my rtw trip

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2008-03-23T09:05:00.000-07:00

"People don't take trips . . . trips take people".
John Steinbeck

"How beautiful it is to do nothing and then rest afterwards".
Spanish Proverb

There is no other way to say this, so I will just say how it is: I am back. Dramatic, huh? Well, I know that many people did not even think that I would be back anymore. But after exactly one year being in Latin America I am back home in NYC

I changed my RTW (Round the World) trip to RLA (Round Latin America) about half a year ago; I was intending to see it all. I have realized however that it was not possible, even a lifetime is not enough to see the entire LA wonderful world. But after a year being out there, spending my nights looking up the unfamiliar sky, walking the unknown streets, talking to “single serving” friends, eating strange food, I gradually grew tired.

Out of this 12 months I probably spent weeks, maybe months on buses and trains, boats and yachts, trucks and cars, planes and other means of transportations some of them were so bizzare, that there is no even a name for them in English. I slept in strange beds and floors, I slept on the ground and on the beach, on the rooftops and porches, and I slept in hummocks and on benches, plus countless hours in terminals and airports.

I have seen so much. I have learned a great deal. I have missed home. I have returned.

Thank you everybody for your support.

P.S. Hopefully will be posting my travel stories in this blog, now that I actually have time to write it… Don’t get any ideas - I said hopefully.

P.P.S. My US cell phone number stayed the same

Incomunicado

2008-02-14T07:53:00.000-08:00

I am in Cuba now. The internet access is very difficult to obtain and extremely expensive. I will be out of contact for about a month, so please, don't be alarmed. Cuba is very strange country but very safe. Will post additional info as soon as I can but for now I am diving in into a world full of mysteries, double economy, black markets and very interesting people, it is like using a time machine, I am not yet sure I like it.

My spanish is up to date and my russian serves me here very well. I am staying in Havana in a very intellectual family, they speak 5 languages, in 4 of which we can communicate.

Adios.

PS I whish I could tell you about Brazil but that would have to wait.

The sad times...

2007-10-19T17:04:00.000-07:00

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. 01/11/08

Hello and Happy Holidays everybody!
It was a long time since I wrote last time. There were several occasions where I actually did and one of these occasion will be posted here as an illustration of how “the path was ready to kill me”. Well, not really the path itself, it is just that a lot of people, in fact most people, think that traveling is fun. And it is, a lot of fun! But sometimes..., sometimes it becomes a burden and a very heavy one. My worst time happened to be in Argentina. It is quite sad, because looking back now I acknowledge the beauty of this country and its people, the wonderful nature and interesting culture. However, back in the days I could only see the negative things, ie: fake Latin-American culture (everybody was white and European), the obsession with meat and horrible pizza and quite strong and annoying accent in Spanish. Ironically, I have adopted this original accent afterwards, to such extend, that later other Latinos I met along the way, including Brazilians, thought that I was Argentinean. Also, because I was so critical and judgemental I was forced to look closer and deeper at everything there was in Argentina and as a result I know this country far better then any other country I have been to (I also spend a lot more time there) and any other backpacker I have met so far. Back then I did not realize that, I was annoyed with everything, from as I called it, “lack of culture” to food, from men greeting each other by kissing on a cheek to the total industrialization of the Argentinean society...
Later I have found my comfort in this country but that happened a lot later and in Buenos Aires, which is another story and already written… in Russian, just waiting for my “editor” for a turnaround, will post is asap.

When I was marooned in Mendoza for over a week I made a decision, despite of my plan, I was literally forced to escape this unpleasant to me country to Chile. Here is what was saved before the lightening took out the electricity… use as a contrast to my future posts. Hopefully there will one after the Carnaval.. Oh Brazil it is almost better then Colombia.

Valdivia, Chile. 10/19/07

It is raining here. Strange, have not seen rain for some time.., the ocean, the lakes and rivers.., there is so much water around I forgot how it is. I have been inland for too long. It feels good to get back to the water... It still rains here, they say that this region gets about 200 days of rain a year but the locals joke that it is actually 200% chance. There is not much to do so I read. “Martian Chronicles” somehow feet the scenery perfectly, it is also strange however, and I have a feeling of déjà vu, must be the Germans. So I am reading my book, drink mate and listening to the rain.., tomorrow is seven months, and I have promised to write more over a month ago. Write about Peru and other stuff… But I can not, doesn’t seem right at this setting...
It is a bit like Germany here. The architecture, the people, the food… Yea, that’s what I am going to start with.
It has become some sort of custom of mine; I have even been accused by some that the purpose of my travels is actually food! Well, it is in a way. I love to eat and I love to eat good and interesting food. For example, today I ate two interesting meals, well, one was interesting another one was good. After a none-significant breakfast I went to the market and picked up something what looked like red bloody hearts but actually were some kind of seafood (octopus or shellfish). I still don’t know what it was, and while eating I have recalled scenes from the Cannibal Lector movie. Then after visiting Niebla Fortress I had a smoked salmon…
Sometime ago I read a book named “Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?”, it was a funny cheerful descriptions of food, killing and killing recipes. I will never come close to that kind of descriptions but trust me that fish was good. Hell with Argentina, I’ll become “pesci-vegetarian” here. Just kidding, there is no better beef in the world then Argentinean. However, who much meat can you eat? They are abscessed these Argentineans. Anyways, this is not the point, the fish and seafood is great in Chile. I have never liked ¨this stuff¨ before, but know, becoming a “gourmet-wanna-be” I could appreciate a fine fish and oysters, especially if they come with German brewed beer. Oh, these Germans, they know a thing or two about their food and beer. If one wants to try fine German cuisine, plus excellent beer and pay much less then in Germany one should go to south Chile…

Hasta la victoria siempre. ¡Patria o muerte! ¡Venceremos! ...

2007-10-01T19:46:00.000-07:00

Have just returned from Che’s house in Alta Gracia. I got out in my shorts because yesterday I was sweating I’m my Bolivian fleece in a theater, so I guessed shorts would be more appropriate than pants and fleece in Cordoba. How do you guess the weather here? Anyway, I was debating whether to go or not talking to my espresso cup in a late afternoon today. I decided to go. The bus broke down on a midway to town and a wind was trying to its best to throw us off the road. We were distributed over several buses along the way and finally made it to Alta Gracia, a place where a great Che was razed.

I never thought of him as great. Really, he was a charismatic figure in history, very appealing to the young ¨revolutionaries¨ and fashion companies to market their otherwise unsold shit. So there he was, a black siluet usually on a red background strongly associated with Soviets, Cuba and stupid western or westernized teens. Well, apparently it is not that simple. I’ve learned a bit along the way, heard some people in Latin America, and finally made to his homeland and hometown. Although, he was born in Rosario, his childhood was spent in Alta Gracia. His semi-aristocratic parents brought him here because of his asthma attacks. In any case, the things I learned about Che made me think differently of him. First of all his travels in Latin America, his first means of transportation was a bike, then a motorcycle. I always wanted to do a cross-country on a motorbike back in US. Probably was not meant to be. Also, the movie ¨Motorcycle Diaries¨ are based on this trip. Then he spent a good amount of time in Mexico, one of my favorite countries in Latin America, where he met Fidel Castro.

He is not just a charismatic figure with black curls, a beret, and a cigar. He was an intellectual and father; he loved chess and drinking mate. But none of that was important comparing to the Revolution. His last words in the letter to his older daughter were to be a good revolutionary. Being Soviet born and somewhat raised, it is impossible for me to comprehend. However, Che, being an idealist and to some extent naïve, he just wished that justice would lead the world or at least this part of the world. I was surprised to learn that he resigned all the important political positions he occupied in Cuba and went to Congo to try to make a revolution there. He failed and got back to South America where he died with a ¨coward bullet ¨in Bolivia and was buried in common grave.

Now, you think I’m trying to education you. Well yes I am, and myself too. A famous image if Che in every wall, a T-shirt and even a tie would usually piss me off. Not only because most people don’t even know who he was and what he stand for, but, simply because it was another fashion for them, like wearing Nike sneakers or small black Adidas backpacks.

I’m in Latin America, I too have black curls and smoke cigars. Just need to get a beret and get used to this terrible mate...

Bolivia and other adventures

2007-09-20T17:22:00.000-07:00

“Пол года плохая погода. Пол года - совсем никуда…”
из к/ф "Мэри Поппинс, до свидания"

“A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing”
Ecclesiastes 3:5

Today is six months like have left New York. Tomorrow is Yom Kippur, time to draw some conclusions. Dates and numbers were always important to me. New years and birthdays, assigned seats in the bus and airplanes, just numbers which randomly appear throughout life, they seem to play some kind of role. I’m not really superstitious and happily look forward to Fridays 13-s and 666-es, however, I do acknowledge their significance.

I have not been writing for some good while. I wanted to but could not. The main reason was Kevin. We met shortly after I have returned from the jungle and somehow end up traveling together for well over a month. I have never traveled with anybody for such an extensive amount of time. Surprisingly, that was a lot of fun! It was somewhat cheaper, more interesting and you always have someone to share your thoughts, or just talk to. Even though sometimes he did not want to talk but sleep, yea you know man (I know, sounds funny). Well, I had to force it, when I feel like talking, there is no stopping me. But seriously, it was great fun; however, I could not really “talk” to myself: write. So, I just postponed it till now. Now I can tell you what was going on for 2 months. But first, I’ll tell you what is going on now.

I made it to Argentina yesterday. I’m hating it, well not hating but seriously disliking it. I was looking forward to get here, the wine, the meat, beautiful women. Well, I must confess, I like them dark. I mean it, I love Latin America and Latinos but Argentina.., well it appiers to be fake. They are all either too white or bleached. Argentina is too civilized, too clean, too European and too expensive. Who said that Argentina is cheap? It is cheaper, not cheap. Everything is way too comfortable and overpriced. I say overpriced, because I have just returned from Bolivia. It is my first day here after about 30 hour journey on a very dusty Bolivian train and then a costly Argentinean bus. As far as wine and food go, well the wine is really cheap, the bad ones, the normal ones are reasonably priced but I have not tried them. I am a victim of my own “Jew-ness“, the culture shock hit me hard and I went “economical” yesterday. Medium-cheap wine, plus my favorite brie cheese, under a dollar, then a cheap (by local standards) steak. Entonces, (a trash-lingvo Spanish word, which means: so, then) terrible stomach ache next day. The noises my stomach was making this morning could be translated like this: “Welcome to Argentina, where cheap (but expensive) food will make you as sick as a dog, where the famous Malbec wine will be so bad that you will be able to finish only half a bottle, where chicks look like white-washed eastern Europeans and boys like the worst kind of Israeli “arsses”... Well, maybe it is just Salta, or most likely me. I’ve been having some quite and sad time lately. I have hardly spoken 2 complete sentences for the past several days. Nothing seems to make sense. I’m discharged, got no energy and/or desire to move on.

I know it’ll pass. The only useful story I’ve picked up from my early years of yeshiva was the story of King Solomon's ring: "The King asked his wise men for some single thing that would make him happy when he was sad, but sad when he was happy. They consulted and came back with a ring engraved with the message 'This Too Will Pass'." I suspect that me being discharged would sound irrational to my new friends: Stu-Jew and Irish Potato-Butt.

We met in Uyuni. Kevin and I were having lunch in one of local restaurants where I spotted 2 boring looking gringos. Later that day I have confirmed that observation, when we saw them in the same agency that we were supposed to have a 3-day tour at the Salar. Next morning we were sitting at the plaza having a quite breakfast before the tour; this is when I saw the boring ones for the third and last time. We have had the most amazing and crazy time together, but before I proceed, let’s see on their perspective: “Two, very cheap Israelis, one even took a doggy bag out of a very bad restaurant (I took my cake to go to the train cemetery). Then, next day, they looked so dead peaceful, having their bread and jam.., this tour will be dull and boring”. And then, as an old Russian commercial used to say: “Yuppie”.., we all could not have been further from the truth. We’ve had a wild fun. There were several groups going the same route, god they were boring. They were so boring that one night I got a bit drunk and began talking about “ze Germanz” (read: Nazis) with 2 nice German girls. Little did they know, getting involved in this silly conversation. After about 20-30 minutes of a very powerful but ridiculous monolog I found myself in a almost empty room (there were about 15 people, including ze Germanz) facing Sabrina and Stu (Potato-Butt and Stu-Jew) trying to calm me down. Calm me down after ze Germanz killed ze Jewz!? No way, but there was a rescue, I found myself a match. A Frenchman named Tibo (I know it is spelled wrong, but god knows how French spell it). Anyway, he was almost as crazy as me, and even more, listen to this: he actually spoke English. And not just English, he was making a horrible but hilarious French accent (I don’t even know whether he actually speaks like that or was pretending). Not only we embraced verbally but we actually wrestled as well. Even more so, we made everybody else (there were no Germanz in our room) wrestle and fight throughout that night. After Tibo got tired, like a true Frenchman, he ended up in bed with an Austrian girl, trying to convince her that he was “ze peellow” (her pillow). Nobody got to sleep that night. Next morning I have entertained everybody by pretending to shoot ze Germanz from the thermal bath with my imaginary Kalashnikov. The German girl never made it to the pool. Well, it was her fault that she left without letting me explain, how it is partially her fault that they have killed my people… Yea, I know this sentence doesn’t make much sense, nor does my explanation. Yom Kippur is coming, I’m sorry the German girl. I don’t even know her name… They all look alike zis Germans.

