Feeling manly?

I wasn’t supposed to be in that girl’s shower. As the property manager, it was not my place to be in a tenant’s bathroom for any reason other than inspection or as an escort to a vendor.

Nor was it necessarily recommended to pull the fuel filter off that car, and the gas that leaked out turned the skin on my hand white, until I learned to be more efficient and careful about it after that.

And I wasn’t sure, the first time I threw a punch, but I have to admit, the results get more and more satisfying with every repetition.

Masculinity is a complicated concept, with all sorts of shortcuts and assumptions that are not necessarily relevant, important, or even a good idea. I’d made it about a quarter of a century before I needed to fix a shower, was legally an adult before I fixed anything on a car, and it was only last year that I learned to throw a proper punch.

I was still a man before each of those. Right?

But still there is the nagging sense that a man should know this stuff. So even though technically I wasn’t supposed to fix plumbing at my job as a property manager, once I’d looked over the pro’s shoulder I was eager to get in there and do it myself. And when the gas tank of my first beater car was rusted inside, I didn’t mind changing the filter monthly (while we waited for a 1969 replacement to show up in the scrap yard). And when I moved into my previous house and the roommate handed me boxing gloves, I was happy to accept.

Lesson Two: Alligator Wrestling

There are a number of these “man skills” floating around, and I’ve joked about finding/starting/joining some sort of Man Skills Academy to learn more. After all, when I moved into my current apartment, and the shower demon delighted in alternating ice-water dousing with second-degree burns, I had to ask the maintenance man to come save me.

So when I got the “New Meetup Group: Man Skills 101” email, I was curious, and saw three possibilities:

1. Genuinely educational.

2. Just goofy fun among dudes.

3. Misogynistic patriarchal chest-beating.

The group’s description reads: “Let's face it, we modern men are spending WAY TOO MUCH time in front of our computers. You are no longer required to use your man skills because technology does everything for you. Falling out of touch with your masculinity is extremely unnatural, unhealthy and will negatively effecting (sic) all aspects of your life.

Doing man stuff awakens your inner-Viking and IT IS VERY REWARDING. Your long forgotten Caveman says "Man! This feels familiar. I should be doing more of this. I created that with my hands? Awesome!"  

Sounds promising. They went on to quote Napoleon Dynamite: “Chicks like guys with skills.” A Napoleon Dynamite reference is always a good call, but what if they’re not quite tongue-in-cheek? I’ve never identified as the stereotypical frat boy, and I don’t mean to start now, though I do enjoy playing with the archetype.

I couldn’t help but notice “People in this Meetup are also in: T.O.J. Tales of Javascript”, but am still unsure after the rest of the description, which asks men to come learn “badass skills to impress the ladies”. And the three “skills” to be learned at the first meeting?

-Taking off a bra with one hand.

-Building a fire

-Tying knots

It’s been awhile since I feared the brassiere, I make a decent fire, and I tie in for rock climbing without problems, but perhaps the company of dudes would be a good way to spend an evening? Or is this a patriarchal idiot fest? The other issue being that it’s the same night as my weekly rock-climbing group, which I would be sorry to miss.

What do you think? Should I go?

(Vote on the poll on the wordpress version: here.)

And stay tuned each of the next two days, as a remarkable woman guest-blogs her opinions on the issue...and much more.

Getting gas in Venezuela

It’s a routine errand, expensive, kinda smelly, and utterly unexciting, for millions (billions?) of people. Filling up the tank. Getting gas. Burning dinosaur bones. (And you were worried this was a chronological consequence of the post on Venezuelan food. Tut tut, I'm classy.)

You pull into the station, maybe wait in line, park your car, turn it off, no smoking, no cell phones, stand there bored while the thick black hose squirts thick black sludge into your car, the sun is hot on your neck. Then swipe your card to pay your $30, $40, $50...$60 per tank?

It’s pretty much the same in Venezuela, with one major difference. No, it’s not that there was no brand name necessary on the shelter. No, it’s not the absence of muzak “radio” piped in.

Can you guess the difference?

If my math is correct, with it’s flurry of units of measurement, and depending on what rate you actually get for your dollar (no one uses the official rate, so I’m using the average rate one gets in a hotel, about 45 bolivars per dollar), a gallon of gas that day, and every day, in Venezuela costs about $0.008 per gallon.

A gallon of gas costs less than a penny.

How do you feel about that?

But that’s Venezuelan gas, we Americans get the finer stuff, the Saudi Arabian stuff, the moral stuff, right?

