Karmi James

Last minute invite!

2011-03-25T12:06:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone! I know it is short notice, but big things have been happening at 9 Ira! Jeff and I decided to start an urban farm and this Saturday, March 26th will be our groundbreaking party! Our friend Jeremy Anstine will be bringing a team of horses to plow! The gathering will begin at about 11:00 am. We will have a potluck as well, so feel free to bring a dish. Otherwise, just come along to share this special event!

9 Ira Avenue is in South Akron, in the Summit Lake neighborhood. If you need directions, feel free to call me or Jeff! We hope you can join us :)

Life in the fast lane, never a dull moment

2010-07-29T17:56:00.000-07:00

Yep, it's been a while since I've posted. Please excuse my neglect. You may have been wondering which ends of the world I have been wandering to, so far away from internet... yet the strange reality is that I haven't been far at all, except for a brief one month trip to Colombia in April.

As they say, sometimes traveling for so long makes you go and see home for the first time. In my case that is true. For so many years, I have always been about to leave for somewhere. Even when I was just getting off a plane in Ohio, I was always thinking of where I would be off to next. However, in January, shortly after my last post, there was an unusual string of events that changed my perspective, at least temporarily.

I began to date Jeff, who has been a friend of mine and my brothers for many years. He is just like me and I am just like him. It makes perfect sense. (Not to mention the fact that he speaks the same language as the rest of my family!) Then I met P.R. Miller, an unusual and eccentric hoarder... I mean, artist... from Akron. He makes sculptures of recycled stuff. He and Jeff knew each other through a long and complicated story involving anti-aircraft missiles. We went to his kaleidoscope house in the dead of winter (he has no heat but a small wood-burning oven) while he told stories of being a wizard. And while he does have a beard, he does not mean wizard in the usual sense, but as a "mover of energies." He then proceeded to give us keys to his studio.

And so we moved into this alleged studio, otherwise known as the illustrious 9 Ira. And not the Ira Rd. in the Cuyahoga Valley, but the Ira Ave. in the middle of the slums of South Akron. We are only three blocks from the projects, yet within those three blocks there are also five churches, one mosque and a Buddhist temple. Needless to say, the neighborhood has a little character. And the studio... well... it's about as authentic South America as you can get in North America, and that might still be generous.

The building is across the train tracks from the Firestone plant and was originally a boarding house for the workers (on the second floor). They would pay to sleep there for eight hours between shifts. Later it was converted to a cathouse. The first floor was home to a restaurant, a tailor shop, and a market... perhaps some other retail spaces as well. The basement included a pool hall and showering areas. Nowadays, the second floor is strange apartments filled with even stranger tenants, something similar to the most bottom-rung cheap hotel in Peru. The first floor is occupied by several artists: a comic book artist, a sculptor, an illustrator of children books as well as a taxi driver and a meat market. We have the middle apartment, which is also the largest. We also have the entire basement which is now stockpiled with P.R.'s random stuff. And when I say random, I mean REALLY random. Like hundreds of practice CPR mouths, ceramic kilns, old neon lights, oil lamps, gobs of silverware, old magazines, boxes of lace, hundreds of door knobs and feet of clawfoot tubs... etc., etc.

And with what pretense did we decide to live in this bizarre place? Well, to me, it feels like home. There are tall ceilings and plenty of room to make a mess. It's just weird enough to keep me constantly busy. And even though the neighborhood is one of the worst in Akron, it doesn't really matter. Life is too short to deny living somewhere because you think it might be bad. People get robbed and assaulted in even the best neighborhoods. The only way for a place to improve is to go there and be positive. I've lived in ghettos in Brazil before, where even a ten-year-old kid is walking around with a pistol, and I'd like to think that somehow it boosts the morale of a place just for it to have one more smile, or one person who is there willing to share something with their neighbor.

So, we started a garden, and then we started another garden. They are beautiful gardens, full of all different kinds of vegetables. I read everything I could get my hands on about planting and cultivating food. It was my first garden of my own and I'm very proud of it. As of today, it has fed more than twenty people, and we eat from it every day. Sharing is the key to making it a great garden. We even had guests from Australia. Jeff built a climbing wall. It is a small training wall, but many have come to climb as well.

There are bigger goals though for 9 Ira. Most of our front room is open space (other than some of P.R.'s sculptures that are very slowly moving out). We want to create a space for artists to come together, a type of artist co-op, for people to share what they know and learn from what others have to share. And of course, to do all this in a place that can get a little messy. And even more importantly, maybe some of this artist hubbub can be shared with the community, where it is needed most. So, we take things one day at a time. There is a lot of work to be done, but with patience we will make it happen.

Other than that, I have been playing cello for musicals, rock climbing, mountain biking, hiking... you know, the usual :)

Pictures and more will be coming soon!

And of course, if you'd like to be involved in this mighty project, whether it be coming to eat a salad or coming to make art... you know where to find me!

Happy New Year!

2010-01-04T09:51:00.001-08:00

I can't believe it's already 2010! To begin with, 2009 was a great year for me. I graduated college, together with my mother, which was a pretty unique experience. This year, I was able to spend more than the usual three months on the road, since I didn't have to come back to school. The trip took me to the Amazon, which was something I wanted to do for a long time. And, I have officially taken up rock climbing, which is both challenging and really fun! (Don't worry, I'm still playing the cello!)

2010 is an extra special year for me because it marks the ten year anniversary of my traveling. Adding up all of my trips, I have spent five of the ten years away from home! I have been to 13 countries, in countless places both big and small, and have met incredible and inspiring people from all over the globe, many of them right in my backyard.

In my last post, I expressed some of my doubts regarding what to do next. I've decided on a couple of things. Like I mentioned, I have taken up rock climbing. Fortunately, I am blessed to have a lot of really strong and talented climbers as family and friends, so I have been training with some of the best teachers around. In May I am planning to take a trip to Peru with a good friend and my main training partner, Jeff Boni. We are going to spend three months rock climbing and bouldering (climbing without rope), attempting the summit of Ticlla (the tallest mountain in the Cordillera Central at 19,642 feet!), trekking and surfing. So... until we leave, we are doing a lot of training in just about everything (climbing, hiking, yoga, swimming, running, etc)!

I have also decided to write a book. I've been talking about it for a long time and now I am going to put my words into action. Anyone who knows me knows that I rattle off stories all the time, so I'm hoping that I can just put those stories into writing. It's difficult for me to focus on writing in front of the computer, so if you'd like to send a word or two of encouragement, or discouragement for that matter, it would be greatly appreciated! I'm hoping to put up a couple drafts up here too and any feedback is welcome. Of all the things I have considered myself to be, I never considered myself to be a writer, but I do love to tell stories.

With all that said, here is a little photo recap of the month and a half that I've been home.

I went out to Arizona for my brother Ryan and Shira's wedding and was surprised to meet up with several friends from Ohio who are traveling around the States now. The wedding was absolutely beautiful and I loved Arizona! Here are Shira, Ryan, Ryan's friend Patrick (?), Jessica and Mike, sitting on a BIG rock outside of Phoenix.

Ryan and I on our early Thanksgiving Day hike on the Peralta Trail in AZ. We started before the sun came up! What a beautiful way to start Thanksgiving!

Sunrise over the Superstition Mountains:

Another scene from the Peralta Trail:

Back in Akron, meeting up with my long-time best friend, Johnny Sloan and his cousins:

Taking Auggie hiking on an unusually warm day in December:

A scene along Mingo Trail:

This was my most favorite New Year's Eve celebration of all time. I drove to Chestnut Ridge, West Virginia with a lot of good friends and my brother Aaron. We all stayed the night in an old one-room schoolhouse that now houses a small bouldering wall. There was a big party at a lodge in the park, filled with many musicians. I learned how to play Old Timey music by rote and jammed out with about twenty musicians. We ate lots of good food and drank a little wine to bring in the New Year.

By Sunday, the only people left were Jeff and I. The weather was really cold and snowy up on the ridge, but we stayed busy every day with rock climbing, hiking, cross country skiing, snowboarding, sledding and most importantly... hot cocoa! Here's Jeff... well, being himself:

The night of January 1st there were only a few people left in the campground, but Jeff, Megan, Nate and I were invited to the Stone Cabin for a small jam session (guitar, banjo, mandolin, bass and two cellos) and some wine. It was great to celebrate the new year with new friends, old friends and a wood-burning stove! Here's Nate taking a little break from guitar playing:

Me enjoying a little wine:

...and a Happy New Year to all!

All good thing must... continue

2009-11-17T06:33:00.000-08:00

It's been a long, crazy trip and I'm glad to be back home. However, to me it seems to be really cold and I can't understand why everyone keeps looking at me like I'm crazy and telling me that it's warm. Warm, to me, does not involve sweaters. Oh well. I suppose it's all about perspective.

The last couple weeks in Brazil were phenomenal, difficult, easy, fun... just about everything rolled up together. Carneiros was the perfect break for us. The whole time that we were there, we got the royal treatment and were amongst one of the coolest families that I have ever met. They were always smiling and whenever they got the chance, they grabbed any kind of bucket, bench, drum, etc. and started playing percussion, singing and dancing. It was beautiful.

From Carneiros, we hitched a ride on a boat back to Rio Formoso. We visited some family of family for a night and then continued south. We tried to hitchhike again, which resulted in us advancing about an hour and a half on the road during an entire day. We spent the night on a beach in some random town and then took a car the next day to Maceio.

Maceio ended up being an amazing place for us. To begin with, we had been camping for almost 3 weeks straight and were thrilled to finally stay at a hotel, in beds. The city itself isn't your usual dirty city, and it has some really pretty beaches that aren't totally swarming with tourists. Finally, we might as well have been the most famous musicians in Brazil, because we got the royal treatment everywhere we went. The very first night, walking along the beach with our instruments, a guy called out to us from a really nice restaurant, invited us to dinner, bought some drinks, took us to hear live music... all because he used to be a backpacker too. Now he works in Public Health, does research about AIDS and was at a conference. Super nice guy. After that, every time we played in restaurants or bars, either the owner or a client would invite us to eat or drink. As it turns out, we ended up eating in the nicest restaurants of all of Maceio, which would have been impossible otherwise. We met some really interesting people too- a German guy who is organizing a bunch of community bands throughout the state, a guy who illustrates children's books and a guy who travels the world setting up ethanol systems for cars (or something of that effect). The people were nice, the views were pretty, the food was great, and we weren't in a tent... what more can you ask for?

View of a neighborhood in Maceio on our way to work:

From Maceio, we took a bus to Salvador. I had been to Salvador in 2003, but it was nothing the same. I'll just leave it at that. However, I did have the nice surprise of going out to see a flamenco concert at a cultural center and running into one of my best traveling friends, Kike. Kike is Peruvian and I met him in Ecuador in 2001. He's actually one of the first 3 people that I met when I started to travel on my own, and we're still great friends. I ran into him again in Peru in 2006, when we put together a band. Then I ran into him here in Salvador, Brazil. It really is a much smaller world than we think. He's a great percussionist and a phenomenal juggler and is now traveling with a Brazilian guy, doing some street performing and trying to figure out how to get to Africa on a boat in order to take some percussion lessons. I'm not joking either. Good times in Salvador despite some things being really different.

From Salvador, we headed an hour to the south to a small town called Arembepe. There's actually the modern town, and about 2 miles down the road, the "Hippie Village." The village is about 20 or so palm thatch huts, stretched across the top of a long string of sand dunes. On one side of the sand dunes is the ocean, with some really beautiful reefs, and on the other side is a meandering river, so you get the best of both worlds- salty and fresh water. There isn't any electricity and almost all the people who live there are artists. (Janis Joplin used to go there and hang out too). It was a nice escape from the hustle and bustle, and a great place to celebrate Arturo's birthday, other than an unexpected encounter with a candomblero, but that's a novel in itself, and not for the weak of heart!

View of Arembepe beach, reefs, sanddunes and a thatch hut in the background:

Arturo jamming out on his 28th birthday:

A view from the top of the sanddunes:

Arembepe at sunset:

After a good couple days in Arempepe, we packed up to escape the heat and head inland.

We took a bus to a small town called Lençois, which is in a national park called Chapada Diamantina. The park is full of interesting rock formations (including "pink bubblegum rock," I coined that scientific term), swimming holes, waterfalls and natural waterslides. It was a phenomenal place and in the town we met some really cool artists from all over the world.

A strange hole in the rock with a tree growing out of the stone and a girl growing out of the tree. Ha ha.

Arturo ponders the meaning of life. Lençois in the background.

Me in a swimming hole below the Waterfall of Spring (Cachoiera da Primavera):

All in all, this trip was phenomenal. They always are, in their own way, but I'm really glad that I finally traveled down the Amazon (without getting dengue again!!!). I had some amazing opportunities that I never would have imagined and met some really great people. Now, I'm ready to take a little time to soak it all in, reflect a little and figure out what the next step is. I've been traveling for nine years now (it's crazy to think it's been that long!) and I don't think I can just aimlessly wander about anymore. Until the next adventure... Until the next and greater mission...

Thanks for following along. Thanks for your support and prayers. It's not all as easy as it looks, but there's always something to be learned, always something to be shared, even at times just a smile.

Wading down the coast

2009-10-24T08:24:00.000-07:00

Arturo and I in the end of Maracaipe beach:
a path in Maracaipe:
Carneiros beach and church, 17th century church:

Teresina was hot. Too hot. I was glad to leave, but I miss the hotel breakfast. It was pretty awesome.

From Teresina, we took a bus to Recife. We went to visit a family that I know and stayed with before and unfortuately, they moved. Then we took a bus to Porto de Galinhas, which used to be a small fishing town protected by coral reefs. I passed through a couple of times in 2002, and then 2004. First, my cheap hotel, which was really hidden behind a restaurant, was torn down and the whole town was converted into some weird resort-esque gringo colony. Pretty depressing actually. We ended up hoofing it 3 km south to a small town called Maracaipe, which has still maintained it´s small town essence. We stayed for a week, camping on the beach, until Children´s Day went by and we left to continue south.

We ended up in some other small towns, invited to stay with a family, camping out in front of their house. The family is very poor, but they offered us everything. The mother cooked for us every day, invited us to the granddaughter´s 2nd birthday party and took us around on their boat to the neighboring town. Their boat, like most of the boats, is a large canoe with a peque peque motor... that means that they get a beefed up edge clipper (yes, the one that cuts grass) and they use it as the boat motor. It´s real long and looks really funny, but works great.

house amongst the mangroves in Rio Formoso:
view along Rio Formoso:
more to come later... I ran out of time!

Back to terra firme!

2009-10-04T12:14:00.000-07:00

The journey down the river was beyond phenomenal, way more than I could have ever imagined. From Iquitos, I travelled on a boat that wasn´t nearly as nice as the first boat, but amongst a lot of friends that I made in Iquitos. There was a Korean guy, a Chilean guy (traveling with a regular, stand-up PIANO... I can never complain about my cello again!), a French girl, a couple of Canadians, Ariel (from Paraguay), a half Pervian/half Italian, a Colombian and myself. We were quite the international rowd, to say the least. We shared a lot of laughs and the three days to the border went quickly. It was a little shocking to see the little respect that the crew had for the river. Without thinking twice, they would dump the trash cans into the river and they served all the meals on plastic plates, which they also dumped into the river. (On the other boats, everyone carried a tupperware which they received their meals in and washed afterwards).

This was the sunset the last night:

Backing up... some tiles in Iquitos; I LOVED the tiles.

