Very, very bad blogger am I, letting all this time slip away with no entries.

After making friends with Vicky the rickshaw driver in Jaipur, Jillian and I headed to Agra.

Agra is a horrible city. I feel bad writing that since it must be someone’s home, but, from a traveler’s perspective, there is just not much to recommend it. It’s not very small and it’s not very large. It’s not very interesting looking and there isn’t much to do, other than to visit the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal itself, however, is incredible. Built as a gesture of love from a man (who was in a position to take a lot of money from the government) to his first wife, it is basically a large temple. It houses the bodies of the man who built it, his first wife and a couple of his other wives, though his other wives are buried closer to the entrance in parts of the Taj that aren’t as attractive as the part you always see in pictures.

The Taj Mahal costs about Rs. 30 ($.75 USD) or so for Indian nationals to visit, and Rs. 750 for foreigners. Ouch! That’s $18.75 USD. Pretty hard on a backpacking budget. But it is beautiful. They say the white marble glows different colors throughout the day, depending on how the sunlight changes. We were there for a couple of hours before sunset, but didn’t really get to see that effect, because the sun was covered by many clouds.

The Taj Mahal is made of marble and has details made from semi-precious stone throughout it. It took 17 years to build. The man who had it built had it started while the wife he was building it for was still alive, which seems a little creepy to me, but maybe I’m missing the point.

As an Indian friend wrote to me, “Youll must have been really amazed by the taj mahal that what most people come to India to see. you knw there is a saying ‘If you come to India you have to viagra(via-agra), to see the biggest erection of a male to the female.’ “

So that is one way of looking at it. India seems to be in love with plays on words. (On the roads everywhere is written – ‘Speed thrills but kills.’) It seems that the poetry of it is more important than the actual communication. Which I kind of like. Art in everyday life makes things just a little bit nicer.

One interesting thing about the Taj Mahal was that Jillian and I were instant celebrities. On a fairly regular basis in whatever town we are in in India, people will occasionally snap a photograph of us, but the Taj was ridiculous. I would say about 20 different individuals and / or groups of people came over to take our picture within the space of about an hour and a half.

At first it was funny and entertaining and, I’ll admit, I felt a little special. People were putting babies in our laps like we were politicians and using their cell phone cameras to capture the moment. Men, women, children, entire families. We made it a bit of a game and would engage in a bit of banter with our ‘fans.’ Then one guy came over, dragging about 3 Indian girls behind him. They stayed back a ways while he took about 5 pictures. He said to us, “You’re so beautiful. You’re so beautiful. I don’t like Indian women,” which just really pissed me off, for many reasons.

One frustrating thing about India is the preoccupation with being pale. There is a sense here that being dark is bad. They sell skin bleaching creams everywhere, and all the people in ads and most of the celebrities are very fair skinned – many to the point of looking basically European. Here, pale = attractive, which just makes me sad. Most Indian people are not at all pale and I hate to think that they are all looking at ads and Indian celebrities and comparing themselves to those images, thinking they are inadequate. I, for one, am captivated by dark black-brown eyes in particular, and the variation of natural coloring of human beings in general. I’ve seen so many breathtakingly beautiful dark-skinned men, women and children on the street in India. They should be in the ads, but they never are.

As a very pale person myself, I’m always wishing I weren’t. I’m tanning on the beach here and, at home, I used to use sunless tanning lotion. I guess it’s kind of the same thing as an Indian person using a bleaching cream, and maybe I should learn to love my skin the way it is naturally before I go telling other people they should love their skin the way it is naturally, but it just seems worse to want to go from dark to light, what with being trained to feel guilt over white people’s habit of colonizing and exploiting people who are usually darker skinned than they are.

In any case, I was annoyed that this man was dismissing all of the women in his country, just like that, especially since he had 3 of them just a few feet away, and I thought that, if he was going to say it to me, he should be prepared to say it in front of them. So I called them over and said, “You know what this man just said to us?”

Turns out they were his sisters. I hope he got in trouble for that little comment.

Anyway, eventually, all the photography began to get invasive. The guy with the sisters wanted to take video and started getting a little too excited while he gushed over us and we had to stop being as friendly, and actually had to physically move away from the crowds.

I still don’t understand this preoccupation with Jillian and I in particular, though – it’s the Taj Mahal. It’s a huge tourist destination. There were white first-worlders everywhere, but none of them was getting the attention we were.

I’m still working on getting pictures up. It’s been a challenge in India, because the internet is just not reliable and just not fast, so uploading pictures can prove to be nearly impossible.

More shortly!

There is no place like India.

Yesterday, while walking down the street, an old beggar woman tried to hit me in the face with a sack full of something, unprovoked. Nice.

Today, we found ourselves in the company of a rickshaw driver named Vicky (his father got confused by English names when he visited London) whose rickshaw had purple seats and was tricked out with huge speakers. All day, riding around Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, and seeing the sights – palaces and a beautiful marble crematorium hundreds of years old – we were serenaded by Vicky’s interpretations of various pop songs and we head bopped to “What is Love” with him at stoplights. Incidentally, this is a good way to confuse and fascinate beggars into forgetting to ask you for money.

Then we had a minor rickshaw-cow accident. The cow ran into us, though. (No worries, no one – even the cow – was hurt.) [By the way, cows curl into little balls on the ground, like cats, when they want to sleep. I never would have thought.]

It’s been so long since I’ve written, I’m not sure that there is any way for me to do justice to the experiences that Jillian and I have been having. India is dirty and it smells like rotting animals and vomit and there are people shitting on the street. But it is vibrantly colorful, historical and soulful in a way that catches you off guard. The people we meet everyday on the street are also, by far, my favorite people from the entire trip up to now. Though every second of the day people are trying to get you to buy things and hiking up their prices when they see you, there is a warmth to them that betrays the genuine underlying kindness of the people as a whole. Getting a big smile and a handshake from an Indian schoolchild is like winning the lottery – it gives you this feeling that goodwill does prevail in the world. It’s cheesy to say, but a genuine smile like people hand out here makes me feel like everything’s okay in the world, we’ll all figure out how to work things out together.

These moments I love. I call them a “Traveler’s High”. When you’re running around a strange country, you do a lot of thinking about the state of the world as a whole and it becomes linked to your own personal experiences. If I have a run-in with somebody or the ridiculousness of the unorganization of a place makes me want to punch someone (my friend Alison calls this “Foreigner’s Rage,” – very common, along with severe cases of bitterness over people from home having forgotten you existed and not returning your emails) or a foreign man treats me with less respect than he would a man, I think, ‘We’ll never get it all together!’ and decide that the world community is doomed. It makes me want to just give up and find the nearest mall to whittle the afternoon away in.

There was one day, in Mysore (which has the most beautiful palace, and a maharaja who still lives there), when Jillian and I went to a temple. Outside, there was a man handing out flowers. He insisted we take one each. We refused, knowing he would expect money afterward. But then he REALLY insisted, so we relented, being a bit wet behind the ears. Inside we went, where there was a priest who accepted our flowers and put red powder bindis on our foreheads, and tied red and yellow cloth bracelets on our wrists.

Then he said, “40 rupees.”

“What?” we both cried. “No! Here, have 5 from each of us.”

“40 rrrruuuuuupeeeees!” he insisted.

But we stood our ground, and were met with muttering in the local language and a steely stare, which made us feel ever-so-slightly not welcome and / or not prayerful in the place of worship where we found ourselves.