After Uyuni, four of us went to Potosi, where we go to blow dynamite! How often do you get to blow one?! Well, in Potosi you can do it every day and it costs only a $1.25 with the cord. We did not trust ourselves after we heard the story about ze German couple who actually killed themselves by blowing the dynamite (I wonder how many sticks they bought). Stu-Jew and P.Butt carefully checked that there would be no Germanz around and we went to the mines. It was scary, existing and horrifying, all in that order. To add to that, we had the craziest guide ever, we did not like each other from the first sight. He thought I’m a cheap Israeli (a lot of people seem to think that, I wonder why? What can I do with my fucking Sephardic appearance?) who just wants to blow a lot of dynamite and show disrespect to the guide. We barked at each other for a while in the beginning, but after all he end up to be quite a nice guy, after I convinced him I’m actually not Israeli, Ok, nice is an exaggeration but dissent. I only whish he did not say: “Thank you, gringos” all the time. We blew the dynamite (see video) and had a lot of fun. Then we went to Sucre where I got tear gas poisoned during the riot. These fuckers wanted to move the capital from La Paz to Sucre, just because it was so historically and obviously will get more federal money this way. Fucking pisses me off theses students – don’t want to study? Don’t fucking study! But burning tires and throwing dynamite and fireworks at the police, just to have something to do?! while poor tourist (me) had to suffer? I imagine Philadelphia going the same direction; after all it used to be a capital too. Anyways, there is an interesting video footage from my hostel (were I got stuck for 12 hours because of these fuckers) and some after riot pictures. We got out of there as soon as we could.

Santa Cruz is a Bolivian version of paradise. It is hot, it is large and it rich. It is also, the most diverse region in the country. There are settlements from all over the world here, including ze Germanz, Japanese and of course, ze Russianz. Before I will reveal my encounter with ze Russianz, I want to tell you about Samaipata. It is a true paradise, the climate is great the views are awesome, the food is great and, hear this: it is full of Germans! Huh, I wish I can entertain Stu-Jew and P. Butt with this phenomena but they were gone to Brazil. Kevin did not want to hear more about the Nazis. But the funny fact was that they were some Nazi hideouts in the Samaipata area (a clue to Massad). In any case, we had wonderful time there, as Kevin put it: it was a vocation from the travels. There was a nice German (what a coincidence) restaurant called “La Boca Loca” (Crazy Cow) where I had invited everybody to have a Rosh Hashanah meal with local peach honey, bread and Argentinean apples and wine. See everybody; I got nothing against ze Germanz… Hmm.

BoliPусь
I can’t say it was a complete shocker to me but they did surprise me. Picture this: 4x4 Suzuki 2005 stopped at the corner, the back door opened and from there two white little angels flew down the street. They did not, however, had wings, but instead had unusual purple dresses, deep blue eyes and blond hair. I almost instantly recognized the Russians. They could’ve been ze Germanz (there were plenty of them) but then their parents came out: their mother dressed in sarafan and their father (Ivan) with old-fashioned, almost folklore Russian shirt and a cell phone. Kevin’s jaw popped out. Staroveri (Russian Conservatives). Ivan was not surprised that I spoke Russian to him, however was very cautious almost suspicious. I asked him how to get to the Russian village (they call it colonia in Spanish). He said that Lyuba should be able to direct me and showed me where to find her. Lyuba had an Optic shop down the corner, she had been living in Santa Cruz for 18 years and she looked exactly like a Lyuba would look like somewhere on Brighton Beach, except she did not speak broken English but good Spanish. There was another starover in the store who asked me why I speak Russian and look like.., well as he put it “dark”. I told him I was Jewish. The conversation abruptly stopped for a moment and then continued he asked me questions about my travels and so on. And then, I don’t exactly remember how we got to that but he said “Хитрый еврей” (A sly Jew). That took me some time to swallow. I quickly got out of that store considering my options. I did not really have to go to that village, what did not I see there old Russian anti-Semites? Perhaps, they don’t really know what they are talking about. Their language is about 100 years old, their traditions are even older. Most of them are Brazilian born, some even Chinese born. I’ve decided to give them a chance.

I will not use the real name of the village because I don’t really want to abuse the “unknown” path, so I will call it the Pushkin way “Уездный город N” (provincial town N). It took me some time to get there on a very dusty road. By the time I got close to the settlement my ride broke down and I got off this truck squeaking the dust with my teeth. I got another ride with another Vanya on a motorbike. He introduced me to Mityay, his brother. Then I decided to go around town N, it was much bigger than it appeared and it took me about an hour to go to the end of the village and back. There was nobody in the village, it was Sunday. I was starving, so I picked up some sunflowers and began eating the seeds. That reminded me of my childhood when back in Odessa we ate tons of this stuff, though they were fried and salted. I spotted some Russian kids watching TV with locals. That was surprising. I don’t want to talk about their religion (I was asked not to) but that looked odd to me. Anyways, I used to Mityay’s invitation and got back to his house. I was so hungry and weak that I almost fell in the bushes (it was also very hot). Mityay’s wife, unfortunately don’t know her name, quickly got me pineapple брага (like Latin-American “chicha”). Then she put pirogi on a table. While I was eating and drinking a strange feeling captured me. I felt somewhat home but what home? I live in Brooklyn for almost a decade now, I have never had Russian-Russian parents. I guess that was pirogi with eggs and onions, my grandma used to make them, although I like the ones with potatoes...

There was something else, something very odd I could not quite grasp… Oh, I got it, they are speaking Spanish! My broken ride finally made it to Mityay’s house. Apparently, he and his wife were headed to the biggest Кулак (rich farmer?) in town (that would be Mityay). They spoke perfect Spanish (and Portuguese). Well, what else you could expect from a Brazilin born.
I kept my “Jew-ness” to myself and was invited to stay a night, I gladly agreed. I have adopted an identity of one of my friends, I became a half Moroccan (by father), half Russian. I did that to find out what exactly these people think of the Jews, since I’ve heard an interesting “A sly Jew” comment. Well, it got worse, apparently due to an old language the word еврей (Jew) have become жид (Yid). That did heart my ears but I kept it quiet, I did believe these are very nice people just using the wrong word. That proved to be wrong. Wile showing his estate (1200 “Gektars”) he told me his story. That was an interesting one but a bit too long to tell here. It did involve the Yids giving the money the wanting his land and so on. However, there was one banker, Felipe Campbell (obviously a Yid, I actually believe he could’ve been German and will check up on the story) who have helped him. Certainly not for free, as Mityay put it: “Жид не сеет, он комерцией занимается… Где это видано что бы жид помогал, за так...” (I’ll let you translate it here yourselves). Don’t get me wrong here, Mityay is truly a nice and a very hardworking person, he is just a bit too preoccupied in the stereotypes and conspiracy theories. To add to the confusion, this Felipe Campbell guy died in the plane accident observing the damage on Mityay land and there is his framed photo in Mityay’s house along with family pictures. I’ll finish by saying I have had great time there and ate a great food including fresh maracuyas, watermelons, coconuts and my favorite blintz with homemade sour cream. And all that for free! (Who is the biggest Yid here?)

Will put a little, as they put it: Букварь (Dictionary) of the words I managed to write down. Not to make fun, just to recall the past, after all it is a language they communicate to each other. Some of them I’ll leave without Russian to Russian translation. Sorry my English-reading friends. Please don’t use the Internet, try to guess yourself and post answers in the comments.

шибко противный...
шибко прогресс большой (шибко самое поп. слово)
“респонсолидада” нету (Esp. responsabilidad)
у меня достатку нету
а тебе наша кукуруза приглянулась?
Черныши (местные)
Он народ избранный, а они его и распяли...
шолохи - ?
ёшна - ?
зыбочка - ?

I’ll put some more stories soon (I have a lot of them) including conquering Machu Picchu, that was not an ordinary one too, and the rest of Peru.

BTW I’m getting closer to my roots in my adventures, whatever these roots are… Entonces, easy fest everybody and as our “Yid” tradition requires: I’m sorry if I have harmed anyone in this or any other post, and in general.

la Selva. The psychedelic notes

2007-08-03T16:22:00.000-07:00

Stop! Stop whistling! It is not working. What the fuck was I thinking coming here? What the fuck am I doing, lying on this dirty wooden floor? I feel so stupid falling for this... It is hot here... the mosquitoes, they are killing me, there are so many of them, and they are eating me alive, biting me through my pants... Stop whistling, it is annoying. What is that helicopter sound? I want to see but I have to keep my eyes closed. When the light is off, the eyes have to be closed. But I want to see... I open them, it is dark, very dark, the mosquitoes are blinding me.., then I see: an old man sitting on the chair, waving a small bush of dry leaves and whistling... the melody, a strange one, not something I have ever heard before, not unpleasant but monotonous and therefore irritating. What is it supposed to do to me anyway? I know, the power of believe, the placebo, if you believe it will happen. Drink it with the faith, I did. But I can’t stand it anymore... Relax. How can I relax on this filthy floor, with this man, the mosquitoes...? I hear a dog barking outside... the insects and birds are shouting... even monkeys are laughing at me...

Here! An animal, a poisonous tropical frog. A frog? A one-inch, small lousy creature has showed up for a second and was gone the next. Two hours of walking in the mud, the air is as thick as a soup and we have found a frog? Is it supposed to be the heart of the jungle, where the wild animals roam the land and the sky? Apparently not. I’m tired of this; I want to go in the fucking jungle, not cruse around the lodge with these “limeños”... Where are the monkeys holding the banners with my name on it, anacondas and caimans lining up to be taken photos of...?
Night. Another tour, they say the animals and insects come out at night. Well, lets see, the tarantula chase has end up with nothing but a picture of a pretty flower. Great, I spend a week crossing the Andes, two days on the boat on the Amazon, with the farmers on the 2nd deck, sleeping in the hammock and eating shitty food. And now I’m here in the middle of Amazon basin, taking a picture of the god dammed flower, because the animals has gone on vocation, or are nonexistent altogether.

He began to sing. It was not enough that he was whistling for about an hour, now he sings. Great. Actually, it is not that bad. I sit. Lying on the floor has gotten my ass covered with mosquito bites and the only thing I can concentrate on is scratching it. Sitting helps. Somehow the singing and the swinging of the bush has become louder.., or it is just me? I hear Espenser telling Mono: “Que buena noche”- what a good night. Mono agrees. I don’t. There is nothing good about this night. I’m thinking weather or not I can get my money back. Spraying the repellent on my hands and face.., funny, this could be a part of the ceremony, along with the diet, bathing, smoking the bad spirits away, applying some crazy liquids to my head and stomach, plus all the singing and whistling. I want to get up and tell him to stop. I forgot how to say stop in Spanish.., I want to call Mono. He said to call him if I get too scared. Too scared? Hell, too aggravated, that is more like it. I’ll wait a little more, they said about thirty minutes, but it depends on a person. So I’m a little different, stronger maybe? Not a believer? Well, I did not throw up yet. Maybe strong. Yea, that is it, I am strong and that shit is not working for me. He continues to sing, poor old man. Now I feel bad for him, he is just doing his job. A job, what a strange one.., I guess his stuff is just not good enough for me... or maybe it just not for me... me... me... What was that? The birds and monkeys are laughing again... Suddenly, the mosquitoes are gone. It feels good to be left alone in the darkness without these tiny vicious insects. In the darkness... I’m struggling to keep my eyes closed. Why isn’t he singing anymore? He is just probably resting... wait, I want him to continue to sing...? To sing and whistle.., in the darkness. The darkness? Where is my comfortable darkness? It has gone. It has cracked into thousands of tiny peaces. The peaces began to fall. This motion has created a wind, or the wind has splintered the peaces. However, this wind is so powerful... it has lifted me up along with the falling peaces. It took me in.

Enough of this, I want to go inside, inside the real jungle. We went fishing for pirañas. There were no pirañas in that damned river. Can you imagine? Two hours in the tropical heat in the canoe and I caught a tiny sardine. Fuck. Let’s go see the pink Amazonian dolphins.., lets. There were bunch of them pink and gray ones, pretty ones I guess, only I did not see them. I did not see them because I did not have my glasses. I could only try to imagine that the splashes in the water are produced by these strange creatures. Double fuck. I went swimming. Refreshing. I said there were no pirañas, well, here there were. Apparently they like biting your nipples. Triple fuck. I’m done. Goodbye to this small jungle group. I’m going camping in the jungle. I was previously told that the tour operator provides all the equipment. Well, they do: a mosquito net and a blanket. Ah, I see why he did not want to go camping. Quadruple fuck. I don’t care. I did not come here to spend my time in the artificial eco-lodge. Eco-lodge, huh, I would wake up hearing chainsaw cutting the trees. So, we are off, Mono and I. Mono – a monkey, his real name was Edward but he insisted on being called a monkey. I don’t care, as long as we get to see the real stuff. We went to the lake. We ate the fish Mono has taken (stole) from the fishing net in the lake. Later we would go look for caimans in the canoe. We did not see any, well actually we did, just the eyes. I was explained that they were hiding from the full moon’s light. Hiding from the moon? Ruthless caimans? Can you believe this? A full moon and two bright green stars, hiding in the bushes. Kind of scary. Oh well, maybe next time... Let’s go to sleep, sleep on the raw ground, covered by a blanket and a mosquito net. It is cold, ridiculously cold but fascinating, the jungle is singing to me. I don’t need to sleep, that is not why I am here. I’m finally in the jungle, that’s what counts. I’m in.