The boulevard in Iquitos, along the river:

Building with cool tiles in Iquitos:

The triple border was cool, and weird. We all shared a room in the Brasilian town of Tabatinga, for the first night, and crossed the border to the Colombian town of Leticia to work. The Colombian town was a lot nicer than the Peruvian or Brasilian sides. Every day crossing the border was a reality check for my Portuguese, switching back and forth from Spanish to Portuguese was tricky, but fun at the same time. Sometimes it just came out all jumbled.

On the boat from Iquitos was a Colombian guy named Arturo. He is an anthropologist and ``musikero´´ (that´s his term for someone who learned music empirically rather than studying). He plays just about any instrument that falls into his hands, and can rattle of the characteristics of almost every Latin and South American folk or popular music. He´s quite the character. We decided to travel on into Brasil together, and play music together along the way.

Since entering Brasil, I had to start traveling hammock-class in the boats, rather than traveling in a cabin, but since I have company it´s really easy. Someone always stays with the stuff, and at night, I just hung my hammock low enough that my butt just barely touched my backpack and I could tell if anyone tried to move it. My cello had it´s own hammock that I strung above mine, which worked out great. I never had to worry about anyone stepping on it, and I could see it anytime I woke up during the night.

The first boat, from Tabatinga to Manaus, seemed like a cruise ship compared to the previous boat. The food was self-service buffets, the bathrooms were super clean, and there was cold purified water available any time, day or night. One night, they even had bingo and I won a teeshirt, haha. We spent the Brasilian Independence Day on ship, and the captain gave us a discount on our tickets in exchange for us playing a short concert on the top deck. Pretty sweet deal, and everyone loved it. We even had an American percussionist sit in with us. The only downside to hammock class is that I couldn´t pull out my camera like I did on the other boats, because then everyone would know that I HAD a camera and it would be a lot easier to steal. So, unfortunately, there are no boat pictures from Brasil, but I assure that the sights were incredible. The river got wider pretty fast. It wasn´t as pretty as the Peruvian legs, just because we were farther from the shore.

We didn´t stay in Manaus very long. We ended up hitchiking north, on the road to Venezuela, to a town called Presidente Figueiredo, which was full of waterfalls and incredible swimming holes. We spent five days camping out, and lounging in the water, swimming holes where the water carved holes in colorful stones and Amazon jungle all around... pretty incredible.

From Manaus, we took another boat to Belem. Five days, not such a nice boat, they charged for each meal and we were in the cheapest hammock class, the level where they are constantly loading and unloading stuff. There were always nice people next to us. It was a lot bigger than the boats in Peru, had hundreds of people all in hammocks and moved a lot faster.

Belem was pretty uneventful, so we decided to go to a close-by island in the delta, called Mosqueiro. We rented a small cabin on a beach called Chapeu Virado, complete with a yard full of fruit trees, all in season. It was great, eating fresh mangos, avocados, acerolas, etc... all day every day. The water was brown, and still freshwater, but there were tides that were pretty significant, and you couldn´t see land when you looked at the water... might as well have been the ocean, only if the water was salty!

From Belem, we hitchhiked south, the first three days we went from town to town, getting two rides a day, and ending up in really po-dunk towns in the jungle. The sun was brutal, I got a really dark tan, even though I was wearing 60 SPF sunblock! The fourth day, we were lucky to get a ride from a truck driver, who took us all the way to Teresina, a two day trip. We slept one night in a truck stop, hanging our hammocks up underneath the truck, pure Brasilian style.

Now we have been in Teresina for two days, trying to recoup forces and make some money to take a bus from here to the coast... to Recife to be exact. We found a good neighborhood yesterday that has a lot of small restaurants and young people, and they have loved the music that we are playing (mostly salsa, and some Colombian music). Hopefully in the next couple days we will be back on the beach!

Here´s a couple pics from the last couple weeks...

A port in Manaus:

Me, in the main port of Manaus, next to the water level records. This year had the highest record from the past hundred years or so... can we say ``climate change?´´

Arturo and I roadside, heading to Presidente Figueiredo:

Playing music outside of Santa Rosa immigration office, waiting to get our exit stamps from Peru, but the officer was no where to be found... It didn´t take long to attract a crowd. That´s the Chilian pianist; he played some guitar too:

The owner´s dog of the house we rented in Ilha Mosquiero. I only took the picture because it looks like my mom´s dog :)

Some cool architecture in Belem:

Belem fishing port:

A boat graveyard in Belem:

A scene in the delta:

Life is grand

2009-08-30T08:34:00.000-07:00

Right now I am in a city that should not exist. It makes no sense that so many people live in a place that is so disconnected. There is no road out of here, only boats or planes. It is an island in the middle of land, an anomaly of sorts. The town burst with the rubber boom of the early 20th century, and since then, has only grown. The houses that were built in the rubber boom only attest to the fact that money was in the form of liquid that came from the trees... they can´t compare to houses anywhere else- elaborate stone work and facades covered in beautiful tiles that were probably brought over from Europe. Of course, after the rubber boom ended, all was left to decay and now many of the houses are abandoned or run-down. The rest of the city was built with the resources that were around- wooden houses with palm thatch rooves. There are almost no cars here, only motokars, or motorcycle tricycles that serve as taxis. There are a lot of unusual fruits and TONS of fish.

I arrived here on Thursday morning, after spending five days on a boat called Tuky. The boat had three floors. The first was filled with cargo- anything from blocks of ice to pigs to bananas to furniture and building supplies. The second floor had a large room filled with about 70 people, with hammocks strung about everywhere (you just sleep and hang out in a hammock the whole trip), plus a kitchen that cooked for everyone and a large table and television that usually blasted loud music videos. The third floor had the helm, several cabins and another large room that was half full of cargo. I got a cabin, just since I had no where to put my cello and I was by myself. It cost $50 for five days, with three meals a day... a hammock spot costs $25. The trip was incredible. We stopped in small villages along the way to unload ice, which the fishermen use to store the fish they catch until another boat comes by to buy it (most of the villages had no electricity). The boat also unloaded things, and sometimes picked up bananas or animals to take to the city. Every day, I saw tons of pink river dolphins (bufeos) and lots of really cool birds. The people on the boat were really nice too. I wish that everyone could take this trip at some point, there really are no words to describe it. Here are a few pictures in a feeble attempt to do it some justice.

Logging. Makes me never want to use any tree products ever again. Huge sections of the rainforest, CLEARCUT and nobody bothers to reforest:

A phenomenal sunset EVERY night:

Did I ever mention that I love my life?

Typical houses in the Amazon:

This was somebody´s big oops... might have to do with the depth finders on the boat. They can´t use regular depth finders because there are too many fallen trees and branches in the water, so they have a rope hanging off the side of the boat with knots on it and a weight on the end that they drop into the water. They also have a dingy that goes ahead of the boat with a large stick that they measure the depth with. High tech. As you can tell, accidents happen. This boat will sit here for three months until the rainy season begins again and the river rises. (The difference in water level between rainy season and dry season is about 16 FEET!)

People come in their dug out canoes to the small villages to stock up on supplies and sell their fish and fruit.

And watermelons... in one village the boat was bombarded with people selling watermelons, including this kid who got tired:

Village along the way:

Dropping off blocks of ice for the town to store their fish. This was incredibly surreal.

Another boat in port... check out the hammocks on the third floor. (I think the picture gets bigger if you click on it!)

Kids in a port town:

My favorite crew guys:

They let me drive the boat!

Some times the weather changed from this...

to this, in ten minutes. Impressive walls of rain:

And then back to this at the end of the day:

Arriving to Iquitos. It was a zoo.

Some street art in Iquitos. ¨Time is not gold. Time is art. We are in the street.¨

Bob, an Australian friend that I made on the boat, who is traveling around South America on a bike, decided that it would be a good idea to try to hijack a motorkar. In the back is an Argentinian friend, Luis, who I knew from Cusco and ran into here on the street. On his right is Juan, who is from Korea and lives in his hotel here. We had a great night out on the town and then a trip to the zoo/lake/beach the next day.

Typical floating houses in Iquitos:

Tomorrow I will be getting on a boat that transports fish, which will take me three days to the triple border- Peru, Colombia, Brazil!

Changing gears

2009-08-21T13:23:00.000-07:00

After the orchestra trip to Arequipa, it has been a whirlwind of a week, saying goodbyes, finishing projects, and preparing for the transcontinental journey that has officially begun (I´m approximately in mile 600 of 3,000). In Cusco, I had going-away parties with friends from the orchestra and with the guys from my band, and then random meals, cups of coffee and encounters with other friends. It was hard to leave Cusco, it´s always been hard for me to leave Cusco, but it will still be there when I return.

One exciting thing did happen before I left for Arequipa. I went to have a cup of coffee in my favorite cafe (in my opinion, it´s the best cup of coffee in all of South America, with little competition) and as usual, the cafe was full so I sat at a table with some random people. Soon I heard them talking about a friend of mine, Jimbo, and I butted into their conversation. As it turns out, they were trying to get ahold of him, but lost his phone number. I gave them his phone number and we continued to talk. As it turns out, I was sitting at the table of a Brazilian artist, Zenildo Barreto, who had an exposition in the street for the past month and was trying to put together the final details for the closing ceremony, which would also include the burning of a tree in the middle of the street. His work is in protest of the destruction of the Amazon and deforestation in general. They invited me to play a small concert in the closing ceremony, with one piece to be chosen to perform together with a Russian ballerina who is living in Cusco. It ended up being a great concert, I played the prelude from the Bach Suite No. 3, Piatti Caprice No. 9, several movements from the Muczinsky Gallery for Cello Solo and the third movement from the Cassado Suite for Solo Cello. It was great to play a concert in the middle of an important pedestrian street, amplified, and to see all the people who probably wouldn´t have gone to hear a classical recital, but stopped to hear me play.

From Cusco, I traveled to Lima, where I arrived in the middle of the 9th International Chamber Music Festival. I saw two great recitals with Peruvian and American musicians (Joshua Roman and Alexis Sykes) that were fabulous. Among the pieces I heard was the Shostakovich Cello Sonata, Dvorak Piano Quintet, Franck Violin Sonata and Puneña by Ginastera (for cello solo). I also met up with several friends from previous travels... Mauricio, a good friend that I met in Cusco in 2001, also a good friend of my dad´s, a Colombian friend Alexander who I met last year, and my friend Dante, who is an important percussionist in the Peruvian music scene, who I met in a festival in 2006. My friend Alexander brought a bunch of amber from Colombia, and I was able to get some really nice pieces from him that I will make into jewelry. A couple of the pieces have insects and one even has a cricket that looks like it is chasing a fly!

Yesterday afternoon I got on a bus for Pucallpa. The trip was insane. After the first 4 hours, the pavement ended and the condition of the dirt road was really bad. The bus driver did not let that slow him down and he drove like a maniac the whole way. It only took us 16 hours, when it should have taken 18, but I couldn´t sleep a bit because it felt like I was on a bad rollercoaster the whole time. Several times an hour, I flew out of my seat... and that was with my seat belt on!!! My poor cello was buckled up too, but the only way to buckly it up meant that it constantly collided into me! Just part of the adventure! Now I am in Pucallpa, Peru, a small town in the Amazon. Actually, I am staying in a smaller village that is next to Pucallpa and is called Laguna Yarinacocha, for the big lake that it is on. Life is a lot different here than the rest of Peru. Most of the houses are built of wood, as opposed to mud and stick or brick, and many of them are on stilts. The main form of transportation is moto-car, which is a tricycle-motorcyle taxi. This means things are pretty loud all the time, but I suppose it´s more efficient than cars. As usual I have taken my proactive approach to getting food poisoning, which means that I try everything weird and unusual right off the bat, that way if my stomach decides to hate something, it can get over it quickly. So far, I´ve tried a whole bunch of fruit juices, of which I have no idea what most of the fruits look like or even are called, but they are GOOD and I am THIRSTY! I also tried some ceviche made with a white fish from the lake, which I also can´t remember the name of. So far, so good with the stomach. Hopefully no problems develop!

That´s how things are in a nutshell. The day after tomorrow I will probably leave on a boat for Iquitos. First I must buy a hammock and some food and water provisions, as I have been warned that the food on the boat isn´t vegetarian friendly. But for the price, I can´t complain- four days on a boat, with 3 meals a day, only $25. It sure won´t be Princess Cruiseline though! Then I have to start thinking in Portuguese, as I will be entering Brazil in the next 10 days!

Several photos from the last couple weeks

2009-08-14T13:08:00.000-07:00

Quillabamba, Peru... ¨brow of the jungle,¨ where the jungle meets the mountains. On my first tour with the orchestra:
A cool tree with a hair cut, in the main square (Plaza de Armas) of Quillabamba:

A view of Cusco main square, picture taken from around the corner from my house:

In Siete Culebras alley, with friends from the orchestra, plus Johann, a very good Peruvian cellist who lives and plays in Germany, who gave me a very good cello lesson! This was after we went out for a bottle of pisco in one of the nicest restaurants in Cusco. (Pol- principal violinist, Johann, Theo- conductor of the orchestra, me, Francisco- principal cellist, my stand partner)

A view from the roof of our hotel in Arequipa, on my second tour with the orchestra to play in the National Orchestra Festival, in the Cathedral of Arequipa:

The organ in the Cathdral of Arequipa, WOW! The Arequipan men love to brag that they have the largest organ in Peru, hahaa.

Inside La Compania de Jesus Church in Arequipa, a very elaborate altar:

Stopping for a drink after sight-seeing in Arequipa, together with Pepe, the guest cellist in the concert and a friend of Theo and Fernando from the Conservatory in Lima. We had to try the local beer, Arequipena, but decided that the beer from Cusco, Cusquena, was better:

The mayor of Arequipa gave us a bus to go sight-seeing around town, which included going to a lot of ¨look-outs¨ which were very scenic:

Some orchestra folk, with Misti volcano in the background (Pol- concertmaster, Theo- conductor, Fernando- violin, me, Francisco- cello, Yuset- cello, Cristian- violin):

The orchestra (minus a couple people who went to visit their families in Arequipa):

Another cool church- they build with a lot of volcanic stone and pumice:

A view from another one of the look-outs that they took us to. This one was really tall:

Yuset and I being goofy:

2009-08-09T18:52:00.000-07:00

It´s funny to think that I only planned on staying in Cusco for two weeks, and it´s been over a month now. Normal, really, for me.

Of course, life here continues to be interesting. The little things, really, make Cusco so interesting. Just take, for example, the customs in a restaurant or cafe. Say I show up to eat lunch and all the tables are occupied. Rather than stand and wait for a table, you just sit in an empty seat at someone else´s table. Right away you meet someone new and strike up a conversation. Sometimes, you keep running into that person in the same restaurant and you sit together a couple days a week. It sounds like such a simple thing, but it´s something that never happens in the States, or maybe I just go to the wrong restaurants. It´s a beautiful thing though.

With the orchestra, we took a trip to Quillabamba, a town eight hours away on the ´´brow´´ of the jungle (in other words, it´s the jungle and the mountains together) to play a concert for the town´s birthday. We took two buses and the orchestra sponsors put us up in a nice hotel and took us out for all of our meals. The afternoon after our concert, we went to a place alongside the river that has several pools and small restaurants in the forest. A beautiful place to relax and enjoy the warm weather after several weeks of cold in Cusco. I was also able to get to know better some of the people in the orchestra. On the way back to Cusco, the percussionists took a LOT of beer on our bus and created a big orchestra party. It was pretty comical. Since then, we played a big concert here in Cusco in the Municipal Theater. The concert was for the Peruvian Independence Day, and so we played music that represented many different parts of Peru. There were two songs with very good soloists (singers) and one song that featured four dancers (dancing the ´´marinera,´´ the official dance of Peru). The costumes and dances were beautiful! After that, several of the string players, including myself, got contracted to play in the back-up orchestra for a well known group. It was interesting, to say the least... disorganized, bad arrangements of the music, and the guy who was supposed to ´´conduct´´ us had no idea what he was doing. We are still laughing about the experience.