So we soon left. Outside, we were met by the flower man.

“10 rupees each!” he barked.

“No!” we said, “You didn’t say before we went in.”

“10 rupees each! That is how much. You give. You give 10, and you give 10.” He pointed at each of us for emphasis.

“No,” I said. “Absolutely not.” I checked my wallet for coins, and handed the man 3 rupees.

“Tah!” he grunted angrily, and turned on Jillian. “20 rupees!”

“No, too much! And no have!” she said back (you start talking like this here).

“I give change,” the man said, and put his hand out.

Jillian looked at me, and I shrugged. She reluctantly handed over a 100 (worth $2.50 USD). The mean flower man grabbed it and handed her 40 rupees back.

“More!” Jillian said, and the man gave her 10 more.

“More!” Jillian said, and the man gave her 10 more.

“Keep going!” Jillian said, growing tired of the little game, which was, in fact, very tiring. The man handed over 20 more rupees and then turned away.

“Hey!” we shouted, “More! 20 rupees for flowers too much!”

“Bah!” the flower man shouted, and then began to walk the other way, shouting things we could not understand.

Since we were not going to get into a brawl with a man on the street outside a temple, we walked away. But we were P.O.ed.

“Goddammit!” I said, “In a goddamn place of worship, even!”

“Sooo frustrating!” Jillian said. “It’s like this all over Asia! People shoving each other out of the way to pray! People stealing your money! It’s so disheartening!”

We walked down the stairs back toward our waiting rickshaw. The flower man had, in fact, stolen money from us outside of a temple of all places. We are not made of money! We are not ATMs! We do not have signs on us that say, ‘Kick me and then steal from me!’. The PRINCIPLE upset me and the INJUSTICE of it all made my blood boil. They think we are easy targets, just because of the way we look!

…Then a little monkey with a face like a Baldwin brother ran past.

“Monkey,” I said (I seem to have the need to say it like this – ! – whenever I see one), but reluctantly, with the edge of anger still in my voice.

…Then we passed a baby goat, looking at us out of the corner of his eye while he munched on a poster for a Bollywood movie called Jodha Akbaar. I felt my anger soften, ever-so-slightly. He was just so cute.

…Then 2 Indian teenage girls wearing bright saris passed us going in the other direction. They flashed their teeth in big grins and one waved energetically.

“Hello,” we said, returning their greeting, just barely letting little smiles escape at first. The second girl took up waving also. Before I knew it, I had a full smile going.

‘Well, fuck,’ I thought, watching my anger disappear completely.

And that’s how it happens. India gets to you before you even realize it.

WE ARE FAMOUS NOW

Before we ever got to Mumbai (Bombay), we knew we wanted to be in a Bollywood movie. We’d heard it’s quite easy. They are always looking for “European” people to be extras in the background. Having began regaled with stories of bottomless cups of chai and ‘amazing’ Indian food while you wait around the set and have your hair and makeup done, we were fully prepared to sacrifice a day of sightseeing to take part in the experience.

As such, our first day in Mumbai, our first order of business was to find a phone to contact a casting director. Jillian was saying the words, “We need a phone then,” when a man walked up and handed us his business card, which said, ‘Cute Look Casting,’ on it.

“Hello!” he said. “Bollywood, yes? You know?”

Yes.

“How would you like to be in this production? Is a song scene. We need European people for the background. You get chai while you wait, you done by 8 o’clock. Yes?”

There was some back and forth, but in the end, we agreed to do it and promised to meet the man at McDonald’s at 3 o’clock.

ASIDE: In India, McDonald’s clearly does not serve beef burgers. Instead, they sell veggie burgers, chicken burgers and filet o’ fish. The veggie burger is not bad…

We, along with other “Europeans”, were taken to the set in a taxi, with a PA chaperone. The set was a very large, old, abandoned factory. There were a lot of people walking around wearing sunglasses and we spent some time wondering which ones might possibly be famous.

The Perfectly-Attired Wardrobe Lady came in and looked us all up and down.

“Okay,” she said, “Let’s see your changes of clothes.”

We all stared at her.

“Changes of clothes! You have them, no?”

Negative. We were not told about this.

The wardrobe lady’s eyes grew wide as she re-inspected us.

She whipped around suddenly and shouted in Hindi to two or three assistants, who started making frantic phone calls.

“You can go home, yes? Get something strappy, colorful for top. Get skirts, do your hair, come back? We need you to look attractive.” She waited expectantly for our responses.

“We’re backpackers,” a Slovenian girl said, “They pulled us off the street like this. This is what we have.”

The wardrobe lady looked a bit panicked. “You must have something else. That!” she said, pointing to the Slovenian girl’s shirt, “You would not wear that to a party. What do you wear to parties? Not that. And not a skirt that long [ankle-length].” She turned to Jillian and jumped backward. “No!”

[FLASHBACK to breakfast that very morning, where Jillian looks down at her t-shirt which has printed on it, INDIA! FAMOUS FOR THE TAJ MAHAL, ELEPHANTS, SPIRITUALITY, VARIETY... AND ME! and says, "I can't believe no one has said anything about my t-shirt!"]

“This will not do, no!” the wardrobe lady snaps. In the same instant she turns to me and my “Indian-style” cotton top. “You two,” she said, “need to be sorted out.”

…Time on the set dragged on. We met a nice Israeli couple, drank a lot of chai, started asking for food and watched the other “Europeans” leave, one by one, while the CHEESIEST boy band you have ever seen in your life filmed shots for their music video in the background. There were motorcycles and fake graffiti backgrounds, there were fake gold dollar signs hung around necks, there were pure-white outfits against pure white backgrounds with spray-painted doves, curtains waving in the man-made breeze, and a man throwing terrified live doves straight at The Talent.

In short, there was a lot to make sarcastic comments about. We have some great video for You Tube also, if ever we find an internet cafe that can handle our cameras.

“Well,” we said, “Whoever they are, this must be their first video. It’s soooo cheesy!” And they kept messing up.

As it turns out, they were F4 [star symbol], the winners of last year’s, “Indian Idol.”

And this is not their first video.

We waited around until 10:00 when we were told to wash our faces (we refused, but did apply more makeup) and shake our hair out of our ponytail holders. (So much for hair and makeup.) Our outfits would “have to do,” we were told by the assistant director, and then commanded to stand in line with the 15 Indian teenage girls who were also going to be in the video.

Jillian and I were in separate lines, but both were pulled to the front as the (only) token white girls of the video. The boys came out – the oldest cannot be more than 21 – in their best “cool while being mobbed by girls” outfits and we filmed the same 25 seconds over and over again.

When Jillian and I were told which ones to do what to, we had to ask the girls next to us, “Which one is Abhishek?” “Which one is Suhit?” and The Talent overheard us and everyone got a big laugh out of it.

This may not be their first video, but they are still a bit green. After take one, the little guy handed me back my flowers and said, “Thank you,” half-bowing, and the director shouted, “Suhit! Stop blushing!”

This is how it goes: The boys walk away from a car (whose license plate says F4 [star symbol] on it) through the center of us girls, who are going craaaaazy with excitement. The girl to my right gets an autograph from the cute one. Jillian gets a hug from the one named Abhi. I give the tiny 12-year-old-looking one a bundle of flowers and he bows. They pause at the end and sing while gesturing widely with their hands, with us teenyboppers still going wild in the background.

The video should be out in India in about a month. Hopefully they keep the shots with us in them in, and we can get it onto You Tube so everyone at home can see!

