautiful. The reason it is known as the "City of Eternal Spring" is becuase it is never not 72 degrees with a slight prevailing wind. It has all the conveniences that a big city affords and I am fairly sure it would be a great place to live. At this point though outside of Caracas I have been to every major city on the continent and they just don´t do that much for me anymore. On a smog asphyxiating afternoon my thoughts turned to white sand beaches, bendy palm trees and the undulating rhythms of the Carribean. Within an hour I had collected my things and purchased an overnight bus ticket to Santa Marta.


Santa Marta is a port town with teeming streets. Its a bustle of commerce, a place perhaps to get things done. However a 10 minute collectivo ride from downtown Santa Marta will happily deposit you in the tiny fishing village of Taganga. It´s the kind of place you hesitate to tell other people about but truth be told however it is no Club Med. There are no waiters on the beach serving elaborate cocktails with little umbrellas. Santa Marta is rough charm, blue collar paradise. There are no resorts, the hotels are modest places with pastel painted and sun baked facades. Everything is dusty as there is little paved road and the best beach is not the main beach but rather a 10 minute hike around the promonitory to the neighboring bay. The restaurant scene is largely the row of weathered sea food shacks that dot the beach selling the daily catch. The Santa Marta/Taganga area is distinct geologicaly as it is a place where the mountains meet the sea. Where the beach stops the foothills of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta begin. At well over 15K feet it is one of the highest coastal ranges on the planet. With its snow capped peaks it certainly makes for a bit of high contrast curiosity. Every night just after the sun sinks to the bottom of the ocean the trade winds begin to blow and take the temperture down a cool five degrees at least. At about this same time the locals fire up their sound systems. Nearly every house in Taganga seems to posses a large bass bin and two gigantic midrange speaker enclosures on their porches. The music booms and bounces everywhere and curiosly it is always good. Sean Kigston´s "Beautiful Girls" has become the leitmotiv of lazy afternoons. Lastly I feel that one can not speak of Taganga without mentioning its people. As in all of Colombia the people are truly some of the nicest. To pass someone on the street or a trail and not say hello is considered rude. The locals are a spirited bunch who seem generaly pleased that you have paid their funky little hamlet a visit.

I am off to Parque Tayrona now which is a remote stretch of jungle and postcard perfect beaches. It is a well protected national reserve where you can rent a hammock for the night and sleep on the beach. It sounds like the ideal place for a part time castaway. I will let you know how it is.

Some pictures of Santa Marta and Taganga can be found HERE

A Chilly Reception In Bogota

Bogota, few degrees north of the equator and less than a month until the start of summer. Within minutes of landing I swapped out my Brazilian beach uniform of the previous month for pants, a long sleeve shirt and my winter jacket. At an altitude of 8K feet the approaching summer was obviously taking the long way around. Weather notwithstanding it felt refreshing to be back in a Spanish speaking country and back in the shadow of the mighty Andes.

La Candaleria is the colonial epicenter in the southern part of Bogota and is in a word ¨gritty´´ The origninal structures are in decidedly different states of disrepair, poorly lit streets buckle and open holes approach without warning. Despite these pedestrian woes it retains a charm of cultivated neglect. The grid pattern is simple enough to figure out though, Calles run north south and Carreras run east west. I was pleasently surprised to see arepas being sold at regular intervals on the street. I had previously understood the arepa to be an exlcusively Venezuelan treat, at least thats what my arepa bar in the East Village would have me believe. In fact the arepa is simply a staple of the North Andes gifted down from the native indians. If you haven´t had the pleasure of indulging in an arepa they are basically corn bread and cheese patties cooked over an open grill. This is the more traditional approach but you can also opt for the arepa rellena which is two arepas filled with either chcken, pork or shredded beef. Hot off the grill at 75 cents a pop they are a street food conniseur´s nirvana. That being said the empanada bars are also a worthy option. The Colombians eschew the traditonal emapanda dough and use cornmeal trade oven cooking for that of an overworked friolator. I often hear people speaking of the South American cooking as spicy but this is either a regurgitated fallacy or most folks have a very threshold for spice pain because outside of Colombia I have yet find a salsa with a good kick. You average empanda stand here always has a bowl of dark brown fiery salsa at arms lenghth and each bite seems to be rehttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.video.gif
Add Videowarded with a large spoonful by the locals. Good stuff. With blistering mouth in tow you don´t have to walk very far in Bogota to see a Fernando Botero image tacked up in some rincon bar or dry cleaner. Botero is to Colombian painting what Gabriel García Márquez is to literature. Fortunately these sun bleached and cigarette stainded reproductions can be upstaged by the originals in the Donnacion Fernando Botero which has an impressive collection of 200 paintings and sculptures. I visited the museum a few differnt times to look at his paintings. He is famous for those blimpy, fleshy and dimuntive people as well as pictures of sliced fruit. Bogota´s north side might as well be light years away though, lots of concrete and steel spaced generously far apart. A place for shopping not walking.

An over night bus deposited me in Calli a few days later. It seems to be a requisite stop on most folks iteneraries. Its chief natural resource being the gene pool. It is known to produce the most beautiful women in all of Colombia and beautiful they are. The problem I found with Calli is that the women are as overwhelming as their city is underwhelming. Aside from nightlife it is about as interesting as watching wet paint dry. It didn´t take long to board a departing bus. I did what any self respecting coffee drinker would do while in Colombia and headed to the Zona Cafetera in the Quindio Valley.

Salento is the smallest and oldest pueblo in the Zona Cafetera. It is the type of place where little old ladies look out window, smile and say hello as you pass by their houses. Surrounded by lush green hills dotted with coffee farms the mist and moody weather lend it a mystical quality. Oranges, lemons, beans, bamboo, tree ferns, bananas and, pineapple grow unattended on the sloping terrain. I think it is one of my favorite places. Needless to say the coffee is as good as coffee gets. On an afternoon hike I stopped into a tiny nondescript Mom and Pop finca to get a tour. The short tour concluded with a tasting. The beans were skillet roasted, ground and percolated in front of me. The subsequent cup of coffee proferred up was pure magic. Doctoring up the brew with sugar or milk was never a consideration, black gold! I am not one to go in for black coffee but there was not the slightest hint of bitter to be found anywhere. If the world had access to this caliber coffee on a daily basis I think the world would be a different place.

Just east of Salento is the Cocora Valley which is real cowboy country. Trails that traverse the farms of the lowland soon give way to thick jungle vegetation, river and waterfalls. It was fun to share space with horses in groups of four or five moving freely about on and off the trails grazing on scrub plant. If I hadnt seen sign of branding on them my assumption would have been that they were wild. After three kilometers of challenging inclines the jungle abruptly ends and you arrive in the cloud forrest. A local farmer had set up a mirador with benches in front of his farm. He was keen to take a break from brushing fresh pitch on his fence posts and chat. There is something very relaxing about talking to a local while clouds pass by in a direct line of sight. One curious element of Cocora are the prescence of wax palms. These palms average a height of 12 stories. At times the fronds of the top appear to be floating on top of the clouds like an ethereal sombrero. Lovely stuff.

The only strking contrast to all this natural beauty up here is the prescense of well armed military personel. The FARC guerillas at one time were well entrenched in the mountains just east of here. My understanding is that they have taken flight much further out and the soldiers are mostly here for visual reassurance. While I as visitor here certainly appreciate that, I find that I feel much better when M16s aren´t around.

Anyway ...

Some pics can be found
HERE

And some newer pics can be found HERE

Some Observations

The following are some recurring themes I have noticed while wandering around Latin America.

1)The dreaded 50 peso note:
Stop at any bank in any city and the ATM will gleefuly burp up your withdrawl denominated in as many 50 peso notes as will fit in you request. The problem is that when you produce one of these 50`s for payment someplace it creates pandemonium. A look of panic comes over everyone`s faces behind the counter. A hain reaction ensues which involves much talk amongst all of the employees in the establishment. Momentarily somewhat will dart out the door with your 50 and go across the street, next door and maybe even upstairs in an effort to break that bill at a neighboring business. If you happen to find youself in a time-sensitive situation the 50 dollar bill is useless to you. Note this situation occurs sometimes with 20s but not as frequently.