Guess who is, and always has been, the number one purchaser of Venezuelan oil. I don’t even need to tell you.

(And we can get into the relative morality of Venezuela versus the Middle East another day.)

How do you feel, right now, about the subsidies oil companies receive? How do you feel about the fact that the profits they make are the highest in human history?

Let's sing a little song to make you feel better.

Food porn, Venezuela style

In the countryside, you can often find nata, the savory
cream topping to the left. No, it's not even close to mayo.

The pupusas of El Salvador clearly made an impression on me, but Venezuela was ready with a rebound relationship. The arepa is the traditional and quintessential food item of Venezuela and Colombia, dating back to precolonial times, when it was made by the indigenous tribes of the area whose word, erepa, it (basically) still bears.

A friend had expressed concern that shortages of arepa flour might prevent me from finding them, but luckily that was not a problem. However, we did hear tales of scarcity, similar to what you'd hear if China ran out of rice, America ran out of oil, or Brazil ran out of sex.

Ham and cheese arepa for breakfast,
and unfortunately too dark to see the
one in the back, because I can't
remember what it was.

Arepas are pretty much just corn meal patties, with none of nixtamal's alkaline processing (and ergo less nutritious than pupusas), though yucca and wheat varieties are also skulking around the region. Plain arepas are served with most meals, like bread in Italy or tortillas in Mexico, but they are commonly a stand alone breakfast or afternoon snack. If they're the star of the show, they can be fried, stuffed, or stacked with a variety of ingredients.

The basic breakfast incarnations select among cheese, beans, and egg, though shrimp, chicken, pork, beef, coconut, and avocado were usually available too. That list is deceptively short, since “cheese” can take any of a dozen forms, while pork, chicken, and beef also come in multiple preparations, my favorite being pernil, a pulled pork usually made from the shoulder.

My domino sample, with avena. I would
have taken a pic after I started eating,
but it was drippy lava-hot goodness.

Three other favorites are dominó, reina pepiada, and pabellon criollo. The first of those is just a mixture of black beans and cheese that went well with a glass of avena, a thick oat-based drink cinnamon, clove, and sugar, that reminded me of horchata's chewier cousin.

Reina pepiada is a traditional Venezuelan filling of chicken and avocado, in a sauce that may contain mayonnaise, lime, and cilantro. It's frickin delicious.

Then there's pabellón criollo. You can stuff a sample of this dish into an arepa, but I had it as a separate plate, and it was the single best meal I had in Venezuela. Traditionally a farmer's hearty breakfast, I did indeed feel capable of working for hours after eating it...as long as I (miraculously) avoided the food coma.

There are of course variations, but I only have eyes for what I ate.

Nostalgia rarely includes so much drooling.

-Rice, and caraotas fritas. I use the local term since if I just said “fried black beans” you might not picture the savory deliciousness that found its way into most forkloads. So good.

-A fried egg on top of the beans, cuz why not?

-Carne mechada is a shredded beef preparation similar to Cuba's ropa vieja that paired perfectly with the caraotas, and made me eager to find a field to plow. I felt like Venezuelan Popeye. I bet there was coriander in there.

-Tajadas. Again, “fried plantains” just doesn't do it justice. Nor adequately pay homage to the way these ingredients blended, cooperated, and tag-teamed my taste buds into blissful submission.

It was all so good, I nearly forgot about the fresh parchita (passionfruit) juice and basket full of arepas.

There is still a special place in my heart for pupusas, but after a Venezuelan meal, there was no spare space in my stomach.

Pussycat love and opinions in Israel

So yes, Jerusalem felt like it wanted to hate me. But I still fell head-over-heels in love in the city.

I suspect he was a male. He had clean teeth, big feet, and the sort of insightful eyes that see right into your thoughts. I passed him on a thin street behind some big important church or other.

“You feel like this whole city wants to fight, don’t you?” He asked me as I walked past.

“Yes! And that troubles me. It doesn’t seem like a healthy way to live.”

“It’s not, but you have to understand, there has been so much suffering here, so much tension, in both history and living memory, that everyone carries the scars of memory and fear. The spirit has trouble thriving in that environment, but it’s possible.”

“Do all cats know this?” I was curious.

“Of course. We’ve transcended it though; have you ever heard of cats seeking genocide against dogs? No.”

“But dogs have never denied cats’ right to exist.” I thought I had a winner point there.

“No, but nor has anyone in their right mind ever claimed Israel doesn’t have a right to exist. Sure, it’s in some papers and some rants, but does any rational person actually believe that?”