Well, there is much more, but Vicky the Party Rickshaw Conductor is waiting for us. We are going to Pizza Hut for dinner…

Brazil

When last I left you, I was headed for Brazil, where we spent just 4 and 1/2 short days. 3 of them in Rio de Janeiro, where they were gearing up for Carnaval, and 1 1/2 in Sao Paolo.

To be honest, Rio was a bit of a disappointment. It was pouring rain the entire time we were there, so maybe that colored my view of it, but it was just a city. There were beaches, but they were just beaches. There were people, but they didn’t seem particularly good-looking to me. And then there was a dirty downtown that made you feel the need to keep checking to make sure your wallet was still there.

Sorry, but that was basically it. Maybe I was expecting too much.

Sao Paolo was more exciting, but perhaps that’s because we spent our last night there (last night on the continent) drinking beer and Smirnoff Ices (flashback to college!) and singing Portuguese karaoke with some local teenagers (who couldn’t seem to stop making out with each other) until 8:45 in the morning when we stumbled outside in search of anything resembling a hamburger and wondered when the sun had risen.

London

One 14-hour flight later, I found myself in England for the first time. It’s just like in the movies isn’t it? We ran around for 3 short days with friends we had made on the Incan Trail. I hit up all the obvious tourist destinations, including The Globe where one of our Incan Trail friends works, and we went out on the town a bit, and sampled Stoke Newington’s finest vegetarian kebabs early one morning.

It was all fun and games until I tried to leave the “flat” by myself to explore on my last morning there, having assured my Globe friend (who had had to leave earlier to make it to work) that I would be fine, and found myself locked on my kind hostess’s gated street. I couldn’t find the out button and finally had to scale the stone wall with the aid of the kebab man from the night before.

I somehow managed to keep my promise to my mother and not die while crossing the street, but I almost broke that promise about 17 times. In which direction you look before crossing the street is a HARD habit to break.

Bahrain

Bahrain is indeed a country in case you didn’t know. It’s in the Middle East and is officially called “The Kingdom of Bahrain”. I didn’t actually look it up like I normally do when I go to a country, because we were only there for 16 hours, and only in the airport. But I do know that they speak Arabic and they must have a lot of freaking (oil?) money because there were MERCEDES IN THE DUTY FREE SHOP.

Also, it was really interesting to visit even an airport in the Middle East because we saw in person the men in long, white dresses with red and white checkered scarves over their heads, with the black crowns holding them in place and women in burkhas that covered everything except for their eye slits. Surprisingly, the women didn’t seem at all meek, as I would have thought they would. Not that that means anything. And, clearly, I still resent the way that burkhas force women to be responsible for men’s sexuality (you cover yourself up so I don’t get whipped into a frenzy by your elbow, you creature who should feel evil for being sexual).

In Bahrain we ate… at Chili’s!

India – the ashram

On our flight from Bahrain to Trivandrum, we had the vegetarian meal. (I’m a vegetarian now. Since London. I’m going to keep it up at least until the end of the trip, to see how I go.) It was fruit as a side to… fruit.

Landing in India, it was immediately BOILING HOT and visiting the toilet I was immediately surprised by how clean it was. Expecting the very worst of the toilets means that, so far, none of the ones I have visited has phased me at all. I mean, I wouldn’t actually touch anything in any of them (my squatting muscles are getting quite a workout), but it’s surviveable. (Dare I say not that bad, or am I asking for it if I do?)

I got a WELCOME TO INDIA PRESENT. Know what it was? It was the DIRTY DIAPER that was zipped INSIDE my backpack when it came off the baggage carousel. Somewhere between London, Bahrain and India, there is a wise guy bag man who has some bad karma coming to him.

We immediately got a taxi to Neyyar Dam, which is where the ashram we were staying at – Sivananda Ashram – is located. Jillian fell asleep, but I stayed up to watch as our cabbie toyed with all our lives (called “driving” in India) and to see the cows go by.

We passed the first 2 weeks of February in the ashram. Here was our daily schedule:

5.20 am – Morning gong which interrupts your happy dreams of food with refined sugar and meat

5.32 am – You consider killing the lady who turns on your light because you aren’t up yet

6.00 am – Morning satsang (1/2 hour of meditation, 45 minutes of chanting Hindu gods’ names and a short ‘homily’ from the either the skinny South African swami, or the rotund Italian swami)

7.30 am – Morning tea

8.00 am – First yoga class

10.00 am – Vegetarian meal # 1

11.00 am – Karma yoga time (AKA chores)

12.30 pm – Optional yoga tutoring

1.30 pm – Afternoon tea

2.00 pm – Lecture on topic related to yoga

3.30 pm – Yoga class # 2

6.00 pm – Vegetarian meal # 2

8.00 pm – Evening satsang (same exact chants)

10.30 pm – Lights out as you curl up your poor, sore body inside your (pink in my case!) mosquito-netted corner of the world

Loved the yoga, meditation was nice, chanting was kind of fun for like 3 days…. HATED THE GOD TALK. We had one particular gem of a ‘homily’ (don’t know what else to call them), where swami said that sex takes away all the energy you need to be successful. He said successful people are successful because they stopped having sex and concentrated on other things.

So who all these loaded people who keep getting busted for sex scandals are is beyond me…

But, mostly, it was emphasized that the ashram was a place of peace and that yoga was something you could take and do whatever you liked with. You can do it as much or as little as you want and, they said, you would still see benefits because they are confident that it is a healthy and helpful way of life.

At the end of lectures we were even asked for “questions, comments and [here, coming from a Christian background, I almost choked] criticisms” about the teachings that we might possibly have to share. Amazing.

I’d say the swamis, all things considered, seem very open and, to the extent that yoga is related to Hinduism and we were taught about it, Hinduism seems to be a very open and accepting religion. “All paths lead to god,” we were told over and again (i.e. any religion you want to follow will get you there, you don’t have to do it our way), and the things they told us about their ideas on how a person should live life seemed much less like commands and much more like suggestions for things they personally believed in.

Though it seems that Hinduism, too, is a religion which feels the need to make you deny that you are human. Get rid of all anger, lust, and jealousy! Shove all your feelings and emotions deep down (“transcend” is the word used, though) as if they won’t come bursting out one day when you can’t take it anymore! Ignore the outside world and focus on the simple tasks of your day and your own enlightenment! No worries about all the crises going on in the outside world!

It does seem a bit selfish to retreat into yourself and focus only on breaking yourself free from the cycle of human re-birth, but hey, that’s just one person’s opinion.

The retreat from the outside world (no email, no phone calls, no reading news) was actually quite lovely. The more time that had passed since I had checked my email, the less I wanted to. And the improvement we made in yoga was quick, since we were taking class 4 hours a day. I feel bendier and stronger.

I also loved that, all day long, you could hear lions roaring from the lion park that was about a mile and a half away, and that you could go swimming in the lake during free hours, but, as swami said, the ashram could not be responsible if you got eaten by one of the alligators.

The coolest thing was when morning satsang was cancelled for a sunrise walk to the lake instead. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so relaxed in my entire life.

India after the liberation

The ashram was one of the most interesting things I think I’ve ever done, but it was also a bit like attending boarding school. Single-sex dorms, attendance taken at assemblies – oops, I mean satsang. Even, would you believe, an ashram talent show. (PAINFUL.) Out passes if you wanted to leave. Being held late after class if you arrived late.