2)The Tyrany of the Receipt:
Recibos, facturas, whatever you want to call them are a required part of any business transaction. There are signs up everywhere imploring customers to make sure they have their receipt with them when the leave. I can understand the importance of a receipt with a big ticket item like for instance - a laptop. You are most likely to want and/need that receipt. However if I walk into a kiosko and ask for a small bottle of coke it is no different than if I were purchasing a laptop. Once I have handed over the 50 cents for the small glass bottle of Coca Cola, the dot matrix printer behind the counter will kick into action, spitting out an entire page itemizing my Coca Cola purchase. Sometimes when the printour is finished it will recieve a stamp before being handed over to the recipient. If the business is not of the computer printout variety, the clerk will scribble out your purchase on a small triplicate receipt book and hand it to before you leave. Sometimes the hand written receipt will recive a stamp as well. I haven´t a clue what the stamp says as it is always illegible.

3)Flourescent Lights:
There is only one type of light bulb that exists on the continent and that is the Fluorscent variety. Often the long cylindrical ones that sit in metal fixtures on the cieling. There is no socio-economic correlation either as towards where one finds Flourescent bulbs, a bank, a decent hotel, office buildings, and homes. You are never not under the alien green hue emitted by these awful bulbs. Perhaps this light is actually a thing of reverence down. How else do you explain the fact that none of the ceiling fixutres are fitted with the plastic covers that serve to diffuse the harshness produced by these bulbs? Note to General Electric - a massive PR campaign extolliing the virutes of "soft white" lighting in South America would be revolutionary. It would also likely increase profit margins by 900 percent.

Top three questions I have been asked:

1)Do you know/like The Ramones?
I think the Ramones are possibly the most popular band on the continent. If you answer "yes you like and have seen The Ramones many times", the conversation will include alot of smiling and handshaking. If you mention that you have seen Joey Ramone in a Deli on 2nd Avenue they will most likely offer to buy you a beer and start referring to you as friend. Strange but true.

2)Sept. 11th
Where were you? Who do you think did it?
I think lots of folks recently saw the `Loose Change` conspiracy theory documentary here. It seems to be untimely topical.

3)"What language was that they were speaking in Brokeback Mountain?"
Nobody believes when you say they are speaking English its just a dialect. They refuse to believe or seem very suspicous and will retort something along the lines of "I speak English and I didn´t understand a word those guys were saying. Why wasn´t there subtitles?" Ha ha ha. I kid you not.

Anyway where was I ....

C.

17 Million Paulistas Can't Be Wrong ...

but they might be crazy for living here in Sao Paulo. Sampa as the locals refer to their city is a megalopolis cosmopolis metropolis. Big Scrabble words for a big city. I believe its the the third largest in the world behind Mexico City and Tokyo. This morning over a cup of overly sweetened Brazilian coffee I calculated a route from Jardim Paulista to Centro, simple enough I thought. After a walk that took slightly less time than the gestation period of a baby elephant I reached downtown. After some furtive ducking into doorways to consult my map(I didn't want to look like a tourist and my back pack and beach attire from the day before were obviously fooling everyone) I finally found Edificio Altino Arantes. This was long ago the tallest building in the skyline and suspiciously resembles the Empire State Building. The mirador on the 35th floor is the place to "take it all in." If you envision a pie cut into 64ths and the island of Manhattan represented exactly one slice, that whole pie would likely resemble Sao Paulo. It makes the sprawl of Los Angeles look like Mayberry. The coarse concrete geometry of landscape can only explained by the abscence of any sort of urban planning. It's all very Bladerunner, I have to say I like it. I took a snipped of video as I was fortunate enough to be the only person on top of the Altino Arantes yesterday afternoon. You can find it HERE

Some Room with a View

Morro de São Paulo is one of a handful of villages on the island of Tinhare´. The island is one of an archipelago of 3 small islands 100 miles off the coast of Salvador in Bahia. The primary mode of transportation here is the wheel barrow. There are no cars on the island and if there were I am sure plying the narrow sand streets would be problematic at best. Luggage, dry goods and sometimes small children are all moved along inside the wheel barrow taxi. A true negative carbon footprint!

The village of Morro is easy enough to navigate. The naming conventions are handled by ordianl numbers. There is the 1st Beach(Primeira Praia), the second, third etc. The only anomoly to this naming scheme is the Encanto Beach which is truly a deserted paradise. The beaches get less populated as the numbers increase.

The beaches themselves are the stuff of stock image photography used in travel brochures the world over. The first beach has a break and some nice waves but the rest are held still by surrounding reef. Tracing the coast you find well-spaced Mangrove swamps mingle the clear, cobalt blue and emerald green tones of the tepid bath water. Beyond the beach are hills of Atlantic rain forrest that are dilineated by bougainvillea and coconut groves.

Every lodging on the island is a Mom and Pop shop with no structure exceeding two stories and not a corporate name among them. It has been a week since I traded in the iPod for alternating sounds of breaking surf and the rustling of palm fronds at night. Atmosphereic Ambien, the good stuff.


Some pics can be found HERE

Bountiful Bahia

Salvador is black, Salvador is beautiful. It is also the capitol of the state of Bahia. Back when it was the capitol of Brazil it was also the largest center of the slave trade in the new world. The fact that Portugal abandoned Salvador as a capitol may have played a part in the preservation of the culture of the millions of Sub-Saharan Africans who ended up here. That´s just a guess of course but all that is quintessentially Afro-Brazillian can probably be found in Salvador. More specifically it can be found in the Pelourinho. The Pelourinho is the old district in the high part of the city. Pelourinho is Portuguese or pillory which as you know is a stockade or whipping post or some other form of restraining device uses for public flagellation. Lovely no?

Bahian cuisine is found all over Brazil but its difficult to dispute the authenticity of what is to be found in Salvador. Moqueca is a stalwart of any Bahian menu. Moqueca is a fish stew cooked in cocount milk, sweet red peppers, and a palm nut oil known as dende.(Everything is cooked in dende up here.) This is usually served over rice with and some hot chili pepper salsa. It is both divine and inspirational. If you want to go more heart you can always order a bobó which is moqueca that is thickened with manioc gravy. Both of these are served as hot as molten lava in a black earthenware pot. On the street you can find the "Baianas do Acarajé", these are women dressed in all white tradition African dress who sell Acarajé which are fried black-eyed bean cakes which are served with various exotic tasting sauces. Some of the Baianas also sell abará which is fundamentally the same except that it is wrapped in banana leaf and boiled instead of fried. Lastly Carne do Sol is a local specialty which is a dried salted meet. l None of these are ever far from arm´s reach in Salvador and we´re all better for it.

Saturday night I was fortunate enough to witness a Candomble service. Candomble is syncretism. The Yoruba slaves brought Orisha faith with them from Africa. Since both The Catholic church and slave owners on the coffee plantations seemed somewhat "spooked" by the "pagan" religious practices the slaves took it underground by hiding their Orishas or spirits behind Catholic Saints in order to continue to practice their religion without the threat of persecution. An Orisha which is a type of guardian angel is the basic element of Candomble. During a service many parishoners will under go a trance and become possesed by the Orisha. Candomble is an oral tradition with no holy book. The services are led by a Mae/Sae do Santo which is the equivalent of a priest and the momentum of the 4 hour service is led by a contigent of drummers. The service is a fascinating kinetic ritual, as the drums weave ever evlolving polyrhythms the parishoners, dance and chant and support one another. A couple of hours into the cermeony a select few will enter the trance state and begin convulsing and become possesed by the Orisha. Soon after some will disappear to the back and reappear wearing a constume image of the Orisha. The constumed and possesed worshiper will then go into a special dance which is not them but rather the orisha making the movements. This is followed by more dancing and chanting and eventually the intensity winds down. The service usually finishes with a celebratory meal which is taken outside. Fascinating stuff.

Capoeiria is a martial art/dance which was created in Salvador. The origin is likely in a martial art from the old world of the slaves that was turned into a jocular dance in order for the slaves to sustain its practice. It is a martial art and a dance and is highly entertaining. You can find a roda which is a circle of Capoeiristas with the active participants in the middle of the circle in many public places in Salvador. To add to the spectacle the roda de capoeiria is accompanied by music. There are usualy a couple of berimbaus which look like a hunting bow which are played with a wooden stick, then there is a pandeiro which a type of hand drum resembling the tambourine. Sweeping round house kicks, elbow blocks and back flips are exhanged in rapid succession. If you were to combine the violent precision of Bruce Lee with raw energy of break dancing crew you might have a loose approximation of the entertainment value of good Capoeiria.

