Trekking in Sapa, Vietnam, and a moment anyone who's done it remembers

“Oh my god, she’s the cutest thing EVER!” cried Megan, one of the two other tourists besides myself following our local guide down the mountainside of Sapa, Vietnam. “I want to take her home!”

Su looking out over Sa Pa valley

She was talking about Su, and I knew how she felt. Something over four feet tall and with a smile that could warm up winter, Su was simultaneously an instant friend and a cultural experience. After rescuing us from the relentless souvenir sales pitches of a scrum of local women, Su led us down from Sapa to her village of Lao Chai.

Along the way she answered all our questions, about the ethnic groups (including her own Black Hmong), life in the valley, and many we hadn’t thought to ask yet. But asking how she learned to speak English so well was obvious.

Su told us about the bugs they dig
out of the bamboo, how they're
cooked, and how they taste.

“We learn from talking to tourists.” That made sense, and the people of Sapa did seem to speak much better English than the lowland Vietnamese I’d met, but given the range of her vocabulary it didn’t do justice to her hard work and initiative. I’d bet Su was particularly fluent, an impression reinforced by the silence of the two other local women who accompanied us down through the terraces where buffalo looked at us without curiosity.

Were they on the path by coincidence, to keep Su company, or were they apprentices? One carried the customary woven basket and the other had a ruthlessly adorable sleeping baby strapped to her back. Halfway to Lao Chai the baby woke up, and was quickly passed to Su.

Su peeling sugar cane for us
It's the favorite treat of the Sapa area

“He is my son,” she explained. We all cooed over the cute little fellow, who had inherited his mother’s radiant smile, and I added aunts to my list of possible statuses for the two women. We reached the village, saw the traditional rice milling devices and hand loom, and sank with sighs into our seats for lunch. That’s when it all came clear.

Arms full of scarves and shirts, hands holding an array of earrings and bracelets, the two women descended on us with calm intensity, knowing full well that we already saw them as part of our team. It was an awkward mess. On the one hand we wanted to show our respect and friendship for these women and their people, but on the other hand it was a souvenir ambush when we thought we were safe.

As with so much of life, I can’t find a clear feeling about this. I certainly can’t blame them for wanting to make a living off the wealthier visitors who swarm into their homeland every day. And a lot of what they are selling really is superior goods to what you find elsewhere, actually homemade in an age of “homemade” stamps on factory presses.

Crossing the bridge to Lao Chai,
our vendor friends close to their target

But what of the implicit deceit? The snake in the grass routine of putting you at your ease, then exploiting what you thought was friendship? But who are we to expect friendship from people for whom we have done absolutely nothing, can’t even talk to, and into whose faces we routinely thrust our foreign cameras?

I had it easier than the other two, since women are subject to a much wider array of articles. Once I had a couple ribbon bracelet thingies they left me alone. Alone, a tourist, a resource milked, a visitor whose entrance price had been settled.

Lunch was good. Su was still incredible. And the rest of the walk only got better.

Things like this still happen in Havana

The thing about Cuba is all the streets are so...Cuban. Roaming about, I often feel like large cities belong to the country of Citylandia, removed from the nations that surround them, but Havana? Havana is Havana, pure and simple and fragrant and musical and crumbly in the most beautiful way imaginable. To be honest, it’s rather preposterous, how Cuban la Habana is.

A piece of that (shall we call it Cubanity?) is that prime locations in city centers have not been monopolized by the monied class, especially not the international set of extra-home owners who are rarely even there (no offense, London) or chain-stores that feed without fertilizing. So along the Prado you find abuelas and abuelos, tio and tia live down near Obispo, and lining the malecon...well, those buildings are too salt-devoured to support much accommodation at the moment, but the point stands. It was on one of these streets in Havana, Cubanic in every unconscious detail, that we stepped into an average-looking house and found the studio of an internationally renowned artist.

Was he pretentious? Distant, too busy to talk, or irritated by our distraction? Not remotely. He was friends. For years with our organizer, and now with us as well. We mused about his studio and gathered around his table, having a shockingly normal conversation that just happened to touch on art, culture, and what it means to be Cuba.

That can happen in Cuba, or at least, that can happen on an Altruvistas & Ethical Traveler Interactive Arts Delegation where we benefit from 25 years of experience in the country.

Of course, we’re not the only outfit down there. Not by a long shot. Just a couple days ago I got an email from The Nation Magazine advertising their trip, which runs at nearly the same time as ours. Now, I love The Nation, and I’m sure they’ll have a great time, but I couldn’t help noticing that their trip doesn’t seem as connected as ours is. And in case you were wondering, theirs is substantially more expensive, for less days.

I don’t mean this to be a salespitch. My goal was to tell you more about that artist, but I’m overflowing with gratitude that I get to go back down there with this group, deeply honored at getting to lead it, and eager to see who is coming with me.

Are you? The link, for you or your friend who’s always wanted to go, is here.

Who wants to go to Cuba?

That I was sitting in the restaurant, soaked to the seams, was not the surprising part of lunch.

That it had begun raining as soon as I had to leave for a social appointment, for the third time in a row, revealing the clear correlation between California’s drought problems and my mediocre social schedule, was also not the surprising part of lunch.

No, the surprise was when Jeff Greenwald, friend, writer, and executive director of Ethical Traveler asked me a question:

“Would you like to lead this year’s Interactive Arts Tour to Cuba?”

Would I like to lead that tour, for Ethical Traveler, to Cuba? No. I would like to get warm, dry, and eat lunch. I would ballywell love to lead that tour!