Let me put it this way: we were ready to leave after 13 days. Really glad I did it and feel that it did help me re-prioritize a bit, but I was ready to get a move on when it ended…

Outside the ashram walls, southern India is ridiculously hot. Everyday Jillian and I get afternoon tea so that we have an excuse to go sit somewhere with air conditioning or at least some fans and take a break from watching the make-up melt off each other’s faces.

The air is spiced when it doesn’t smell like vomit or rotting trash and the food is (chemically) hot again – yay! Haven’t had a good cry from ridiculously yummy spicy food since North America. Until now.

I love all the colorful things for sale and was taken by all the meandering dogs, cats, cows and, in particular, the free-running goats who look up at you with sweet eyes while they munch on someone’s thrown-out lettuce. That is, UNTIL it finally occurred to me that they are probably the reason I have EIGHTY ONE FLEA BITES ON MY FEET.

81. 81 in two days of freedom.

No matter. We have just attended our first evening out at a Bollywood flick which might be one of the funnest things I have ever done. Not only are the movies grand, epic and wonderfully over-acted stories, but in every battle scene there is at least one elephant stomping on some poor foot soldier and you get to see his guts go flying out his mouth, and the costumes are a show in and of themselves, as is the audience which A) never turns off their cell phones and never bothers whispering and B) hollers and hoots like a bunch of 12-year-old boys watching a sex ed video.

But, no worries, the movie people anticipate this and have the volume turned up so loud that I think my hearing will be completely gone by the next time I blog.

(Note: the couples are never actually shown kissing each other on the mouth – I think there might actually be a law or something – and the result is that, during these 5-minute romance scenes, the couple are touching each other suggestively and leaning their faces in very slowly until there couldn’t be more than one atom of air between them, but there is never any satisfaction, they never just freaking kiss already… it’s actually about 10 times more erotic than any other love scene I’ve ever seen at home. They just tease the audience endlessly…)

But, the best part is… they give you a bag lunch (dinner, linner, whatever) which has a veggie sandwich and a juicebox about halfway through the movie. I could live in an Indian movie theatre.

Well. Am going to be here for a few months, so I will have plenty of time to discuss more impressions of India later…

Haiku for South America

Though it is quite gross

holding used TP in hand

I love South ´Mer-ca

—We are in Buenos Aires – ‘the Paris of the South’ – home to the sultry tango, the odd verb conjugation of “vos” and the oddly distracted Latin man who manages to get out a comment on your looks as you pass, but only in a half-hearted way as he keeps one eye on his Backberry, because he is some sort of important negocios guy with other things to attend to on the street besides calling you a beautiful doll and asking when angels started falling from heaven.

We are fortunate enough to be staying in the apartment of an English friend of Jillian’s from her travels in Australia and have basically had the place to ourselves the entire time. Bs As is an amazing city – comfortable, beautiful and modern, complete with impressive monuments, wide, shady lanes, a Tiffany’s, pilates studios, vegetarian restaurants with fresh fruit smoothies and home delivery of even a small cup of coffee from the closest café.

 Among the coolest things that I have seen on the trip thus far are the 2 famous cemeteries of the city – Recoleta, which contains the remains of Evita Perón, and another one whose name escapes me at the moment, which has the LARGEST collection of sepulchres I have ever seen in my life. The sheer amount of money that has quite obviously been poured into these places is impressive. Apparently, Recoleta in particular is quite exclusive and you must have, in addition to an obscene amount of money with which to build a two-story family monument, a famous and impressive last name to “get in”. The carvings on these family monuments are absolutely breathtaking. Of the type of art that inspires poetry.

Bad attempts at Spanish poetry, in my case.

 We did manage to tear ourselves away from the real bathroom, air conditioning and pool at the apartment building long enough to tour around and see the usual spate of monuments, parks and cool outdoor markets (and a tango show tonight), but I won’t bore you with the details as this has mostly been a welcome respite from our transient lifestyle. Here we have a shower with water pressure and endless hot water, a kitchen and a Blockbuster membership card which lead to one super-indulgent girls’ Sex and the City marathon night, flavored only the least bit backpackerish by the fact that our Scottish friend joined us and had us doing Scottish jigs in between episodes and glasses of red wine (purchased right at Blockbuster! Who is the creative genius that started that?).

We leave for Brazil in a few hours, to be – no doubt – overwhelmed by pre-Carnaval hysteria that is gearing up over there. Then we are off to London for a short 3-day layover on our way to India which, thus far, gets the prize for prettiest visa and nicest embassy representative. Sadly, our stay in South America has nearly come to an end and, as such, I am taking a moment to reflect.

Top 5 Complaints About S. America

1. Toilets – you cannot flush the TP and must collect it in your hand if the trash can has been placed too far away. Also, there is NEVER toilet paper, even in restaurants, and you must always carry, and people seem to be really pissed when you ask to use their bathrooms if you aren’t a paying customer…. I am aware it is about to get a lot worse in Asia, however.

2. Latin men’s lack of respect for women. We have previously addressed this issue.

3. No one ever has change. EVER. It’s like pulling teeth to get someone to accept the equivalent of a 20-dollar bill, even when you are trying to spend 8 or 9 or even 11 dollars’ worth of it. EVEN IN PLACES LIKE HOTELS AND RESTAURANTS, which are, assuredly, expecting a lot of foreign clientele whom are getting their money from ATMs, which, of course, only spit out the quivalent of twenties. The maddening part: If it is constantly a problem, why does no one ever think to go to the bank for change to have on hand? VERY, VERY frustrating.

4. Airport exit tax. I get it. We use your TP – if there -, your porter services, there is wear and tear on the building and someone has to pay for the janitorial services. WHY, like in other places, IS THIS TAX NOT ADDED ONTO THE PRICE OF YOUR PLANE TICKET, so that we don’t all have to line up like jackasses, as if we didn’t have enough lines at the airport already, and so you don’t have to pay people to take our money for it?

5. No good foreign food. IMPOSSIBLE to find spicy food. Many restuarants don’t even have a salsa picante. If you feel like having Thai, or Chinese, or a burger, or a pizza that actually has a detectable amount of sauce on it or breakfast that involves anything chewable, fugghedaboutit. You will starve while you search.

Best 5 Things About S. America

1. All the female presidents – when, oh when, will we get to claim to be that progressive? (Though perhaps better that it not be this election, given the option.)

2. The people – smiley, always up for a party, usually very complimentary of your Spanish, they are easy to make friends with and among the continent’s richest assets. They often seem excited that you have come so far to see their country. (Though, in Chile, they kept asking us, “Why? Why did you come HERE?”)

3. The language – I don’t know what it is, but I love Spanish. It’s been really interesting to see the small (and sometimes not so-) ways in which Latin American Spanish varies country by country. Spanish is lyrical and easy to rhyme with – a writer’s dream come true. Jillian loves the word papelito. I’m parcial to ajustar.

4. The variety of landscapes. Deserts, rain forest, beaches with searing white sand, towering mountains, glaciers, volcanoes, the other-worldliness of the Galápagos.

5. The Incan Trail and Macchu Picchu. Absolutely not to be missed.

As we will only be in Brazil and London for short amounts of time and then will be holed up in an ashram in southern India doing yoga and meditation all day for a few weeks, it may be a bit of time before I write again.

Signing off from Buenos Aires with many besos,

CHIRSTMAS NAVIDAD 

The Christmas pics album has already been up for a while, to the right….