Besides the crime in the Pelourinho the only other problem is lack of a quality beach. The city is dived in to the Cidade Alta and the Cidada Baixa. In order to shuttle between the two involves taking one of the old Jesuit Elevators. the beaches along the Cidada Baixa are small rocky and slightly polluted. Finding the good beaches involves moving north or south of Salvador which is where I am heading next.


Anyway I have some pics in and around Salvador HERE

Football, Forro´and Fio Dental

It is quite conceivable that one could come to Brazil for a month and never venture beyond either Rio or the Zona Sul. There would be nothing wrong with this scenario either. However in any country that spans 4 or more time zones this constitutes a postage stamp-sized tether. Here are some of the ways I filled up the proverbial bucket before leaving.

A Churrascaria survey tour. Churrascarias are the Brazilian equivalent of the Gaucho Asados found in Argentina, basically a slow barbequeue. Where they differ of course is in the method of delivery and the variety of their offerings. The meat is served Rodizio style which is where the waiters circulate throughout the dining room with a skewer of meet and a knife. If the token on your table is facing green side up the waiter will shave off a cut of whatever he is serving, if the token is red side up he will keep moving along. They all operate on a prix fixe scheme so you are only limited by your intake capacity. At any given time there half a dozen waiters moving about the dining room with a seemingly endless selection of beef, chicken, lamb, pork, duck. Further, within each category of meat early every type of cut is offered as well. The winner hands down was Porcão which without any touch of irony means "big pig" in Portuguese. Although opinion seems to be split between Plataforma and Porcão as to which is the best Churrascaria, my vote rests with Porcão. In addition to its quality BBQ it has its share of that "see and be seen" element. I thoroughly enjoyed my friend Fabio, a Leblon local pointing out the different TV stars, football players and politicos while detailing their accompanying scandals. That´s entertainment.

On Wednesday night I attended a football game at the fabled Maracana´ Stadium. Maracana´is the biggest football stadium on the planet. Before receiving a face lift for last summer´s Pam American Games the capacity was 200K. After removing the terrace style seating the number is somewhere closer to 120K people. The game was between Flamingo which is Brazil´s most popular team and Sao Paulo´s Corinthians, a classic rivalvry for urban supremacy. A football game at Maracana´ has no comparison in any of the big 3 sports in USA. The Flamingo fans make the Red Sox fans on Yawkee Way in Boston look like choir boys. I think with the exception of automatic weapons everything is permitted to be brought into the stadium. I am trying to think of a 20 piece samba troop trying to enter Madison Square Garden with their drums on game night and it just doesn´t compute. There were passages of time where between the smoke from the fireworks and flares and the flag waving it became very difficult to see the field. It was like the Nuremburg of sporting events. Everything reaches an apoplectic peak of course when Flamingo scores. The movement of 80K fans in unison causes the concrete beneath your feet tends to undulate ever so slightly but enough for it to register. It also begins to rain, it rains beer, water, coke, plastic cups and cans. It also becomes evident that this is no place for a freshly pressed button down shirt. The game ended with a 2-1 victory for Flamingo after which the madness moved from the stadium to the street.

A visit to a Favela. Initialy I had mixed feeling about visiting a Favela. On one hand there seemed to be something touristcally exploitive about it. Yet on the other hand with a population of over 2 million people and a growth rate of 6 percent the favelas are clearly a legitimate part of the social fabric that makes up the city. After doing a minute amount of research I found a guy named Marcelo who donated a majority of the money for a guided tour to the community there. The favela I visited was Rocinha. This is the biggest favela in Rio. There doesnt seem to be any type of official census type data but many estimates put it at 100K people. I think most peoples impressions of the favela were culled from the movie "City of God" and up to that point mine were as well. True, drug lords and there soldiers run the favela but they do so along with an elected favela predident. Not everyone in a favela is a drug dealer either in fact these would be a minroity. Many of the maids, porters other service industry people who work in Copacobana and Impanema live here. Most of Rio´s construction workers are favela dwellers as well. Despite the illegal prescense of drugs and guns in the favelas there is little crime. Windows and doors remain open, there is no armed robbery, muggings or rape. This is one of those self regulating elements that are sometimes found in marginalized areas. In the abscense of a police patrol justice is meeted out by the Command which is the reigning power structure of the neighborhood. The Command is generally one of three different drug gangs that control the neighborhood. The kids with guns on the street are soldiers of the command. They are the eyes and ears on the street and report up the chain of command. They are not out for the wallets and jewelry of of tourists in any way. Their armed struggles rests with the police and rival commands looking to make inroads in their favela. The only real danger in visiting a favela or I imagine living there for that matter is getting caught in the cross fire between these elements. Another misconception is that in these neighborhoods there is an abscense infrastructure however this is patently untrue. There are supermarkets, restaurants, bars and bus stations in the favela. Every resident also has access to power and running water. The favelas also have their own community radio and cable TV stations. I dont mean in any way to portray a rosey picture of but what became obvious to me during the afternoon here was that there is a difference between poverty and being "down and out."

Next it´s off to the North East to the state of Bahia, the African heart of Brazil.

CT

Sucos, Salgados e Popozão. Tudo Bem? Brazil !

It's mid-afternoon on Leme Beach, the bronze Carioca woman next to me is rummaging through her shoulder bag. A moment later she produces a large circular hand-held mirror. When she stands up she begins angling the mirror around her back side. With head craned backwards she begins inspecting the tan lines under the piece of dental floss that is her bikini bottom. Subsequently a look of smug satisfaction appears on her face and she proceeds to lay back down on her towel. 'Note to self' I think, 'now I have seen it all.' Ah Rio. I am reminded of that old adage that "a bad day at the beach is still better than a good day at work."

After nearly a week of sun, surf and samba I think I have turned into a gelatinous blob. I am trying to account for my time and having trouble doing so. I rented an apartment for the week a block from the beach just between Leme and Copacabana. The stand up juice bars that occupy the corners everywhere in the city are a good place to begin the day. Since my command of the Portuguese language ranks up there with my command of Swahili I have resorted to the "point, order and pray" method of consumerism. Fortunately for me everything is good. The juices are a real treat though. My personal favorites include:

The maracuja(passion fruit), caju(cashew fruit), açaí(a purple Amazon berry), caldo de cana which is sugar cane juice where they put fresh stalks into a hopper to extract the juice or a vitaminia(fruit, milk an crushed ice.) They are all equally delicious.

The Salgudos(salty snacks) are the perfect accompaniment. Pastel de carne/queijo which is a large square deep fried pasty - very light and airy filled with shredded beef or chicken and cheese. The cheese is Catupiry cheese which has the texture and consistency of cream cheese. Bolinho de aipim - fried yucca and ground meat, Coxinha which is a tear-drop shaped pastry filled with shredded chicken. Kibe - Which is Carne with Tabuli and Mint. Not a bad one in the bunch.


Saturday night I was invited to a Feijoada party in Jardim Botânico. As always if you are fortunate enough to be invited to someone's home for dinner you accept. Feijoada is the national dish in Brazil and is traditionally eaten on Saturdays. It has it's roots in the slave days when the slave owners would give the scraps of pork (knuckles, ears, tongue etc.) that were left over at the end of the week to the slaves. It is somewhat similar to Jumbalaya. Pork and black beans seasoned with garlic, onion and salt are slowly stewed for most of the day producing a very rich sauce. This is served with rice, a Brazilian type of cous-cous called farofa (manioc flour), and couve (kale), as well as pieces of freshly-cut orange slices and washed down with a cold chopp(beer.)It is safe to say that nobody leaves the table feeling hungry. The party itself was good, there was a varied mix of Caricoas - artists, professionals and fashionistas and of course the odd solo traveler. I would venture to say that nearly half spoke English as well which seems to be a characteristic of the middle class here. After that it was off to Leme to a house party where people generously shared their favorite places to visit in the North of the country.