“Well, no. And personally I’ve only ever encountered the idea from pro-Israelis who were shouting that it wasn’t true.”

“Exactly,” purred my love, “because only extremist nutjobs would say it in the first place, and you don’t talk to many extremist nutjobs. Know why? Because if you respond to the extremists all the time, let them shape the dialogue, then you tend to become an extremist too.”

“Kinda like a violent/homicidal version of the Tea Party?”

“Exactly,” his eyes squinted shut in feline pleasure that I saw his point. “Your country argues about whether or not to pay its bills while everything goes to shit, because you listen to a group of people whose platform is defined by the rejection of rational thought. Climate change deniers have no place in governance.”

I agreed with that statement so completely that I had to spend another few minutes scratching under his chin.

“But what about all those people who hate Israel?” I asked, concerned for the fate of a nation.

“Sure, there are some who hate Israel, as we talked about, but hell, there are probably some who hate Canada too, and those syrup-sippers are almost as loveable as I am. But what are the statements that you hear depicted as anti-Israel?”

“Well, people who talk only about the approximately 1,416 civilians* who have been killed by Israeli airstrikes, versus the 3 Israelis killed by rockets, one of which died of a heart attack. And then what’s worse, don’t talk about the violence of something like ISIS!” I was passionate.

*Based on this article’s stats of casualties and civilian percentage

“Dude. Here’s the math. If the number of Israeli civilians killed is X, and the number of Palestinian civilians killed is Y, and the number of UN Workers or any other group killed is Z, then if (X + Y + Z) > 0 then it’s too damn high. Killing anyone? Bad. Those three Israeli civilians killed: awful, shouldn’t have happened. Those 1,416 Palestinian civilians killed, and the fact that we have to estimate since aerial bombardment is so indiscriminate…Awful.”

I couldn’t deny his math.

“And about the ISIS thing? Have you watched the news? Good news? They’re talking about that too. A lot. A lot a lot a lot. And rightly so. If you think no one is talking about how wrong those executions are, then you’re only listening to the voices you find most offensive, which is basically the same mistake as listening only to the extremists.”

Three nuns walked past and smiled at my clear love of this feline sage.

“But all these criticisms of Israel are just more of the traditional anti-Semitism that has plagued Judaism for centuries!” The nuns turned around and gave me worried looks at seeing me argue with a cat. I smiled at them, hoping they wouldn’t come back to perform my exorcism. Those really get in the way of conversation.

“Ah yes, here’s the heart of it, no? The idea that criticizing Israel is anti-Semitic.” His big beautiful eyes grew sad. He paused. “Do you love America?” I nodded that yes, I love my homeland. “Is everything perfect there?”

I gasped, at a loss as to where to begin. “We haven’t been a democracy in decades, if not longer, and our Supreme Court doesn’t even pretend to hide the fact that we’re a plutocracy anymore, government by the wealthy. I genuinely believe our former president and all his cronies should be facing charges of Crimes Against Humanity in The Hague, and I would like to see an investigation about our current one as well. He, in turn, the man who made me so hopeful I literally cried when I heard his campaign speeches in 2008, has followed a policy of unlawful detention, deported more people than anyone else, nominates cable industry lobbyists to head the FCC, gives MASSIVE corporate handouts to multinationals who don’t pay taxes, and didn’t do squat to prosecute the bankers who nearly crashed the world’s economy, and-”

“Whoa there tiger, that’ll do. Pet me until you calm down.” I did so, breathing deeply. “See, you are a patriotic American who recognizes and criticizes certain actions of your government. That itself is patriotic. The old adage ‘My country, right or wrong’ is treason against both the nation and humanity as a whole.”

“So?”

“So calling Israel out on bad behavior is not the same as hating the country itself. You can support a nation, and still think something like the Dahiya Doctrine of deliberately targeting civilian populations with disproportionate force is wrong.

But that’s not the most important thing.” He paused for a second, then asked “What armed conflicts can you remember?”

“Well, Iraq and Afghanistan of course. The violence in Ireland. Bosnia in the mid-90s, I was reading about Srebrenica the other day…”

“Right,” he said, vertical pupils intent. “Notice a theme in those? Sunni v Shiite in Iraq? Taliban in Afghanistan? Catholic v Protestant Ireland? The massacre of Muslim Bosniaks in Srebrenica?”