I´ve also been running a small theater for the past two weeks. My neighbor at the house, Fernando, has been running the theater since February and recently took a trip to Argentina, so I offered to fill in for him. This month has a theme of Spanish movies, so I showed two movies that had to do with the Spanish Civil War. Before the movies, I added my own touch by putting on DVDs of jazz concerts.

There is an ongoing joke in my band that I am from Cajamarca, a city in the north of Peru where there are more light-skinned people. The immigration police have been going after foreign musicians who are playing in bars and making money. They deported a band of Mexicans as well as a couple of Argentinians. So when the guitar player in my band presents everyone, he always presents me as the girl from Cajamarca. So far, thankfully, the immigration police haven´t come after me! I did manage to celebrate Peruvian Independence Day. I went to my favorite restaurant/bar where some friends were playing music. I sat in with them on a few songs and drank some pisco sours (pisco is like a vodka made from grapes, which they blend with lime, ice and an egg). It was funny for me to realize that in the past ten years, I haven´t been in the states for a single July4th, but I have been in Peru during four Peruvian Independence Days!

The past two nights, I have been fortunate enough to see a REALLY good band play. They are a sextet that plays Afro-Peruvian Jazz, lead by a trumpet player named Gabriel Alegria who teaches somewhere in the states. Both shows were phenomenal, all of the musicians are unreal, and one of the percussionists even took tap-dancing solos which were incredible. I recommend that everyone look up this group and listen to their music to get an idea of what Afro-Peruvian music entails...

Within the next ten days or so, I will be leaving towards Brasil. Now I must decide which route to take and pack up somehow the things I have acquired here to leave with a friend until I return.

Pisac and protests

2009-07-22T08:56:00.000-07:00

There is never a dull moment in Cusco. One of the interesting things about living next to one of the 7 wonders of the world is that people are always coming and going, from all over.

With the band, we are continuing to work hard, putting together new songs and improving the songs that we already know. Sometimes we get hung up watching videos on youtube, for inspiration, other times hung up in our differences in how to interpret the songs, other times, the neighbor brings us chicha and we all put down our instruments and talk and make plans for the future. Last Sunday, we played a show in a bar called Illapa. There were only five people in the bar when we were supposed to start playing, so the owner told us that he was cancelling the show. We decided to play a couple songs for fun anyways, and soon realized that two of the five people there were also musicians and so we just had a big jam session that went on for several hours. One of the people was a jazz bassist from Argentina, and the other was a guitarist and beat-boxer from Germany. The combination of those two, plus my band, plus two guys from across the street who heard us and decided to join in as well... it was pretty unbelievable. That´s the funny thing about Cusco, the norm is very unusual and unpredictable, but always something worthy of writing home about.

Just two nights ago, I was walking to the main square from my house (two blocks downhill of steep cobblestone stairs, a pedestrian ¨street¨), and I saw a very strange sight. Someone who owns a truck must have been inspired by Rambo and decided to drive down the stairs. They only made it a third of the way down before the stairs got very steep and they must have decided that they weren´t going to make it any farther, so they parked it. This was, of course, in the same block as the police station, so there was quite the commotion between the police and the truck owner. The police trying to find out why the man drove down the stairs, and the man trying to convince the police that he would just drive in reverse up the stairs. Unfortunately, I couldn´t stay to find out how the truck got out of it´s predicament, but I did get a picture of the comical event.

On Saturday, I went with my friend Fernando to a small town called Cusco in the Sacred Valley. It´s only 40 minutes away, but the climate is significantly warmer. There´s even a palm tree in the middle of the town square! This past week, they were celebrating the Saint Carmen (my ¨saint,¨ according to how everyone mispronounces my name). A saint day in Peru, or saint week, involves all sorts of parties that are a strange mixture of Catholic, traditional folkloric, and very non-religious traditions. For this party, there are parades that go on all day every day. There are several groups that represent different mythological stories, and each of these groups has specific costumes (very elaborate and colorful), dances and music. My favorite group is composed of Ukukus, which were a mythological bear figure. As the story goes, from way back, the bear was rejected from the world of the gods and spirits and was sent to live in the mountains. He wasn´t thrilled about having to stay in the mountains all alone, so he waited until the festivities began in the villages and all the people would get drunk, and then the bear would descend on the village to steal things from houses and capture a damsel to take back to the mountain for company. Today, the ukukus are dressed in an outfit made of a lot of shaggy black yarn and they run around the town stealing things from people who aren´t paying attention. The store owners and unsuspecting people just laugh when they lose something, as they get caught off-guard and they know the ukukus are around looting. At the end of the night, the ukukus rally everyone in the street and sell off all the things that they stole... of course, to buy beer. Amongst the things in the auction were: a watermelon, lots of baseball caps, signs from stores, and a bench. Everyone laughs a lot and has a good time. They even trying to capture a couple girls, who usually played along with the joke for a while. Here´s a picture of one of the more modern costumes that I don´t really understand:

There have been transportation strikes in Cusco this week, due to the fact that the government is increasing the fines that the motorists must pay for violations. Anywhere else in the world, people would just accept this, and try not to break the law, but here, people protest. The transportation unions declare a strike and everything must shut down... no cars on the road, closed stores and restaurants, etc. In the vegetarian restaurant where I eat lunch, they opened, but the left the shutters closed, the lights off and you had to knock on the door for them to let you in. There are large gangs of ¨cobradores¨ which consist of about 50 men at a time that roam the street and punish anyone who doesn´t observe the strike. This involves breaking windows of places that remain open and slashing tires and breaking windows of any car on the road. It´s pretty intense. The police try to stop these gangs, but are usually pretty unsucessful. Life in Peru.

It´s been great playing in the orchestra. We are preparing a concert of just Peruvian music for the Peruvian Independance Day. There are several pieces composed by Armando Guevara Ochoa, a composer from Cusco. His music is phenomenal, and has been forcing me to get used to all sorts of different rhythms and harmonies that aren´t in any Western music. I´m also teaching cello lessons to two of the cellists in the orchestra, which has been cool. It´s nice to have students taking lessons twice a week, they progress so much faster than students who only study once a week. A South American tradition that should be adopted in North America as well.

A couple new tidbits...

2009-07-10T08:26:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to see the rehearsal of the Orquesta Sinfonica de Cusco, and met the director and I will start rehearsing with them next week, and will play with them on a big concert on July 31st in the Municipal Theater here! It will be an interesting experience, especially since they play a lot of music written by composers from Cusco and Peru, an unusual mix of classical and folkloric music. Yesterday, I also met with the director of the Casa de la Cultura in San Blas (the cultural center of one of the nicest and coolest neighborhoods in Cusco), and he invited me to give a solo recital in the hall there, the first week of August. He said that he would arrange for all the publicity as well. So, it looks like I will be here at least another month, with lots of things to keep me busy!

anecdotes from Cusco

2009-07-07T08:48:00.000-07:00

Cusco has been treating me very well. The lack of blog posts is due to how ridiculously busy I have been. I was invited to play with all sorts of different bands (I guess it´s hard to forget the only cellist that comes through town), but I really wanted to put together one really good group of good musicians who were willing to put in some hard work. It worked. We are called Inkarry Quartet, Total Fusion. Profe on guitar, Luis Miguel on soprano and alto sax, Carlos on congas and cajon peruano and myself on cello. We´ve been rehearsing five hours a day on average, working on tunes that Profe wrote, arrangements of the local traditional music, and some jazz and bossa nova standards. We have shows almost every night of the week, even two shows on some days. Last night we played the first concert as a quartet (we had played several concerts with other musicians in the band who later ditched out) and the show was packed. We all had a great time and the audience loved it. Hopefully it will continue, as we continue to work hard and come up with new ideas.

Life at my Cusco home is great too, other than the fact that my favorite rooms are under construction! There are a lot of really cool artists living there with means that there is never a dull moment. There are several artisans, who make jewelry of all sorts, some jugglers, street performers, a guitarist and a writer/film afficianado. Pedro is from Pucallpa, Peru, a town in the Amazon that I will head to within the next month or so. He just started to travel and is experimenting with making jewelry and working at the restaurant around the corner. He has all sorts of interesting collections- of coins, stones, arrowheads... enough collections to make his room look like a museum. Then there is my friend Fernando who is a writer, runs a small indendent cinema and published an anthology of short stories and comics about a curious social phenomenon that runs rampant in Cusco (that requires a whole other blog post to describe). The family who owns the place is super nice, and I´ve seen the kids grow up over the past 8 years which has been really cool. They are all very curious and when I practice my cello in the morning, they often stand in the doorway to my room or come in a sit down to listen. It´s a beautiful thing.

The food in Cusco has also been great. You really can´t beat living in a place where you get a complete vegetarian meal- salad bar, soup, main course, desert and tea, all for $1.20. Of course, you do have to put up with the crazy Alpha and Omega propaganda that is on the walls... apparently all vegetarians come from outerspace and will return there with Jesus in a flying saucer... hmm. I still don´t understand that one, but while the food is good and cheap, I can´t complain.

Here are a couple pictures from around town. Soon to come are some photos from shows :)

A view of the Cusco from the bottom of my street:

The kitchen room at my house and in the background, on the second floor, my old favorite room which is now filled with construction materials. (Note the construction- mud and stick with tile roofs, super rustic!):

The new rooms that are being built, just to give a behind the scenes of how people build houses down here:

The view of the patio at the house from my door way:

Luis in rehearsal at Profe´s house:

Profe in action at rehearsal... actually, I think he was tuning, oh well:

A sunset view of Cusco taken from my favorite chicharia:

2009-06-25T13:19:00.000-07:00

So here are some pictures from the past week or so...

The ladies at my going-away party! All quite beautiful I might add ;)

In front of the San Francisco church in Lima. Yana (from Czech Republic), Ulises (my wonderful host) and myself. This church has lots of catacombs underneath with lots of bones... ew.

Yana, on our bike ride through Lima. Some parts were more scenic than others...

A boat in Callao harbor... for ¨tourist¨ trips:

Ulises and Mariella (from France) at Mochileros Bar in Barranco, getting ready to see a concert:

Me and my good friend Dante. He plays percussion and blows on a whistle...

A blurry photo of the Plaza de Armas (main square) in Cusco on my arrival night. Big time partying. Part of the parade went around the square. There were HUNDREDS of groups in the parade and A LOT of people there to celebrate:

One of the groups in the parade. The photos didn´t turn out great because I couldn´t get very close, but the videos are awesome!

Some of the floats from the parade, the day after.

Well, everything continues to go well. Yesterday afternoon I went with a good friend Rodrigo, way up a mountain that overlooks all of Cusco, to the best chicheria in town, and hidden if I might add. In case you don´t know, chicha was the beer that the Incans brewed from corn, and today the peasants continue to brew it, and serve it up warm in huge glasses. It´s pretty weak, but a beautiful tradition, plus it´s tasty and fills you up! After that, I ran into almost all of my musician friends, which was a very happy reunion. They were pretty anxious for the cellist to come back :) It looks now like I will be playing with one Ecuadorian folklore group, one bluesy/funky/Afro-Peruvian group, one papacho-metal-fusion group, and a guitarist... It`s cool with me, I`m a fan of diversity. But I did buy myself a cellphone... too many people and too many rehearsals to organize. I went to the black market and for $15 I got a a cellphone that was stolen, plus a chip and 30 minutes. Hey, some times technology is a necessary evil. It´s good to have for emergencies too I suppose. Well, off I go for another night of adventures!

Back in my Cusco home

2009-06-24T08:53:00.000-07:00

Lima was great. While there, I had a a good time with my new friends, Yana from Czech Republic, Mariella from France and Ulises, my host. Ulises has traveled a lot on bike and enjoys fixing them up, so he has quite a few around the house. One day, Yana, Ulises and I took a bike ride around town, to Old Callao, Chucuito (the original fishing village before Lima-city existed), La Punta (an upscale waterfront neighborhood). The smell of the salt water was nice, and I stuck my hands in, to make this an official Pacific to Atlantic trip! We then ate lunch at the Central Market in Callao.

Also while in Lima, I met up with a good friend of mine, Dante. He is one of the best percussionists in all of Peru. We met three years ago when both of our bands played back to back on a music festival called Quechuanol, in Cusco. Ever since, we have written letters from time to time. One night, I went with Ulises and Mariella to see him play with a rock band in Barranco. The next night, I saw him play with a flamenco group in a fancy bar-restaurant in Miraflores (probably the nicest neighborhood in Lima, looks like upscale first-world). The concert also had interludes with Arabian dances! My last night in Cusco we met up with three of his older friends (they are all probably in their 60´s and he considers them to be his musical ¨family.¨ They pulled out photo albums from when he was a little kid playing percussion with them, it was pretty funny. It was one of the guys birthday´s, so we hung out at the house and played Cuban music all night long. It was a great time, just guitar, bass, cello, percussion and the three guys singing.

One day in Lima, Ulises, Yana and I set out on a mission. First we had to find the International Geographic Institute so that I could buy some topographical maps that I need to plan my trek around the Ticlla mountains in the Central Andes. After that, we went to the Agrarian University to try to find a scientist. Yana is studying tropical and sub-tropical agriculture and needed some more information from this man before she heads to the Amazon to study and write a thesis about a fast-growing tree. It was quite the adventure trying to find this man, but he was very interesting to talk to, and to hear about the process of investigating these trees. When I go to the Amazon, I will stay at the house where Yana and several other students and their professors are staying.

Tuesday night I took a bus to Cusco. It was the peasant bus, which means that my knees hit the seat in front of me the whole time, the bus droped off and picked up people whole way, it went th ecrazy route through the mountains, a million switchbacks and lots of people puking! It was also much cheaper than the tourist bus and they let me take my cello up top with me. I sat next to a very very nice deaf man, and we conversed the whole way, him talking and me writing. The altitude was rough, a lot of the time we were above the tree line. When the bus stopped for lunch though, I ate a delicious plate of fresh trout from the river and instantly felt much better.

I arrived in Cusco just in time for the most important party of the year called Inti Raymi. Yesterday there were parades from 8 am to midnight, which meant that I had to walk a long way with my backpack and cello to my hotel. It´s nice though. I am staying in the same place that I have stayed at since 2001, the family is like my Peruvian family and it is vrey close to everything. Unfortunately, my favorite rooms are under construction because they are adding a third floor, so I will probably stay in a room which has an Incan wall, but is a bit colder.

I will try to post some pictures tomorrow. I just downloaded them to a DVD and this computer can´t read DVDs-. Plus I don´t want to miss any of the festivities!

Back home in Peru...

2009-06-19T16:37:00.000-07:00

Just a super brief rap-up of the last couple days...

My flight from Newark to Lima was overbooked on Tuesday, so I volunteered to stay behind, for $500 Continental credit and a night in a Holiday Inn and food. Lo and behold, it was overbooked on Wednesday as well and they offered me the same deal, plus a bump up to first class if I waited until Thursday. Of course, I did. I saw this as a sign that I must continue traveling, hee heee.

First class was nice, especially the scotch. They also treated me like some important cellist, funny as that was with my plaid shirt and boots. So the cello survived another couple flights as a carry on, which is always great.