Yesterday laying on the beach I experienced a pang of guilt for not yet having done more of the touristy things. I had ridden the Bonde to Santa Teresea and explored Centro but little else. With a sense of duty I packed up from the beach and jumped into a taxi to go up to Corcovado which is the mountain with the statue of Christo Redentor that peers ominously down on you from everywhere in the city. Ten minutes into the cab ride we are in Botofogo by the marina in grid lock traffic. As I sat feeling that my plans for seeing a sunset high above Rio were dissipating like exhaust fumes I heard a long whistle blow. Then it began, the propulsive thunder of the bateria which is the percussion section of the samba troupe. To the right along the promenade of the marina was a samba school in full rehearsal. I paid my fare and leaped out of the taxi and headed towards the fun. The percussion section was well over a hundred men and women deep, the surdos, the tarols, the Cuícas and the Pandeiros are all weaving a fabric and working everyone up into a lather. This is bliss. Momentarily the flag bearer starts waving the schools flag and the Baianas begin strutting well polished samba steps, the choreography seemed well set. From atop a truck the stringed instruments and singers begin the schools anthem and everybody sings along. For the next hour and twenty minutes they march around the beach of the marina deftly working through their routines. The energy level only heads in one direction and that is up. This is an impromptu parade for most people and the few hundred that are flanking the left and right move along in unison, including the drink vendors on their bikes. At this point in the year the school seems to be operating like a well oiled machine, everyone knows their parts and nobody appears to be going through the motions. It is ready for public consumption. It is now dark and I walk back through the tunnel to Leme with their theme song etched firmly in my head. That Art Deco Christ statue will have to wait another day. In the words of the late Kurt Vonnegut Jr. - "and so it goes."

PS
Congrats to Cristina Kirchner on her election and becoming the first first lady to win the presidency. Now maybe they can take all of those digitally enhanced MTV style posters of her hanging up of her in Buenos Aires down? Kidding of course but I do imagine Nestor might be giving Bill a call this time next year to advise him of the nuances of being a first man.

Anyway some random pics can be found HERE

Tchau
Cliff

Asunción

Nuestra Señora Santa María de la Asunción is the capitol of Paraguay. The residents of Acunsion(Asuncenos)have the distinction of consuming more mate´ than anyone else in South America. They consume so much mate that they carry it around in a special fashion accessory. Nearly everyone walking the street in Asuncion carries a "guampa" which is a leather container with a handle or shoulder strap that holds the thermos of water. Many of these guampas are real works of art, dark leathers and beautiful etchings. They also have a compartment to hold the mate cup as well. The mate here is called terere´ however and is enjoyed cold since most of the year Paraguay bakes under the torrid sun.

Architecturaly it is a curious place. What isn´t faded colonial glory from the 16th or 17th century is brutalist architecture from the 1960´s and 70´s - large blocks of plain but imposing concrete edificios. Heat seems to be the only design conceit of the non-colonial structures, many have lateral blinds attached outside of the windows. It wouldn´t be incorrect to call Asuncion ugly but I also think that this strange dichotomy is what gives it its' charm.

Paraguay was once the most advanced country in South America. In addition to having the first telegraph network and iron foundry they also built the first passenger railway on the continent. This fact was brought to my attention by a taxi driver every time we passed the old station in the Plaza Uruguay and the following litany would invariably take place: "This was the first passenger train in all of South America", the driver would proudly intone. "Where does it go to?" I would ask. "Nowhere, it doesn't run anymore, not for a long time now." would come the response. Rather than make investments in the thousands of miles of existing track someone came up with a cheaper solution - simply turn the station into a museum.

It was with a certain pleasure that I took photos of the Palacio de Gobierno since during El Supremo´s(José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia)time the dictator forbid citizens to look at his house and anyone caught doing so was shot on site. Sure this seems a little extreme but perhaps if you were a dictator living in a palace that resembled a wedding cake you could probably understand employing such a policy.

Pantheon of Heroes in the Plaza de Independencia is similar to Invalides in Paris. The most impressive coffin in not one of the seminal players in Paraguayan history like the Lopez dictators but rather the kid sized casket dedicated to the children between ages 10-15 who fought in one of the bloodiest wars in Latin American History, The War of the Triple Alliance. This was the war that pitted Paraguay against Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay. During the war Paraguay lost close to 60% of its population. The Paraguay casualties swelled so much that kids were put on the front line to fight against the Brazillian cabalry. It was common for the children to have beards and moustaches painted on their faces to appear older from a distance.

Bar Lido is a lunch time institution in Asuncion. A large scalloped lunch counter snakes throuought the interior. There is often a wait to gain a seat at the counter. The lunch special is a cold surubi´fish soup. It is somewhere between a bisque and a chowder. This comes with a panchito and a refresco of your choosing. Savory, satisfying and cheap. This was the only place I had lunch during my time in the city.

I have some picture of Asuncion's funky aesthetic HERE


Flying over Paraguay from Asuncion to Brazil I am struck at how little there is below me. Large tracts of farmland, miles of uninterupted greenery and nothing that resembles a city. In a country the size of California with a population of only 6 million surely makes Paraguay one of the least populated places here. Oddly it seems to still be a victim of its' once isolationist policies. I don't if this is a place for everybody. I could see some thinking 'there was no "there" here' but I think that is the whole point. I think it is a close as you can get to seeing how places in South America looked when the Spanish arrived. Paraguay don't go changing.

C

P is for Paraguay

“An island surrounded by land” is how the novelist Roa Bastos once referred to his native Paraguay. Sitting with a group of fellow travelers at my hotel cafe in Posadas, Argentina I responded to the proverbial "where are you going next?" question by dryly stating "Paraguay I think." This was met with a group look of confusion. "What's there?" asked the studious looking Englishmen." "I am not exactly sure but I thought I'd have a look, you know, just in case" I replied. Next the akward lull in conversation rolled in like a fog. This place just wasn't on their radar. Technically it wasn't on my radar either. I knew a fair amount about the country's history which was intriguing enough but little else. So with the crumpled up Paraguay section of the 1998 Shoestring Guide I had found, I negotiated with a cab driver to take me to the frontier. It was a short trip to the other side of the Parana' River.

This wasn't actually my first time here but it was the first giving up my Argentine visa. Three days before I ventured into Ciudad Del Este which is a "soft" border of Paraguay shared with Brazil and Argentina. Ciudad Del Este is South America's answer to Hong Kong - a giant tax-free trade zone. The area is sketchy to say the least. Everything here is for sale, legal and illegal and openly at that. It is crowded and filthy and you likely wouldn't want to know exactly what business was being conducted in back rooms. This is not a place you want to find yourself after the sun sets. A border town always seems to embrace this wild west spirit though and I guess it stands to reason that a triple border town would be exactly three times that spirit. Not to be disheartened my assumption was that this could be in no way representative of the rest of the country. It turns out this assumption was correct.

Thirty minutes after leaving Argentina I found myself in Enarnacion at the bus station where both everything and nothing at all seemed to be going on. As the next bus north wasn't for an hour and change, I negotiated with a taxi driver for my passage. For 60 dollars we would be heading 260 Km north to San Juan Bautista(St. John the Baptist.) Momentarily my driver pulled up in a 4 year old Toyota Camary, tinted windows, rims and all. Since the standard Taxi here is a 20 year old yellow Fiat that had long since spent its crankshaft in some other country, this was first class.

It takes less than 10 minutes to get out of Encarnacion. Heading North on Ruta 1 everything appears to be upolstered in plush greenery. Long stretches of unspoiled land are puncutated by the occasional estancia, a Menonite farmer working his field, a guacho riding along the highway and the odd long-haul truck heading in the opposite direction. Tranquillo.

The driver wants to know why I am heading to San Juan Buatista. I explain to him that this is where the guitarista Augusto Barrios is from and I believe there is a museum there. This makes no impression on him, he has no idea who Barrios is. He then goes on to ask me why people that come to Paraguay must visit the Jesuit Missions. "I have no idea maybe because they're there." I reply. It is afterall a dark period of history. The missions were actually known as reduciones which is a cognate in English meaning of course "reduction." It was an encomienda type system. If the inidans could be reduced in their sprawl and centered around the Spanish pueblo, taxing them would be more efficient for the crown back in Spain. This was a quid pro quo though. In exchange for their labor and taxes the Jesuits gave the Guarani both religous and language training. Obviously that deal worked out better for one of the parties involved but as the saying goes "there's aint no such thing as a free evangelization." In all fairness the Baroque-Guarani architecture of the reducciones and some of the red sandstone church facades are quite beautiful and certainly worth a look.