Christmas in Santiago was lovely. We spent the morning of the 24th in line at the Brazilian embassy to buy our $140 visas to be able to go there in about 2 weeks (we fly out of there for India on the 25th). I was really bitter, thinking it was ridiculous that we have to pay for visas, but, as it turns out, they only make us do it because that is what the U.S. government charges them. Also, in response to the U.S. Visit program which requires visitors from certain countries (many countries – check this link for more info - http://www.dhs.gov/xtrvlsec/programs/editorial_0525.shtm) to surrender their fingerprints and photographs of themselves to be able to visit the U.S. as tourists, we will have to do the same once we get to Brazil. Apparently, multiple U.S. citizens have been charged $10,000 for giving the finger in their Brazilian visit photos…

It greatly annoyed me before and felt invasive, but now I realize that that is exactly the point. We aren’t exactly polite to people coming into our country. I have a friend I met traveling who was recently questioned about his religion at the border to the U.S., because he is half Indian. As if that is relevant AT ALL. It’s disgusting that they would ask about that kind of thing, especially when we are supposed to be so tolerant of religious diversity.

In any case, Jillian and I separated for several hours to buy each other small Christmas presents with a $20 spending limit. Even though the sun was beating down on me as I wandered through the streets (good shopping in Santiago!), it was quite Christmasy to shop for someone else to Christmas music (downtown Santiago has outdoor speakers which play the melodies to popular songs), and it definitely put me in the holiday spirit. We spent time that afternoon on our hostel bunkbeds wrapping things and getting them ready for the morning. I was very excited about the presents I got for Jillian! A tank top, a (bright pink) manicure kit and a Toblerone which she had been talking about for a while. It was quite hard to find, too.

That evening we got dinner and returned to our hostel where we found that people were drinking champagne and the hostel was giving out presents. We got 10% off our stay and a bottle of wine from which the label had been removed.

Then we got into a big fight with a Brazilian guy, but more on that later.

Christmas morning Jillian and I exchanged presents (she got me lots of candy and this AMAZING deodorant, which made me really happy because, until now, I have been using boy deodorant) and then spent a beautiful day with wrappers all around us parked firmly in front of the TV where we came upon ER, Frasier, Harry Potter, Gilmore Girls and Friends. After traveling for weeks on end it was like heaven to just sit there and watch TV all day long. We eventually ordered a pizza too YUM. Which began my obsession with pizza. I basically want it 24 hours a day now… and most days I get it, which fits right in with our all-carb travel diet.

In the evening, after (finally) showering at 6 pm, we got ready and took the subway to another part of town where we met up with 2 Australian friends that we had met in the Galápagos Islands. We had a really fun evening of merrymaking with them and about 20 other poor saps who were spending their Christmas in a hostel. It was actually a great evening, though. Normally Jillian and I don’t ‘go out’ that much. Usually we end up having wild nights only when we get the chance to meet up with friends, or when we are at a hostel that is particularly conducive to people meeting each other. Most places, though, are pretty mild. If it’s a random Saturday in a random small town, we’re more likely to wander around all day and eat dinner and then hop in bed with our journals and books by midnight or so. But then we might have a random Sunday or Tuesday night out. Days of the week really have no importance in our lives. Except when we are in a small town on a Sunday and everything shuts for the day. Damn organized religion!

NEW YEAR’S AÑO NUEVO

There is no photo album as we opted to leave our cameras home for the evening. (Wise idea in Valparaíso.)

Valparaíso is called the “San Francisco of South America,” and for good reason. It is extremely colorful and is composed of a bunch of hills right next to the water. The port was historically incredibly important, especially during the gold rush. It became less so after the opening of the Panamá Canal. But the city is still hopping and it appears to be quite liberal, if you base that opinion on all the elaborate political graffiti that covers it.

As it turns out, Valparaíso is the biggest New Year’s party in Latin America, which we did not realize when we decided to head there for the holiday. There is a HUGE fireworks display at midnight that leads more than a few million people to come into the city for the evening. Since room rates QUINTUPLED just for the night of New Year’s, we opted out of having a place to stay and instead left our hostel at 1 pm on the 31st and didn’t return until 10:00 am on the 1st, when we could check back in for the night of the 1st.

It was quite the evening.

We went to go meet up with some guys we had been hanging out with in Santiago on Christmas, but at 5 pm they weren’t quite ready to head out yet, so we wandered off down the street and ended up in a “cultural space” run by a middle-aged hippy professor who gave us cuba libres (rum and Coke) in exchange for our company while he fried fish for his New Year’s party, which was to consist of a debate about the year’s events, firework-watching, dinner and then dancing.

Somehow we got roped into helping with the cooking and were slicing vegetables and mashing potatoes by hand for a good 2 1/2 hours while we drank more Cuban rum and sang Beatles songs with Profesor J. At one point, I’m just remembering, Jillian and I did part of Les Misérables… wow.

The professor, as it turned out, was the president of the neighborhood and people kept coming in to wish him happy new year and promising to come back later. At one point, we were called outside by a group of about 6 hippies, who were all crowded into this dirt square in the ground, that used to be the home of a tree in the middle of the sidewalk. They had us crowd into the square with them and they spoke to me in Spanish and I translated for Jillian.

“We are in the subway.”

Okay, subway, I thought, metaphorical subway. Some kind of hippy mind subway. The subway is taking us from the old year to the new year. We are all from different countries, but really, we are all on the same subway. Subway is as subway does.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “We don’t understand.”

“They say the capacity of the subway is 8 people per square meter,” the guy answered. ”We wanted to try it out. Doesn’t seem like enough space.”

Ah. Over-thought that one….

We went running off to the (former) jail around 11:00 pm. We are not obsessed with jails. This one is empty and is now an artist colony and we heard there would be young(er) people there, so we thought it might be a good place to be at midnight. There was, however, no entrance to be found, so instead we ended up at a park on top of one of the city’s famous hills with 2 new Chilean friends we made, and there we stayed to watch the fireworks.

The fireworks went on for 20 minutes and were AMAZING. They might be the best fireworks display I have ever seen in person.

Eventually we left our friends at the top of the hill and made friends with another group of Chileans and their English and German friends, and we danced the rest of the night away in the plaza in front of the Chilean Navy headquarters with a live band and thousands of other people. The crowd did not even start to disperse until about 7:30 am and we killed the rest of the time kind of wandering around…

HAPPY 2008!!!!!

 EVERYONE HATES YOU

When I lived in France, I got plenty of comments about the U.S. and George Bush sucking. It’s not as though I weren’t aware that people felt that way. But, either people’s feelings in general have really intensified in the interceding 3 years, or it’s always been worse in Latin America.

PEOPLE HATE US.

Wait, let me re-phrase. Most of the people we meet are super nice and friendly, and most people aren’t even sure where we’re from. It could be some European country, or it might be the U.S. – they aren’t sure. They always have to ask down here. BUT, lately we have been getting a lot of hate thrown our way.

Christmas Eve there was this Brazilian guy who would not shut up about what a shithole the U.S. is, how the “majority of Americans are brainwashed,” Bush controls the media, Bush planned and executed 9/11 and if you don’t agree with him it’s because you are a brainwashed American. He went on about how Americans are stupid, uneducated, backward and get arrested for teaching evolution. [This was right after he told me that 92% of Brazilians are uneducated. He said the rules are different for Americans because we are the (his words) "most powerful" country in the world, so we have to be responsible even when other countries are not.] He would not shut up and finally I had to just leave and go to bed.