I got to Lima, went through immigration and the immigration officer pointed out that I come to Peru a lot. He said ¨Welcome home! How long do you want to stay?¨It´s important to note that all countries in South America give you 90 days, sometimes only 60, but never more. So I told him that I would stay about 3 months, and he said, ¨Oh, well, I´ll give you four. Are you sure you don´t want five or six?¨ Nice, huh? And I really do feel like I´m coming home, as strange as that might seem. As different as things might be. Except for the pollution here in Lima, I´ll never like that.

So I sent out a message to a guy named Ulises on couchsurfing.com (If you don´t know what that is, I suggest you do a little browsing over the page, as it seems to me to be one of the neatest new social experiments going on. And if you´re really brave, sign up and host some travelers who might be just like me, or maybe totally different). Ulises picked me up from the airport and now I´m staying at his family´s house, with his mom, sisters, nephews and another couch surfer from the Czech Republic. It´s all good, except for the speed of this internet. Taking that into consideration, I´m off for the night... just wanted everyone to know that everything is great!

Does the person create the journey or does the journey create the person?

2009-06-11T06:12:00.000-07:00

My passport finally arrived in the mail today, complete with a visa from Brazil. I am leaving in five days and only now does it seem real. For anyone who does not know, the fact that Brazil granted me a visa is somewhat of a miracle. In 2002, I was given 90 days in Brazil, which I renewed for another 90 days, which went all too quickly. Soon I was racking up a fine, somewhere around $3 a day, until I hit the max around $220. I left the country via a very small town on the Paraguayan border, called Ponta Pora, after almost a year in Brazil. The man who stamped my passport asked me to pay the fine and fill out some paperwork. I explained that I was a poor artist and of course, did not have the money, so the man had me fill out the paperwork anyways and told me I would need to pay the fine if I wanted to return. Well, I did return, but I never stopped in immigration, and I stayed almost another year before returning to the Paraguayan border. One unseasonably cold morning, I walked to Brazilian immigration on the Ponte da Amizade (ironically enough, the Friendship Bridge) with a "floating" passport (I hadn't technically been anywhere for a year). The officer fumbled with the computer, which apparently refused to turn on, then looked around for other officials, opened my passport and gave me 90 days in Brazil. I walked away as quickly as possible. Low and behold, the 90 days were soon up and the immigration officials in the north of Brazil refused to renew my stay for another 90 days, so I was soon racking up a second fine. When I did leave the country, on an airplane to the United States, I was greeted by a border agent who quickly noticed my situation. I begged for him to please just let me go home, that I had no money. The man looked at me, standing there with my cello in a state of disarray, and shuffled me through, explaining that I would need to pay the fine before I returned. So when I sent in my passport for a new visa, I wasn't sure what I would get back, but I figured it might be somewhere along the lines of a bill and a giant red REJECTION stamp in my passport. And yesterday, six days before I leave, my passport arrives in the mail with a brand new visa, valid for five years. Sometimes, you just don't know what might happen. Just goes to show that you can't assume anything.

And now... I pack. Packing is a strange task. It takes me through a process where my life becomes organized into a small bag; all the fluff gets left behind and everything that comes along means something. Four months, one bag, one cello, and who knows where I might end up. And I stopped to think about the question: Does the person create the journey or does the journey create the person? I've been imagining this great, yet somewhat vague, itinerary in my mind of the places that I would like to go on this trip, and in the past days I've been watching a story unfold about conflict in the Peruvian Amazon, one place I had hoped to visit. The government is selling sacred land, the Indians protest, the government kills the Indians, and transportation across this part of the country is cut off. A tragic story, really, but a very real daily struggle for people who live off the land in Latin America. And I realize that I am but a speck, and I have very little control over what happens on a daily basis, much less what will happen on this journey. My left brain says that neither the journey nor the person or created, because nothing is ever created or destroyed. Things are shaped, they evolve and as a human, we react, change our perspective, adapt our actions. And that is the beauty in the journey... the unknown, the mystery that greets every day, a person who crosses your path just because you forgot something and had to turn around, a smell that your nose chases across town, a hummingbird outside the window. Sometimes, when life starts to get monotonous, easy and predictable, that beauty goes unnoticed or unappreciated. Strangely enough, that is also when it is hardest to leave, but when the rewards are greatest.

It has been a crazy year in the States... I finally graduated from college after a challenging semester of little sleep and student teaching and then I got to spend some much needed time with my sister and brother who live on the other side of the country. I guess I just want everyone to know that I leave here all the time because the challenge of being somewhere foreign, on my own, allows me to learn new things about myself and life that I couldn't necessarily learn here at home. I do love you all though, and all the people that I spend time with have an important role in making me who I am. So, if you think I'm totally crazy for leaving all the time, or even if you are just curious, I recommend that you come visit, see a different world firsthand, put yourself in someone else's shoes, dance to a different tune, breath different air, and just notice how grand the beauty of the human spirit truly is. And if you can't visit, I hope that you'll at least keep up with my posts, which I will try my best to keep up to date, and send me a note from time to time. Just remember, a lot happens in a day, often so many things, or such indescribable things, that this is only a feeble attempt to leave you all with a small glance...

And on that note, here are some beautiful moments from the U. S. of A.

A couple more pictures...

2008-08-05T07:26:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to upload a couple pictures when I come to internet, but its SO slow that I have decided it is a waste of time. When I arrive in the city I will post the rest of the pictures.

A crooked bridge between El Tablon and La Chaquira: The Magdalena River valley in its splendor:

Mal de ojo, dulce de pata de vaca and a sugarcane theives

2008-08-03T14:05:00.000-07:00

A cool tree and roof in San Agustin: Jam session in the Hare Krishna temple in Neiva:

Lourdes, Alma del Viento, Maxi and I heading to town for our big concert in Macizo Cafe and the Plaza... everybody with their hair-do´s:

Well, the news of the day is that someone has given me a ´´mal de ojo,´´ or cast a spell on me. That means that I have a really bad headache in just one little spot above my ear. How do you know when you have mal de ojo? You put some oil on a plate and crack three eggs onto the plate. If all of the yolks come together in the middle, you have mal de ojo. Soon I will find out what the cure entails.

I also came to discover that the people here, other than inventing the best peanut candies in the world, have come to develop the most disgusting kind of candy in the world... dulce de pata de vaca. Yep, candy made out of sugar and... cow´s feet, not just the hooves, but the whole bottom part of the leg. The result is a gelatinous flabby thing, it doesn´t even smell good. The people at the store tried to convince me that it was vegetarian AND that it is very good for you. Needless to say, I didn´t bother trying it.

Our concert last night went very well. There was a great turn-out, everyone stayed until the very end, including the mayor and governor. Quite the event, I might add. We had a great time and after we headed to the lookout over the town to share a little bottle of rum amongst friends.

The highlight of the past few days was two nights ago. We arrived to the house pretty late, Lourdes, Alma del Viento, Maxi and myself. Around 9pm we started to make dinner in the kitchen which is in the back of the house. Maxi and I were preparing polenta, a typical Argentinian dish. Lourdes decided that it was a good night for a bonfire so she was making a couple of trips around the perimeter of the house looking for kindling and just checking things out. The house is on a farm which consists of 11 square kilometers (aka, a TON of land) and there are also a few cows, chickens, etc. All of the sudden I heard Lourdes yelling the names of the neighbors saying, ``there are two guys here, Miriam, Maria, there are two guys here.´´ It seemed to be a pretty weird form of telling the neighbors that they had a visitor. We walked outside of the kitchen and Lourdes was in the middle of the back yard, yelling, ´´theives, theives, I`m going to get you, bring the machete.´´ She was jumping up and down like a wild woman.

In her walk around the yard, she noticed two guys laying in the grass and made a scene. She scared the living daylights out of them by screaming until they ran towards the back of the property until they realized that leads to nowhere, then one turned around, they ran into eachother, almost fell, jumped the fence and took off. The police came, checked out the house for us, fired a couple of shots into the air, and we locked ourselves in the house for the night. The next day we discovered that they had been there for hours eating a mountain of sugarcane. The good news, is that with the scene that Lourdes made, its pretty unlikely that they will ever return.

Neiva, San Agustin

2008-08-01T07:54:00.000-07:00

The tree in front of Lourdes´ house: Tree tomato, a fruit that makes a really good juice:
Sunset in San Agustin:
The church in the main plaza in San Agustin:
No need for a caption...

So I got my vis renewed for another sixty days, with my sailboat shirt on, of course. After that I immediately headed back to San Agustin (I knew that the people at the hotel were wondering what in the world happened to me since I had left ALL my stuff there). Back in San Agustin, I hiked to some of the ruins, including El Tablon and La Chakira. The walk to the ruins takes you out of the town and down a rural road, followed by a muddy path with a few houses scattered along the way. The houses are all very simple and humble, a lot of them just constructed of mud and sticks. El Tablon is on the side of a mountain and consists of several huge rock sculptures of bodies with giant heads. There is a little museum in a house that has a lot of ceramic artifacts and tools that were used in the ancient cultures.

Following the path from El Tablon takes you to the side of a lush green canyon. One little area of the canyon is covered with huge boulders, several with images carved into them. This is La Chakira. The day was beautiful, sunny and with a blue sky. On my way back I stopped to drink guarapo (those of you who read my blog from last year might remember that when I made my solo trek to Gocta waterfall I also stopped to drink guarapo on my way back to town.) Guarapo is a fermented sugar cane drink. This one was especially potent and seemed to take on more effect as I walked back under the mid-day sun.

After I spent a few days in San Agustin, Maxi sent me an email from Neiva. In the end, he decided to stay in Colombia a little longer and was staying in the Hare Krishna temple. I headed back to Neiva so we could play music together in a few restaurants. We played during the lunch hour in the Hare Krishna restaurant and at night in a juice bar and sometimes in a cafe. I ended up meeting a girl who plays cello and offered her cello lessons. She was totally siked and I ended up teaching her two cello lessons in a week.

Since then we have been back in San Agustin, staying at a friend´s house, Lourdes, with her daughter Alma del Viento (Soul of the Wind). We are preparing for a concert that we will give tomorrow in a cafe in the Plaza. Its a big deal, they are cleaning the plaza now, they invited us to be on the radio and the whole town is talking about the event. We will have a good time for sure. Staying at Lourdes´ house is great. Its on the road out of town, has a town of land all around, goiaba trees, hens and roosters, tranquility and she is SUPER cool. We have been cooking good food every day and telling lots of stories.

Sunday I will add some more pictures that relate a little more directly to the blog. These are the ones that I had left on the computer a few days ago!

A scorpion, the Taganga collection, and a clown shirt

2008-07-13T10:24:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the long time span between posts... but late is better than never. So, going back about two weeks takes us to Taganga again. (Taganga is the little fishing town). So one night Maxi, Laura and I decided we would travel the next day. We had a big going away party, in other words, Maxi and I and the Ronaldo (the local guitar player) played music at the bar in town and had some drinks. What more can you expect from a little town? The next morning, we got all out bags, instruments and stuff together and headed to the bus terminal in Santa Marta. We left our bags in the guarda-equipajes and made a trip to town, to go to a real supermarket that has lots of things to buy and you can actually get them off the shelf instead of asking someone for every little thing that you want. This is what happens after spending an extended time in Taganga, you forget what the city entails.

When we made it back to the bus terminal, Laura got her bags since her bus was the first to leave. She didn´t even make it 50 feet away and she dropped her backpack and everything that she was carrying. A huge scorpion (5 inches) went flying and she squeezed her arm like crazy to get the poison out. The scorpion had gotten in her bag in Taganga without her knowing. I freaked out way more than she did. The people in the bus terminal said that if you get bit by a scorpion that your tongue and throat goes numb, so you can´t talk and then you get a really bad fever with chills. Laura is a champ, she just went and got straight on the bus without doing anything else. And she made it to Bogota in good shape.

Backing up a bit, the three necklaces are the result of me having a clogged up ear in Taganga and not being able to play my cello. I call them the Taganga collection and yep, they are all up for sle. The yellow and red one has a big piece of Colombian amber, the brown one has acai seeds from Brasil and a serpentine stone from the Sacred Valley, Peru and the black/rainbow necklace has a symbol of Tahuantinsuyo carved out of gray onyx, also from the Sacred Valley, Peru. They all have more stories, but those are to tell in person, not here :)

So, Laura went to Bogota, and Maxi and I went to Medellin. I imagined Medellin to be a small city nestled in green mountains... it is a HUGE city sprawling out over green mountains. Anyways, we did a lot of walking around the city, found some nice neighborhoods and met some nice people. After four days, since Maxi had limited time before his return trip to Argentina, we headed to San Agustin. San Agustin IS a tiny little town in the middle of green mountains, but far in the south of Colombia. This is the main drag:

We played some music, that´s us outside of the hotel after we recorded a song. We composed and then recorded it, and I tried to upload it here, but the computers are too slow so everybody just has to wait till I come home. Anyways, San Agustin is a great little town, super chilled out and right now, pretty cold.

Friday, we went to Pitolito (the closest bigger town) so that I could renew my passport and Maxi was going to take a bus to Bogota. In the end, the only clean shirt that I had was my clown shirt, so I put it on figuring that it didn`t matter much, considering that I had two sweaters on top. Well, we got to Pitolito and they told me that I had to go to Neiva to renew the passport, 3 hours away, and that I better hurry up or the office would close and I would be out of luck... and illegal. Oh geez. Maxi said that I turned white. As if I haven´t spent enough of my life clandestine here in South America. So we went to the bus terminal and in the end Maxi ended up coming to Neiva with me (it was going to be cheaper than going direct to Bogota). Well, in Neiva its REALLY REALLY hot, so I had to take of the two sweaters. You can only imagine the look on the cop`s face when I walk into the customs office, 5 minutes before it closes with a yellow and red polka dot shirt on. His first question when he opened my passport was, ``You waited until today... at this time?!?`` Actually, the people in Pitolito gave me bad info, I tried to explain, but then I realized that he actually started to doubt me because I was speaking perfect spanish. ``What are you doing here in Colombia, anyways?`` I told his that I was being a usual tourist, staying in nice hostels, going to lots of ruins and museums (ok, so maybe I exaggerated a little). Well, in the end he told me that he would renew it, but I had to come back on Monday. So here I am in Neiva, all my stuff is in San Agustin and I am just hanging out until tomorrow morning when I will head back. It`s all been good so far. I bought a new shirt for a dollar, it says ``loyalty`` and has a picture of a sailboat. Hopefully the cop won´t give me such a dirty look tomorrow. Oh, and I found the hare krishnas. I think they want to adopt Maxi and I. One of them told Maxi that he was Buddha in a past life. They didn´t tell me what I was... I guess that must mean I was something like a garbage man or sea algae, haha. Well, at least I have been eating good vegetarian food the past few days and enjoying a break from the cold and rain.

New posts soon to come from San Agustin...

Minca and Tayrona National Park

2008-06-28T07:36:00.000-07:00

This past week, my friend AnnMarie and I made a trip through a few of the best parts of the Colombian coast. We spent a night in Taganga, where I ended up playing music again in Mojito Bar, this time with a guitar player from Spain and a piano player who was born in Norway, grew up in the States and now lives in the mountain in Taganga. We ended up putting on quite the show, with everything from blues, to jazz standards, to bossa nova. The following day we headed to Minca, a quiet and beautiful town up in the mountains. My friend Julho, from Brazil, came along for the adventure. At first we couldn´t find a cheap hotel, so we ended up meeting these people who had an abandoned hotel on their property. They agreed to let us stay in one of the rooms for a cheap price, as long as we we out by 8 am. The room was basic, the door didn´t even shut, but the scenery was amazing and the people super friendly.