San Juan Batista is a no stop light town tucked neatly off of Ruta 1. After a brief stop at the taxi stand in town my driver made arrangements for one of the locals to pick me up the following morning at 10:00AM at my hotel. Since there was only one hotel in town there was little in the way of details that needed to be worked out. As I was checking into the hotel it became apparent that I was the only guest in the hotel and possibly the only traveler in town. I set off to dinner at palatial place across from the hotel. It was no shock to discover that I was to be the only diner in the place. The owner asked me if I was Americano and after I nodded affirmatively she began speaking English. It turns out that she lived in Greenwich Connecticut for 25 years. Her husband was in politics and lived half the year in Paraguay and the other half in the US. We went on to talk about Connecticut, politics - the US presence up north here, the restaurant business, the weakening dollar and tourism in Paraguay. Sitting at a table outside I more or less let the waiter order for me. There is something infinitely satisfying about discovering a new fish. This particular fish is called Surubi is catfish that comes from the Parana' River. It was prepared lightly grilled with a squeeze of fresh orange proved to be simple perfection. This was rounded out with papas fritas which were not potato but rather mandioca(cassave), a simple green salad and an ice cold beer. This was followed by a dessert of mamon which is a local fruit with the consistency of papaya that was stewed in dulce sauce of some kind. Genius.

The following morning the taxi driver appeared promptly at 10:00AM and we headed off to Casa de Barrios Mangore. The house where Barrios grew up was a colonial weather worn place with no sign announcing its' cultural significance. The entrance was on the corner and as I entered there were six children sitting with nylon string guitars playing along to the minor scale that the teacher was humming. The kids seemed delighted that there was a visitor and were besides themselves at having their picture taken. There wasn't much of a museum to speak of. It was a gutted house with pictures and newspaper articles tacked to the walls. Gil the owner of the house informed me that is was being used as a cultural center and showed me the painting studio where local artists work. He was curious as to where I was from and how I knew about Augstine Barrios. I explained to him that our composer John Williams had declared him the greatest composer of all time and recorded some of his works. He nodded and produced some postcards which I purchased. I could sense that he wished there were more here to show me but as money is in short supply in Paraguay this was the reality. I thanked him for his time and told him I thought what he was doing at the museum/cultural center was a great undertaking.

I climbed back into the cab and my driver took me around San Juan Bautista and showed me the cathedral, pointed out the various monuments in the plaza and took me by the police station where dictator Stroesner's secret police tortured suspected subversives. It only takes about 15 minutes to have the grand tour of this mission town and before I knew it was back at my hotel waiting for the next bus to the capital of Asuncion.

Some Pics of Missiones Province can be found Here

Vive Hollywood, Vive Cinecanal.

CT

This Side of Paradise

Hiatus, that´s what it´s called. I had a two week hiatus in Buenos Airies. It was necessary. I would like to think of it as a sabitical but I have actually been on sabatical now for three months. I am struggling to find a word or phrase which means taking a break from taking a break but it escapes me. I am sure there is a verb for it in Spanish as they seem to have a specific one for almost everything else. My first order of business was to address my suitcase which looked as though it was in the third tri-mester of a pregancy. I dispensed with the all of my winter clothes and "aquired items" and sent them all back to New York. I also updated the ipod, got a hair cut and picked up some new books. You wouldn´t imagine that would take a full two weeks but it did. After restricting my transportation to nothing greater than the subway and taxis for 14 days, it was with itchy feet that I found myself at Aeroparque Newberry Airpot yesterday. Destination, Puerto Iquazu.

Traveling in South America sometimes feels like an aptitude test in logistics. Unlike Europe there is no high speed rail anywhere. Unless you enjoy 24 hour bus rides it is necessary to fly. If you look at the route maps for the airlines it becomes obvious that they are all set up in a hub and spoke pattern. If you want to fly 800 Kilometers East or West you must double back to the hub and fly from there. The concept of a shuttle service between second tier cities does not exist here. To make a lateral move requires three airports. So the question of how to navigate the continent efficently is one that often requires hours of thought and pouring over maps like a cartographer in training. Is it possible to move about Latin America without backtracking? My experience tells me "No." It´s like those "Seven Bridges of Königsberg" or "The Chinese Postman´s Dilema" type math puzzles. Perhaps if I knew something about Graph Theory I could probably write the definitive travel guide here.

Puerto Igazu is a small parcel of subtropical rain forest in the upper right hand corner of Argentina in the province of Missiones(think Jesuit.) This area is known as the triple frontier. It is where Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina join hands. Spanish, Portuguese and Guarani are spoken here, often in the same conversation as locals seem to be fluent in all three. The main attraction is of course the cataratas - Iguazu Falls. Iguazu makes Niagra look like a leaky bathroom faucet. You hear them some 2Km before you see them, 6.5 million liters a second of water flowing is a sonic force. The park is beautifully laid out, narrow trails thread throughout the rainforest heading towards the falls. Along the way toucans, butterflies and monkeys go about thier daily business. The spray from the falls is almost ubiquitous. Iguazu spills out over a gigantic U shape of basalt rock. At a little over a mile and a half wide there are some 300 inividual falls, the highest of which are 30 stories. The constantly replinished moisture in the air creates a sequence of never ending rainbows. The “Garganta del Diablo” at the top is one of the most impressive displays of raw power there is to be seen. The Brazillian side of the Falls is supposed to be even more impressive. Amen. I managed to salvage some photos from my water-logged camera. You can see themHERE

South to Salta

View Larger Map

Fun with Google Maps! They have a new API that allows you to embed them in all their interactive glory on your site. Go ahead click, grab and shake the continent around, you know you want to. OK enough geek speak though.

I left Bolivia on Thursday evening. As the rickety Aerosur 737 warbled with endless turbulence we passed by a lightning storm that was a little to close for my tastes. It's a bit unnerving to be up in the Troposphere in a metal tube during an electrical storm. The tarmac in Salta was met with an overwhelming sense of relief. Deep breaths.

The night before my Bolivian friends Julien and Maya whom I met in BA back in July took us out to show us what Santa Cruz had to offer in terms of entertainment. It was a fun albeit late night, a proper send-off at any rate. Gracious hosts indeed.

Anyway it is good to be back in Europe ... I mean Argentina, ha ha. Seriously though after nearly five weeks of almost exclusive Nescafe instant coffee it is nice to be back in a place with cafe culture, cafe con leches and great Italian food.

It is Oliver's birthday tomorrow and I am meeting up with he and Gladys in Buenos Aires. I heard there might even be cake.

Fly low and beat the radar
Clifford

Monkey Business In Shangri-La

Semiapata is time in a sieve. A week goes by in the span of a full-bodied yawn. At The Posado Inn there is always strong coffee, fresh fruit, granola, homemade honey and yogurt for breakfast. The woman at the edge of town who rents the horses has a zoo in her back yard. A handful of Capuchins, two howlers and a spider monkey might quickly become afternoon friends. At some point you realize the sound of the wind is something you can take for granted. Then it's time to go.

As you can see Cheetah the howler monkey really took a shine to Oliver as did many of Lisa Marie's animals. I think it has to do with the hat. Guess who's who in the pic above.

PICTURES HERE

Everyone Knows This is Nowhere

Seeking out the rarefied air of eastern Bolivia brought me to Santa Cruz. While the country may posses two seats of government the cultural capitol is undoubtedly the city of Santa Cruz. It is a classic east/west dichotomy. Geographically it´s close to sea level, the Cruceños seem closer to Brazilian than they do their Andean compatriots of the Altiplano. Santa Cruz espouses capitalism and if the graffiti is any indication they appear to be very concerned with the socialist policies of the government in the east. There is a sense of Gastronomy as the food is good here. The dialect is also different, the Cruceños Spanish called "Camba" which to my ears sounds like some form of exotic mumbling. The weather is semi-tropical and the city of Santa Cruz itself feels equal parts modern and banana republic.

Retreat from the tropical heat of the city can be found 2 hours south west of Santa Cruz in the Pueblo of Samaipata. It is a dusty, sleepy place blessed with beautiful weather all year round. The mercury rarely leaves the 70 degree zone. There are few cars on narrow cobble stone streets and the only thing above two stories is the steeple of the church in the plaza. The landscape is alive with colors of ferns flowers, fronds, birds, blossoms and bougainvillea. There is never not a gentle breeze blowing. Samaipata inspires if not demands laziness. Two curious phenomenon here are the round prickly cactus that adorn the phone lines like some dessert Christmas ornament. The other is the what is known as "El Chacqueo" which occurs when the prevailing winds come from the south. This phenomenon occurs during September when the farmers on the Amazon Basin begin the burn part of their slash and burn agricultural technique. With millions of fires burning at the same time the smoke forms a canopy all over Santa Cruz that looks like haze or a marine layer.