The most frustrating thing about arguing with him was that, if your opinion differed from his, you couldn’t really argue with him because he would just say you were brainwashed and controled by George Bush.

The part I love is that he, and all his friends who were sitting there agreeing with him, had never actually been to America and do not know any Americans. The other part I love is how we were having this conversation in Spanish and he was telling me that Americans don’t speak any other languages. This is just Americans and he is sure of it, he says, because he lived in London at one point and knew several people who spoke other languagues.

Christmas evening, at our friends’ hostel, we were conversing with various people and Jillian gets into a conversation with a Russian girl. Jillian says to her, “Oh! I’m part Russian!” and the girl goes, “No you’re not,” and begins to trash America and say that she hates Americans and goes on about it for a good 2 minutes straight.

This girl apparently doesn’t know how to read maps because she was actually living in San Diego.

You know what I say? If you hate us so much, then don’t let the boat hit you in the ass on your way out! Seriously, politics aside, who yells at strangers like that?!

The third hate story is that our hostel owner in Valparaíso was very nice to us. He would drive us around and show us the city and explain the historical significance of things. He made us some spicy sausages one night. At one point, the U.S. came up in conversation and I said to him,

“You know what? We would really rather not discuss this right now because we have had a few unpleasant conversations on this topic lately and we just need a break.” He says suuuure, of course, of course, no problem.

AN HOUR LATER, as he handed me another free sausage, I said to him, “Thanks! You’re, like, the nicest hostel guy ever. When are you coming to California to visit?!?!”

His response (direct quote):

“I hate your country and I am never going there. I won’t even buy Coke so that George Bush can’t have my tax money.”

This is a man that I am PAYING MONEY! I’m his customer. What a freaking jockhole. Not to mention the fact that he needs to study economics because tax on Coke in Chile goes to Chile and not to W!!!!!!!!!

So rude! I am so sick of people thinking that they do not have to treat us with basic courtesy just because of what our president does. It’s like people think that we aren’t real human beings because of where we are from. A German guy told me that Germans have the same problem with people still making Nazi comments to them every once in a while.

Ridiculous.

Not to mention quite hurtful, eventually, to hear over and over again that the place where you are from is crap and all your friends and family are trash. It is quite painful to hear time and again.

One of Jillian’s friends suggested that, the next time someone wants to yell at us about it, that we say, “George Bush is my uncle, so you better shut up or I’ll have him come get you next. And watch out… I have a weapon of mass destruction in my backpack,” and then begin doing the Pledge of Allegiance.

Seriously considering it! Might as well. Some people are not interested in listening to what you have to say after they hear where you are from. I guess George Bush (with whom, for the record, I do not agree) is not the only person who needs to learn some manners…

I’m becoming like one of Pavlov’s dogs, because every time that I hear the word “airplane,” I think free meal! free movie! free music! This is the kind of thing that is exciting when you live out of a backpack and only own 7 pairs of underwear.

We had quite a surprising gnocchi on the way to Easter Island…

Island life is aesthetically pleasing, if somewhat slow. And EXPENSIVE. We did our grocery shopping in Santiago before getting on the plane, so we arrived with I don’t know how many pounds of groceries on our backs (I couldn’t even lift my backpack by myself to get it on!) and arrived ready to spend as little money as possible.

The island was formed by 3 neighboring volcanoes, but it is really small. There is only one town – Hanga Roa – then the giant heads and then… free-wandering livestock. We had heard before we went that people tend to spend not longer than 3 or so days there. We were there a full week, but I actually think that that was a good amount of time. It’s the perfect amount of time if you are up for exploring the island on foot, and taking your time.

There are tens of caves along the coastline that are good for exploring, beautiful hikes up to the tops of the volcanoes and, if you get really bored, you can walk home from the island’s 2 beaches, which are 18 kilometers from town. Here is what I learned, though. Even if you are bored, you might want to take a taxi or something back to town because of THE BULLS THAT RUN FREE. I don’t need to ever do the running of the bulls after being grunted at by the biggest car-sized bull I have ever seen in my life.

I was walking with 3 stray dogs who seemed to think I was headed somewhere interesting and all 3 of those little traitors cowered behind me, while I cowered behind what looked like a climbable tree and thought about how I wasn’t ready to die. The bull stomped and took a few steps, but then seemed to think I wasn’t worth the effort and kind of wandered off.

I accepted the very next ride offered to me. (On the island everyone hitchhikes everywhere. Even if you don’t want a ride, people are always trying to offer you one. Qué amable!)

We spent many happy afternoons reading (we are both obsessed with our current books – Sophie’s Choice and Mollie Peer or the Adventures of the Moosepath League) on the beach in town (there is one… but it’s 6 feet long and always filled with local naked babies and strays taking a leak), hiking around and exploring all the different moai sights (moai are the giant statues).

We did fork over the cash for a paid tour of the moai, which we (or I) begrudgingly opened my wallet for so that we could get a little more information, to put everything in context. I also spent one cozy rainy afternoon at the local library researching the island. Yeah, it goes a bit slower in Spanish, but it still went.

So, then, we were wondering where the best place to buy crafts was and we were told… the prison. Of course.

You know what I love about Easter Island? How they let you wander around the prison.

You walk over near the areaa of the prison and ask directions. A guy from the agricultural control told us where to go. Then you just walk in the gate because the gate REMAINS OPEN. There are 3 prisoners. Two of them are robbers and one of them is a murderer… but it was ‘just’ a crime of passion, as it was explained to us. In other words, they aren’t worried about him killing tourists buying crafts… with the CHAINSAW that they give them to build things. Literally, they have a chainsaw. See the pics!

So in we walked and checked out what they had there. Jillian bought a lovely present for her parents. Can’t say what it is, though (HI JOAN AND DAVID!). And then we were given multiple free crafts as Christmas presents. Jillian and I each got a ring and a chicken feather necklace and then (and this is my favorite), Jillian got a strawberry made out of volcanic rock. This still confuses us.

I also got a freaking volcano pencil holder. It’s made out of wood that happens to have the shape of the volcano closest to the prison. The guy INSISTED I take it with me. So I got it for free, but now it’s going to cost me 80 dollars to mail it home because it weighs like 5 pounds. The prisoner who gave it to me also insisted that I prove to him that I knew how to put the pencils in their proper place. He didn’t believe that I had seen a pencil holder before or something, I don’t know.

In any case, after listening to a few Berlin songs and posing for pictures, we walked right out of the prison and hitched a ride back to town, where we ran into the agricultural guy who had given us the directions.

“Hello!,” he said. “Do you remember me?” (He was out of his uniform and wearing a t-shirt, at the park.) We said yes and he said, “Great! When do you leave?” and we told him the next day. He put on his most serious face and answered (this is what I love about small towns), “Oh! Well I am also the x-ray machine man at the airport. Now, no fruits, no rocks, no sand, yes? You know? Yes? Okay. See you tomorrow. No fruits!”

I don’t love flying over oceans, but we had that yum gnocchi again on the way back… another successful vacation from our vacation.

I put up the Inca Trail pics, and the Galápagos pics – FINALLY! Look to the right!

Wow, am so excited that I received so many complaints about not having written in such a long time! Fantastic! I wasn´t sure that anyone was reading it.