The following morning we walked downstream and then along a trail that we thought was going to take us to the juncture of a river and a waterfall. In the end, we ended up on a mountain ridge overlooking Santa Marta, a lot of beautiful green mountains and the ocean. Along the way, we gathered a TON of mangos, avocados and ate a cacao fruit. Cacao fruit looks kind of like a squash and inside there is white slimey stuff around the seeds. The seeds are what they take out, roast and grind to make cocoa, or chocolate, but you can also just eat the white slimy stuff and its pretty good.

When we came to the conclusion that we had taken the wrong trail, we turned around, hiked back to town and ate breakfast in the park. Then we started walking on the road towards Pozo Azul. The Pozo Azul wasn´t blue at all, but it was a nice couple of pools and a small waterfall up the river. We all went for a swim in the very cold water!

The next day we took motorcycle taxis down the mountain, Julho returned to Taganga, and AnnMarie and I went to the supermarket to buy food to take to Tayrona Park. We ate lunch and waited for the bus. Unfortunately, all the buses that came by were already full so we had to wait two hours until one arrived. When we finally made it to the park entrance, we found out that the park had closed 45 minutes ago. I told AnnMarie that we would attempt to beg, but as we were walking up, the park official came out and told us to hurry up, that he would let us in. We quickly paid the entrance fee, he put us on two moto taxis and we zipped up the road to the beginning of the trail. It was already getting dark, and mosquito-ey, so we walked quickly towards the beach. We spent two nights sleeping in hammocks in Arrecifes beach. The next day we walked along the beaches and through the jungle and palm coconuts to Cabo de San Juan beach, where I had stayed six years ago and ran into the paramilitaries. The whole park seems totally different now, packed with tents, tourists and vendors... when I was here last, most of the natives had even decided to leave. (The park was closed because of the guerilla and paramilitary action and also due to the fact that the paramilitaries killed the park director´s daughter).

From Cabo de San Juan, we walked up the stone staircase for about an hour to Pueblito ruins. The ruins are over 500 years old and are made up of lots of round terraces, staircases and stone pathways.

The views in the ruins were great, and the hike up and down even allowed the sun to break through in spurts so we could see the view of the ocean and beach far below.

Quebrada Valencia and Palomino

2008-06-15T13:37:00.000-07:00

So this is Quebrada Valencia. The picture does it no justice, as usual. The waterfall itself continues up into the jungle and there are several pools to swim in. Of course there are next to no tourists. That´s because to get to Quebrada Valencia, you have to get off the bus at the correct bridge. Yep, no sign, no town except for the few houses far inside the jungle, but when you do get off the bus you enter into a completely different world. First you walk alongside a small

farm, already inside the jungle, and then you follow the dirt trail alongside all sorts of amazing plants, trees and flowers. The birds and bugs provide the soundtrack. The waterfall is about a half hour hike from the road and has 4 main pools to swim in. The few people who do arrive don´t know about the trail to the fourth waterfall/pool. It was obvious because of how overgrown it was. Right now is fruit harvest season. There are mangos, avocados, bananas, guanabanas, pineapples, etc. in abundance. I tried to do my part to not let very many go to waste. I estimate that if I would have eaten that quantity of organic fruit in the United States, it would have cost me approxiamately $40 a day, and probably wouldn´t have tasted nearly as good!

In Quebrada Valencia lives a man named Alex. He is from Bogota and would probably best be described as a hippie. He has been living there since the 70´s and now has created some projects that are using the land that was once overgrown with coca plantations and converting them to cacao plantations to produce organic chocolate to export. In addition, the people that are doing the labor are people who were displaced from their homes because of the war and violence. These people come down from the mountains because the paramilitary make threats against them. Once they come down from their communities to the civilized world, they are left without any form of survival, most of them having spent their entire lives without electricity, running water, money, or concepts such as theft. Their lives are turned upside down. At least now, 20 families will be taking part in this project and will be able to continue their lives in the mountains.

From Alex´s house it is a 20 minute walk to the beach, which was deserted for the most part. The waves were pretty big, but we walked for about 40 minutes to the west until we found a little fresh water lagoon that was really close to the ocean. There were a lot of palm trees, really pretty turqoise water and a really hot sun. Here in Colombia, I reapply sunblock about every hour.... and I still get a tan.

I also played a concert for my favorite tree. Hey... the jungle deserves a little Bach too, and if I drag a cello around all these countries, there has to be a good reason, no?

Anyways, from Quebrada Valencia, I travelled to Palomino, a fishing village up the coast. It has the river and the ocean and a lot of fishermen who apparently are very modern and all try to buy a louder soundsystem than their neighbor to blast horrible music all day long. Fortunately, where my friends live is way far in the back of the village, far from the noise. Early in the afternoon, we walked to the river. There were some girls washing clothes with their little siblings swimming and spear fishing. You know, the usual South American scene. The kids all wanted their picture taken, of course so they could see it afterwards.

Afterwards, we decided to go to the beach, but apparently we went down the wrong street because we ended up at the military base. Along the way, we walked down a really pretty road lined with big trees. We passed some girls who told us that we were going the right way, and they were obviously coming from the beach. We got to the base and asked if they would let us through to the beach, and they said okay. So they showed us the trail and we started walking. There were a bunch of camps (military guys with hammocks set up and big guns set up on the side of the trail) along the way. I hate guns and wasn´t too fond of the trail to the beach, but we continued anyway. We had to walk through a mangrove and then came out to where the river comes out to meet the ocean. It was beautiful, and worth the walk. Thankfully all the military guys were nice and said hi. Some even invited us to stay for dinner.

The best part of Palomino was later that night. A family of 8 Kogis (the indigenous group that lives above in the mountains) came to town to sell their products. They arrived to my friends house, saw that they had an indigenous style hut and walked right into the yard. When they looked in the hut, they saw a tv and all sat down in the doorway (the two wives and 5 children, while the husband went to town). They all sat there mesmorized, watching Chucky of all things. My friend stood up, in front of the tv and asked who understood spanish amongst them. They all stared at him blankly, annoyed that he was blocking their view. When the husband returned, he asked if they could stay the night at my friend´s house, in their living room. My friend said that they should go to the indigenous house (a place for the Kogis to stay if they come into town and it takes a whole day walking to return). The man refused, saying that they would just sleep in the yard. The whole scene was really comical because the husband hardly knew any Spanish, and my friend doesn´t know any Kogi. In the end, he took them all to the indigenous house.

Taganga

2008-06-12T07:53:00.000-07:00

If you ever want to see something gross, go to the doctor and ask them to wash your ears out. So I got water stuck in my ear and after a few days of only being able to hear out of my right ear, I went to the doctor. They put a big plastic syringe in my ear and shot saline solution in a couple of times. It was gross. And my ear is still clogged so they gave me the syringe so I can continue washing my ear out every day, and putting in glycerine drops too.

I am in Taganga now, a small fishing town outside of Santa Marta. I remember seeing some tourists here before, but now it seems like an Israeli colony... even the restaurant signs are written in Hebrew. Its a little bit disturbing actually. The rest of the town though remains the same: very poor, laid-back and relaxed. There are some nice beaches that are within walking distance, after crossing over a couple mountain ridges. The mountains surrounding Taganga are dry and arid and the village itself is in a small bay so the water is almost always still and crystal clear.

Today I am leaving for a small town outside of Santa Marta. I still haven´t decided which small town to go to... either Palomino, Buritaca or Quebrada Valencia. All three are very very small towns, much greener than here (unfortunate for the mosquito situation). Regardless, I will be disconnected from the internet for a few days, so nobody should worry!

a few pictures...

2008-06-04T07:53:00.000-07:00

So here is a picture of the serenade itself:

The taxi driver fell asleep during the whole ordeal. I guess he was the one who was serenaded the most. Meanwhile, the mosquitos serenaded my feet.

This is the music school at the university where I teach. The building is over 400 years old! I like the trees in the courtyard.
Naptime in Colombia. Between noon and 2 pm, it is hopeless to try to do anything.
A market in town. I wanted to take more pictures but the vendors started getting mad at me. Oops!

jewelry, a homemade stove and a serenade

2008-06-02T12:24:00.000-07:00

This is my friend and roomate Rubier, and his jewelry, plus my bracelets. He is from Meta, which is in the plains/savanna part of Colombia. He knows my dad and Chelsea from Taganga (a little fishing village up the coast).

This is me on the street, taking a break from walking around selling jewelry. I prefer to walk around to the restaurants rather than just sit on the street, but sometimes you have to take a break! This is also an official Karmi fashion statement.

Step 1, attempting to make a stove out of soda cans (you can only eat so much fried fish until the need for vegetables kicks in). Step one is to drink two cans of soda, or find a friend. Or, find a friend and drink two beers. Regardless, you need two cans.

This is me in my room, with Gustavo, my cello and the picture frame that has random people in it. They gave it to me with my camera but I have no picture to put in it and probably won`t take it with me, so I just left the model family in it and there you go. Anyways, step two involves making a bunch of holes around the bottom edge of one can and a big hole in the middle. Then cut both of the cans about an inch and a half up from the bottom and put the can with holes over the can bottom without holes. You can put some cotton in the bottom if you want. I don´t know what good the cotton does, but my brother`s stove has cotton in it, so it must be for something.

Final step: Put some alcohol in it and set it on fire. I could only find rubbing alcohol because it was a Sunday, today comes the real trial with denatured alcohol. The final final step involves making something to set the pan on. I still haven´t gotten that far. One thing at a time!

This has been a busy week. On Wednesday I went to see a band with a bunch of students. It was a blues and dixieland band... kind of mediocre, but they were trying. Afterwards I went out with four girls from the school to have a few drinks.

Thursday I went back to Pozon to help Dina, my student. I went only to her afternoon classes and played a little music for them, coached them a little bit on the songs they are working on and then played a little more and let them ask me questions. The kids there are great, and all came running up to me giving me hugs (they remembered me from the week before at their concert).

Last night I was out selling jewelry and met a guy who was walking around with a guitar. He asked if I would do him the favor of accompanying him in a serenade that he was going to give a friend. We found a percussionist, practiced (if you want to call it that) in a park, where a mariachi player also joined us, and then took a taxi to the girls house. We played outside her house, leaning up against a taxi. The whole thing was pretty comical... just the random kind of thing that can only happen in South America.

Karmi`s Unofficial Guide to Cartagena, Part 1

2008-05-31T11:45:00.000-07:00

Where to stay:

Calle de Media Luna (Half Moon Street). There are a lot of hotels on this street, and it is next to downtown (the part of the city within the fortress walls). Six years ago, I lived on this street in the Hotel Doral. Hotel Doral now looks like a tornado hit it and is being remodeled by a rich Italian. Six years ago, there was not a foreign tourist anywhere near this street and I wasn`t fond of walking down the street by myself alone, even in daylight! Now there are several tourist hostels (Hotel Marlin, Hotel Viena, etc.) and then some others with fewer tourists (the cheaper ones- Hotel La Espanola, Hotel La Muralla). I live in La Muralla. Don`t worry, the mildew smell is only on the first floor, the rooms on the second floor don`t smell bad at all... unless of course an animal happens to die on the roof above your room, like what happened to me. But then the owner will happily change your room. Downstairs there is a room with a tv where there are usually a few people watching badly dubbed, American action movies from the 90s. A room here costs $5 a night, and on the other side of the street in the hostels a bed in a dorm room costs you $10. Hmmm... thats the price you pay if you want your neighbors and the receptionist to be English speaking, I guess.

Where to eat (if you are a vegetarian):

Corner store: I always buy things from the corner store for breakfast. They have cheese bread (which looks like the cheese bread in Brazil, but doesn´t taste nearly as good), big cookies, rolls, pieces of cake, and lots of other meat filled things which I could tell you nothing about. Across the street they sell arepas con huevo (thats like a thick corn tortilla filled with egg, ground meat, closed up and fried).

Gato Negro: This is around the corner and they sell breakfast to tourists very expensive. I go there just for coffee and to read the newspaper. Its the only place close-by where you can get coffee that isn`t instant and way too sugary. They have a copy of Colombia`s only decent newspaper, el Tiempo.

The restaurant on the parallel street: This is where I go for lunch. Everywhere here has the same things for lunch, at about the same place. I go to this place because it has the best hot sauce. Actually, it has the only hot sauce. The other places have that bottled-Tabasco-esque stuff and here they make the REAL DEAL. I get the same thing every day- fish soup (made with a little coconut, plantains, yucca, and other ingredients?), then the main course which is rice, beans, a couple friend plantains, a little salad, and more fish (either fried or cooked in coconut sauce). Sometimes when I get tired of eating fish, I ask for eggs (huevo perico, with onion, garlic and tomato). Today I am making myself a stove because there is a lack of vegetables in the food here.

Street food:

Arepa con queso: This is like a giant ground corn patty that gets crispy on the outside, and they slice open and fill with Parmesan cheese. The first three or four are pretty good, but then it gets old.

Bollo: This is like a tamale, but with no filling. Usually I buy it with a little piece of cheese.

Jugo: There is fresh lime-ade on the streets, tuti-fruti (punch made with real fruit and a lot of watermelon), and the juice stands where they will make you whatever combo you want. The best juice stand is where the flower market is (mercado de flores). There is also coconut water and people who sell premade juice in bags. Here in Cartagena, liquids sold in bags are cheaper than liquids sold in bottles. Its also the only place in South America where you can buy a 5-liter bag of water. Ha ha.

If you haven´t noticed, being a vegetarian in Colombia is a real pain... so bring a stove if you want to eat well.

Up next in my Unofficial Guide to Cartagena is Part 2: Where (and where not) to Hang Out. This might just be the most important part, so stay posted!

How to eat a mango

2008-05-28T07:31:00.000-07:00

So for those of you who know me fairly well, you know that I am a huge fan of mangos... a good ripe mango is definitely my favorite fruit. The best part about my trip right now is that I happened to arrive in Colombia in the middle of the mango harvests. Now, anyone who has every eaten a mango will surely attest that it is a somewhat messy ordeal, ending in sticky fingers, sticky goo all over your face and probably lots of little mango fibers stuck in your teeth. Here are a few alternatives to eat mango that I have learned here in Colombia:

1) With your teeth, bite at one end of the mango and tear off the skin towards the other end. Peel the whole mango this way and then eat it. This works best with the little mangos (``mangas``)

2.) About an inch and a half away from the end of the mango cut a circle all the way around. Do this at both ends and then peel in between the two little circles. Use the unpeeled parts to hold the mango and eat everything in the middle. This eliminates the sticky hands.

3.) Squish the mango with your fingers until it is very soft. At the opposite end as the stem, bite a small hole. Squeeze the mango juice into your mouth, but dont squeeze too hard or the other end with blow out and make a mess. Suck out all the fruit and juice until all that you have left is pit inside of the skin. This is my favorite way to eat the mango and avoids sticky hands and strings in your teeth.

4.) Go to the market and ask them to make you some fresh mango juice. Let them deal with the mess!

5.) How to eat a green (unripe) mango: Peel, cut into little sticks (french fry size), add lime and salt. Crunch away!

The moral of the story is, mangos are obviously the best fruit ever and the world would be a much better place if everyone could enjoy mango season in Colombia just once in their lives. The end :)

A sad day in Colombia

2008-05-27T07:47:00.000-07:00

So yesterday I tried to burn the pictures from my camera onto a CD, but the computer was a lost cause so I gave up and decided to wait until after lunch. I locked my room, went to eat lunch and came back to a room with no more camera :(

The hotel owner searched the other hotel rooms, to see if the person who picked my lock hadn`t left yet, but we soon realized that it was a shady character who was visiting some one of the other hotel guests. Of course, the person didn´t reappear at the hotel. It is a big disappointment, but I am thankful that it was only my camera that they stole. In the end, materials come and go, what is most important is that I am okay, and I still have my passport and my cello. Here, the local people say that when something bad happens to something that belongs to you, like if I had a pet that got sick or lost something important, that in reality, something bad was going to happen to me, but that event was intercepted by the belonging. That means that my camera getting stolen prevented something bad from happening to me... and now I have two locks on my door.