“Well yeah, religion often drives people into horrible acts, but it also leads people to higher states of altruism, compassion, and kindness, not to mention giving meaning to many people’s lives.”

“Of course it does, I’m not saying religions are bad. But just maybe, linking a religion with a political entity is a recipe for disaster? Mainly because if you believe you have ‘The Right Answer’ to God, it’s a shockingly short step (for many) to believe everyone who doesn’t agree with you on the specifics to be wrong, and therefore lesser. Crusades, anyone?”

“Oy, don’t even bring up that 1000 year old can of worms.”

“Righty-o. But also, if you say ‘State X did a bad thing’ that’s one thing, but when people can twist that statement into ‘Religion X is bad’, you have a huge problem. Hard to talk to people if you feel like they’re attacking your faith in God.”

“But they’re NOT attacking your faith in God, not at all.”

“Sure, but people feel like you are. And that’s enough.”

“Oy vey,” was all I could think to say.

“Yeah, sorry, kinda went long there. To sum up: only lunatics deny Israel has a right to exist, and lunatics should not be allowed to set the discourse.” I nodded.

“Any group who kills civilians should be held accountable for it.” No contest.

“You can love America/Israel/Djibouti and criticize its government. And most importantly: equating a nation-state with a religion is a very dangerous thing.” Agreement, and sadness.

“You poor human. Want a little pick-me-up? Shall I give you the answer?”

I perked up like a tabby when you open the can of tuna.

“Humans are inherently good. Y’all don’t actually want to hurt each other. There are basically three things that make you do it.

1. Bad experience. They killed/attacked you or your family? You may want to hurt them.

2. No experience. You don’t know ‘Them’ so you believe what you’re told about ‘Them.’

3. Fear. Fear for your future or that of your children, in terms of violence, economic well being, whatever.

The good news is: the first two are really easy to fix. 1A: Stop killing each other for a little while. 2A hang out together. Did you ever see that documentary about Israeli and Palestinian kids playing soccer? They were best friends after a few weeks. Let the kids be friends, and they’ll grow up into adults who are too.”

“What about the third one?” I asked, hoping he had an easy answer.

“Oh that baby’s hard, though not as hard as you think, or as your media and lobbyists want you to believe. But you have to figure that out for yourself. Right now, the sun is warm: it’s naptime. One more belly rub and then you may go.”

I fear for Israel; or, Jerusalem wanted to hate me

“I need a little more time to know for sure how I feel about Jerusalem…” was all I could say after I left there last year. Months went by, and I never came back to it. So how did Jerusalem feel?

(After visiting precious friends in Tel Aviv) I had been walking the ancient and potent city for two days, taking pictures, trying to talk to people, trying to touch the city, to see what this place was, to understand that heaviness in the air. I was tired and thirsty.

Across from a small shop selling frankincense and myrrh, a big copper kettle held a handwritten sign saying “Coffee - Tea, Better than Starbucks.” Laconic as a Bedouin by that point, I grunted a dusty “heh”; an iced coffee sounded like a more kingly gift than the biblical wares behind me. The owner was staring at me. “You have iced coffee?” I gestured at his sign.

“___ shekels.” He quoted me a number two and a half times the normal price of coffee in the city, that area included, and was clearly not willing to bargain. I wonder if I would have gone for it in Nicaragua, Tanzania, or Nepal. Maybe. But here? No way. I twitched a smile, said “Thanks anyway” and started to walk away.

“Come back when you want to buy, not take stupid pictures.”

Ah.

My "Stupid picture"

Even then, in Ecuador, Latvia, or Malaysia, I would have walked away. But Jerusalem? What IS that heaviness in the air?

“It’s too expensive.”

“This is the normal price. You pay this everywhere.”

“No, everywhere a cup of coffee is __.”

“Coffee for __? No. You find that, you come tell me, I will buy it too.” His hands karate chopped the air.

“Two streets that way. Or three streets this way.” My hands chopped back. This is not how I normally conduct myself, squabbling with shopkeepers in the street.

But there is something in the air in that city, in that whole country (I’d noticed it in Tel Aviv too). Like a residue of aggression, an oily eagerness to fight, a testiness perpetually on the lookout for an Other, delighted and validated to find an enemy.

It’s insidious and subtle, pervasive and relentless. It’s exhausting.

When our bus took a minute to back up, the woman next to me started ranting in uvular friction, spittle spattering my forearm, intent on punishing someone, though whether it was passersby or the driver, I don’t think even she knew.