After the Galápagos we went to a little rasta surf town called Montañita, where we drank bad piña coladas, got bitten by fleas and….. went surfing!!!!!! OMG I LOVE SURFING! We took lessons from this tan local whose butt crack was hanging out the entire time. I soon discovered why. I think the people on the beach that day got more of a view than they bargained for. You get tossed around pretty badly by the waves, and every time I jumped up on my longboard, my bikini skirt did not want to come with me!

Well I was very excited because, while our teacher was helping someone else, I decided to go for it, so I waited for a wave, turned my board around and started paddling like mad, somehow managed to push myself up (this is not easy!), jumped on my feet and TOTALLY SURFED ALL BY MYSELF! Our teacher said I didn`t need any more lessons and that he had never seen someone do it so fast. I said to him all casually, “Yeah, well, I was born by the ocean, you know.” He he.

Want to take it up when I get home…. but that`s one expensive habit!

Anyway, we had a few more days in Quito and then flew to Peru. After a looooong, painful layover in Lima (many of you got emails that night, I believe) we arrived in Cusco, the jumping off point for the Incan Trail. They tell you that you have to arrive a few days before your trek begins so that you can acclimate to the altitude (10,859 ft) so you don`t get altitude sickness.

Cusco is beautiful. It`s nestled in beetween many tall mountains that have this red clay color and all the roofs of the houses have the same color. The churches there are old and rustic-looking. Quite obnoxiously, they charge entry if you aren`t attending mass. I was considering going to mass just to beat the system because I was annoyed (it`s a church!), but didn`t really ever get the chance.

When you walk around Cusco there are all these young girls who follow you around and say “Massage lady?”, and all the taxis seem to think that, because you are white, you must want a lift and they honk at you. It`s quite annoying, actually, how much you get hassled to buy things. People will follow you a ways down the street with their postcards and drawings and waxing offers.

 But I suppose that it is with good reason. I did my research and found out that 53% of the Peruvian population is below poverty level, and it does show. As with everywhere it seems, it is the indigineous people who have it the worst. A little indigenous boy asked me for my water when I had it out as we walked by and, when I held it out to him, he snatched it from me and ran away and hid in a corner, draining it in about 2 seconds. He was that thirsty.

 I also found out that Peru has a president, 2 vice presidents AND a prime minister. I don`t know how they get anything done with all those people in charge!

So anyway, Cusco has amazing shopping - tons of jewelry, crafts made out of giant seeds, knit things, roasted guinea pig and, of course, coca leaves as far as the eye can see. Jillian and I were feeling a bit naughty and bought some at the market, along with this hard black seed thing that you chew with it, as the accelerant. We snuck off to a park and started chomping away…. it`s quite foul, actually. Doesn`t taste good at all! Just makes your mouth go numb.

Well, I`m nerdy and googled “chewing coca leaves” after we were done and found out you aren`t actually supposed to chew them. We were doing it all wrong! Anyway, you just kind of gum them for an hour and then spit it out. And it doesn`t ever get you high or anything, it is medicinal – helps people with toothaches, that kind of thing. I`d send you some if I felt like being locked up for 25 years, but I don`t! Here, though, it`s perfectly legal and, really, you can`t do much with them without processing them into cocaine, so it`s pretty harmless.

So… the Incan Trail… was INCREDIBLE! The views the entire way are just indescribable. We were in a fairly small group – 9 people. 5 Australians, one girl from Finland, an English girl and then Jillian and me. It turned out we were all a fairly good match and had some funny conversations…. when we weren`t wishing we were dead. Seriously, it`s not easy! I HATE the downhill. I become a big baby and think I`m going to twist my ankle, so I was always at the back then. But on the uphill, I kicked ass! I was the first one to the top for most of the uphill legs. At the highest point on the trail, I passed the entire group ahead of me – awesome!

There were 14 porters who would stay behind after we left, pack up our tents and all the food, throw it on their backs, PASS US ON THE TRAIL, keep going and have camp all set up, hot water for us to wash our faces, and dinner bubbling on the camping stove by the time we got there. Incredible!

It was really funny because our porters wore uniforms – bright red ones – and our guide called them the “Red Army”. He`d be like, “Here comes the Red Army! Everyone clap!” so we`d cheer for them and make Communist jokes.

Along the trail there are 6 Inca ruin sights, other than Machu Picchu itself. They are seriously impressive! I do not know how they figured out how to build these incredibly advanced, intricate cities on the sides of sheer cliffs. Amazing! Machu Picchu is more impressive in person than it is in the pictures. If you just go straight there and don´t do the trail, you have to line up and pay the entrance fee and there are cafés and it´s a bit commercial, but if you do the trail you are anticipating seeing it for 4 days and you are not disappointed.

Our last day on the trail, we got up at 3:30 in the morning, after a HUGE storm all night long with the loudest, scariest thunder I have ever heard. The last day is kind of ridiculous. People line up at the last checkpoint on the trail about an hour before they actually let anyone in and everyone is chomping at the bit to get going. Our guide, who must feel competitive with the other guides I think, reprimanded my friend and I for using the bathroom before we left because it meant we were the second group in line. Once they let you in, there are all these psychotic men who have something to prove and go RUNNING down the trail. Keep in mind that there is no railing and you are on the side of a 12,000 foot mountain. The trail is about 3 feet wide in many places. If you fall off, you´ll DIE and there were all these guys pushing and shoving each other to be first. It was ridiculous!

 One guy tried to run past me, tripped, fell and one of his feet went over the edge. Everyone gasped and then started laughing at him because he was such a dumbass. He just kept running down the trail. WOW.

Back in town, we went out with our Incan Trail friends to a 3-for-1 night. We were making fun of everyone, saying that it sucked to be them because they all had to get up early the next day to catch flights, and we were going to have the whole day to relax and unwind. Then we woke up in the morning, hurting a little bit I might add, and realized that we were supposed to have left about 3 hours before. We had completely missed our flight because we are DUMB.

We were running around town looking for a travel agency that could help us and finally found one who told us that we had to go to the airport and buy a new ticket from another airline, and to hurry, since the plane was taking off… in 40 minutes. We were all over the place – Jillian went to shove our stuff in our backpacks and pay the hostel while I finished up with the travel agent. I got in a cab to go to the hostel, and the cabbie got pulled over just as I was saying that I was in a big hurry. I had to jump ship and run all over the main square looking for another cab. I had a major headache and realized that my pants were splitting at the crotch (do not know why) and you could kind of see my underwear. But no time to change, or brush our teeth or shower out the cigarette smoke from our hair. In our hurry, we left behind my hiking boots and our photo bank at the hotel.

… but we made it. Thankfully, our flight was delayed by about 2 hours, so we went back for my shoes. Cannot find the photo bank, however…. goodbye all the photos we never posted online.

You know what I love about Perú? How they let you wander around on the runway.

We landed in Lima and walked down the stairway… and then there was no path or anything. We were sort of meandering around looking for an entrance to the airport and dodging buses. There were runway guys sitting there, watching us and not being helpful at all. Now there is something that would not happen in the U.S.! We could have wreacked all kinds of havoc, had we wanted to.

HERE IS MY ANGRY RANT. I´m starting to have a real problem with the way that women are sometimes treated in Latin America. There are many men who are total gentleman, and whom are more into opening doors, etc., than your average first world guy, but then there are all these PRICKS who yell shit at you, or chase you down the beach while you are trying to go for a jog. I had one guy run up behind me and grab me, actually, that little shit. At least it gave me the chance to finally use, “Pendejo! Chinga tu madre!” which basically means, “Asshole! Go fuck your mother!” That felt nice. 