The 2014 version of that trip was when I first went to Cuba, nine days of paintings, sculptures, and photographs in a country that values and prioritizes art far more than some others I could mention. Nine days of warm Caribbean air, fresh mint mojitos, and pulse-pleasing samba beats. Or was it jazz rhythms and savory ropa vieja under that vibrant island sun? In Cuba, it isn’t a question of either/or, it feels like a world of even/more.

We live in a standardized world, Ici Paris in Tbilisi and KFC on Katmandu corners, but in Cuba we find, among the sensations and stimulations, inspiration and perspiration, alternatives. Alternative philosophies, techniques, and interpretations. Different issues and topics, advantages and disadvantages. Over there, drugs are not a problem but finding toilet paper is. There is nearly nothing to fear from crime but don’t expect too many opposition editorials. And if you love the golden arches of an ominous marketing clown, better stay home, there’s no Mickey Dee’s down there.

That’s not to say that we’ll spend our week in some kind of primordial Eden, untouched by the modern world. Tourism has been alive and well in Cuba for decades, it’s just that America is only now signing the forms. I’ve been back to Cuba without this tour organizer’s expertise, and the show-up-and-see experience in Cuba is a challenging one. I am a devoted lover of independent travel, but in my experience, Cuba is better seen with assistance.

So I’m going to make sure I’m ready to offer that assistance, to help 10-16 people have as wonderful of a first exposure to the country as I did. Now, the question is, are you interested in being one of those people? Because as of now there are still spots in the delegation. If you’re interested in grabbing yours, check out the Ethical Traveler page for the trip, here.

The angel's a jerk, the dog is proud, and the plane landed backwards. Time to fly.

I'm no stranger to the jet-lagged delirium of a trans-oceanic red-eye flight.

I dropped a class in college because the professor's preposterously long, slow, erudite sentences were verbal valium.

And I've seen The Talented Mr. Ripley.

But I have never been quite so asleep on my feet as I was in Apaneca. Three consecutive nights of inadequate sleep, bracketing a day of endlessly pacing the pavement of voting centers, had left me rather tired. Add to that the sultry Salvadoran heat. And to that an almuerzo lunch special of chicken, rice, and thick french fries, carbohydrates with a side of starch, and my eyelids weighed 17 kilograms each.

(For my American brethren, 17 kg = entertaining hyperbole for an eyelid.)

But I had an appointment at 3:00 PM (I'll skip the 24-hour clock, in case y'all Americans are still touchy after the kilogram incident) with the zip-line people. My bleary eyes took a minute to focus on my cheap watch. 1:43.

These murals are getting weirder. They know...

I walked another block. Saw the same mural I'd seen the last time. The dog that barked at me before had given up on life and gone to sleep. My feet felt soaked in cement. Was I accidentally wearing two pairs of shoes? Looking down would be too much work. So sleeeepy .

Shuffled past the bus stop, where a past mayor claimed credit by plastering his name on the shelter. A few years of rough weather later, and it's not really something one would want to be associated with. This rusty piece of junk was brought to you by the administration of...

Silly politicians, no vision in those people. I looked at the watch again. 1:44.

The church! Churches are interesting. The entrance was locked, but I'd seen the other door open. Back around the block. Past the same mural, still weird, same dog, still sleeping. Inside the church:

nothing.

Renovation. 

One statue. An angel stomping on a grumpy devil's head. Made the angel look like kind of a dick.

Maybe...just...lie down...here.

No! I walked some more, searching for something to find. Said “buenas” at varying volumes when I passed people. I wonder if they think I'm drunk? Looked at the watch. 1:44. Is that possible?

To the market across the street, where three old women with bulging bellies and sagging cheeks didn't bother to chase the flies off the sticky table any more, but greeted me with smiles as I sat at a trestle table littered with mostly eaten pupusas.

Un cafecito, por favor. Coffee would keep me awake.

She placed the styrofoam cup in front of me. Who the hell invented that stuff? Their descendants should be punished. One of my earliest memories is of the horrible texture of those white bricks, rasping out of a cardboard box on the playground at my pre-school. Baby's first goosebumps.

The table where I drank my cafecito

I've been at this table forever. A scrappy little dog gets up and barks at three schoolboys walking past. I can barely lift my head to watch. It comes over afterwards and stares at me, tail wagging with pride. Too fast for my eyes to follow. Go fetch me a nap, Fido. Pick a fight with me and I'll kick your butt. Maybe. 

I try to write something down and eventually realize that I've made a scribble, and the last thing I remember was riding backwards in a plane that was landing on a highway somewhere in China, and wondering if that was normal behavior. 

Coffee: ineffective.

I pay my quarter for the coffee and concentrate on lifting my feet high enough for locomotion. Head towards the zip-line office.

Two experiental hours later, two clock minutes, and I verify that they are still closed. Wander to the intersection, out of sheer inertia. Oh. 

To my right I see something interesting. The entire town. All the people. Walking towards me in a wide front. Zombie movie? Como se dice Soylent Green?

 A hearse. It's a funeral. With the entire town in attendance. I stand to the side, trying to look respectful. No sleeping at the funeral. Three men see me, detach from the procession, and approach. Uh oh.

“Are you ready?” They ask me. I don't know. Have I made peace with myself? With my gods? Can I send a couple goodbye emails before you cook me?

Then I notice their shirts. Apaneca Canopy Tour. These are my zip-liners. 

“Si” I answer, looking forward to cable-assisted flight. My eyelids weigh only 14 kg now. With luck, I won't fall asleep while zipping...

(Read more about zip-lining with Apaneca Canopy Tour on my last El Salvador dispatch on the Ethical Traveler website here. And "like" it on facebook, just because you're nice.)