I rode the tram up onto the hill, bag on my back, and as my stop approached, I moved toward the door. A guy who’d been standing to the side stepped away from the pole he had been holding and took the one I was headed for, leaving me tottering in the aisle, despite the fact that he wasn’t getting off. Now squarely in my way, he neither moved nor responded as I edged past with a polite “Excuse me; sorry.”

Down the hill, the guy making falafel took my order, set it down, and chatted with his coworkers. Another customer came up, ordered, waited a minute, got their food, left. He went back to chatting. Another customer: same. Eventually he strolled over, assembled my falafel and dropped it at me, ignoring me. Did he look surprised when I thanked him in English? “Oh, you’re not one of Them?” his eyes may have said. “Oops” he may have thought.

I’ve walked Sri Lankan streets where Tamil and Sinhalese were killing each other not too long ago. I’ve strolled sunburned avenues where Burmese Buddhists have rioted against Muslims. Sarajevo streets where the “Blood Roses” of mortars still marked the concrete. Explored El Salvadoran alleys were Salvatruchas purportedly kill with impunity, and been warned in Quito that armed assailants waited half a block further down that way. I spent hours on Turkish streets where Turks and Kurds paced past PKK graffiti, and sipped coffee five kilometers from the Syrian border while refugees slogged, feverish eyes searching for a destination, two days before car bombs in a similar city killed 51 and injured 140.

And still, I have never felt anything like the constant latent aggression of Jerusalem. Less, but still present in Tel Aviv. Small moments, tiny interactions, all pushing towards a level of hostility unlike anything I’ve ever felt. And hope never to feel again.

That is not a healthy way to live. Hatred and dehumanization are anathema to all that is good in the human spirit. Goodness and the human spirit still live there...always have...but I fear for that region. I fear for my friends, for all our brothers and sisters who breathe that toxic energy, held apart by spiritual apartheid, living in fear and violence. For when religion is used to sanction the darker sides of humanity, true horror is unleashed among us.

Us.

A battalion of sauces, lots of boobs, and sheer normalcy on the streets of Caracas.

(In deference to the blogosphere’s reverence for brevity, I split this post in two; the first half is here)

After clearing customs, hearing of youthful harlots, and being warned that the water is shut off at 8:30 PM every night, I was released to wander the streets of Caracas, a city endorsed by voices familial and journalistic as being utterly unsafe. “Walk those streets, and you’ll be kidnapped, shot, or worse” seemed to be the consensus.

My first task was a haircut. That completed (blog to follow), I set my steps to witness the city. I'd left as many expectations and preconceptions as possible at home, and tried to see it with open eyes. What did I see?

Normal people wearing normal clothes walked normal streets past normal stores selling normal things. Familiar billboards used the same idiotic pressures and messaging to sell junk, and the noise level was generally...normal. People smiled back when I smiled first, nobody seemed angry or in a particular hurry, and no pedestrians were being run over, nor abducted into unmarked SUVs.

All in all, it was a lot like most cities.

There had to be something different, after all, Venezuela is not a routine nation. There was more propaganda and political dialogue than I'm used to, but not so different from, for example, Nicaragua, and less than any country during election season. This, despite the surprising fact that there was indeed a minor election that weekend. 

(The tags on this wall read: "It's not about Left or Right, it's about human dignity", "The people are the power", and the iconic eyes belong to Chavez, listed along with a lamenting cry to Nicolas Maduro, the current president and Chavez's successor, listing things he sees, including scarcity, torture, corruption, and violence. But the most striking to me is the one in the middle, which reads "There is no milk, only bullets" and is an infant nursing from the barrel of a handgun.)

Perhaps the most noteworthy difference? There was an unnatural incidence of giant boobs. Plastic surgery is insanely popular in Venezuela's capital, and the cleavage was on patrol.

(Yawn.)

I meandered through the crowd, took a few pictures, got lost for a while, and surveyed for what I would eat. The answer seemed clear; the answer seemed...normal.

The one where I ate had no chairs and even more sauces.

Food carts stood at regular intervals on Avenida Francisco de Miranda, one of the city's main thoroughfares. Depending on the size of the cart, one-to-three cooks sauteed, fried, and assembled portable meals for a steady stream of customers, most of whom stood in front of the cart, helping themselves to liberal quantities from the armada of sauces waiting there. Ketchup, mustard, mayo, barbeque, and ranks of mystery bottles stood ready to dollop, squeeze, and squirt onto sandwiches, burgers, or whatever one had in hand.