So far the one thing I have to add to my almost non-existent list of accomplishments in Samaipata is a long drive to the village of Villegrande. Villegrande is not far La Higuera where Che Guevara made his final stand. Here he was captured by the CIA trained Bolivian task force, taken to a small yellow school house and executed. His body was then taken to a laundry room at the Knights of Malta Hospital and put on display for the world press. Not far from the hospital next to a now defunct air strip is a small memorial paid for by the Cuban government. It is in this spot that the bodies of Che and his comrades were placed in an unmarked grave under the airport's tarmac. The bodies would remain here until a Bolivian General who participated in the original military operation revealed the location of the grave in 1995. A year later Ernetso Guevara´s remains would be moved to Cuba.


Bolivia is a strange, beautiful and fascinating place.

High in La Paz

The city of La Paz is a large hole in the ground. The city is hemmed in by the snow-capped peaks of the Cordillera Real above. At the top of the bowl is the Antiplano shanntytown of El Alto which rings the city. This is the area where the majority of the population lives. The sides that slope down from here are full of commerce - market stalls, cafes, tourist ghettos and restaurants. At the bottom of the slope is a very narrow band of four commerical streets before the terrain ascends back upwards towards El Alto. La Paz has the typical class structure/real estate paradigm inverted. Whereas normaly the more affluent live higher up the hill, here the wealthy live at the bottom and the poor live at the top. Huffing and puffing your way around you slowly realize that you are almost always walking some form of an incline. The vertical nature of the city combined with its altitude which is somewhere between 10K and 12K feet above sea level, ensures that you are almost always out of breath.

The city is choked with traffic. The majority of traffic are the local shared taxis which are mini-vans where the side door never closes from where a tout yells out to nobody in particular what stops they are making. It appears that anybody with access to a mini-van can go into business as such. Competition between the taxis is fierce. If you are not being beeped at chances are you are being yelled it. Independant commerce is almost exclusively conducted by the Andean women who come down from El Alto. Their prescense is everywhere, the tilted bowler hat(the direction of which denotes a marital status), the brightly colored woven shall, full length embroidered skirt and acute scoliosis. Andean women carry everything on their backs. it seems fairly uncommon to see them walking in a perpendicular fashion. It all makes for an interesting contrast against the well oiled ubanity of their surroundings. For sure there are many other contrasts to be found. The military prescense in La Paz is a heavy one. Officers draped in olive drap stand beside the ATM machines and goverment buildings brandishing sub machine guns. However, the traffic police on the main thorough fares dress in Zebra costumes and hold a rope taut between them. Continuing with the uniformed observations, there are almost as many shoe shine boys as there are people wearing shoes. The shoe shiners dress in a blue outfit similar not unlike a gas station attendant and wear baclavas or ski masks to hide their faces. The position of shoe shiner is considered so lowly that nobody wants have their face visible for fear of recognition and embarrasment.

There is much modern infrastructure here especially in the commercial district in the center. Modern is of course a relative term. Although they were much more modern than the Colonial structures it appeared as if the last bit of construction took place in the early 1970s. The socialist goverment has provided well for basic health care however most people still prefer natural treatments. Most of these natural remedies are found at the "Mercado de Hechiceria" or Witches Market. There is an herb, root or powder for almost every ailment from sports injuries to trouble in the bedroom. Some of the more exotic items are dried llama fetuses, monkey skulls, dried frogs and soap stone offerings to Pachamama. Idolatry was everywhere.

Although La Paz is the Administrative capitol of Bolivia, the constitutional capitol is the city of Sucre. These two cities are not in immediate proximity to eachother. One has to wonder how anything gets done here, perhaps it doesn´t. Fascinating place.

The name is Bolivar ... Simon Bolivar

We left Cuzco behind on Friday morning with a quick flight to Juliaca in the deep south of Peru. I don't much about Juliaca other than it has an airport. Our destination was Puno some 45 minutes further south on the shore of Lake Titicaca. Lake Titicaca besides possessing an overly potty mouth name is the highest navigable lake in the world.

Puno was to be little more than a wait station before crossing the border to Bolivia the following morning. However Puno proved to be quite festive. We spent a large portion of the night in front of the Cathedral in the Plaza de Armas. It was the festival of the Virgin of Copacabana. There was a giant bonfire, puneno music, some traditional circle dance and lots of corn liquor being passed around. These religious folks know how to have a good time.

Saturday after a 3 hour bus ride we reached the Bolivian border. Most border towns are decidedly manic but this was one was closer to a a free form circus. There was nothing you couldn't buy - desk and chair set, blankets, car parts, pork, bootleg movies, it was all here in make shift stalls on both sides of a single lane dusty road. The road itself was an amalgam of tourist coaches, beeping mini-vans with sheep strapped to the roof, stray dogs, dirty faced kids and Andean women prodding pigs and donkeys. How anyone manages to get anything done in this environment is a source of mystery.

After a lunch of quality lake trout we climbed onto a boat and sped out towards Isla Del Sol. If it weren't for the lack of tidal activity you could easily mistake Lake Titicaca for the open sea. It appears almost boundless. The prevailing view is that it was once part of the Pacific and became hemmed in after the first ice age. Isla Del Sol and it sibling Isla del Luna are about an hour and a half boat ride from the shore. Isla Del Sol holds a significant place in Incan history. This is were the Sun as well as Manco Capac, the first Inca were born. It is also home to the Aymara, a pre Incan people of the Andean altiplano. After a half hour hike up from the playa, we checked into the first hostal we came to. With lungs and legs burning it was a difficult proposition not to accept the first lodging you happened upon. The residents of the island are almost exclusively of Aymara blood. There are no cars, no bank, no internet and almost no change for a 100 dollar Bolivian note. There is not much to do on the island except to relax, hike and take it all in. Late afternoon found us hiking up to the cupola, the highest point on the island to watch the sunset. From the top you have an uncompromised panaroma of Lake Titicaca with its' eerily still water. Having the place to ourselves it was an empty theater and every rock was free for sitting. Shortly after selecting my primitive barcolounger the show began. To the west the sun back lighted the clouds, the cloud cover in the center was straight out of a Raphael painting and the east was reminiscent of Sedona Arizona. For the next hour my eyes triangulated between these three until the sky had nothing left to give. Genius, Zen, God-like, insert your favorite superlative here and you get the idea.

The weather in the altiplano turns on a dime. It is not uncommon to alternate between shorts, t-shirt and hat and gloves in the same hour. On the way back I lost sight of Oliver ahead and became lost in inky blackness and a hail storm ensued. It was not long after that I discovered the iPod also works as a flash light and that perhaps it made good sense to never leave home again without a head lamp.

I think everyone except for those with Amayra blood froze that night. If the cold didn't interrupt your sleep the rolling thunder and lighting storm saw to it. Waking up to an early morning hail storm we headed towards the playa for the first boat off the island.

Next up La Paz.

Head in the Clouds, Machu Picchu

Oliver and I left Lima on Monday afternoon and headed south to Cuzco, the cradle of the Inca empire. The flight was just inside of an hour. By my accounting seven tracks of The Who on the iPod and a quick pass of the snack cart. The alternative to a flying to Cuzco was a 12 hour bus ride. The option of flying also afforded a bird's eye view of the Andean Cordillera below.

Cuzco is a charming little city. The layout is the traditional Spanish form arranged in a checker board pattern with the Cathedral in the center. This is actually superimposed over the shape of the sacred Puma which was the original Incan layout. The first thing you notice about Cuzco is what it lacks, namely oxygen. At a little over 11,000 feet above sea level the air is quite thin. We checked into the lovely Royal Inka Hotel overlooking the Plaza Regocijo and headed out for a late afternoon reconnaissance mission. It wasn't long before it became evident that we were suffering from "Sorojche" or altitude sickness. This was manifest by incessant yawning, mild headache, burning lungs, rubbery legs and a bit of short term memory loss. To put it mildly "two fries short of a Happy Meal." After navigating what seemed to be an endless series of narrow cobble stone streets and steps we reached San Blass a small neighborhood dug in to the hills. We stopped at a promontory with an impressive view of the city. In the company of a pack mule a Eucalyptus tree and a stray dog we relished a hard won cerveza before heading back and turning in. If it was to take 24 hours to acclimate to the altitude it was best to have the majority of it occur while sleeping.