My mind is splitting... I can’t be, it is not possible. Where am I? What is this? I open my eyes. I’m still sitting on the floor, I see the shadow of this man waving the dry leaves and singing a strange song. I hear his wife snoring in unison to the song, her bed is right next to me. I hear Mono, playing Tetris on his cell phone. I close my eyes. The song, what a beautiful song, it makes so much sense now; I see its colors, amazing colors, so vivid and bright. His song shapes the mosacic and changes the colors. I see birds, rainbow birds. No, it is not a rainbow, there is much more then seven colors. There are no words to describe them, they are not existent, or are they? Certanly now they do. He stoped singing, his is tiered. The colors continiue to swing inside my head. Mosquitoes... Now I can feel them biting me, I can hear them flying around me, hunting for my blood. Please, please sing, I want the mosquitoes to go away, or at least feel like they are gone. He begins by whistling... raw puddles of various colors take shape... he swings the bush... the shapes turn into faces... thousands of faces, flying around me. I recognize them. I have seen all of these people throughout my life, I don’t remember them anymore... But wait, I have to concentrate, I have to ask a question. I’m not doing this for the hell of it; I was told that I can see the past and the future. I need to concentrate on my question.., fucking mosquitoes, he stoped singing again... It is difficult to consecrate... I’m in three different places. Here I am, sitting on the floor of the local shaman’s house in some godforsaken village in the Amazon basin of Peru. Here I am having psychedelic visions with intense colors and mystical animals swinging in all direction. And here I’m... where? How can I describe this.., I can’t, it is another world. The underworld? The world of the spirits? Whatever the name is, it is not important. I feel that the depth and significance of this place is hundred times grater then the rainbow birds. I’m in all three places but I only care about the last one. It is hard to stay here. My awareness and the spaces I occupy is enormously large. I slip back to the color puddles. Is it my design background, or these colors combinations are so perfect for everybody?. Everything is so flawlessly shaped and moves in a highly sophisticated pattern, directed by the song. The song has stoped once again. I slip back to my mosquito bitten ass world. How long has it been? I don’t have much time I need to ask a question... I need an answer. Let me back in. Sing! Please sing...

Lazy Monkey, he took me back to the lodge to have lunch. Come on man, I want to go camp for 3 days. Well, he said, I’m not from around here, so, I can’t really take you very deep, the truth is, I don’t know this jungle. However, I’ll go fetch my friend from the village he’ll take us very deep after lunch. Okay. Fuck it, I’m tired of struggling with these Peruvians, you get what you pay for. Surprisingly, his friend showed up, so we went. I don’t know if they were testing my stamina, or it is their usual way of walking through the muddy jungle, but it was fast, very fast. I felt that I had to show them that I was not made out of maize flour too. After one hour of literally flying thought the jungle (where, the hell was the searching for animals part?) I was asked, if I want to sleep by this lake, pointing at a swamp. Huh? Are you shitting me? No. Further. Another hour has passed. And here he was, sitting on top of the tree, minding his business. Who? I asked. A sloth. What? Where? There, you can’t see? No! Mono jumped and began climbing the lianas, he reached the top within 20 seconds. Well, now I know why he was called Monkey (besides looking like one). He ripped the poor animal off the branches and dropped it; it fell down, about 60 meters, and landed on the ground. “Oso perezo”, that is the name of it in Spanish: a lazy bear…
When I was a child, I had 10 volumes of Soviet Encyclopedia. The only volume I have ever opened was volume 4: “The world’s flora and fauna”. I have never imagined that some day I’ll see the water lilies that can hold a human baby, the Amazon River, and never in my live I have dreamed of petting a sloth. Well, I did, I wanted to hug him, he looked like a plush bear but I was told if I do that, they would have to rip him off me with peaces of my flesh in its claws. I remember reading in that encyclopedia that their metabolism is so slow that the pee only once in 3 months. I don’t know about their metabolism but the bustard had quickly recovered the fall and began rapidly climbing the tree, he was quite speedy. While I was busy with this cutie, Mono popped out with a huge, loudly screaming, bullfrog. I held the frog with one hand and the the sloth with another and that was it! It was it, it was beyond the word: satisfied, even deeply satisfied just doesn’t cut it. That boy, who read this big yellow Soviet book #4, who dreamed of adventures and different world has gotten it all now.

It is fading away. The images are not as vivid anymore. It is becoming very hard to stay in one place, in one peace. I almost can’t reach out anymore... I am walking on the edge, I’m seeing less clearly now, it is like a fog covering my vision. My body is acing. I imagine that I’ve been already eaten by the damn mosquitoes. I’m struggling so hard to get in... To get back in, to ask my question. But I can’t anymore, not without a song, but the shaman is not singing anymore, nor is he whistling or swinging the leaves. He is smoking. He is just an ordinary man, who possesses a sacred knowledge about this world. The knowledge he will pass to his son Espenser, who in his turn will pass it to his son, thousands of years of knowledge about sacred worlds and sacred plants. Ayahuasca
I met the shaman, when he was cutting the grass with his machete in the soccer field in the middle of the tiny village. This small man with a funny baseball hat and sweaty shirt will change my life? My perceptions? No way... “Tranquillo Daniel?” - he asked me. Yes. I said. My voice sounded very hollow. Yes, tranquillo. “Can you do something about the mosquitoes?” - I asked him, as if I expected him to snap his fingers and they all would burn in yellow sparks. “Just go to your bed, there is a mosquito net there” - he replied. Yes, I should do that.., but what about my question... I am crawling towards the porch, where my bed is, a blanket under a mosquito net. Finally, I’m free of mosquitoes. Free... I close my eyes. The first, second and the third worlds have merged into one. I see the faces again, I don’t recognize them... I am asking my question. Now I see who that is, that’s me. Me... me... me... Thousands of me, laughing... at my question, at me. I understand now. “Que buena noche”. What a good night. Good night.
Good night.

Compare/Contrast essay on Ecuador

2007-07-18T17:38:00.000-07:00

Take 1: Intro
I have developed a habit to write these essays in my head while riding a bus or trying to sleep… I even write them while things have not happened yet. Well, I guess these are the consequences of traveling solo, but don’t get me wrong, I would not change my “nomadic” status for the world. Now, the famous college Compare/Contrast essay, I’ll try to reveal some of the truth about (my experience in) Ecuador by comparing it to.., you guessed it: Colombia. I have been “accused” of unreasonably loving Colombia a bit too much, especially after having a blast in Ecuador and particularly Galapagos Islands. I love Ecuador! Yah, its true, like a true middle-eastern decent man I am allowed to love more than one woman, or a country for that matter. However, there is always a favorite wife, or a country. How does one compare wild and “dangerous” Columbia with a pleasant and lovely Ecuador?

Take 2: In the mix
Ecuador. Only positive, truly, nothing and I mean it nothing bad or simply unpleasant happened there. Unlike Colombia, where I had to straggle with the captain, with migration officials, the cold (raining season) and an altitude sickness, in contrary in Ecuador, there was only pleasure. Nice people, great weather, good food, everything is easy in Ecuador. It is quite small, so it is very easy to travel around and see practically all of it within 3 weeks. It also, has it all: the beaches, the mountains (that was actually the only hard thing I have done in Ecuador, when I have climbed Cotopaxi, may it go to hell) and the Amazonian jungle. Because of this, there are a lot of tourists, nice ones though.
I met a cool bunch of Israelis in Quito and we spent some high-quality time together. These children of a constant war zone, bargaining and parting heavily their way throw Latin America… I love them and I hate them at the same time. Then, I did not mind the tourist so much because I was mostly hanging out with locals (I’ll get back to this later)
We split with Israelis, they went to Montanita, a famous beach hang out for gringos and I went to Galapagos. What about Colombia, where is the compare/contrast? Well, here is one: there are no tourists in Colombia, only the some brave backpackers and couple of missionaries who keep on getting eaten by the cannibalistic tribes of Colombian Amazon. I was not really afraid of the guerrillas in Colombia but I did get a little paranoid when the passengers of the long distance buses were filmed on a video camera juts before departure. Nothing like that in Ecuador, I was at ease there, so relaxed, that I stopped watching my backpack and carried large ($100-200) sums of money after dark.. And all that taking into account that Mariscal (gringos’ neighborhood in Quito) is considered dangerous. Aren’t they all? Anyways, no contrast here, I know people who were robbed in Bogota and Quito, so watch out.

Take 3: Vilcabamba: gaining happiness.
First I read about this place in my book: the “Longevity Valley” where people live well over 100 years. Then in stupid glossy magazine, you know, the ones thy put in every seat on the plain. That kind of put me off but it was on my way to Peru so I went. I’m glad I did. It was a pleasant little town where I did not do anything… nothing. It was easy; time did not seem to exist there. I would sleep though free lessons of Spanish in the morning wake up by midday swim in the river talk to some people here and there, take a walk, run downhill to swim in the river again. In the evenings my new friend Michael (a bartender from Quito, who also spoke Hebrew, an important skill in Latin America) and I would drink a lot of booze – that’s how my evening Spanish classes started. By the end of these “lessons” he and I would speak a crazy mix of Spanish, English, Hebrew and Russian the only language he did think he knew. Then sleep.., like a baby, a newborn. A newborn, well I was. Suddenly it hit me, it was on the tip of my tong but I could not say it.., it was a feeling, a feeling of happiness. I am not really accustomed to this strange notion, but I was sure it was it. I played with this thought; I tried different languages, starting with Russian “schast’e”, an odd word, sounds rough to my ear, definitely didn’t describe what I was feeling, happiness, that was a little better, a softer one but yet abused by the hippies and pop culture. The Hebrew substitute I have never learned, or effortlessly have forgotten, not like I have ever used it. Then it occurred to me: Alegría. That was it. How simple and descriptive.

I have lost it now. Alegría. I had it for several weeks and lost it.., somwhere in Peru.
I have failed to present a valid essay. I started it a while a ago and now can’t really get back to. Somehow it doesn’t seem important anymore. I wanted to write Take 4: Falling in love. It was an interesting story how I felt in love with a local girl who was a missionary. She lived in a monastery, studied to be a lawyer and on her spare time was converting Amazonian Indians into Catholicism. But I won’t write about that. Instead, I’ll write about the jungle…

“I want this booby”

2007-07-05T09:28:00.000-07:00

Galapagos, never thought I’d make it here, was not supposed to, but I did. Several things influenced this (very expensive) decision. Mostly the people who visited with their silly smiles and crazy stories, the idea that someday I’ll return (very rich and old) did not look appealing because once I heave made this mistake with the Twin Towers – I never been up on the roof for the reason that I thought I could always do it later, well I cant now… It is ironic but when I arrived UNESCO declared National Park of Galapagos as a “National Park in danger”, so, perhaps a lot will change pretty soon. And the last but not least reason was a strange creature called blue footed booby, a booby with blue feet, can you imagine? I read about them in Kurt’s Vonnegut book. To fly all this way, just to see a freaking bird (it’s a bird, all right), with blue feet? Hell yeah, why not! So I did.

I will not bore you with the details of my tour arrangements, they were pretty complicated. The reason for that was that everything was booked several months in advanced and it was virtually imposable to get anything at last minute (last minute for Galapagos is at least a week or 2 in advanced), but the luck was on my side, considering it was the high season. So, with my improved Spanish skills, Jewish bargaining ability (hanging out with a bunch of Israelis in Quito contributed to that as well), and an unprecedented luck, I got: a 5 day boat cruse tour around the islands, 4 dives at one of the best places, a day tour to an isolated island called Bartolome. I am pretty sure I paid less then anybody would for an 8 day voyage like this, however, I wont name a price, I’ll just say, I could have traveled in Colombia for a month or in Bolivia for 2, on that budget. But it is all irrelevant now, as cheesy as it sounds it is true: it was absolutely worth it, even beyond that, the experience was overvaluing (I believe I have said something like this in the beginning of my travels but that was different). Anywhoo, enough of the vague prelude - vamos!