And then sometimes it gets taken to a whole other level. There was our Incan Trail guide, whom we were paying, and whom basically harrassed me for 4 days. I was so pissed by the end of it. I went to the agency and complained and then they were trying to give everyone on our trek free t-shirts. Seriously, though, this jackass made comments like, “You girls are going to dance around the tent poles tonight,” and said that he and I were going to live together and some other stuff. Who does that?

I cannot tolerate the general lack of respect for women. If you use Llama Path (which is a great company, actually, and treats their porters excellently, while some other companies are basically slave drivers), stay away from Casanio if you´re a woman. Or, go with him on a trek and give him a swift kick in the ass for me.

 Well, anyway, we are in Santiago, and leaving for Easter Island tomorrow night, where we will be for a week. So exciting! Though the island is expensive. Signing off for now…

… are hard to describe. It was a wonderful vacation… from our vacation.

We were stuffed to the gills with food 5 times a day and shuttled from island to island where we would go snorkeling and hiking around to see the animals which were RIGHT THERE. I almost got bitten by sea lions about 5 times – fantastic!

Our first afternoon when we went in the water, Jillian and I were scared and held hands, but not for too long. It quickly got very interesting and we got more and more brave… though, come to think of it, I was almost always the last person on the speedboat to jump over the side (maybe cuz I´m slow-moving, though?). I was actually shoved into the water no less than 3 times by our nature guide, who was sick of waiting for me to get the guts up (I was also the only one who did not have a wetsuit because I was too cheap to rent one, and the water is NOT as warm as you would imagine water on the equator might be).

There are sea lions EVERYWHERE, and they play with you in the water. They swim right at you until they are about 2 inches away and then suddenly break left or right. The first time one does it to you you wet your wetsuit, but quickly you see they are just really curious and playful and it´s a lot of fun to encounter them in the water.

There were sea lion pups on every beach… seriously they are the cutest little things I´ve ever seen in my life and they make the funniest little grunt / burp noises.

The were all kinds of iguanas (marine and land), the famous blue-footed boobies and other types of birds, sea turtles, manta rays and sharks (including hammerheads). I never in my life thought that someone would tell me there were sharks nearby offshore and that that would make me go toward the water, but I plunged in after them and saw a group of about 5 (reef sharks) just kind of milling around. They don´t care too much what you are doing, really.

The boat itself was a lot of fun becuase it was a seriously random mix of people. Well, mostly European, actually. Actually, yes, ALL European except for Jillian, me, an Australian couple, the crew and 2 token Canadians. But it was a good random mix of all kinds of Europeans.

The first half of the trip there were a bunch of random, single, young people (miscellaneous European) and then 2 Canadians who were older but whom fit right in with us. One had a cane but she overtook us all at one point or another and the other was this crazy lady named Anne who ran the Olympic torch through part of Canada during the last Olympics and ate lunch with the Queen and was declared the best bus driver in Alberta, Canada not too far back.

That half of the trip ended with a dance party on the bridge with the crew until the L-O-C-A hour of 10:00 pm (normally we were passed out by 8:30… right after dinner).

The second half of the trip we found ourselves with an insane Abbott and Costello German duo (gay or European???????) and then about 4 other couples, which sounds boring, but actually was not. Everyone is funny and más o menos personable.

It´s funny how quickly you get attached to people you meet when traveling. We had this dramatic goodbye waving to the crew and other passengers who weren´t leaving – us on the speedboat pulling away in the morning mist and them gathered on one side of the deck… quite Titanic-esque really.

And we found that the crew had become quite attached to us… they are 6 Ecuadorian men who don´t get off the boat too often… El capitan had a little something for Jillian and the first mate was constantly spouting poetry for her (through me as translator). Our guide took a liking to my blue eyes and the kitchen boy´s affection was not a bad thing…. I scored some extra cake last night and never once had to make my own hot cocoa after a chilly snorkel.

So we have come away with quite a few pen pals and I am seriously considering going to Germany to learn German, mein freund.

…I´m trying to upload pictures, but this internet café isn´t cooperating too well and I´m kind of on sensory overload this evening after having landed in a big city after a week of constant new experiences… I think we are going to watch some dubbed American tv tonight before we pass out in our lovely $7 hotel. 

Chau (Spanish spelling)…

Day 25

Have lost the will to accessorize. Have gained the ability to sleep through anything – crappy dubbed movies blaring loudly in Spanish, snoring male hostel roommates, Ecuadorian garbage trucks outside the window…

Because am on the equator (Quito – “middle Earth” – is nearly 10,000 ft above sea level), keep burning in odd places… today just one square inch on my right wrist… strange… 

In Ecuador…

-they eat guinea pig. you snatch the furry little guy of your choosing from the cage and hand him over. some guy half your size takes him out back and, a little while later, brings him back, guinea pig toe nails and all, on toast…

-cab fares are always negotiable

-you can get a full meal for between $1.50 and $2.00

-they use American dollars as their currency

-there are no seat-belts and no helmets for most dangerous activities… like horseback riding next to a 14,000 ft cliff

-everyone plays volleyball, but for some reason the net is higher than usual… even though the people are shorter…

-I am reeeeeeeally tall (yes!)

-the indigenous people were still shrinking the heads of their captured enemies in the ´90s

-the local men stare… but they leave you alone. 

The Daily Grind

We now live in hostels (Hostel Revolution in Quito – SO CLEAN, THEY MAKE YOUR BED). Have taken a liking to Quito… the people are friendly (cabby gave me a throat lozenge when I had a headache), it´s beautiful, the food is plentiful and pretty yummy, if occasionally scary (pets for meals, heads of various animals…), the mountain views are UNBELIEVABLE. The picture above (at top of the page) was taken at 14,000 ft, on top of a mountain overlooking the city, where we rode horses (PICTURES AT RIGHT) and found it hard to hike (thin air).

Have gotten sick *once* from dehydration (altitude again). Had to yack in the hostel toilet. No mommy to bring me ginger ale, but did have $1 pirated movies for comfort…

Make hostel friends daily… mostly English-speakers, but more often non-American than not.

Sample day (2 days ago)… got up, no need to worry about what to wear (no one cares, least of all me – fantastic!) and got plane tickets for Galápagos (leaving mañana!!!!!) from travel agency, took 25-cent bus to the equator and took pics (to follow shortly…) of us in both hemispheres at once. Ate brunch, took salsa lessons, went to dinner with hostel friends, went to a bar (this part actually doesn´t happen all that much…), sat on the roof and watched the fog roll in and out… buildings disappearing and re-appearing in a matter of seconds… INCREDIBLE view of the stars… can see constellations of both northern and southern hemispheres.

Normally we only eat twice during the day… usually there is a pair of underwear or socks to be washed in the sink…

The thing I like best about the trip so far is how different I feel / am… which is manifested in a million small ways… Have stopped biting my nails, wear tank tops, eat crap whenever I feel like it, wake up early… I´m me, but… with traits I never knew were mine… or with personality quirks that I had long ago buried. I keep suddenly remebering hobbies I wanted to take up or small moments I had forgotten about years ago.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!! J and I ate in a restaurant with waiters dressed like monks… with jeans and sneakers peeking out of the bottom of their robes.

NO INTERNET ACCESS IN THE GALÁPAGOS… will catch y´all on the flip side.