Tuesday morning after breakfast we hired a taxi for the day with the objective being to take in some ruins in the mountains above Cuzco. The first stop was Sacsayhuaman. This is th head of the puma in the outline of the city. The ruins consit of limestone blocks that form zig-zagging walls that form the base of concentric terraces. This was the site of a protracted battle between Manco Inca and Pizzaro. We all know the outcome of that though. The engineering aspect of Sacsayhuaman is curious. How tens of thousands of hundred ton stones were harvested from the mountains and polished to fit together like giant puzzle pieces is something to marvel. One is overcome with a certain sense of deja vu when walking this site and for good reason. These same stones form many of the foundations of the churches in the city below. The Spanish being ever so resourceful simply appropriated the stones of another's empire for use in their own. Oh you Conquistadores!

After deferring to several forms of livestock on the road we stopped at Tombo Machay. A site of ceremonial baths and spring water fountains, remnants of the Inca Cult of Water. The ruins were scant but it was beautiful farmland. After a bit of hiking I joined up with a herd of sheep who were getting on with their never ending lunch. There were maybe 20 adults and 4 baby ewes. The babies not yet capable of producing the adult "BAH" sounds issued more of a flimsy "YAY" sound. Following the herd I alternated between vocalizing various "Yays" and "Bahs" in a never ending game of call and recall. I found this endlessly entertaining but then I am easily amused. On the trek back I met a leather skinned man with gold capped teeth. We exchanged pleasantries and he informed me that it was his farm and asked if I had seen his bulls. A possession he was clearly proud of. I replied that I was on speaking terms with his sheep but hadn't yet had the opportunity to meet the bulls. I declined an offer to see the rest of his land solely on account of time constraints. He pointed to the pair of sunglasses tucked into the neck of my shirt and laughed.

Our next stop was the Valle Sacrado or Sacred Valley citadel of Inca Pisac perched high above the Urubabamba River. The site is a prime example of Incan agricultural terracing that traces its way up the mountain. The ruins consist of a military garrison, several ceremonial areas, foot paths, carved door ways and houses. The back side of Inca Pisac is gorge. The hills on the far side of the gorge are pock marked with holes that were tombs long since pilfered by the "huanacas" or grave robbers. After a leisurely descent we climbed back in the cab and due to a day of hiking, rapidly changing weather patterns and the aforementioned altitude adjustment we beat a hasty retreat back to the hotel.

The center piece of a trip to Cuzco is of course Machu Picchu. There are of course many ways to "do" Machu Picchu. There is the 4 hour train, the 4 day hike and the two day hike along the Inka Trail as well as some less publicised routes. Our plan consisted of hiring a car to take us to Ollyantatumbo the half way point between Cuzco and Machu Pichu. From here we would take the train 2 hours to Aquas Calientes, spend the night there and get the first bus to Machu Pichu at 5:30 the following morning. The plan fell together rather effortlessly and Wednesday afternoon we found ourselves in Ollaytaytambo with a whole afternoon to explore before our train left. We fancied ourselves smart for our unorthodox and efficient plan. We appeared to be but a handful of tourists in the town with a time dividend on our hands. We crossed the river and hiked for a couple of hours on the Inka trail, meandering off the path through terraced farm land full of donkeys, cows, sheep and pigs. We passed only one other person, a boy carrying a thin tree trunk over his shoulders who was able to tell us where the next river crossing lay. The afternoon was pure magic. It was equal parts the first day of spring and the first day of fall. An afternoon of Peruvian Tom Sawer/Huck Finn. About the time the sun began to set we sat down for dinner only to discover that from every shadowy corner and crevices were hordes of back packers. These were other people who fancied themselves as being smart about their route to Machu Pichu. As 8:00 approached it was like the lemmings of the sea heading towards the train station.

Aguas Calientes is little more than a tourist ghetto. A no stop light town full of 6 dollar a night hotels serving Nescafe instant coffee. It was a stop gap between the bed and the bus. The next morning, heads still thick with sleep we found ourselves on the 5:30AM bus chugging up the mountain bus along a series dirt road switchbacks. A few minutes walk from the entrance we found ourselves at the Care Taker of the Funerary's Hut. This is the classic view of Machu Pichu seen on the postcards. In fact it's like stepping into a post card. There was little or no talking to be heard except maybe for own bombastic internal dialogue. Gradually the Sun poked holes into the cloud line and early morning gave way to day light minute by minute and frame by frame. There was little to do except stare. The mist cleared but not the feeling of being mystified. I sought out a remote terrace, using back pack as an ersatz pillow I settled down for an early morning nap.

Shaking off the sleep I headed up a trail towards the Inkan Drawbridge. From my understanding there were two ways into Machu Picchu the draw bridge being one. After a half hour hike I came to a lime stone wall a few thousand meters in length. Chiseled into the face of the limestone wall was a catwalk with rough-hewn planks of wood in the middle. Below the catwalk was nothing more than a deathly descent. Primitive security detail at its' finest.

After working my way back I ate all of the food I had taken with me and set out toward Intipunku - The Gate of the Sun. This from what I know was the primary entrance. This was to prove an hour and a half hike winding every so slowly around the "old peak." From the gate you can look down on the lost city and try to contemplate what it must have looked entering the site 500 or so years ago.

From there it was a matter of touring around the ruins themselves - the Temple of the Sun, The Sepent Window, The Temple of the Three Windows, The House of the High Priest, The Sacricity et al. The whole day was unobtrusively exhausting. After another nap it was back to the bus and back to civilization.

I burned through almost a Gig of memory in my camera here but I pared it down to the following for this post. Click HERE

Shapes and Lines of Grand Designs

I was fairly immobile for the first part of the week. As luck would have it I caught a touch of “la gripe” in the jungle. This was compounded by the fact that insect bites had left me looking like someone stricken with a case of chicken pocks. On this note let’s just say that applying DEET in the Amazon was ineffectual at best. In fact the running joke was that “it DEET nothing at all.” So here I was back in the city sneezing, hacking, coughing and itching. It was nothing a few days of bad TV and movies couldn’t cure though. This is not to say that I did nothing but rather I limited myself to armchair anthropology to in and around Lima. I decided to do a tour of the cevicherias and find out who had the best ceviche here in Lima. This proved a harder task than I had imagined namely because all of the seafood here is equally fresh. Using that as a first line barometer proved pointless. I ended up looking for who had the best hot and sour balance. Ceviche here is as simple as it gets – lemon, red pepper, red onion and sole scallops. The winner was a place in Miraflores called Pescado Capitales. The runner up was a place called Tanta. Ceviche is only served from noon until 5:00PM so the sampling window was reduced to lunchtime only. The other problem that I ran into was that after the first ceviche I would invariably move on to either the wood grilled baby octopus and spicy river shrimp. Eventually I would lose focus and the idea of disciplined taste testing would break down completely. I stand or rather sit by decision though. Hands down Pescado Capitalies.

I managed to get out to the ruins of Pachacamac, which is the closest archeological site to the city. Pachacamac dates back to 200 AD, well over a thousand years before the Incan Empire. It was basically a religious center devoted to venerating the “creator-god” known as Pacha Kamaq. It was comprised of temples and pyramids. The only residents were the priests and the young virgins. I know what you are thinking – ‘this is a bad combination’ but this was not Catholicism and anyway the virgins happened to be girls. The House of the Chosen where the sacrificial virgins lived has been well excavated and part reconstructed. Interestingly enough the girls who were chosen from the most prominent families remained in the house until age 16 at which point they would decide to commit to the consecration or else wonder back home somewhat disgraced. The Templo Del Sol was an impressive part of the site offering sweeping views of the Pacific from the top. Unfortunately the entire site suffered major damage during the last earthquake and funding of the excavation has long since stopped.