My first impression was strange. We were parting in Quito the night before (there was a 12 litter pot of rum and coke, every other day in my hostel (free)) then went Salsa dancing than dinking again. So, when I have arrived the landscape puzzled me. I read about Galapagos but still did not know what to expect… I looked like another planet, perhaps Mars. I could not make out what was going on, it was a strange looking desert with weirdly shaped cactuses and red lava rocks. Where the hell were all the animals I read so much about?! I guess, I have expected packs of boobies and iguanas attacking me on the airfield. It still looked pretty cool but I was disappointed, nothing was moving there was no life, just a bus filled with tourists with funny hats and khaki shorts, cutting through the forest.., forest? How in hell there was forest on a volcanic island? Well, it looked like I had a lot to learn about this “new world”. So I did, I went to Tortuga Bay, I wanted to see some animals for god’s sakes. After an hour of walking through a reserve, then another 20 minutes on the beach, there she was, she caught me completely off guard. Huge black, unbelievably real, marine iguana, was walking towards me, I’ve jumped. It looked like a fearless little black dragon, fearless because she absolutely ignored my presence; I was sort of an annoying moving tree or a rock blocking her way… Thus it went on, marine iguanas and giant turtles, sea lions and sea turtles, pelicans, huge frigates, finches and boobies, penguins and dolphins, white tipped sharks, huge eagle rays and hammerheads. Everyday, I would see so many animals, I have never seen in my entire life. On a third day I ignored iguanas, on a forth stopped paying attention to the numerous sea lions which were following me in the water while I was snorkeling and scuba diving. Sea turtles were not as exciting after I’ve seen more then 10 of them. I’m lying! I was like a child chasing the shark in the shallow waters, running after iguanas to take a best shot, waiting for a giant turtle to stick her head out of the shell, I was sitting for 25 minutes on a tree, next to the Galapagos hawk making pictures every second. I could not believe what I saw underwater: sea lions imitating my moves and playfully biting my toes, hammerheads and most of all eagle rays. They looked like a bunch of aliens flying through a thick ocean. I was totally taken by this strange and fascinating new world. The craziest experience was when on my last day, I saw a marine iguana having seaweed for lunch underwater in Bartolome.

It is virtually impossible to cover Galapagos within 8 days but I think I got a good portion of it (maybe ¼ of all the islands). Now I see animals in my dreams and expect dolphins to jump out of the toilet. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen in our urban worlds where the only experience a person can get is a zoo (will never go to a zoo ever again!). I urge everybody to visit this dreamland, I have never considered myself a big animal lover (after all I ate that iguana in Belize) but this is something I can’t compare to anything I have seen (or done) in my life, and I thought, that I have seen quite a bit, well I guess, there is much, much more to see…

BTW, I was a little afraid of another experience with a boat, but like I said, I was very lucky that week. The captain of “Queen Mabel” was great, his crew was faultless, and the chef.., 3 meals day (including ceviche) with various deserts.., yam, I did not want to leave that boat.

Well this is it. I thought that I would want to go back as soon as get to the mainland (and I do) but a strange thing happened. I was supposed to go back to Guayaquil, but because of some technical difficulties on my part I had to go back to Quito. And you know what? It felt like going back home after a very pleasant vocation. It feels nice to walk familiar streets, meet familiar faces and hang out with local friends. Strange. Don’t know what to make out of this. Should I move to Quito? Just kidding.

PS Accidentally deleted videos of a seaweed-eating iguana, dolphins and egle rays, maybe more... :( Oh well, at least I got the pics and most importantly: my memory.

Locombia

2007-06-21T16:10:00.001-07:00

If I were to name my favourite country so far it would be Colombia. It is absolutely amazing. In part, because there are virtually no tourists, except for places like Cartagena and Bogotá. Even so, the people who do make it to Colombia are different. It takes a special state of mind to break the Colombian stereotype. Actually, it is impossible to do until you enter the country.

There are many things in Colombia that are fascinating. The nature (I have never seen the grass as green in my life) the lakes the rivers the Caribbean, the flowers and butterflies, I could not take my camera off them. The food, oh god, finally after often painful, stomach-struggling Central America I could really enjoy my meals, along with incredibly cheap and good bread and croissants (I gained about 4-5 kilos within 4 weeks in Colombia). The colonial architecture of Colombia is better preserved then the in C.A. (less earthquakes and riots) and absolutely spectacular. The plazas, cathedrals, white-washed streets full with pleasant people, the people of Colombia are extremely nice, they are unbelievably sweet and lovely (with the only exception of Captain Freddy, it is a shame that he is Colombian). Because the tourists and backpackers are few the locals are very much interested in foreigners. That alone made conversations pleasurable and improved my Spanish a lot. Let me tell you a little about my 4 weeks in Colombia.

After enjoying Sapzurro I went to Cartagena, where I spend over a week because of the rain, migration problems and nice people I met there. I did not want to leave, in fact, I did not want to leave from ANY place in Colombia, I had to drag myself out of the towns I was currently in. The reason for that was that I was only allowed one month in Colombia and I wanted to see as much as possible. Cartagena was very nice a little too touristy and there were lots of Israelis (well, they are everywhere in S.A. I’m afraid of going to Cusco, its their capital in S.A.) but after all it was a Caribbean port and after a week of sailing I did not mind that at all. Before making my way south to Medellin I went to La Baqulla, an hour away drive from Cartagena to the abandon beach. The coastline starched for miles and miles there were hundreds of little tents with empty hummocks. Nobody went there, I don’t know why. I spent all day there, watching the sea and reading Kurt Vonnegut’s “Galapagos Islands” in the hummock, eating Caribbean chicken soup and a plate of rice with meat an vegetables for breakfast, a fish soup and fried mojara fish with plantains for dinner, plus 2 beers. Then I was taken on a tour through the mangroves to see pink flamingos. The ride was cool (there is a video) , however I did not see any flamingos, but for $13 (for everything I have just described) that was more than anybody can ask for. That was my saying farewell to the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean; I don’t know when I’ll see it again…

Medillin is famous for its increasable parties and I was advised to go there on Thursday or Friday night. I went there on Monday or Tuesday, everybody said that it was useless. Huh, hell with parties, it was a very nice town; it is located in the beautiful valley between two mountain chains. Very modern and developed but very clean and with efficient transport system (it has an elevated metro, plus cable cars going up for several miles). By the way it is one of the very few countries in Latin America where people care about their environment, simply said, don’t litter on the streets or throw garbage out of the window of the bus. From there I went to Bacaramanga. There were several reasons to go to that funky named town. Bacaramanga is the capital of Santander region, this region is famous for 3 things: Colombian cigars, large mountain ants, which they fry and eat, and my favourite (I found this out much later) the Santander chocolate.
Also, I did not want to take a 16 hour bus from Medellin to Bogota, so instead I went to a bunch of littlie Colonial towns. I’ve seen a local fiesta with Adam, Eve and a little devil (Giron), smoked Colombian cigars in San Gil, enjoyed the lok of the best colonial town I’ve seen in my life, I mean it, it was absolutely incredible – Barichara, then off to Tunja (3000 m above the see level) to prepare myself for Bogota (2600 m). It was crazy cold there, so I went to Villa de Leyba to see another fiesta and a cool “military” parade.
Bogota was a lot of fun. I did discover that I had an altitude sickness (it went off in several weeks). I accidentally ran into Ruth and Kevin (see previous post) in a club. After that I went to San Agustin, an absolute delight. I stayed in a cabaña, on to of the hill overlooking the canyon with several waterfalls. The region is “completely occupied” by guerrillas so there was only 3 foreigners in town, plus some people from Bogota. We drank lots very, very cheap “Chicha”, and had a lot of fun.

There are many other things I’ve done of course went to museums and parks, met many nice people and ate many good things, but my time in Colombia was running out (I had only a month, and I almost spent all) So. There I was, all upset about leaving, but very much open to new experiences in Ecuador. I have taken a very not traditional rote – I went to Macoa, a capital of Putomayo, the only true indigoes region in Colombia where Indians still make Yaje ceremony. From there I took a 5 hour jeep ride through the mountains, the altitude sometimes reached 4000 m, the road was not paved, and there were literally hundreds of waterfalls. It was pretty scary, especially after the sun set…

Anyways, I’ll be back, I’ve never said it before but Colombia is the best country I have seen so far and I want to be back… But for now, listen to this people:

I am flying to GALAPAGOS tomorrow!!!

Ai ai, Captain!

2007-06-03T18:34:00.000-07:00

“...Do you think I am an asshole?

You think I don’t know how to sail?”

Captain Freddy Mono

It was the most memorable trip of my life so far. I can describe it with 3 adjectives: the best, the bad, and the worst, not in that specific order. I have never sailed for almost a week in my life, so was not sure what to expect but I certainly did not expect that… But lets start from the beginning.

I met 2 Irish in the hostel in Panama who were going to Columbia. I decided not to go on a coconut boat, nor I wanted to pay $275 for the trip. Apparently, there was an alternative, which was going on a sailboat to the Panamanian-Colombian border and then taking a speedboat to the city where it would be possible to take a bus. That coasted $180, but there was a trick, the captain would not provide food and the speedboat and buses to Cartagena would costs at least $50. Well, it still seemed a little cheaper, also there were no boats going to Cartagena directly until next week, I liked the Irish couple, Kevin and Ruth (actually, there were not a couple), so I went with them. After all, I did not have to do anything, just pay. Sounds easy enough, so little did I know.

I began suspecting something when I found out that this captain was affiliated with this fishy Kuna guy - Gamaine. However, the plan seemed reasonable enough, the price too, was satisfactory. So, we went, as we were advised, to Colon and then a port of Portobello to catch a bus to La Guerra. The problems began when we got into traffic on the way to Colon, so we arrived quite late and caught a bus to Portobello, we had little time to spare so went straight to supermarket to get ourselves some food for a 4-6 days. That was, as we understood later, very unusual, because all the other captains provided food and cooked for their passengers, soon we found out why our case was different. Anyways, we did not get on a last bus to La Guerra and had to take a taxi. After all, we made it to the boat and finally met the captain. His name was Freddy, he was very skinny looking, almost anorexic, Columbian (I kept wondering throughout the journey if he was a drug addict, perhaps he was). There also was his, as he quickly point out, sick wife and 19 year old daughter. So here it was 3 of us and 3 of them, us against them, or vice versa, but we just did not know it then.

It was too late to sail the same night, so we just went to sleep anchored by Isla Granda, a mosquito plantation, as it was described by Freddy. We thought that it was a sarcastic joke and did not really pay attention, after all, we all had repellents. None of us, except for Freddy’s family of course, had a minute of sleep that night. As it was described by Ruth: “That was the worst night of her life, yet”. Kevin, her companion, simply said, that it was the longest and most intense one. As for me, not sleeping for the whole night, being attacked by helicopter-like mosquitoes (the noise was unbelievably loud) and jerking my body every 30 seconds, so these creatures would not drain my blood completely dry, was not the worst nor most intense experience. Both of my new Irish friends had hundreds of bites and dark blue sacks under their eyes. Apparently, “not all repellents created equally”, my repellent was a bit better and I managed to keep the bites to a dozens or so, and as far as sleepless night, oh well, it just one of those. The whole thing was pretty bad but it was just the beginning. Freddy simply ignored the whole story, I was a little annoyed by that and asked him if he slept this night. He suddenly seemed to be both shocked and angry with this question and replied that he had to take care of his wife all night, and asked me angrily if I was satisfied with that answer. I guess, this was when things went wrong with Freddy and me.

Next night we spend anchored by one of the 300 Robinson-like islands of San Blast (Kuna Yala) archipelago. I was very annoyed to learn that we could actually buy the food on the islands, that information was not at all provided. Anyways, it was real pretty. We met a lot of “mola” sellers, the rugs were pretty but the prices were not justified. After all, they don’t pay shit for the land they live on, not only they have an autonomy from Panama but also became Panamanian tourist attraction, and mola - Panamanian indigoes form of art. So they, make quite a load of money. This situation with Kuna people, their prices, lying about every subject Gamaine (Kuna), who advertised the trip, along with the captain Freddy, who was on top of my list of annoyment. The food situation pissed the hell out of me, because I bought so much of it, and it was not cheap. So I asked Freddy where we were going the next day. I wanted to know weather or not I should cook for the day or wait till we arrive on the next island. He looked at me as if I asked him something outrageous, like if he shits with cocaine. He said that we are going to Colombia, I wanted to go to Colombia did not I?, he asked me. I ignored him. By know, I knew that he was not exactly “friendly” type of person, in fact, I believed that he was actually somewhat crazy. I shared my opinion with the Irish, they didn’t really confirm it at that stage. Kevin speculated that being alone on the boat would make anybody antisocial. Also, he told me that he asked Freddy if that was possible to fish, he said yes, and promised to get some bait from the island. Then he said that he used to be a fisherman and now he doesn’t like to kill fish anymore, that fishes were his friends. Naturally, he never brought any bait. I guess, canned tuna was not his friend, because I saw him eating it! Well, peaces of puzzle were falling in place by now. I concluded that he was absolutely insane, plus a control freak.