The good news is that before I went to lunch I had taken out the chip that had the pictures I had already taken, so at least I have something from that camera to remember. When I get to Bogota, I will buy another camera in one of the contraband markets and everything will be okay. Until then, no more pictures, but if anyone would like to donate towards the new camera fund.... ;)

a trip to Pozon

2008-05-25T08:28:00.000-07:00

Teaching in the university has been great so far. I have three students- Dina, Jaime y Christian. They practice so much that I have to give them two lessons a week and they beg me to bring them etudes and new songs to learn! Dina is the most advanced of the three and she also teaches cello in a project on the outskirts of the city. The project is in a huge neighborhood called Pozon, which is a bunch of dirt streets, yucky puddles and shanty houses. A project was started which teaches the kids music. They start by singing, playing little xylophones, recorders, and percussion and then move to string instruments. Dina teaches the cellists in groups of four, in hour long lessons, all day long every Thursday. This week they had their concert, but next week I am going to play for each of the classes and then help her out for the following Thursdays that I am here in the city.

Inside a typical Colombian bus on the way to Pozon:

A street in Pozon:

The orchestra in Pozon:

around town

2008-05-15T06:58:00.000-07:00

I got a gig yesterday, to teach cello at the Escuela de Bellas Artes (the College of Fine Arts). They want to hire me permanently, but I accepted to teach anytime that I am in Cartagena. Kids here graduate highschool at age 16 and then go to college, so its a little different. Also, they don´t have music in middle or highschool, so most of them are just now starting. The difference is that they LOVE to play and hanging out usually means hanging out with instruments in tow. So... they are all really good! They were so excited that I was going to come teach them... you have NO idea!

Anways... here is a picture from here in Cartagena, the architecture that I love:

Check out more pictures by clicking on the mini-slideshow on the left!

Back in Colombia, six years later...

2008-05-14T11:39:00.000-07:00

It has been almost 24 hours now since I arrived here in Colombia. Finally, I stopped looking for my cell phone (thinking that I lost it). I am now used to the fact that it is SO hot that you can actually feel the weight of the heat. I tried to find the places that I remember from when I was here in 2002, but the juice stands are in a place that is under construction and the hotel that I stayed at before is nowhere to be found. Regardless, I did find the same neighborhoods, the same places that I use to work, and the cool plazas filled with tropical plants and huge shady trees. Oh... and the internet places, AKA the only places around with air conditioning.

I arrived late yesterday afternoon and ended up staying in a place that wasn´t so nice. It was one of those places where you have to touch the wires together to make the light come on because the switch doesn´t work anymore. And everything in the bathroom was at a slant for some reason (like the sink and toilet). Regardless, I went two doors down and found a nicer place, a little cheaper too (go figure) and with a better fan. Next time, I will remember the camera cable and will post some of the pictures that I have been taking around the city!

Its great to be able to buy fresh coconut water and freshly squeezed orange juice on the street anytime that I want! It seems like all that I can do is drink liquids. Ha ha.

out of the jungle...into the mountains...

2007-07-14T08:17:00.000-07:00

Since Tarapoto, I´ve been moving pretty quickly. I want to get to Bolivia sooner than later, and I was pretty far in the north of Peru, so I´ve made a couple big jumps. From Tarapoto, I got on a bus to Tingo Maria. It was supposed to arrive at midnight, after having left at nine in the morning. However, the road through the jungle is a dirt road that barely exists. The bus crept at a snail´s pace and often rocked back and forth when going through puddles or uneven ground. Sometimes it seemed to be on the verge of tipping over, and other times, the bus would stall out a good 4 or 5 times in a row just trying to get through a big puddle. I should have known when I saw the condition that the bus was in to begin with...it looked like it had gone to war. Unfortunately, there is only one company that makes the trip so I had no other option. At about 10 pm the bus stopped in its path, behind a couple of big trucks. Here, one of the big trucks had gotten stuck right on a curve and on the edge of a cliff. If they would have tried to push it out, it is likely that it would have gone over the edge of the cliff. So they had to wait for a truck to come in the opposite direction that could pull it out.

The bus driver told us all to use the bathroom so he could shut the door for the night, because that is where we were going to stay. Everyone got off the bus and found some place along the road to do their business and then got back on. People were a little upset, so the bus driver decided to play a cassette of romantic music to calm everyone down. It was pretty comical. So we slept, sitting up straight, until seven in the morning, when a big enough truck came to pull the stuck truck out of the ditch. We ended up arriving in Tingo Maria at two in the afternoon.

Tingo Maria is just as hot and humid as Tarapoto, maybe even more jungly. The first place that I went to ask about a room, I pulled back the sheets to find two big fleas, a stone and an obviously slept-in bed. So then I got to wander to the other side of town looking for another place. Finally I found a hotel with a very nice owner and clean rooms and bathrooms. After having gone out and walked around town, I was back in the room practicing and I saw two huge dengue mosquitos. It was too surreal. I decided to go back out and hang out on the street until as late as I could. I met a couple guys who are students in the universidad. They took me around town and then we hung out in the Plaza until about 11 pm. When I went back to the room to sleep, I first bathed in mosquito repellent and then slept with all of my clothes on and the blanket, sweating like a pig.

Needless to say, I left the next day for Huancayo, where I am now. In the seat next to me was a woman with her 5 yr old and 1 yr old baby. That means that between two regular bus seats were four people and a cello, aka uncomfortable. At 4:30 in the morning we arrived in Huancayo to freezing cold weather and an obvious change in altitude. Breathing is still a little weird (here is 3300 meters) and I feel that I have a good case of chapped lips coming my way. All the concrete and lack of vegetation is a shock too, I don´t really like it, but I´m sure that here are a lot of things that are lacking in the jungle...

2007-07-10T14:21:00.000-07:00

The best hotel that I could find in Chachapoyas seemed more like an ice rink. It had wood stairs and cement floors and in order to ¨prevent termites¨ they dump a ton of ¨petroleo¨ on it all. I think petroleo must be diesel fuel by the smell. Regardless, its super slippery and I couldn´t walk anywhere but at a snail´s pace. Then the light bulb in the bathroom burned out. I asked the guy at the ¨desk¨ if he would change it, and he straight up refused. As some compensation, he asked if I would like to use his flashlight, as long as I returned it to him right away. When I thought my patience had run out, I went to take a shower in hot water (after hiking over 60 miles in 3 days, my muscles were crying for a hot shower), which was the only reason I stayed at this hotel to begin with. The catch was that you have to pay extra for them to turn on the hot water. I swallowed my pride and paid, and in the end, the water was barely warm. I tried to find a better hotel, but its a pretty sad situation in Chachapoyas. In the end, I didn´t even stay 24 hours.

I went to where the combis (vans) leave for Pedro Ruiz, the next little town along the road. I had to sit there for three hours waiting for there to be enough passengers. Finally, we left at about 5 pm, only to arrive halfway to a big road block. They recently started paving the road and close it down all day while they are working. We had to sit there until 7 pm, when the big dumptrucks and steamrollers started moving out. Finally, we arrived in Pedro Ruiz when it was already dark.

Pedro Ruiz is a funny little town. It is situated around a river and the only paved road is the highway which cuts along one side. The rest is dusty dirt streets. The town is small, a couple hundred people maybe, but everyone is out on the street all the time. The climate is very very hot, and there are tropical plants, palm trees and banana trees everywhere. Everything is also very cheap. No tourists come here, so people reacted a little funny when they saw me. The nine-year-old kid at the hotel would stand outside my door with his macaw anytime that I was practicing. He would try to get it to sing and talk until I opened the door. Then he would watch, without saying anything, and looking at my cello from every direction. Whenever I stopped, he would ask to pluck the strings. It was pretty comical, he´ll probably talk about it for a long time.

Saturday, I decided to go to Gocta, the third tallest waterfall in the world. It is fairly close to Pedro Ruiz, the only problem being the road block. I convinced a kid on a motorcycle to take me to Cocahuayco for five bucks. Cocahuayco is the village along the main road that is closest to Gocta. I figured that is anyone could make it through the road block, it would be a motorcycle. We had to sweet talk a couple of police officers and construction workers and they finally let us through. From Cocahuayco, I had to hike up a mountain trail to Cocachimba, another little village. In Cocachimba, I signed the visitor book and the woman asked if I wanted a guide to go to the falls. She told me that the trail was pretty easy to follow, as long as I always stayed to my left. I decided to be adventurous and go solo (or sola, better said).

As I left, a skinny little dog stuck right behind me. The woman at the sign-in told me that the little dog would be my guide, that she knows the trail well. I laughed and started up the trail. I followed a couple of trails that were on my left, but obviously were not the correct trail, they led me into chakras (farms and plantations). After two good wrong turns, the little dog finally took the lead and I just followed him. We hiked along a mountainside above corn and sugar cane plantations and then quickly dropped into thick jungle. The trail descended with a bunch of switchbacks, crossed a valley, and then rose again. Occasionally I could get a better view of the waterfall in its entirety (771 meters- 2, 467 feet). It was more impressive from closer.

Finally we arrived at the base of the falls. From underneath, only the bigger, bottom part of the falls was visible. There wasn´t a ton of water falling, but since it came from so high up it seemed to fall in slow motion. There was a pond at the base and a mist was constantly coming up. All around the valley was bright bright green vegetation. Standing underneath was pretty intense, the immensity of it all. I gave the dog a few crackers to thank him for not leading me astray into some weird area of the jungle and then we started our hike back.

Halfway along the trail was a small house and store. I stopped to drink some guarapo. Guarapo is a drink made of boiled and fermented sugarcane juice. Its not very strong (in alcohol content), but it is good after hiking five hours!!! The couple who lived in the house stopped whatever they were doing to talk to me. They said that about half of the tourists arrive to their house and don´t continue to the falls, they get exhausted along the way. Soon however, they will widen the trail to make the falls accessible by horse, so that more tourists can come in. They told me about how they have found lots of human bones around the area and that they were from really tall people. They claim that the ancient inhabitants were over 2 meters tall and lived 200 to 300 years...who knows, I wouldn´t doubt it.

I arrived back in Cocahuayco at about 5 pm. I bought a bottle of water at a little store and sat out front, along the main road to wait for a car that would be going to Pedro Ruiz. At about 7, the van came by, just in time that we didn´t have to sit and wait for the road to open.

Now I am in Tarapoto, a big city in the jungle. There are no tourists here either, and it is even hotter than Pedro Ruiz. I have been sweating nonstop, and have been reminded of everything that I forgot about tropical climates...that you have to shower a million times a day to try to maintain any kind of normal body temperature, you can drink green coconuts whenever you want, wearing flipflops all the time, all of the transportation is via motorcycle (or mototricycle, they even have moto-colectivos, or motos that work like buses picking up and dropping off people!), the weird way it gets dark, the rains that come and go quickly, mosquitos, annoying ants, fruit juice...the regular stuff that you miss when you haven´t been in the jungle for a while...

Tomorrow I will arrive in Tingo Maria, 15 hours to the south, but still in the jungle.

hens, mud, trout and a milk truck...

2007-07-05T06:58:00.000-07:00

Four days in Celendin. No one told me that buses only left twice a week, so I was stuck until Sunday. Celendin is pretty quiet, a small little town. The surrounding mountains and plantations are pretty, but don´t leave much to do. Saturday morning, I woke up at 5 o´clock and couldn´t fall back asleep. I laid in bed with my eyes closed until 6 and gave up. I got out of bed, brushed my teeth and went to the bakery across the street for breakfast. The owner of the hotel, Francisco (who is addicted to playing chess), had told me about some thermal baths that are in the valley below. The drive is about an hour and a half, but only because of all the switchbacks. In reality, he said, you could probably arrive walking pretty quickly. I decided to test his hypothesis, so I took off walking to the valley of Llanguat.

From the plaza, it is only about 5 blocks until the town ends and houses are scattered farther and farther apart along the road. For the early hour, there were a lot of people out, starting to work in the fields or walking to the market with their goods to sell. As I walked along, I occasionally asked someone just to make sure I was on the right road. Finally a woman told me that if I saw a little trail off the road, I should take it, otherwise it would take me a very long time. ¨Have a nice walk, gringita...¨ she said as I walked away (in these parts, people say gringo in a very nice way). With those vague directions, I continued and when I saw a little trail I took it. I figured that as long as it went downhill, I must be going in the right direction. The vegetation grew thicker and it was impossible to see where the trail was leading to on the mountainside. I have always felt very small when hiking in the mountains, but when you are by yourself and have some doubts as to if you are on the right trail...or that maybe some rabid dog is going to jump out of the woods and go crazy...well, then you feel really really small. At the worst though, I would just follow the same trail back up and out.

Just at that moment, after about an hour on the trail by myself, a old campesino suddenly appeared behind me. ¨Are you going to the Valle?¨ he asked. I said yes, and he said ¨Let´s go to the valley.¨ He had a mouthful of coca leaves and was almost impossible to understand. Occasionally, when he asked me something, I would have to ask him to repeat himself two or three times. After so many attempts and still not understanding his mumbling, I would just respond any little thing, like what the weather is like in the states or how many brothers and sisters I have. He seemed just as content with my nonrelated responses that the strange conversation continued.

The man was very old, and was going to work in the plantations down below in the valley. He flew down the mountain, making it very hard for me to keep up with him, but I was so glad to know that I was on the right path that I followed. He had a funny way of going down the mountain, stepping on just the large stones instead of in between on the dusty path. It was like crossing a creek stepping only on stones. I caught on after a little while and before I knew it, we were in the valley. We split paths and I went in the direction of the the baths, and he went towards the plantations of sugarcane.

The baths were in the middle of a thick green forest, alongside a large river. There was one large bath with hot brown water that smelled a little weird, a col water pool that looked like it never got cleaned, and a bunch of people bathing in the river. At this point I realized that I was in the most conservative place ever. The women all bathed with all their clothes on...and unfortunatetly, I had on jeans and a long sleeved shirt...the clothing that takes the longest to dry. I didn´t feel like being the talk of the town, so I opted for a private bath. You pay 60 cents, and get big room with a little pool and a spicket that shoots out hot thermal water. It was a much better option, and I sat in the hot water for a good hour until my fingers were wrinkly.

Sunday was finally the day of the bus. At one of the other companies, I was told that buses left at 9 in the morning. I arrived at 8:30 so I could get a good seat for me and the cello. Unfortunatly the bus that I wanted doesn´t actually leave until 11, but there was a 8:30 bus going to a town close-by, seven hours in the direction of my destination. I decided to take that bus instead of sit around. The woman selling tickets insisted that I buy a window seat. I kept telling there that I needed an aisle seat because of the cello, but since I am a ¨tourist,¨ I needed a better view, and plus ¨the bus never goes full.¨ So I get my backpack up on top and go find my seat, leaving the cello in the seat next to me...and of course, a young guy comes up with the ticket next to mine. So I stick the cello on the empty seat behind me, which was the last seat on the bus. Next thing I know, two young guys get on with three live hens...two in a box and one in the guy´s arms. The had the seats next to the cello. So then I have to fight with this guy because he thinks his hen should get the seat next to him instead of my cello, afterall I hadn´t bought the seat for the cello and he had bought the seat next to the empty seat, which obviously made it more his that mine. I tried to convince him that both the cello and the hen could have the seat, but he didn´t want to hear anything of it. Finally a woman sitting next to him who was a little spastic, started to complain that the hen was going to poop all over and that it was already cock-a-doo-da-dooing and that he needed to get a box. And the guy next to me claimed that the cello was his big guitar and that it was very fragile and was going to ride there whether hen-man liked it or not. So the guy with the hen shut up, got a box and shoved the hen under his seat and the cello made it without any problems.