Thursday I headed down the south coast to the city of Nazca. The drive down was a sobering view of the wake left behind by the 8.0 earthquake that struck three weeks ago. Villages with block after block of rock after rock. Everywhere were the remains of structures that were systematically dismantled during two plus minutes of seismic activity. Homes that looked as if they were buzz- sawed down the middle with billowing plastic now covering exposed sections of the home. There were the occasional civil service tents the government had handed out as interim shelter but these were far and few between. I had the suspicion that you hqe to be a perwon or inrluence to be the lucky recipient of one of these tents. It hurt to look out the window. Having experienced the Northridge quake of 1994 which was a 6.7 on the Richter Scale that lasted less than 15 seconds I simply couldn’t even entertain what an 8.0 which lasted over 2 minutes must be like. This quake was more than 30 times as powerful. Entertaining the thought of experiencing such magnitude and duration of force just blows the mind.

There were elements of the drive that stood in contrast to the destruction though. Around Ica where hundreds of oasises dotting the parched earth. It was also interesting that in this low land area the desert ended where the Pacific Ocean began.

After nearly 7 hours we arrived in Nazca. “The Lines” are what Nazca is known for. These are hundreds of geoglyphs that exist out in the middle of the desert. The original crop circles. They include everything from a monkey, an astronaut, a spider, a pair of hands and a condor. They are of an unknown origin with as many theories and plausible dates as there are lines. The theories range anything from a plea to the Sun God during a protracted period of drought to contact with the extraterrestrial, take your pick. The lines themselves were only discovered in the 1940s at the beginning of commercial flight over the area. The geoglyphs can only be seen from above. They are truly spectacular. The over-flights only take place between 8:00 and 10:00AM due to flying conditions. So at 9:00 we squeezed into single-engine 6 seat Cessna and climbed up to 3,000 feet for some of the best window gazing to be had on the continent. It was a 40-minute flight, which consisted of a level fly-over followed by a sharp tuck to the left and then right for equal viewing on both sides of the aircraft. It was an archeological roller coaster ride that made me appreciate skipping my breakfast. I was equally excited by the etchings in the dessert floor below as I was by the constant twisting and turning of the light aircraft. We all sat wearing headphones over which the pilot would make announcements such as “we are now in the whale”, “we are over the monkey” and “we are approaching the astronaut” all of which lent a surreal quality to the whole thing. Before I knew it and certainly before I had found the right settings on my camera we were back down on the ground. Such a good way to the start the day.

For more information and some pics you can look HERE

Oliver is flying in tonight from LA and we are off to Cuzco and then Bolivia on Monday. I will keep you posted.

Thank you to the person who posted the picture without a watermark that appears at the top of this post. Whomever you are, you take a mean picture. My consumer camera was rendered useless.

C.

Mosquitoes in Iquitos or Bienvenidos al Selva

As you shuffle off the plane and on to the tarmac in Iquitos you are greeted by the open arms of unlimited humidity, it hugs you from above, beneath, between and behind. While one hand is busy pulling cloying clothing away from your skin the other is pursuing quickening beads of sweat. A race ensues between water, gravity and motor skills. There is little doubt that you have arrived in the tropics. To add to the banana republic-like atmosphere, the carcasses of a few Boeing 737’s lay rotting and windowless in waist high grass in the distance. Planes which probably last left the ground in the late 70’s. For me it was a made to order welcome.

The taxis in Iquitos of which there appear to be more of than people are a variation of the S.E. Asian Tuk Tuk. A 125cc Honda motorcycle with a two-person carriage harnessed to the back of the bike. Except for the collectivos (buses) the city gets around on two wheels and the yellow lines in the middle of the road are discretionary at best. The streets are teeming with taxis, collectivos, women on motorcycles (is there nothing sexier?) and guys ferrying women with both legs draped over the left side of the bike so as not to burn their legs on the tail pipe. Almost buckling under the weight of the cargo the taxis rarely leave second gear. A winding out of small engines under stress permeates the air. The bikes actually sound like mosquitoes.

Shortly after dark I checked into my hotel a few blocks from the Plaza de Armas. There were no rooms left save for the Honeymoon Suite, which would be given to me for the price of a single room. I am not sure exactly who honey moons up here but the Berber carpeted room had an exposed step up bathroom whith Jacuzzi, a terry cloth robe that wouldn’t look out of place on the racks of your local Salvation Army, push button electric heated water, a half dozen vases filled with plastic flowers, air conditioner with remote control, Raton furniture, a California King size bed and a headboard with an engraving of mating alligators. Jungle kitsch at its’ finest.

Iquitos was once a prosperous place, playing host to the World War I rubber boom. There is a testament to its’ once upwardly mobile past in buildings that are plated with beautiful terra cotta tiles imported from Portugal. On the South West corner of the Plaza de Armas sits a two story building designed by Gustav Eiffel of Eiffel Tower fame. Today it resembles little more than a stamped tin ceiling in a decrepit Brooklyn bar - spray painted with rattle can silver. Anyway the bottom fell out of the Iquitos economy when some smarty pants Brit. smuggled rubber tree seeds back to Kew Gardens, London and there was no longer a need to harvest rubber from the backwaters of the jungles surrounding Iquitos.

After a quick dinner I made the rounds to some agencies that specialized in “Amazon Expeditions.” Somewhere around the third agency I started to recognize both the alligator in the brochues and the picture of the woman from Pensacola, Florida trying out the blow dart gun with the “native.” This was clearly a bust and I headed back to my hotel to take advantage of the 5th floor terrace, which promised “sweeping views.” The only view I found was inky blackness interrupted by the blinking of communication towers. A few minutes later the street below was whipped up into frenzy. Four pick up tricks filled with police screeched to a halt a half a block away. Being ever curious I rushed down to the street below. I was sure or at least hoping that a major drug lord was soon to be hauled off. The matter proved uneventful though, the police or overabundance of them were simply looking into a kiosko that was maybe running an illicit bar and selling drinks after hours. Across the street from the tienda was a group of people sitting on the sidewalk talking rather loudly. With the failed promise of excitement I hesitated to head back to my hotel and instead wondered over, introduced myself and sat down. They were locals, a group of painters who lived in the lofts in back. Within a few minutes we were getting along like a house on fire. It turns out that two of the artists Mauro and Moises also did tours of the Amazon around Iquitos. They inquired about what it was that I wanted to see. I mentioned the tired looking alligator in all the brochures and the woman from Florida with the blow darts and they laughed. They assured me there was no Disneyland parade on their river trip. They specialized in one place called the Pacaya Samiria Reserva. Soon after Moises produced some pictures of trips past. To be honest it looked like a bit of “roughing it” but quite beautiful nonetheless. Shortly after it was agreed upon, they would wake my sleepy self up the next morning and a four-day three-night excursion would commence. Admittedly this was a rather unorthodox way of organizing a trip but sometimes you have to just rely on instinct and general judge of character. Aside from that I had just finished reading “Endurance” the Ernest Shackleton Arctic nightmare and “Over the Edge of the World” the Magellan circumnavigation story and I was up for a bit of the unknown. The plastic flowers at the Dorado Inn would still be there when I got back.

Wednesday Morning:

Moises, Mauro and myself headed by car two hours upriver of Iquitos to the town of Nauta with two tents, two hammocks, three sleeping bags and three pair of thick rubber boots. Here we were to stock up on provisions, meet Nestor our navigator and set off for Pacaya Samira. After almost two hours at the market we obtained the following:

10 packs of batteries, 6 fishing hooks and line, 20 gallons of water, 2 chickens, 8 cucumbers, a stalk of bananas, 2 pounds of rice, 3 dozen eggs, 2 water melons, 6 mangoes, 2 bags of pasta, 2 stalks of palm, salt, sugar, 1 case of large bottles of beer, a bag of ice, a large jar of instant coffee, 8 cans of condensed milk, toilet paper, 16 gallons of gasoline, 2 lighters and 4 tall candles.

With provisions in hand we headed down to the slip to meet Nestor and load our boat. The boat was rickety wooden affair – 20 feet long by 4 feet wide, with a 14 horsepower outboard motor. Due to the fact that this was low season an outboard motor of this size was required as running aground was a real concern with the water level up in Pacaya Samira. There were also requirements about what size engine you could enter the National Reserve with for environmental impact reasons. So with three pulls of the cord we were off on the Marañón River to God knows where but everything was "Pitre Mitre" as the Peruvians say.

To be continued …

Some of the Pics are high-res and so might take a bit of time, I am of course the poser anyway they are available Here