Here is what happened: I was going down inside the cabin, the entrance of which was located right behind the steering wheel, the control panel was located on the left, just inside the cabin on the left side, I would not be surprised to find out that this insane, completely impractical design, was Freddy’s idea. Anyways, I was going up and down, doing all the cooking, because Kevin got seasick and Ruth could not swallow the gasoline fumes inside the kitchen anymore (I don’t know why the “kitchen” smelled like inside of the SUV tank). So, I accidentally hit the starter button. The entrance was very small, the fucking button was just under my left elbow. It was an honest mistake, caused by improperly constructed sailboat. Nothing really happened, there was a little noise in the engine, and everything went back to normal. Freddy woke up immediately after he heard the noise. He yelled at me, and told me that I was breaking his boat. I said that I was sorry and ignored him again; he went back to sleep. After some time, he caught me passing in close proximity of that starer button! Five minutes after this, he called me up. Later the Irish told me that they thought he was going to apologies for his behavior. Oh how wrong they were. Here I was, 8 years old again, being yelled at for something that was not even my fault. He started his speech with a little something which I remembered exactly, word for word, and it is in the epigraph of this story. After that, he said that I always ask him questions, and should calm down, otherwise he could deliver me on one of the 3 villages which were on the Panamanian side. He was going on and on and I kept my mouth shut. I knew that he was bluffing but did not want to exercise my luck in a Derian Gap. I was standing there looking at him amazed, not with his stupid nonsense, but with myself. I was not scared of him but yet I kept it quiet. The only thing I said, was that, I was sorry again to cause him trouble and explained my questions as a form of joke. To which he responded that he doesn’t do jokes and hates then other joke and I promised not to make any on his boat ever again. Now that sounds like I backed out and indeed I did. In fact, I was very proud of that. Never in my life I was able to contain myself like this, but I knew it was absolutely no use, yet it never stopped me before. Even Kevin and Ruth were surprised by my reaction, or rather lack of it. The funniest thing was that I managed to ignore him again.

We arrived on very beautiful island where I met other captains swapping stories about crazy Freddy. Apparently, he was famous for that! The insanity continued. We never new what was our next move! His daughter, Ingrid, as bossy as her father was teaching us how to paddle. You should’ve seen that, she was yelling at me and Kevin in Spanish: “Durro, durro” (which means “harder, stronger”), I had a laugh, but still wanted to drown her. We called her bossy Sirena. She smoked some pot on the island an became a little mellow, she even allowed us to paddle our own way to another sailboat to see her friends. There was a similar scenario: a Frenchman making a little extra cash delivering backpackers to and from Panama. But how different the atmosphere was. The guests and captain were cooking together, then the cap open a bottle of rum and began to play a guitar and sang. We felt like we just sentenced a 20 year term, in a high security prison and were not prepared for a civil life. We had a lot of fun comparing the situations on the boats anchored just 20 meters from each other, luckily the bossy Sirena did not understand any English.

This went for 5 days. Despite of everything we had a lot of fun and “grew stronger” so to speak. The whole last days of our journey we were accompanied by lots of dolphins. They would appear in front off the boat and would swim along for hours. We never got tired of watching them. It was like a little manifestation of a greater good. Moreover, when we arrived at our destination point and crazy Freddy rushed us out of the boat the very second we anchored (in fact, he stayed at this spot for several days! What an asshole); but is was for the best, because the Sapzurro was the best place I have seen so far, we all agreed on that. It was a paradise, everything there was in contrary to what we had on the boat. There was a steady ground (I was like a true seaman, who got of the boat, rocking for 2 days), there were flowers and fruits everywhere. Hundreds of thousands of mangos and avocados, star fruits and many others I don’t know names for. Our host, Alfredo, or simply Chileno, as he was known to locals (he was from Chile), was the sweetest man. Also there was a great red snapper, cheap beer and ability to eat as much guacamole as human body would process. There was so much fruits everywhere, that I even cooked beans with mango sauce and slices of star fruits.

We stayed there for 2 days instead of one and when we went to a nearest town to get our speed boat (200 horse power) we met Freddy with his, not sick anymore, wife; he said that we should get our entry stamps done here, asap. We ignored him, we were no longer in his command and enjoyed our freedom, besides, there was no time. We hoped to get our stamps done in the next town, which was Turbo. Well, there was trouble. In Turbo we learned that we are illegal trespassers and cant get the stamps and should pay a fine of a $100 each. We were outraged and went to Cartagena on a next bus. On a next day, the chef migration of Cartagena told us to pay $250 each, and leave the country immediately! I knew we should’ve done the fucking stamps in that damned town, like Freddy said, but it was too late. Again, the border-crossing.., when will I learn? We managed to negotiate, negotiate (!) with the chef of migration, a $135 fine and 30 days. He too, was an asshole. He was pulling out numbers, like some kind of magician would do with rabbits, except the numbers were pulled out of his ass .

It took me (and the rest of us) 2 days, several application forms, 5 photographs, fingerprints of all 10 fingers, several photocopies, 2 bank transfer and a hanging folder!!! They wanted a folder for my documents, can you believe this!?

P.S. In Cartagena, I heard a story about 2 Israelis, who got absolutely outraged with Freddy’s attitude and his nonsense, that they demanded the money and their passports back. He did not want to give them any of that. Little did he know about Israeli patience. They've just beaten him up, took the money their passports and got off the boat. Freddy called police and the guys spent a night in jail. Not sure how it went after that but they got to Columbia all right, with another captain who even walked them to the migration office where they got their entry stamps done. I suppose that happened right before our trip with Freddy, no wonder he was worried about me ;) . Oh well, he was an asshole anyways.

Panamá – REW. – Costa Rica

2007-05-18T23:40:00.000-07:00

This post will probably be a long one. I was waiting for a moment to write about Costa Rica and I meant to do it now. However, I have just returned from Colon and that made all the difference. I’ll be writing backwards, starting with Panama. It is a bit strange but you’ll understand why I’m doing it this way.

I am stuck in Panama. I can’t move on because of the guerrillas’ activities in the Darían Gap. It is virtually impossible to cross by land; some tried and most never came back. So, I am not intending to this by land but the other options are expensive and/or complex. Well, I’m still working on this, so will keep you up to date. That will be a either a coconut cargo ship or an airplane. The cargo or a sail boat is definitely a more appealing option; this is why I had to go to Colon to check out the marina. Well, it was some experience I tell you.
Earlier I was speculating about the word “peligroso” (danger), the true meaning of this word was reviled today in Colon. Couple of days ago I met an American girl and together we walked to the old (colonial) part of Panama City (San Filipe). The general direction we were going to described as dangerous. I told her that Latinos abuse this word and apply to anything they fell like. After some picture taking and exploration, naturally we got lost a little. It has gotten dark, and Caroline began to worry, so we decided to go to a nearby Police station to ask directions. The policeman made crazy big eyes and gave me another of the “mucho peligroso” speech. He looked so scared, as if we jeopardized his safety by asking questions. To relieve the natives we took a taxi ride back.
There was some suspicious activity going on the streets, more so when I came back there the next day. I met a guy in Guatemala who told me about a black market in Panama City, where they sell stolen stuff. Ironically, he got his camera stolen there too; he said that he took the camera to take pictures. The market was in San Filipe too. There was a local guy with us that day, an islander from Kuna Yala. He knew where it was, or at least he said he knew. We went there, all three of us, Carolina, an American girl, Gamaine and me.
Three musketries marching through hidden but somewhat obvious merchants, keeping our belongings as close to the skin as possible. Not only I bought a cell phone there, I even took a picture of them after the trade. It was $30 for a Samsung SGH-X156, not like I needed it but I had to do this for the hell of it, I was curios. Later, I found out that the phone was locked to a Panamian carrier, and it took me the next afternoon to unlock it using the “power of the internet”.
I have been to dangerous towns before. Hell, all of them are dangerous, or at least everybody says so. I had a blast in Mexico City, but there was a Korean guy I met traveling for a year and that was the only place where he got mugged. In Belize City and Tegucigalpa people stay in their hostels after dark or avoid these towns’ altogether, well, I had a good time there too. In San Jose, I met a guy who returned from Puerto Viejo where he got robbed in front of the hostel where he was staying and another time when he arrived to San Jose. I went to Puerto Viejo the next day (not because of this, I planned to anyways) I consider both cities relatively safe and definitely a lot of fun, especially Puerto Viejo.
This previously described “peligroso” experiences are nothing compare to Colon. I read that it was especially dangerous, a lot of people told me so, as well. However, to get to Colombia, I needed to know which boats leave for Cartagena and when. The other option is to find one of many sailboats doing just that, they advertise these services in local hostels and the price for such voyage is around $275!
So, I wanted to see if it was possible to get a better price by talking directly to the captains of the boats. I went to Colon and there took a bus to Coco Solo – cargo ship port. One the most dangerous places in Latin America. I hoped to get to the gates of the marina without exercising my luck there. It was really meant to be that simple. I look a little Latino but I can’t help looking like not a local kind of Latino. So apparently there were some people who were interested to get to know me “closer”. It was heavily raining, which contribute to the image of “unwelcomeness”. I had to find someone to help me; there was a guy on the bus, and he almost dragged me out of the bus before the last stop. I guess he saved me from those people… There were no streets, just couple of unpaved roads with very almost ruined buildings, surprisingly they looked inhabited. I told him that I was looking for the port and he walked with me there. It was like walking through the war zone or a wild jungle at night, I could feel the eyes on me from the ruins. We waked to the gate. I could not stop wondering how helpless this place was. I have seen things like that in some rural parts of Central America and Russia. But this was different, it looked like Chernobyl, yet people lived there. I asked Carlos (this was the guy’s name) why would he live in such a place, the answer was obvious: the money, I don’t even think anybody charges them to live there…
Anyways, I did not get in to the port. Apparently, it was bought off several years ago and now the entrance was restricted. Now, I had to go back, the bus was not supposed to be back for another hour. Taxis were none existent there and telephones did not work. This was when I met Pastor Michael. I actually did not know he was a pastor. He certainly did not look like one. He had black sandals, completely worn out, a “wife-bitter” shirt, a sort of old English club jacket and an orange condom like hat. Both of these “gentlemen” walked me back to the road to get a taxi. I was so careful that I even slipped into a puddle, after Carlos helped me up; I felt that I could trust this person. My trust grew even stronger when couple of taxi drivers just ignored us, while Carlos was using to hands to point at me, indicating that it was me who needed a lift. Finally, wile Carlos was showing me his scar after he got shot (right under his heart), a taxi stopped for a woman with a little girl who came out one these buildings. I went to the city with them…

Now, let me tell you a little about Panama City itself. It does not look like New York, a lot of people say it does but it doesn’t. It looks like a merge of Acapulco and San Diego. Though, it does feel like New York at times. I mean it feels a little like home. There is a little of everything here. I found a Russian bar (accidentally) called “Rasputin”. I have never seen a Russian bar since I left, not like I miss it a lot, but Potemkin battleship poster made me feel a little nostalgic. To my surprise there were no portraits of Putin, just old soviet slogans and photos of Russian hockey players. I was told there are about 500 Russians living in Panama City. There also was Bank Leumi – an Israeli bank, I have never seen this one outside of Israel. There is a lot to like about Panama City. It is situated on a beautiful bay, where you can watch pelicans hunting for fish. There good theaters and museums here. Skyscrapers did not impress me much but the renovated historical part of Santa Ana and San Filipe, despite the “peligroso” part was amazing.
The city is pretty big but it’s missing one vital feature: subway. It took me 2 hours to get back to Panama City from Colon and the same time from terminal to my hostel (of course I got on a wrong bus at first). However, the most important feature of course is the canal. I went to the Mira Flores locks yesterday. I saw it in action. It was amazing, a true modern wonder. It was raining too (it rains everyday now, no sun at all), and the scenery was very dramatic.

Previously, I spend half a day in David. Again, it was raining and I had a bus to catch in 5 hours, so I went to… the movies. I got myself chips and 3 bottles of beer and watched The Marine. The movie was so bad. I loved it. I felt like being back in US. Even more so, after that cheese was done I went to see another one: Primeval. It was bad too but overall experience of David was pleasant.

To get to David I took a minibus from Bocas del Toro through Chiriqui Highlands. That was the best bus ride I have ever had. I never understood the term “cloud forests” until I saw that. There were clouds moving from one hill, completely covered by the vegetations, to another. Some clouds were raining, some were not, it looked absolutely unreal.

Bocas del Toro is a set of several islands, on the northern Caribbean side of Panama. It is just a kind of (one of a very few) touristy destination in Panama. I did not really want to go but it was close to Puerto Viejo (Costa Rica) so I went. Nothing special, except for the fact the have special kind of poisonous red frogs (really small ones) and I actually took a picture of one.

Puerto Viejo was much better. That was a special place. Costa Rica is overdeveloped and it is almost impossible to find a place like that unless you go on jeep or hike through insane number of reserves (35% of Costa Rica’s land is protected). The alternatives are a number of beach towns like Tamarindo, expensive and overpopulated. I did not go. I went to Puerto Viejo, partially because I did not want to cross the border at a Pan American highway crossing, which is a major border-crossing, and the waiting time could easily exceed 4 hours. I met Carl, a Swedish guy; he had 10 year old white dreads, a 6″ reddish beard, a pierced lip and blind style black sunglasses. It was like traveling with 10 foot pink crocodile. But it was fun; we got all the attention on the bus.