At about 4:30 pm, I arrived in Leymebamba. I got off the bus to find myself in an even tinier little town. There wasn´t even a bank or a market, mostly just houses and, of course, the Plaza de Armas. I found a hotel, dropped off my stuff and started to walk around town. It didn´t take me more than 2o minutes to see everything and I arrived in the Plaza. There I met Egdar, a tour guide from Chachapoyas. He told me that he was taking an American girl and a French guy to the Laguna de los Condores the next morning, and that I could tag along, as long as I threw in some money for food and paid for my stay at the refuge. Since I didn´t have any other plans, I agreed.

Monday morning, we met in the plaza at 7 am. It would be five of us (including another guide), plus a horse. The horse would carry the food and the girl from Wisconsin. After eating arroz a la cubana (rice with fried eggs and fried plantains), we started our walk out of town. As soon as we had arrived out of town we started walking along a smaller dirt trail. It took us on a long ascent up a mountain, through jungle with tons of amazing butterflies and colorful birds. The bird calls were the most amazing, all so distinct. The hike continued on and on, and when I started to feel exhausted (after having gone uphill for a good two hours at Peruvian pace...really fast without stopping), I asked how long of a walk it was to the refuge. Only eight hours, 25 miles, they responded. Of course they always neglect to tell you those little facts. The path then started to cross pampa, immense rolling grassy plains between the mountains. There were stone forests on either side of us and sometimes the grass was really spongey and made it difficult to walk. We stopped to eat lunch half-way there and continued our path.

The rest of the trail was more pampa and then a final descent back into the jungle and through a ton of mud until we arrived at Don Julio´s refuge. The guides had brought boots for themselves and Eric and Anna...the kind of rubber boots that comes up to your knees. However, they also neglected to tell me the little fact that we would be going through a ton of mud. I got to practice my art of jumping on stones and pieces of wood. Sometimes you get going fast and then end up balancing with one foot on a tiny little stone with no where to go, just teetering there trying not to fall over. It was pretty comical. Thankfully, over the 60 miles that we walked in three days, I only took one dive into the mud, just up to my elbows, and there was a river close after that I washed off in.

Don Julio´s refuge is in the middle of the jungle where he cleared a large area of all trees and vegetation for his cattle (yes, this is why I don´t eat meat). Not only did he destruct the land, but before, amongst the jungle were intact Pre-Incan ruins which his cattle have now destroyed almost completely. I quickly gained an intense hatred for Don Julio, but unfortunately, there was no where else to stay. He had built a log cabin with several rooms with bun beds and a rustic kitchen with a wood-burning stove and no chimney (aka, the black room). The floors in all the rooms were packed down dirt and there was no electricity. The only water shot out of a pipe from a spring in the mountainside and made a muddy mess next to the house. Regardless, after walking 25 miles, I was thrilled to arrive and take off my backpack. We made dinner and went to bed by 8 o´clock.

The next morning we slept in a little bit and woke up to have coffee and bread with jelly for breakfast. At about nine we left to hike to the Laguna de los Condores (Condor Lagoon). It was about a half hour walk along the cleared mountain ridge until we had a view of the Lake. The lake is huge and black and lining the other side were stone cliffs almostly entirely covered with thick forest. We hiked down the ridge and to the lakeshore. We crossed a skinny part of the lake on a log to find a trail on the other side. The trail took wound through the jungle (only passable with machete) to a little open area on the shore. Egdar had brought a fishing line and we dug up some worms and these other gross-looking grubs and we took turns fishing until we had caught 11 good-sized trout. We cleaned them, put them in a bag, and left the bag in a little pool in the river that was coming down the mountain.

From there we followed a trail even farther up the mountainside and deeper into the jungle. There were several parts of the trail with rustic wooden ladders and ropes to pull yourself up. We also arrived to a couple places where we had to cross under waterfalls and across logs. The final part was the scariest, scooting across a wet cliff with water falling on you. We finally arrived to the ruins. They are under a rock overhang and included several small stone buildings with windows. There were paintings on the buildings and on the stone cliff and several skulls laying around. Most of the skulls still had hair and teeth. There were also pieces of woven fabric and random ceramic pieces scattered about. This was a burial ground of the Chachapoyas (Pre-Incan) culture. It is intense to be in a place like this knowing that only a handful of people will ever arrive there due to the difficulty in arriving.

That night we had trout soup with noodles. The next morning we woke up at 6, ate breakfast and were hiking by 6:40. The plan was to arrive in Leymebamba as early as possible. The hike back was exhausting, especially since our ¨guides¨ had badly planned the food, and there was nothing to eat along the way. Eight hours and 25 miles of hiking with just coca leaves and water (I remembered why I never go on guided tours). We arrived in Leymebamba exhausted and hungry and went straight to eat a big lunch.

After, we asked around about transportation. The only buses that go to Chachapoyas leave at 4 in the morning and a taxi wanted to charge an absurd amount. We sat in the plaza, exasperated, until a large truck pulled up. In the back it had a gigantic steel cylinder. Egder asked if the guy would give us a ride to Chachapoyas. He agreed for a small fee. Eric and Anna rode in the cabin, and Egder and I rode the three hours in the back of the open truck with a huge cylinder of milk blocking most of our view. It was a long bumpy ride to Chachapoyas, and very very dusty.

I will stay here until my legs stop feeling like rubber.

Back and showered in Huaraz

2007-06-23T15:46:00.000-07:00

The following blog is composed of my journal entries from the last four days, written on my trekking trip in the Cordillera Blanca. Dave, my new Australian ´´mate´´ and I made the trip without a guide or burros, just a couple good maps and a good sense of adventure. I feel so fortunate to have been able to experience this amazing place while the glaciers still exist...

June 20, 2007

I´m sitted here listening to the sound of a rumbling creek. Occasionally a small bird chirps. My hands are pretty cold. The sun has already hid behind a mountain, but looking down the valley, I find one mountain still illuminated, its rocky peaks dodging the passing clouds. In the other direction the clouds have formed a crown around the glaciered peak of another mountain. I imagine that it is snowing there. Above there is still blue sky, crisp and pure, the kind of sky that you can only find in places like this, far away from the hustle and bustle of the city. Where I am sitting is an open area with some kind of short grass that grows almost stuck to the ground. There are rocks dotting the landscape and shrubby little plants. All of them seem to grow in little bunches as if they needed each other to survive the conditions. The mountains cut in and out of the valley, almost completely green! The air is thin, but I finally feel like I can breath deeply.

I am at the Paria campsite of the Santa Cruz trail in the Cordillera Blanca. I have my cup of mate de coca and my little campiong chair to finally give a rest to my sore back. Today was a ´´four´´ hour hike, but we did it in about three with a little break here and there for water. The hike was a ascent of 150 meters (480 feet)...nothing really considering that tomorrow´s is 900 meters (2,880 feet).

We left the hotel in Huaraz at about quarter of six this morning, waited by the bus for a little while only to find out it was full. Then we walked a couple of blocks down the road where we took a combi (VW van) to a town called Yungay. It made a lot of stops, picking up and dropping off people and after an hour we arrived in Yungay, but hungry. We went to a bakery to have yogurt, bread and cheese. When we went to catch the next combi to a town called Vaqueria, they told us that it too was full. We sat down on our backpacks, a little discouraged and after a few minutes, they miraculously made room. The combi went full. Dave had to ride on the fake seat behind the driver (fake because it is really more inclined than reclined, and I rode on a bucket in the middle of two rows. There was a little boy sitting on his mother´s lap next to me and occasionally his head would fall into my lap. I didn´t mind but once when I fell asleep too and our heads both collided, rudely awakening us from out dreams.

The combi went for three hours along endless switchbacks on the typical one-lane dirt and stone road. We passed Llanganuco lake about halfway through. The lake has emerald water and the wind formed miniature waves with tiny white crests. In the foreground, slate gray cliffs fell into the lake and rose far above to green peaks. Along the shore were these mysterious trees with reddish brown bark that peeled off in layers and sheets like an old abandoned house that has been painted over hundreds of times only to be ignored and dealt a good hand of humidity and sun over many years. Even the tiny leaves and braches seemed like spider webs in the sun, and still covered with moss and some other parasitic plants. The whole scene was unreal, the colors more caried than any palate, nature´s way of showing off to the handful of people who actually see this remote place.

The combi finally arrived to Vaqueria, which was nothing more than a few houses on the side of a mountain, and from there we started our hike up the valley. First we passed by several small houses, all mud brick and mostly thatch roofs. The majority of the people were our working their land, but all of the little children greeted us. The kids here get so dirty playing...all covered in mud and dust.

There was a long uphill bout to begin with. Dave ended up a bit in front of me, but I was breathing as hard as I could and tried to just maintain my pace. Occasionally we pased though a more open grassy area, dotted with the reguarl gray stones and other times we passed closer to the river, through forests of eucalyptus and the mysterious peeling bark trees (quenoa). Finally, right before arriving to the campground, we passed through a thicker forest of the mysterious trees with moss lining either side of the trail and up the mountainside. The scenery is just amazing, the hiking challenging, but I just keep a mouthful of coca leaves and try to maintain a steady pace. I look forward to a good night´s sleet and taking a good beating tomorrow. In the end, its gratifying to carry all my own weight when I look at the other hiker who carry nothing and have everything set up and food cooked when they arrive to camp. Its well worth the effort.

June 21, 2007

My hands are very cold. I am writing with gloves. It sounds like the cows are cold too. They are making lots of noise. Today´s campsite is at 4,250 meters (13,600 feet). Today was a very hard hike. We didn´t leave until all the other people had left the campsite, no rush really. We had a breakfast of oatmeal with cinnamon, maca and honey and coca tea with more maca...just can´t get enough when you are backpacking! The beginning of the hike passed through more of the quenoa forests, but they were a bit farther from the trail.

We gradually rose out of the valley and up along a mountain ridge. The slate mountains opposite us seemed to glisten, even with the sun hidden behind the clouds. As we rose along the ridge, the vegetation grew thinner and thinner and it started to drizzle. The rain was scarce and was actually pretty refreshing. As we heared a curce on the ridge, I was sure we would follow it to the left to cross the closest-by mountain. Dave, looking at the imposing stone ridge opposite us said, ´´Wouldn´t it be crazy to have to cross that ridge?´´ I couldn´t even imagine. As we neared it, the drizzle turned into snowflakes and we were finally able to visually follow the trail up and over the ridge that Dave had commented about. The was the Punta de Union pass (or the back way into Mordor, as we decided upon reaching the other side).

The first four hours of our day ended up being pure ascent, but crossing my several turqoise ponds and all with the lightly falling snow. The last bit of the trail before the pass, nearing the 4,750 meter (15,200 feet) mark was the most challenging. I constantly chewed my coca leaves and everytime I sucked in the juice it was like a big burst of energy. I crept along at a slow pace. Every time that I stopped, my legs felt like rubber. The switchbacks continued. Occasionally a group of people or donkeys passed us going downhill. Dave decided he would stop to rest every ten minutes. I just wanted to get to the top. It was so gratifying to end up beating him to the top. The last part of the trail leading up to the pass was the most sinuous, a stone staircase crossing back and forth, steep and with tall steps.

I arrived to the pass, threw down my bag and looked at the views on either side, first down over the valley that I had just hiked up...the lakes and glacierous mountains looming over all. I turned to see more glaciers, also crowned with clouds, but in parts glistening in the sun. As I looked closer, I could follow the little melting paths that led down into another jaded turquoiselake, Towards the left, more valleys with mountain ridges cutting in from either side and yet another turquoise lake far in the distance. Above it rose another mountain with glaciers, even taller and more majestic than the others. In the distance was blue sky with several puff of white clouds.

Dave arrived about ten minutes later and taught me all the words for ``exhausted`` in Australian. The only one I remember is ´´buggered.``

The hike down was surprisingly hard, as all my muscles were already tired and my back sore from the load of the backpack. When the campsite finally appearred, it seemed tiny in the distance. We went down 500 meters in one hour after having gone up 900 meters in four hours. The scenery was just as amazing in the arrival to the campsite...new horizons constantly opened with views that streched even father towards the infinite. A man on a horse lead his cattle down the valley, greeting me as he passed. I continued over a river and wherever the water did not form rapids, it sat in emerald pools.

Now we are camped next to a river, surrounded by five peaks all with glaciers and snow. It is beyond impressive. I am drinking hot maca with powdered milk and sugar, in a feeble attempt to recharge. The sky behind the mountains is gradually changing colors, an orange in the lowest spots fading to purple and indigo above the peaks. The clouds are still reflecting some sun underneath, but their tops are already in the shadows. There is a crisp wind. I am dressed to the max- pants, jeans, leg warmers, a long and short sleeve shirt, a fleece, a wool sweater, my trusty vest, hat, scarf and gloves. I look forward to being warm in my sleeping bag tonight.

I moon is half full and directly above me. I can already see the first star in the indigo part of the sky whose colors are become more intense by the second. The light is quickly fading and I must close.

June 22, 2007

Here I am at camp at 3,700 meters when I thought that I would be at 5,000. Today we woke up at 7:00 to try to be hiking by 9:00. We were planning on a very long and difficult day. Upon leaving camp, it was drizzling and cloudy. None of the peaks that we saw last night under the moon and stars were visible anymore. We started hiking and when we arrived at the junction of another valley we saw what looked like a shortcut to the Alpamayo base camp, one that cut straight across the mountain instead of descending down into the valley only to return ascending. The shortcut trail was still uphill, but at least was a gentle path. Soon we were able to see the lowest glaciers of Alpamayo, the rest being covered by the clouds. As we hiked closer, the valley opened up and there were bunches of quenoa trees on one side. We saw a camp not far in the distance. I asked a guide who was sitting with two hikers next to a large rock. He said that I was looking at the Alpamay base camp and that the next camp beyond it is only accessible with full gear including crampons and ice axes. So what we had thought would take us six hours only ended up taking us an hour and a half and it was still early!

to be continued...

Arrival in Huaraz!

2007-06-19T08:33:00.000-07:00

I left Lima at 10 o´clock last night on a bus (it was called Z Buss, hahaha) to Huaraz. I lucked out, the only empty seat on the bus was next to mine, so the cello had plenty of room. The ride was pretty cold, but I slept almost the whole way...other than when the baby in the seat behind me cried incessantly for a good hour. When I was still at the bus station, I met an Australian guy who was also heading to Huaraz. He happened to have the seat across the aisle from me. When we arrived in Huaraz, we sat in the bus terminal until the sun came out and then a guy came up to us offering us a hotel room for a good price with hot water, so we followed him. The hotel was close to the plaza and clean, and we were plenty tired so we decided to stay. At the bus terminal we made plans to take a 6 day backpacking trip in the mountains around here. There is a hiking circuit in the Huascaran National Park. I am pretty excited. From the city itself you can see the snow'capped peaks in all directions!