A burger just didn't seem appropriate, so I asked for an enrollado, which was basically a burrito, filled with quality chicken meat, tomato, avocado, alfalfa sprouts, and I don't know what all else. Some sort of sauce that tasted almost....Chinese? It was good, though I can’t imagine drowning its already drippy depths with surplus sauce.

I went looking for a big bottle of water to wash it down and get me through the dry night, but it was Caracas after all, and all the stores were out, or had only tiny ones. I grabbed two of those from a bored dude in a kiosk, and looked around to decide what direction to go, as the light faded. “The Blue Hour” is a photographer's favorite, and I wanted to find the right place. Photography time!

Turns out the water shortage wasn't the only thing to differentiate this city. As the light disappeared, so did 95% of the people on the street. Suddenly there were large open spaces, and a lot of young men looking at me. Taking out the camera didn't seem like such a great idea anymore.

Hm. Listen to Them, and head in? Listen to my experience that warnings are always overstated? A voice whispered that the most interesting things happen during the “forbidden” times... But another topic of emotional conversation on the cab ride in from the airport had been the utter impunity of criminals in the city. No one was sure what the exact figures were for kidnappings and ransoms, but estimates competed to reach the ceiling.

When in doubt, do as the locals do, which in this case meant abandoning the street. Getting flash kidnapped might make a good story, but would totally ruin the experience for the four other women in the group.

My unremarkable hotel room. Pretty clean (other than the
hair that came pre-installed on the pillows and sheets).

Back in my room, susurrations of the city leaked in through my poorly-fitting window, and a soundtrack for self doubt. Would a balsier traveler, a more audacious writer, have stayed out? Gotten some amazing story that was now slipping by, unseen by my eye? Or would that have just been stupid? Eyelids like sandbags at 8:00, I pondered the question as I went to the bathroom, preparatory to brushing my teeth and going to bed.

The toilet didn't flush.

All advice considered, if that was the extent of my misfortune... I'd take it. And be ready to witness the next day.

Arriving in Caracas Part 1 of 2; or, My niece's birthday party was a porno scene

The plane landed at Caracas' Simon Bolivar International Airport with a stronger bump than most, and taxied past a row of unfamiliar logos on modest fuselages. Between the recent unrest, and, more importantly, the country's inability to pay the airlines the fees they charge, several coarriers have pulled out of Venezuela entirely. Luckily for me, Copa still had daily hops over from Panama City.

Out the porthole window (is there a physics reason for that, or just nostalgia for the seafaring age?) a lego landscape of right angles and boxlike structures grew up the mountainsides in a competition between cinder blocks and tropical foliage. These slopes surround Caracas in a carpet of chaotic concrete similar to the iconic images of Brazil's favelas, and share many of the equally well-known problems. Blue and green walls were seasoned in among the reddish clay color, and a visual hum of lives being lived leaked from the spray of windows.

The customs officer was suspicious of my passport's extra pages, and he left me standing while he went to confirm with a superior. I watched the flow of Venezuelans, and the clusters of confusion around the few Chinese tourists (who seemed devoted to squabbling with the guards), savoring my eagerness to be into the city.

The program director and the translator from Witness for Peace met me in the terminal and I liked them both immediately. The director shared a taxi with me into Caracas, commiserating with the driver about how music isn't as good as it used to be, and kids these days misbehave.

“I went to my niece's birthday party last week, and watching them dance, I felt like I was watching a porno scene. It wasn't like that when I was a kid.” As an example of the better music of yesteryear, he referenced Black Sabbath.

The driver also raged at the traffic, which didn't seem that bad to me. We rarely stopped, and on the whole, people were far more complicit to the concept of lanes than I'm used to in the developing world, and even the honking wasn't continuous.

I checked into the generic comfort of the Hotel Altamira (hardworking marble floors, bulbs missing from the bedside lights, the vague moldy aftertaste of years of continuous air conditioning) in the neighborhood of the same name, familiar as the epicenter of the violence earlier this year. No sign of that today, as the man at the desk lazily buzzed us in, and my orientation boiled down to “Go right for a chicken restaurant, and left for shops and stuff. See you tomorrow morning at 7:00 in the lobby.”

Oh, and one more thing. “The water is shut off every night around 8:30, and back on around 6:30 AM.” I made a note to be back and complete my ablutions on time. I did not envy housekeeping the toilets they undoubtedly discover every morning. I dropped my bag in my room and headed out to the street, where music was blasting, giving everything the air of a neighborhood quinceañera

Time to explore this notorious city…