So, the town was well worth it. It was a little pricy but it is Costa Rica and I am sure it is much more expensive in Tamarindo. The beaches, the sunsets, the trees and crabs, that was Puerto Viejo. Central Americans generally suck in making seafood dishes (they usually fry the fish like it owes them money) but this town was good for fish. I tried to read my newly exchanged Oliver Twist book but I just gave up on it and drank beer all day long (eventually I exchanged it for some space opera, about a Hispanic refugee on Jupiter; an easier read). There is also another very apparent feature of this village. It is a weed paradise. When I was checking in my hotel the receptionist was rolling a joint, which was offered to me before the actual room. There is a police station there too; it is located on a beach in front of the dancing bar, and they burn huge fires every night with loud music, drinking, and obviously ganja smoking. I stick to cigars and Panama beer, although bad, it satisfied the thirst.

Several days before that I was in San Jose, I don’t know why people generally don’t like San Jose. I did but I like big cities especially the capitals. The costal was kind of fun. The best backpackers’ hostel I ever stayed at. It was called Costa Rica Backpackers. There was really nothing to do there but I did meet some interesting people. I met Chris, the Norwegian, who taught me 3 things. One Norway is one of the most expensive countries in the world. Two, only 3% of Norwegians were actually Vikings back in the days, other were farmers. And three, the most important one, how to be “Norwegian drunk”. Apparently, several Scandinavian nations dispute for the right to be called the most drinking nation. In any case, “Norwegian drunk” is when you “drink till you drop”. Well I did. San Jose is perfectly suited for that. I was so drunk I order French fries in a Jazz bar. They had to semi-carry me to the taxi. To be honest, he did not teach me how to be “Norwegian drunk”. I knew that skill before Costa Rica, I just did not know it was called that.
Despite all the obvious fun, I also visited a Golden Museum in San Jose. It was a wonderful experience. I had no idea that it was possible to make miniature golden sculptures using “indigos” technology. Some of the figures were so detailed I could not believe that some called these people savages. Also, there was a theater. One of the most impressive architectural structures I have seen so far in Central America, not including the churches and cathedrals. I did not get in, because the performance was due the following week, and the charged $5 entrance fee just for looking.

I can’t really summarize my experience about Costa Rica. I did not do the most obvious things, like bird and turtle-egg-laying watching, jungle hiking, and surfing. However, Costa Rica is a very pleasant country. Very clean, extremely clean, comparing to the rest of Central America, but also much more expensive. I almost had a culture shock when I crossed the border from Nicaragua. Many Americans have their second homes here many study a semester, or two “abroad”. A very welcoming country and still cheaper than most US resorts. Nevertheless, I prefer something a little less touristy, developed and luxurious. Panama? Maybe. Some say Panama is like Costa Rica 20 years ago. Don’t know it is still more expensive than, say Honduras. However, there still options, in San Jose I ate a local dish from the market for $2 with natural juice. And in Panama City I went to McDonalds for $7 (just followed the stupid crowd from hostel, don’t know why), the same amount I spent going to Colon having 2 meals there, one taxi ride, and a bus back.

Well enough for now :)
BTW Thanx everyone for cheering me up with your comments.

PS If you were to send me an sms, please provide your name with the message, because my phonebook was lost with a previous phone

My complains + Nicaragua

2007-05-08T18:09:00.001-07:00

Hey all. I'm a little (to say the least) discouraged by the comments, or actually, by the lack of them. In fact, it makes me not wanna write anything at all. I was considering this option. Hell yea, I'm complaining. I'm perfectly aware, that it is virtually impossible for most of you to understand what I'm going through here. I guess it is my fault. I write, what i think, is interesting and ¨safe¨ to write. Of course, there is much more to it. Alomg with great things, I'm also experiencing some very exhausting trips on shitty buses on somewhat terrible roads throughout Central America. Often sickening food (it sometimes takes me days to recover); imagine feeling like that on a 4-6 hour bus ride with no stops. When it does in fact stop, nobody tells you when it leaves or check if you are on a bus. One time, i had to run for it through a very crowd market (the terminals, for some reasons are always in the markets), because i was getting some food when the bus left with my backpack. So yea, it gets very difficult; the sleepless nights followed by dirty towns and not very dangerous but very annoying harassment from some of the locals. The search for a hostel or a hotel sometimes becomes a journey in itself, usually a very tiring and unpleasant journey.
It was my choice and I'm happy with it. I'm doing what i want, where I want and whenever I want (according to the circumstances, of course). However, I have decided to proceed. After all, I'm doing this for myself. It is MY journal. The very dirty and juicy details will most likely escape this blog but will stay in my memory (hopefully). I'll save them for later, to tell when I came back, if I come back (just kidding).

Anyways, here is for Nicaragua:
Amazing country, and very cheap too. It requires much more time then I spent there, but I had a different plan. The north, where I did not go, is mostly the cloud forests, beautiful I'm sure. Also, there are Corn Islands in the Caribbean; where there is good diving and sunsets, but since I recently had Utila experience I did not go (it is also quite far). What I did go for is the colonial feel of Nicaragua and also I wanted to get the an idea of the communistic past of the country. The Soviets used to help Nicaragua back in the days along with Cuba, trying to set up a fort-post in Latin America. They have succeeded for some time. The only soviet things left, were some LADAs driving around Nicaragua and couple of graffiti walls from the old days in León (most of them were painted over).

León
I had a great time there, unlike in Granada. It is a small colonial town with unrestored and unpainted old churches. I usually try to avoid ¨gringo¨ hostel (there is at least one in every touristic town), but this time I walked 6 miles with my backpack from the terminal in a steaming heat. Then suddenly there was a rain. The raining season is not due for another month, talking about global warming. So, I set myself for Via Via Cafe, a small chain of hostels in Central America, I stayed in one in.., shit I don't remember where, but they had good beds (added later: Copan). This one did not, but it was OK. Everybody hang out at this place, even locals. I met a cool guy from NY. His name was John, he was the first black and first New Yorker I have met on my trip. New Yorkers don't travel much, and American blacks especially. By the way, the most traveling state appeared to be Colorado and North Carolina, funny huh? In any case, there where no Americans in Nicaragua. Only fearless Europeans, Canadians, some South Americans and this crazy J. J. He was complaining about backpackers being very cheap, while he was ordering a bottle of white French wine in a backpackers hostel. His family was quite rich, so his education level was high; he was a T-shirt designer, who got tired of his life in New York and set his foot in Costa Rica. Many Americans did. Costa Rica is a dream, but Ill get to this later. (He arrived in Mexico with 2 suite cases, one with his clothes, another with only T-shirts. he ended up giving this suite case to the poor children somewhere in Mexico, so, if you'll see kids with funky designed T-shirts in the poorest parts of Mexico, don't be alarmed, the credit goes to John J).
So, we were drinking Flor de Caña with Coke (Cuba Libre), an incredibly cheap and very smooth rum. The best Ive ever tasted. We were bar hoping in León, where he would always try to be friends with security guards. and they, in return, would touch his mussels and his braided hear. he complained about that too. He said that he was happy someone saw it, because his friends would not believe him. It was really funny. Apparently they did not see blacks here. He was also afraid that, me being sometimes unfriendly with some of the guards, would get him (us) in trouble.¨Drop the NY attitude, man¨ he said to me, he did not know that is not NY attitude, just me, or is it? Well, we had a lot of fun. There was a waitress in Via Via, one of the most beautifully women in Central America, according to John, well, I agree on that. He was trying to hit on her, or at least communicate to. But she did not speak a word of English, or at least pretended like she did not. After couple of drinks he asked me to translate his feelings in Spanish to her. Asked me to translate, hilarious. Well, my Spanish was better than his but not to the point where I cans say: ¨You are the most beautiful woman on earth, your eyes are like to shining stars and I would very mush like to get to know you closer¨, or some cheese like that. I could only say: ¨John is very much crazy about you¨ but she knew it anyways; talking about lost in translation. I left León and don't know how this story ended just yet. Possibly Ill see him in Costa Rica in his beach house, to hear the end of it.

Granada
I did not have much luck in Granada. Something was off about this city. The city was burned during the period of government of mad American, William Walker. But the city is restored now. The central cathedral is painted bright yellow, the street were relatively clean and flocks of tourists (even Americans) were walking around the town. I walked the town too, for couple of days but did not like the feel of it. However, there were some good news. Finally, after searching practically in every country in Central America, I got myself some good cigars, and plenty of them. Granada is famous for good Nicaraguan cigars. I went to every store and tried every cigar there.I bought 15 cognac (brandy) flavored cigars, from Doña Elba Cigars (they store tobacco leaves in the chest with brandy for several years) then roll them on a spot. It is amazing how they do it. Also, I met a local girl who sold me a box of 25 premium, pure (unflavored) Nicaraguan cigars. I'm reach now; if I were to sell it in US, I'd make quite a profit.
Another good thing in Granada was Laguna de Apoyo. It is a small crater lake, 1.5 hours away from Granada. I did not take my camera but you just have to trust me it was a great view from the top of the mountain, than a nice hike down for 40 min, through the jungles down to the very clean and beautiful lake. The beach was mine. I swam and had cigar with Ernest Hemingway's "After the Storm", there also was movie script by Hotchner. It was almost like watching a movie on a lake. I continued reading in a small local beach bar, with Toña (Nicaraguan beer) and some local treats. That was a good day. I left Granada feeling stressed (there was I fight between me and a book exchange place, i wanted to change my "Old Patagonian Express" to "Pickwicks Papers" but the did not want to do it, and also charged me a crazy price for the Internet.)
So, I went to San Juan del Sur, a surf town. There was nothing to do but I had to soak up some relaxing atmosphere. I even considered surfing lessons but they were expansive and I was off to Costa Rica next day.

P.S. Yea, yea, I know, this post will be responded to. Huh, I even made it easier, there is no need to have a gmail account now.

the “Psss” or “anti-tranquillo”

2007-05-04T17:24:00.001-07:00

It has gotten into me today. I am so tired of these people grabbing me and whistling at me. It is in their culture, I know. But I could not take it anymore. The fucking taxi drivers honking their availability, these fat mamas, at the markets, grabbing you by the hand, so you sit and eat that always undercooked food, drug dealers trying to sell you something, drunks and bums just yelling at you, some sort of communication method. But most of all, I’m tired of being whistled at, and psssed at. The psss, oh, how much I hate that, all of them, the old ones and the young ones. These boys, trying to get something out of you, sell stuff, show stuff, and tell you stuff. Shit you don’t need but can’t avoid. Just be tranquillo (calm, chill) I was told by gringos and locals. I try. But I could not anymore. I was looking for something like this for some time now. I imagined the worse case scenarios in my head. I was looking for trouble. For days I would take long walks around town at night.
“Peligroso” is the word for danger in Spanish, the word doesn’t sound dangerous to me it is too melodic, like a song or an Italian cake. This word is as common as the word “tranquillo” almost interchangeable.
This boy psssed at me I the central park of Granada. Any other day I would’ve continued going my way, but today was different. I stopped and waited for him to come closer. I was boiling. This is my fucking TV moment. He was the personification of all these people, the money changers who jump in your face, the drivers who are almost running you over when you pass in front of them, the beggars who stick their dirty and often wounded hands in your face. He came close to me. I began to yell at him, I was cursing him out in Russian, in the middle of a busy street, nobody seemed to pay attention. Russian is an absolutely useless language in Latin America; I almost never use it here, except for cases like that. Apparently, he wanted to show me a hostel to stay. Ironically, that was the same hostel I was already staying at. Of course, he did not understand a word of what I said but he got an idea. He tried to show me that he was not afraid. He was shorter than me with uneven teeth and huge ugly pimples were covering his face. He pulled his face very close to mine and yelled back at me. He was yelling that I should’ve use Spanish for cursing and also things like “do you want problems with me” and “do you wanna peace of me”. My Spanish has gotten to be much better and I understood almost everything he was saying. Naturally he was bluffing, I was not. I was ready to punch this poor bustard. I know it was not his fault, but whose fault is this? Not mine. I was enjoying every minute of this. Enjoying my anger, his fear and his fake machismo, when I raised my hand he would jump out and then back in, like nothing happened. I‘d stamp it loud with my foot, he would back out and his face would show sudden fear. Realizing that he was loosing this, he began to curse furiously in Spanish. But it was over. I turned back and walked away… Away, to the hostel he was trying to show me.
Tonight, when I'll be walking the streets, I am keeping my leatherman knife in my pocket, just in case.