After I slept for a few hours, I started walking towards the market to find some breakfast. I ended up drinking an emoliente. Emoliente is a hot drink that involves a couple things. First they cook down linhasa seeds for a long time until it makes a slimy substance and then they filter out the seeds. Then they boil a huge thing of water with pieces of pineapple, red and green apples. Then they mix those two together with whatever combination of extracts that you ask for...alfalfa, cat´s claw, mint, lime, sangre de grado...I usually get a good shot of alfalfa so mine ends up really green. I´ve had a cough the past two days so I asked them to make me one for my symptoms. The woman pulled out a couple of little bottles and put some mysterious liquids in it. The only thing I could identify was eucalyptus, but the overall drink seemed to help a lot. That costs all of 30 cents. Then I walked towards the market and there was a woman selling tortilla sandwiches. Tortillas in Peru are kind of like thin omelettes with just one egg and lots of veggies. The sandwich costs 15 cents.

With that, I continued my mission to find coca leaves. I found coca leaves, but the people didn´t have the little ball of gypsum that you need to get the real effect. In Cuzco, they sell you a little ball that looks like hash and you break off a little piece with your nail and stick it in the middle of the leaves. I asked the people in the store and they told me where to find it. When I went where they told me, all I found was a store that looked like it sold cement. I asked if they had gypsum anyways and the woman pulled out a bag of white powder called cal. I think it is lime. She said that you take a toothpick, stick it into the wad of coca leaves that you have in your mouth, to get it wet, then stick it into the bag of cal to get a little bit, and then wipe it on your tongue. For some reason, I think that this whole cal process might leave holes in your mouth. When I asked her if it was bad for you, she told me that the gypsum is way worse. Finally, she told me that people also put cal around their plants to keep the bugs away. Something tells me that this can´t be a good idea!!! I am going to continue to ask around with the natives. I will write again after my trip in the mountains!

Yo-Yo Ma in Lima

2007-06-17T09:05:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the big day. I came to Lima with the goal of getting into the Yo-Yo Ma recital. Unfortunately, tickets were 80 dollars and sold out!!! I went to San Isidro (the neighborhood where the recital was going to be) in the afternoon with Guille and Jose. The area looked like an expensive neighborhood in the United States, with big apartment buildings and fancy houses. We waited outside hoping for someone who had an extra ticket, but there were no extras. The recital started and Guille and Jose left. I decided to stick around with another five people, including the french hornist of the Sinfonica Nacional and a documentary film producer, with hopes that they might let us in at intermission. At intermission, the producer came out and let us all in, two people with seats and the other four standing up. Since I had been waiting the longest, I got one of the tickets. It was in the 20th row, but I was thrilled. Yo-Yo Ma was playing with the pianist Kathryn Stott. The first piece was by a Brazilian composer, Carneiro, and was called Bodas de Prata e Quatro Canto. After, they played a sonata by Cesar Franck that was originally for violin and piano. The sonata was a lot more impressive than the Brazilian piece. That was the end of the second half of the recital, but in the end they played two encores. I didn´t recognize either of them, but the second seemed to be Brazilian. In the end, it was a great recital and worth the trip to Lima and the wait outside.

More adventures around Cajamarca

2007-06-12T09:28:00.000-07:00

After waking up yesterday, I went to the market for my usual green soup (yes, that is what they call it) and aloe extract. The mamacha makes the green soup by boiling potatoes and whole eggs in a huge pot of water. Then she gets a bowl, puts a big spoonful of blended herbs (parsley, basil, some other green herbs), a big slice of fresh cheese and then the broth with a bunch of potatoes. After I have my bowl of soup, I go out on the street where another mamacha prepares the aloe extract. She scrapes the inside of the aloe into a pitcher and mixes it with an herbal tea, honey and something similar to maple syrup that comes from a tree around here. Before I drink it, she always gives me a shot of this mysterious ´´medecine.´´Supposedly, it is good for your stomach. The best part about the aloe drink is that it is very slimy and if you try to take a sip and then pull the cup away from your mouth, there is a big slimy thing connecting your mouth to the cup. So, really, you just have to drink it all at once.

At 9:30 I met my friends Ever and Juan in the Plaza de Armas. We took a combi (a van) to the village of Otuzco, about half an hour away. The big attraction of Otuzco is the Ventanillas of Otuzco, which is supposedly an Incan cementary carved into a huge stone cliff. In order to not have to pay, we walked down the road for a while until we saw a trail that went up the mountain. We hiked up the trail and around a few houses until we arrived to the top of the ventanillas. There were a few women there selling fossils that they found in the surrounding mountains. We each bought some fossils and then found a place with less cacti to be able to jump the stone wall around the park. The ventanillas are pretty cool, it didn´t take very long to see them all and then we sat down to eat some fruit. Not more than five minutes later, a guard showed up who asked us for our tickets. It was all very comical; he kept getting so upset that he wouldn´t stop talking. Finally, we just picked up our bags and walked out.

Ever remembered going to a tunnel somewhere in the mountains around the ventanillas three years ago so we set off on an adventure to find the tunnel. We started hiking through farms, fields and on little trails asking people around the way. It was a very rural area, with the houses being pretty spread apart. There are a lot of different kinds of cactus including one that grows a fruit called tuna. The fruit has needles too so we used leaves or pieces of cane to grab them and then rolled them in the grass to get the needles off. Then you break them open in the middle and eat the fruit and seeds. We also picked these little purple berries that were growing all over the place. There were a ton of colorful flowers everywhere, including some that they call elf´s slippers. One of the flowers has a bunch of little pokers in the middle and if you throw them at someone, they stick on their clothes or in their hair. We had wars with them the whole time.

It took us a long time to find the tunnel since we didn´t really have much of an idea where it was. The best part was just wandering around, especially when we walked through the wheat fields. With the sun and wind hitting them, it looked like a scene from a movie. The tunnel was on the side of a mountain and was just big enough to enter crouched over. We didn´t have a flashlight or candle, just a lighter, so we tried to guide ourselves mostly using the walls of the tunnel. After about 20 feet it was tall enough to stand up and we continued another 80 feet until we finally reached the end. It was a little creepy the farther back we got. You just don´t know what might be back there, or when you will find the end, or if there is going to be a huge drop-off. In the area around the tunnel there were tons of pieces of broken pottery, probably Incan, that were left after people had dug holes looking for something else. I think that this was the part where the cementary really way, and that the ventanillas are really more decorative, but that is just my theory.

On our way back, we decided to test the theory about rubbing a pig´s belly, which is supposed to make them fall asleep. It was hilarious, they lay down right away and start snoring. We also stopped to get fresh cornstalks that a campesino was cutting down. You can bite and pull off the outside part and chew on the inside stalk just like sugar cane. It is really sweeet and then you just spit out the chewed up stalk. All this time growing up in Ohio with all the corn we have, I should have known!

We hiked back down to the village of Otuzco, where we tried to find a place to drink chicha. Unfortunately, no one in the village makes chicha anymore, so we bought a few beers and went to the riverside to drink them. There is a suspension bridge to cross the river and it was full of a bunch of kids who were making it swing back and forth. We had to burn dry eucalyptus leaves to keep the mosquitos away and sat there until the sun set. Back in Cajamarca we ate dinner at "luka-china." Luka is slang for one sol and china for fifty cents of a sol. One and a half sols is equal to about 50 cents, and thats how much dinner costs- soup, main course and tea.

This morning I woke up early and went back to the village of Banos del Inca, to actually go into the thermal baths. This is the place where the Inca Atahuallpa supposedly bathed. There are a lot of hot springs that come up, and the Incans constructed pools that the water fed into. These baths are actually too hot to even touch and you can see the steam rising from them from far away. Since those days, they have contructed pools and bath houses (little rooms with bathtubs where you can open spickets with different temperatures of spring water). The idea of sitting in a bathtub kind of weirded me out, so I opted for the big pool. It ended up being a lap pool with hot spring water!! I was there early in the morning and there were probably 10 people swimming laps lengthwise in what we would consider 4 lanes, and then 3 or 4 who were swimming laps in the opposite direction when the space opened up. It was hilarious, no one swam in straight lines; they were all over the place! I swam for about an hour until the reflection of the sun on the water started to get really annoying and when I got out, I was super relaxed.

In the evening, I hung out with some friends drinking vino de sauco, wine made of the sauco fruit. We drank on the staircase that goes to Santa Apolonia church. It is one of the most unique staircases that I have ever seen and has lots of trees and plants lining it. Curiously, after hanging out a few hours, we realized we were sitting under a sauco tree. Funny the way things work out sometimes!

Up to the mountains

2007-06-10T07:52:00.000-07:00

After a couple cloudy weeks on the coast, I decided to head up to the mountains, where there is always sun. I travelled on a bus by night to a city called Cajamarca. This was another important city for the Incas and looks a lot like Cuzco, without the swarms of tourists. There is a huge Plaza de Armas with two big churches, a lot of really old colonial architecture and cobblestone streets. There are also some really cool pedestrian walkways lined with colorful gardens and really different staircases. I arrived at 5 in the morning and had a hard time finding a hotel because it was the beginning of the Corpus Christi festivities. After I slept for a while, I walked around the town and met some new friends in the plaza. I met a couple artists, some locals and a french guy who is travelling the route of the chasquis (the Incan message runners) from Columbia to Chile entirely by foot, accompanied by a llama. We partied in the evening, going to a video bar until they started playing bad karaoke.

Friday, my friend Roy and I walked up the mountain to Cumbe Mayo. It took us 2 and a half hours to make it to the top, including a couple of rides that we hitched in a station wagon and in a big truck that was carrying bricks to the next village. On the way we also visited the ruins of Layzon, which tourists would never be able to find because they are in the middle of no where. There were not very well taken care of, but there were a few walls and tunnels. Where we got out of the truck, there were amazing views of these huge rock formations that they call Friars. We hiked up and around them and had lunch up on top with an amazing view of all of the surrounding mountains.

We then hiked around to the Cumbe Mayo itself (Cumbe Mayo means thin river in Quechua), except we took the opposite route that most tourists take. The place is called Cumbe Mayo because of the Incan canals that are cut through the stone and are all around the valley. There are also a couple places where there are geometrical inscriptions on the stones. We spent the whole day hiking around and then came left from the place where most people go in. There was a guard there, who told us we had to pay for the entrace fee. We told him that we did not have any money and gave him some apples and mandarines that were left over from our picnic. That seemed to appease him, thankfully!

Yesterday, Roy and I went a village called Llacanora where there is a river with three cool waterfalls. The first one was the tallest, probably 80 feet tall. The second one was small, but the sin was hitting it which made it nice. The third one was about 30 feet tall, but was really cool because the part where the waterfalls is like a stone room, almost entirely closed in. We went swimming in all three of the ponds and put our heads under the falling water, but it was FREEZING!!! It took a while to warm back up in the sun and then we started walking again through the mountains.

After about an hour of walking we made it to a cave called Callacpuma (mouth of the puma). The cave itself is huge, with a couple of passage ways that are probably pretty deep but we did not have any flashlights or a lighter to explore. There was a group of local people there who were trying to catch live bats. When I asked them why, they said they needed two live bats to use their blood to make a medecine for a heart problem of someone in their family. In the end, they ended up catching two bats, a mother and its baby, who was nursing. In the process of catching them, the mother died, and the baby still held on. It was pretty interesting to watch the whole scene. They were using blankets and were all covered in bat guano from the walls of the cave.

After we made it back to the road, we were in a town called Banos del Inca, where there are thermal springs. There was an Incan head carved out of stone that shoots out really really hot water. We washed our hands and ate ceviche with frito (seasoned and cooked potatoes).

Soon I will be leaving here and heading into the Amazon province. I am going to try to keep posting on a more regular basis so check back soon for updates!!

Back to the other side of the equator

2007-06-09T07:25:00.000-07:00

It has been a little over two weeks now that I have been back in Peru and things are as crazy as usual. When I arrived at the airport, I was expecting a couple of my friends to be there waiting for me, but I couldn´t find any of them. I walked around a while, and then started to make phone calls. First I called Mauricio, my buddy who I hadn´t seen in six years. He was home in bed, sick. Then I tried to call Guille, another friend from six years ago...no answer. Meanwhile, this Israeli guy, Alon, comes up to me and asks if I am going to take a taxi somewhere and if he can go in the same taxi. Here, his bags were lost, his friends were on a flight that was delayed until the next day, and he had no where to go. I said sure, but that I wanted to wait a little longer for my friends to show up. Twenty minutes or so went by, and there appears Jose (a friend from last year), Guille and Angela (Guille´s girlfriend from Belgium). They invited Alon to stay at their house, since Guille´s mom, sister and nieces all moved out and there was lots of space. We all jumped in a taxi, went back to the house and sat around talking, eating canchita, and drinking a bottle of whiskey. I think it was a pretty crazy first night in South America for Alon!!!

I stayed in Lima for a week, visiting some friends in the neighborhood and hanging out with Mauricio. We celebrated Angela´s birthday with a huge amount of ceviche and beer. Ceviche is one of the best Peruvian plates- raw fish, onions, garlic, hot peppers, lots of lime, cilantro and parsley. Then we decided to go to the beach to get some sun. Jose, Guille, Angela and I took a bus 8 hours to the north to Trujillo, a big city and then a taxi to Huanchaco.

Huanchaco is a little fishing village where surf originated. The people since the times of the Mochica Indians...something B.C., made reed rafts the have really pointy fronts and that they kneel on the back of. The boats break through the waves or surf on them, and the fishermen use a huge bamboo oar. Needless to say we ate a lot of seafood during the week there!! It was really cloudy most of the time and cold, so we only went swimming once and it wasn´t for very long! It was nice to relax and be somewhere quiet. The hotel we stayed at was beachfront and had some really nice gardens and trees, as well as a kitchen that we could use (only because we were the only people there!).

One day we walked along the beach to sneak into Chan Chan the back ways. It was an hour and a half walk and really windy. Before we made it to the ruins, crossing the desert, we crossed a group of workers and archeologists. There we recontructing fish farms that the Incans had used. Some of them would have fish, others, lobsters, shrimp, etc. The Incans had created a system that carried the water out from under the Chan Chan temples and into the fish farms and their surround crops. This is the water that was filling the stone ponds. In the process of recontructing, they came across more ruins, of the actual canals that carried the water (within the last two weeks). They were really excited to tell us about their work, and then took us to one of the temples where more archeologists are working. In the end we got a guided tour of all of the parts of Chan Chan that are not open to the public.

Chan Chan was constructed by the Chimu culture entirely of adobe. There are a lot of temples, plazas, and really amazing relief designs. There are walls surrounding all of the temples that are between 12 and 16 feet wide. The Chimu were eventually conquered by the Incans in the 1400s.

Another day we went to the ruins Huaca de la Luna and Huaca del Sol. There were a bit farther away and belong to a different culture, that of the Moche people. The Huaca de Sol is closed off because of raiders, but we got to walk around in the Huaca de la Luna. It served mainly as a ceremonial site, where the people would prepare and make offerings. Every 80 or 100 years they would fill in the existing contruction with adobe bricks and build a new construction on top. It was possible to see 5 different layers, walking around. The Moche people also used a lot of mineral paints to decorate the Huaca. Mostly, there were animal and geometrical designs. It was in remarkably good shape considering its location in the desert.

Afterwards we stoped in the village called Moche to drink Chica. Chicha is a fermented corn drink that has been passed down since the days of the Incas. Chicha is a lot different in the north than the chicha that I have drank in Cuzco and in the south. It is a little sweeter and not so heavy. We drank two pitchers (with cost all of 50 cents a piece) and all felt fine until we stood up and realized we were all pretty trashed. It was funny. The chicharia was at a womans house who had the usual chickens and hens running around and the newest batch of chicha boiling in a 50 gallon drum over a wood fire.