Utila 2 (addition) & Tegucigalpa

2007-05-01T12:33:00.000-07:00

I spent almost a week in Utila. Originally I wanted to do 10 dives, jam them all into 3 days. But the island was so relaxing so I managed to do only 2 dives a day. There were some people who spend several weeks on the island without even diving, well, that I cant understand. Like many people there I did not leave the island when I was supposed to, which brings me to the local urban legend, which is being told as true on Utila. The legend goes like this: ‘There are 3 lies in Utila. The first lie is when you say it is my last drink or even further – I’ll never drink again in my life. The second lie usually goes right after the first one, here it is: I love you. And the last lie is: Içm leaving this island today (tomorrow)’ I was told this when I said the last sentence to my co-divers, they laughed at me. We were sitting on the beach at night drinking rum and burning marsh melons. There are only 2 boats from Utila, the first one leaves at 6:20 am, and that was the one I needed to catch, if I wanted to make it to Tegucigalpa the same day. Well I made it, so Im not sure if the legend is true.
There was another funny thing about that island. I met a very strange person. She was German. Her name was Silvia. We had a lot problems communicating, my Spanish was even worse than her English. She spent her last money on the boat trip to Utila hoping to get a job. Before that she lived in Tegucigalpa for several years (she gave me some tips on the city). Silvia, was wondering around Central America for over 10 years. She claimed to be in love with Honduras (there obviously was a man involved). She would spot me after my dives and we would play chess. Then she would catch me when I was going to get some food. I could not really avoid her, the island was too small. I don’t know whether or not she got a job, but because of her I made sure I got on my boat off the damn island.

Ohh, almost forgot, another thing about that island, very bad thing, the worst. In addition to the mosquitoes, there were 3 (!) types of sand flies. Sand flies are little, almost invisible, hideous creatures that eat you alive. The locals call them flying teeth. I did not use a repellent, so with couple of days my body was completely covered with there bites and oh god that was itchy…

Tegucigalpa

Tegucigalpa is a very attractive city. It is dangerous but all Central American cities, especially capitals are dangerous. I had a lot of fun there. First of all, like I said before, I finally submerged myself into some culture. I went to several museums, an art gallery (a very good one). Also, there was a street theatre, showing ´Don Quijote de la Mancha´ , right on the main square.
I stayed in a funky backpacker’s hostel, owned by an American who escaped the American politics and particularly Bush. Where I met some people from Utila, for them Tegus was a stop over before going to Leon or Granada. Well, there was a taxi strike in the morning and they blocked the whole city, so nobody went anywhere. I was even going to. I was exploring the city. There was a huge stature on top of the mountain, overlooking the city (next to the stature there is a Coca Cola sign, Hollywood style, locals told me it was there as long as they can remember, it even used blink with red and white). Anyways, I hiked all the way up, through the villages on the hills (people live there, on a 45 degree angle, and kids play soccer), then through the forest, stones and water pipes. I had to stop twice to get some coca-cola, which was kinda funny, because they sell coke twice as expensive if you buy in a bottle (about 50 c) but usually they would pour it in a plastic bag (for 25 c), coke in a plastic bag, amazing! It took me 2 hours but the view was stunning.

When I was going down I saw ¨waterfalls¨ of these plastic bags and other plastic shit going directly into the rivers. There were thousands of tons of this shit. Latinos have absolutely no sense of ¨their environment. They literally shit where they eat, sleep and ride the bus. They throw all that plastic stuff out of the buses´ windows passing rainforests, jungles the beaches… It is hard to imagine, that their ancestors worshiped nature. However, somebody told me that they have no understanding of what plastic is, maybe they are used to organic trash. That is probably why sometimes they are burning plastic trying to get rid of it. It is nasty.

I stayed one extra day to see a football match between Olympia (Tegus) and Vida (La Ceiba) with another German guy I met in Utila. I don’t know mush about football but that one was not interesting. But watching the funs was amusing. They would hop and sing their fan songs for 3 hours straight, regardless of the score. Also, there were Pizza Hut employees, running around the stadium selling pizza slices in the 35C degree heat, along with beer, cigarettes and all the other snack sellers.

I crossed the border with Nicaragua yesterday. I was preparing myself for this ¨big step¨ for 2 days. I managed. There were money changers (coyotes) following me in a large flock, once I stepped off the bus at the border. I was cursing them out in Russian but they would not stop following me. It looked funny and it was, except I knew how badly it might’ve end up. I refused the help of annoying rickshaws. I walked 5 km in a melting heat across the border. I was so please with myself that I even changed few banknotes to Nicaraguan cordobas. Naturally, they ripped me off, a little, on the exchange rate but it was really minor, about 50c. I decided not to argue.

PS If anybody is interested, there are some good artists Galería Nacional de Arte. I personally liked Miguel Angel Ruiz Matute, Anibal Cruz and some others

Utila & Copan

2007-04-29T12:25:00.000-07:00

I did not really expect much of Honduras but in fact, it is actually a very beautiful and interesting country. It is also very diverse and mush more cultural than any other countries and cities I’ve seen in Central America. Anyways, here we go:

Utila
They say that it is a diving paradise, and it is! In fact it is probably the cheapest place in the world to get scuba license. The diving was not as great as the Red See but it was also pretty neat. I got to dive 10 times + a night dive. There are a bunch of pictures on the web site, I was practicing my underwater photography, and I think I’m progressing. The night dive was very special, the last time I was night diving was about a year ago, so, I don’t remember much. But this one was really cool; the water was very dense filled with florescent plankton. We looked like Jedi masters with our flash lights in the night sea. Unfortunately I could not really take a picture of that because the camera with flash can’t show what was going on. I should’ve taken a video... And another cool thing, the fishes were asleep, so I could take close up shots and tickle their bellies. Utila was also much more fun than Caye Calker and much cheaper. The people (all divers) were a lot of fun. The beer was $1.00. Additionally there were ¨booze cruses¨. You can guess how that went

Copan
It took me a while to get there, I even considered not going. But I went and it was worth it. It has the best preserved Mayan sculptures in the whole Mesoamerica. The glyphs were amazing. There is a staircase there, it contains about 4000 glyphs, and they tell the story of Copan. Also, there had to be a statue of one of the most important ruler of Copan, his name was 18 Rabbit. However, the stature was taken by the American archeologists as a payment for recovering the ruins. Now, it is in one of the Boston’s museum. Mental note: I need to see it; otherwise the picture will not be complete.
The town, called Copan Ruinas, was also very cute. I got to smoke some good cigars and drank good coffee. It was more expensive than anywhere else in Honduras (even in La Ceiba) but it was very relaxing. I even got a job offer there from one of the Americans who live there, he had a telecommunication company. It was kind of tempting but I easily rejected it. My time did not come yet.

I´m in Tigusigalpa right now. There was a taxi strike - fun. Nice city, will write about it later. I´m also going to a football game tonight... How about that!?
Tomorrow, I should be in Nicaragua.
Adios.

Back to the Caribbean

2007-04-17T23:08:00.000-07:00

I’m now in a little Caribbean town called La Ceiba, Honduras. Tomorrow I’m planning to go to Utila, the smallest of the Bay Islands, a diving paradise. I’m planning to spend several days there and finally give it to the 2nd largest barrier riff in the world. I hoped to do that in Caye Calker, Belize but diving was overpriced and I did not particularly liked the island, although everybody I met who was there describe it as extremely beautiful and lay back. Well, maybe I’m just not an island person (I feel trapped, liked on Alcatraz), we’ll see what Utilla has to offer.

Honduras

2007-04-17T23:07:00.001-07:00

I decided to that it was time to leave San Salvador and go see some of the best Mayan ruins – the Copan ruins. There was a nice town 30km before, called Santa Rosa de Copan. So, I was supposed to get the bus to the border (to El Poy) and catch another bus from there. When I got to the bus terminal there was a bus going to Santa Rosa. I asked the driver is that was “directo”, he said yes. I was in luck, or so I thought. After several hours the bus stopped and I did not see anything but another bus and I was told to get on it to the border. Well I did, I was pretty surprises when the name of the border town was El Amatillo. It was west side of El Salvador, way off where I needed to go. Apparently, there was a town called Santa Rosa in Honduras, hmm.., what a coincidence. The only way to go anywhere from here was Tegucigalpa. I did not want to go to Tegucigalpa but after some thinking I’ve realized that there was no choice. I pretended to be blind and deaf when moneychangers came up to me, I swore never to deal with them again. So, I hoped on the next bus to Tegucigalpa. I was sitting there hating myself, border-crossing, buses (I’ve been on the road for about 16 hours), El Salvador. Then I saw a couple, English speaking (I did not hear English for since I left the hotel). Brits, the girl had a puppet, the boy looked worse than me. I got curios and asked him what happened when we stopped for snack. He told me that on the same border (El Amatillo) when he got in fight over $2 with a tuk-tuk driver his money belt was stripped off him. The money, the cards all gone, only the passport was left, he had it in his hand. I could not help touching my pockets during his story telling. I pitied him a lot and at the same time I could not help thinking that all that shit which happened to me, was really nothing comparing the loss of my wallet. I don’t wear money belt and I do have a spear card but still that is a very bad situation to be in and I as glad that this did not happen to me, and hopefully it won’t. I’ll probably have to buy a machete especially for border crossing.

El Salvador

2007-04-17T23:06:00.000-07:00

I wanted to make it to Santa Ana the same day. That was not really realistic because I had a long breakfast with some guys I met up for the 4th time on this trip (first in Tulum, Then in Belize and in Tikal). So, I had to stop for a night before a border crossing. I needed all my strength for that enterprise. I did not how much of the strength I actually needed back than. So, I settle for a little dirty Guatemalan town called Jutiapa (Khootiapa). I found a cheap dirty hotel for same price I would’ve found a 3 star hotel in a touristier place. In any event, all I needed is just one night. So, I stayed and in return for bad service, couple of huge roaches in my room and a deficient in of water I shit a full toilet without flashing (there was no water) and took off. I hoped on the bus to Santa Ana, pleased with myself and was punished soon after.
The border crossing… The last time I had to do it was in Belize and I as so overwhelmed with the complexity of it and gaining $30 let me think that I could pass through without paying the Guatemalan officials. I did, however, it was a mistake. El Salvadorian border police did not want to let me in. they said that I lack the entry stamp to Guatemala. I was outraged. First I played dump and said that it was not my fault that they did not give it to me, and then I pleaded for help. They did not care, I was told to go back to Belizean border or to Guatemala City to get the stamp and pay the penalty for illegal entry. I could not believe that I had to go back to Belizean border; that was 3 days away, and I hated Guatemala City, I hated them all. I went back to Guatemalan side and ask for help there, they could not help me. Then finally I’ve remembered whom I was dealing with. I showed the Guatemalan official the money and after some collaboration I finally got my stamp. It looked like I entered Guatemala on April 14, in fact, it was March 24. I also was told to go around and use another border crossing. That only took me additional 3 hours and I had to pass through Jutiapa. I made a big loop, entered El Salvador and when everything was normal I made another wrong move. I decided to change my quetzals to dollars (Salvadorian currency) with a moneychanger. Well, he obviously fucked me over on $18. I still can’t believe that. I could not get over the whole Salvadorian experience. They obviously did not want me there, no wonder, that nobody visits this country. Later I’ve realized that was a payback, from the government and from the moneychangers and the Jutiapa, or just simply, me being stupid. Whatever the cause, I paid for it all.

Santa Ana - San Salvador
Pretty. The outside of the neo gothic cathedral looked very nice. The theater was cute. I got inside for $0.50 got some really cool pictures. They had a Muppet show this Saturday but I decided to watch something else in San Salvador I heard that they a good theater there. Before that, I went to another cute little town called Sonsonate, where I got my Jesus sandals fixed up for 25 c and had a meal of rice and 2 pork roulettes, fried with eggs, some salad, 0.75 liter Tropicana and another regular bottle of Coke, all that for $2. Then I took off the same day to San Salvador. I got lost looking for the guest house mentioned in my guidebook. I was cruising in the western part of San Salvador in circles in yelling that it could not be that complicated. Nobody knew shit in that town. Finally, I got a pickup track dropped me off in front of the door of the guest house I thought did not even exist. In the excitement I forgot my guidebook in the truck but it was too late. I spent 3 days in that hotel. I was waiting for him to come back and return my book. I was listening to the cars passing by and watching out of the window like a fairy tail princess in the tower who is waiting for her prince to come and rescue her. He never showed up.
El Salvador, and particularly its capital seemed completely abandon by tourists. All the people I saw up until I got that hotel were Salvadorians. But there was a surprise. 22 Christians on a mission to help organize orphanages in El Salvador were in the hostel. Almost all were Americans. That was quite a culture shock. First I talked about god and Jesus to a sweet man who did not believe in American doctors, he was the owner of Santa Ana’s hotel, then these guys. There was one; his name was Brian, really smart one. We ended up talking about religion for hours. Then they took me to dinner to a Metro Center a huge mall in the center of San Salvador (the biggest in Central America) terrible picture. Anyway, Jesus fed me with an overpriced blue cheese burger in one of the American restaurants, and he even paid for it. I had another severe attack of diarrhea next morning. They also took me to a football game, when they were playing against a minor Salvadorian league. I refused to play. I still remember the pain from the time when I climbed down that damn volcano, the pain lasted 4 days, during which I could not bend my knees. The also invited me to the church the following Sunday. But instead I went with another Christian American. He was not with a group. He used to live in El Salvador during the civil war. So, he took his nephew and me to show the house he used live in Panchimalco. The house was destroyed by the earthquake, so he showed the remains and the view. It was spectacular. Later we went to the “Playa Conchalio” which on the Pacific coast. There was a beach with black volcanic sand.

Guatemala

2007-04-17T23:05:00.000-07:00

Border crossing, as I found out in this and all the other examples is not an easy task for me. I always have problems and I mean always. Belize to Guatemala border crossing is fairly straight forward, well for me it was not. As usually I forgot that there is a special fee to be paid (about $20) when leaving Belize. I found that I’m out cash when I was at the border town, and for some reason, none of the border towns have any banks or ATMs. So, I tried to negotiate with money changers. I wanted to get 17 B. $ for 5 euros, they only laughed at me. Then one of them offered me $5 for my sunglasses. My sunglasses, the only ones I have left, the ones I bought for $65! I got really mad; I told them that there are 2 professions which attract the lowest of all, and these are taxi drivers and moneychangers, in that order. But I after I met them, they became the first on that list. I went back and opened my emergency stack of cash. I gave the girl (who did not want to help me with anything because she was afraid to be fired) $100 bill +22 B $ (eleven American $). She gave me back 142 American dollars. I quickly left, thinking to myself that I just earned $30. And yes I did, however, what I did not know is that I had to pay it back, both to border officials and the moneychangers.

I took a bus to small village called El Remate. It was close to another Mayan site I wanted to see, the famous Tikal. I spent several nights on the tree bungalow in the jungles overlooking the lake. Sounds very romantic and it was, except for one little factor – I did not sleep for 2 nights I was there. Apparently the jungle monkeys and the proximity of 1001 village roosters give a concers every night without days off. It was terrible. I wanted to find a rooster and eat it, like I ate iguana, to at least satisfy my revenge. But nobody would fry a rooster for me; I had to settle for a chicken and a “Gallo” (pronounced gah-yo) which means rooster in Spanish. The amount of ads Gallo has in Guatemala made seem like the brand actual owns Gutaemala. To my surprise, as I found out later, it practically does. Well, it was a good beer anyways.

Tikal
I hitchhiked my way to Tikal (about 30 km) on a motorcycle, a pickup truck and my favorite on huge beer truck sitting on top of Gallo I entered Tikal reserve. Obviously I did not want to pay here too, so went to the jungle hoping to go around the entrance. Well I succeeded; the only problem was that, it is the biggest Mayan site known to man, so there was another guard checking the ticket. I played it dump and said that I lost the ticket, he sent me back… I don’t like going back, so I went back and went deeper in the jungle after an hour I found a footpath. I complemented myself on being so smart and went on, after another hour I was exhausted and was not sure where I was. Finally, I made it to a small complex of ruins and I could not believe my eyes. After another 30 min I at last found the main complex with pyramids. The site was humongous, I knew it was big, but man, that big. It seemed bigger than the Central Park. In fact it is 550 sq km!!! Only the center area is 16 sq km. Well it seems like the end of Tikal story but wait there is more. I climbed on some pyramids (without Coke, I probably would not be able to make it) and realized that was it. No sleep, bumpy rides, going trough the jungle and climbing on the pyramids completely warned me out. So went back, passed through the gate and I also changed my shirt so that the guard would not recognize me and you know what he did! He whistled back at me, a speeded it up. There was a track passing by so I climbed on it, then I saw a police car following this truck. Two main thoughts ran trough my mind: 1. what is prison like in Guatemala, probably not pretty and 2. How to say “penalty” in Spanish. Well, I successfully made it to the parking lot. I desperately wanted to get out but I could not there was another obstacle: they also were checking tickets on exit. That was too much for me, I went into the jungle again. Going around the check point through the forest took me another 45 min. I got on the road hoping to catch a ride. I got one soon after, when I was getting in the car the was a police truck pulling over and stopped right after the car which stopped to pick me up. I was terrified. The truck was following us for some time than went ahead, I was not sure if that was it or not. I was sitting in a car looking out of the window waiting for a SWAT team to arrive. Well, they did not, however, when we getting out the reserve there was another check point, where they were asking the tickets and the parking ticket, I pretended to be asleep, not very successfully however, but I made it. 45 min later I was at my village by the lake still looking behind my shoulder, waiting for the police to grab me. That was very stupid of my but I could not help it. Now I know what it is like to be on a run; couple of days like that and I would turn myself in.

Antigua
I was pretty tired and disappointed of that village so I decided to go to Antigua. Everybody told me that was a idiotic idea because I would not be able to get a room on “Semana Santa” (Holy Week). But I went anyways, and I was glad I did. It was Sunday morning I quickly found a room and wanted to go to bed because that night ride on a bus was pretty rough. I had bruises on my arms and hands in places where I was holding to my seat. So, instead I watched the procession, I did not know that there would be another 20 or more for the whole week. In any case Antigua was fun. I found myself an Antiguan family with 3 meals a day and a bed, plus a Spanish teacher for the next week, all for $120. I was really nice week. And when I just recovered, mentally and physically, I’ve decided to climb a volcano. It was one of the few active volcanoes in Central America; called “Pacaya”. Well, it was tiring but very rewording, when I saw the lava squirting from the top of the mountain I thought that we’d take pictures and go back (American way of thinking) but we kept on climbing. That was about 2 hours and 2.8 km uphill when my shoes began to melt and it began to be unbearably hot. I saw lava through the cracks under my feet. We still did not stop. I kept on thinking that something like that would never be allowed “in civilized” countries. But then again I saw people climbing steep stairs of Mayan pyramids with little babies and even infants. Not only they could’ve killed themselves but also there is a good chance of creating a “snow ball effect” and a lot of people cold get hurt. We only stopped when pieces of melted lava were falling down in front of us, this was when I saw a crazy lady cooking marsh melons with her kids on “open lava”. She gave me some to try, it was so unbelievable that I forgot to take a picture.

Lago de Atitlan
After my classes were done (did not make a lot of progress, oh well) I went to lake Atitlan, a very famous place in Guatemala. It is as everybody says, exceptionally beautiful. It is so beautiful, that the whites (gringos) pushed the very few remaining indigoes Mayan people from its shores up on its hills. The towns around the lake are occupied by mostly European descent people (some Americans too) who either own the hotels and the land or just live there. The true population had to settle themselves aside from the lake there their ancestors lived for centuries and only occasionally come to bath and wash their cloths in the lake. There was little or almost no interaction between the visitors and the village people. I went to San Marcos, a hippy-yoga-enlightened place for white crazies. I ran out of that place, the very next day, without even paying for my hotel. I went to San Pedro. The same was here but the whites were crazy in a different way, they were ganja-smoking mushroom-eating, psychogenic-full-moon-parting-rave-dancers, with a large portion (over 50%) of Israelis. Although it was cheap (15 quetzals=$2 for a night) I left next morning, hated the American girls who lived next door.

Belize

2007-04-17T23:02:00.000-07:00

I have recently realized that I’m very much behind on my updates. Right now I’m in a 5th country already and my leather-bound journal contains detailed information up until the end of Belize. Guatemala and El Salvador adventures are missing not to mention that my internet blog has really “old” info. So, I’ve decided to skip a lot of details, at least for now, and give a “quick” update.
But lets start where I left off the last time. Belize City. The story about Dwight (church pianist) and one of the most paranoid nights I’ve had so far (or maybe in my entire life) will be hopefully told later.

Belize
From Belize City I left to Caye Calker. Spent several days there, nothing special, met couple girls. One of witch I later met in Antigua, and other two I met later, on beautiful Mayan site called Xunantunich. I met them when I was crawling through the rain forest surrounding the site, that way I avoided the entrance fee, but really jeopardized my health. Before that I visited a Belize Zoo, where a black jeopardy almost bitten off my fingers when I tried to put my camera in its mouth, pretty stupid huh? Then I ended up in San Ignacio, a really nice town on the border with Guatemala. This place has a particular significance to me, because this was the place where I was hunt and ate iguanas and their eggs; it was served with coconut rice, plantains, potatos and other vegetables I don’t know names for. That was the best dish I’ve had so far on my trip, it was more than delicious, probably not only because it was so good but also the preparation (you can watch the video of them being skinned, if you did not see it yet). Also, I kept 2 skins (we got 5 iguanas), hope to make a wallet one day.

from Mexico to Belize

2007-04-12T17:42:00.000-07:00

Chetumal. 3 am sitting on a porch right between Mexico and Belize. A man came up to me and asked if I was waiting for a bus. I had to snap out of my semi-misery. I spent 150 pesos on a taxi from Chetumal to the border crossing.., which was stupid because, as I latter found out I could´ve taken a bus at 5am at the terminal where I arrived. Mental note: Don't cross borders in Latin America at night. Moreover, I did not have 150 pesos to pay the driver.., so we had to go back for an ATM in Mexico.., oh well, as I later found out - border crossing is the most tiring and stressful thing for me, and often costly.
That man stopped a pickup truck and we were drooped off at Corozal. That was my first but definitely not the last time when I was in a back of a pickup truck passing through pitch black Belize. However, this time was the first and the memory of this is fresher than the ride I took today in Guatemala.
I stopped thinking about that 150 pesos and the amount of mistakes I managed to make within just a couple of days. Just enjoyed the ride. I took a morning bus from Corozal to Belize City. I met a very interesting young lady named Sheena. We talked through 2-3 hour ride, waking everybody on the bus. When we arrived there was her boyfriend waiting for her. At least I have a picture of a very tired me with my Belizian "friend"

* * *

When I was writing this in my journal there was a fight in the bar I was sitting in. Apparently, there was a fight in every Belizian bar every so often. So, naturally, the time has come for that bar as well. Suddenly every body got very loud (even louder than they were, hard to imagine) and got up from their chairs. Two boys who were sitting at my table got up as well, one of them spilled his beer on the table and my journal. After they have satisfied their curiosity and sat back, I´ve asked one of them to clean up the mess he had created.
You have to understand the situation. I´m sitting in a local bar in the city which is famous for its highest crime rate in Central America. And here Í am, asking a drunk 17 year old to, as he precisely put it, "be a waitress". For a second there I thought that the 2 of them would just kill me right on the spot, and the rest of the "crew" would joint them in excitement.
I don't remember exactly how I´ve managed to explain myself (it is my luck that Belizians speak English). Their anger had transformed into curiosity and later respect. After a small chat and couple of beers (on me) we became good friends. I mean it. Good friends to a point that, if anybody were to harm me in Beleze City, Rudy (that was his name) and his uncle would just just kill the offender/s
Sweet boy. Probably will end up like most people in Belize City, using and selling drugs... Which leads me to another story in Beleze. A story about a church pianist (who also leads morning worship service) who loves god, his wife and son and a good "hydra" joint.

To be continued...

The beginning

2007-04-06T09:58:00.000-07:00

Never had a journal or a blog, so this will be a little difficult for me.. I have decided to write in English. First off all, because I can no longer hand write Russian letters in my leather bound travel journal. Second, it seems sometimes easier to express my thoughts while writing in English, however, it does require lot of editing and correction in the future. An the last but not least reason, it is virtually impossible to write in Russian in Internet cafes of Latin America.

So here we go:

Things happen along the way, fun stuff, sad stuff. Stories tend to layer one on top of the other. The experience is so rich that I get angry out the fact that it is almost impossible to deliver using words or any other way (media) of communication known to me. So, I´ll stick with words.

March 24. Belize City, Belize.

Belize City is a scary place according to my guide book and the people I met so far. The most common description that it is a shitty town, and looks like any other Asian dirty town. With one exception, the crime level is very high. I would not have end up here, if not my desire to pass through all the countries in Central America. Belize is a first one along the way. The guide boo, however, suggests that city is worth visiting during the day time.
Well, here I am sitting in a very, what I understand Caribbean environment. A local bar with loud Jamaican music and even louder people. My waitress, a Mexican Chinese looking Belizian, is very curious of me and my writing. Curiosity is, I think, a keyword here in Belize, and also my reasoning for most situations which occurred later.
The beginning of my journey to Belize originated in Mexico, down south of Cancun, a little place called Tulum. This was a very nice experience except for the fact that my stupidity and careless led to a small tragedy. Which is some of my electronics got into salty water (Atlantic Ocean). I was very afraid for my camera. This is the single most important piece of equipment I own. It provides me (and all the others) with vivid reminders of the places and people. Also this is the ultimate proof of my journey.
It was my luck that my not thinking ahead did not destroy my colorful “memory collector”. However, the cell phone is dead. The phone was not only communication device to me but also a watch, an alarm clock, mp3 player, Spanish translator, compass and 8 hours of Spanish lessons.., all gone. This upset me a lot at first but some time later I thought, what the hell, maybe there “destiny”, “things happen for a reason” kinda thing... I also lost my sunglasses, I liked the a lot. This all happened in what I call “Mayan Trail”. The trail trough the ocean by the cliff. The guy I met at the hostel and I went to the Tulum Ruin and after that we decided to go to the beach around the main road, through the ocean, like Mayas used to do, or like Jesus. Well I paid for this a great deal...

2007-03-20T21:16:00.001-07:00

Hello.
I´ll try to put more next time. Enjoy the photos for now :)